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Materials:
Oil pastel & colored pencil

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Throughout the semester, I have thoroughly enjoyed creating artwork in a variety of compositions and mediums. These have been in both dry media forms, such as oil and chalk pastels and wet media forms, such as acrylic and water color. I have found that it has been easier for me to work with these mediums to create more contrast in my artwork and have noticed improvements in their dimensions and compositional effects. I was also very excited to work with various materials, such as the cardboard and newspaper collage at the beginning of the year and the firsthand chair and fabric study we did later in the semester. It is true that drawing from real life is one of the best ways to learn and improve your skills!
However, I do realize that with art I am also bound to make mistakes and not all of my work will always turn out exactly how I imagined it to be. For instance, I feel that I could have blended by brick wall piece better and that my chair and fabric painting is lacking dimensional qualities. Despite this, I find what makes art such unique a experience is that failure is not final, but is an opportunity to learn from and can unexpectedly invent something new that you may have never discovered before.
As I progress in drawing and painting next semester, I would like to widen my range by trying new mediums and techniques to enhance the quality of my artwork. I additionally hope to work on making my compositions more realistic by using a variety of shades and uses of light. Another long term goal I have also had is to continue to work on subjects that are out of my usual comfort zone, such as people and landscapes from a different point of view. I realize that I can tend to avoid these subjects out of fear of drawing them unrealistically and would really like to continue to practice techniques so I can broaden my skill set for future assignments. I also believe this will create a strong foundation to help me work towards achieving my goal of a career involving the fine arts.

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For this piece I chose the four elements: Nature Exploration for the subject, Mixed Media, for style of media, Variety of Texture for the choice of texture,  and Bird Eye View for Composition.

Though I had a short amount of time to complete this piece, I already knew that I wanted to create something that linked into wildlife. As I was reviewing the composition choices on the curriculum sheet I was immediately drawn to the idea of a bird's eye view and then formulated a thumbnail to assist me in my choice of the other three material and compositional elements. In the beginning stages of my artwork I drew a scarlet macaw flying above a jungle landscape with the perspective being an aerial view over a variety of greens portraying the jungle below. However, I soon realized that there was not enough variety in the landscape and adjusted my drawing to have a central river flowing across the page accompanied a waterfall vista as well as a smaller one in the distance. Another compositional choice I made was to differentiate what was in the foreground and background to highlight the point of view. I did this by shading the macaw in colored pencil and the cliff settings in some colored pencil, but gradually blending into a oil pastel background. To create contrast I then shaded the sky in with a variety of blue colored pencil shades. With the materials I used I found that combined the oil pastels and colored pencils had great potential to create a vibrant change in textures. One thing I learned that was especially helpful was how to use contrasting colors of oil pastels and blending tools to accentuate the unique qualities of an aerial forest view and the fluid blend of color in flowing water. This was done by overlapping green oil pastels on a red base shade for the forest and likewise overlapping blue and white over a brown base for the waterfall. This change instantly created better balance and dimensions to my piece which made the shift in tone more effective. Reviewing my final artwork, though I would have liked to add more detail, I still think it had a nice blended finish.

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For this piece I chose to apply the concepts of the following areas: East Meets West for the subject, Texture for the technique, Acrylic for the media, and Asymmetrical for the composition. At first when I looked at the curriculum sheets I was not sure which ones I should choose and how I would incorporate these ideas into my artwork. However, as my painting progressed, it became more clear as to which ones worked best with my composition.

The basis of my design had originally been to create an East meets West scene that was half Western plateau desert landscape and half New York City skyline. To combine them I had wanted the desert and city skylines to meet, creating one continuous form. After sketching multiple different ideas as to how I was going to layout the plateaus, it turned out that I decided to position three main plateaus in the foreground and a smaller canyon skyline in the background. I then painted the city skyline next to it and New York harbor as the foreground for that side of the painting. This was the premise to the asymmetrical element of the composition with the alternate settings. However, if I could change it I would have added some elements, such as a ship, into the harbor to improve the balance between the colors and unify the composition of the landscapes. In my completed piece the skylines were not as continuous as I had hoped, but I was pleased with how the different color schemes had the affect of making the landscapes look more three-dimensional. I also discovered some interesting traits of acrylic paint that I had not known of previously. The first trait I identified, though perhaps somewhat obvious, was that if I blended the paint with a small amount of water I was able to spread the color out further and create various tones of a single color with less paint. Another technique I learned was to layer multiple colors onto the bristles of a paint brush and paint the brush strokes in one direction to create a thick, textured appearance. This especially was helpful when it came to establishing the details of the plateaus and the range of colors in the sunset. With the exception of a few compositional mishaps, overall I was satisfied with how this piece turned out.

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The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Music Maria

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Brick Wall:  cardboard base and bricks
Newspaper Collage: flour+water blend & newspaper
Drawing:
led & graphite pencils, oil & chalk pastels

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"Now is the time to seize the day!"

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Materials: graphite pencil, acrylic paints and various brush textures
(Please see the Fine Arts hallway at BHS to see the final piece!)

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Areas of Focus:
-Camera Angle/Point of View     -Lighting           -Setup

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From a different point of view
Materials: chalk pastel

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I started this drawing by sketching the outline of the chair and then focused on the creases and folds in the fabric. On the second day I went back and defined the fabric folds by adding various shades to create shadows and light. I then added another chair the carry the fabric and some light tones in the background.
Materials: Oil Pastel

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Materials:Colored Pencil on recycled paint collage paper
Technique: Negative Space

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Negative Space and fabric
Materials: black harcoal and white chalk

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Negative Space
Materials: graphite pencil

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Chair and swag of fabric shading practice
Materials: graphite pencil

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Materials and Techniques:
Left Sketch: Graphite Pencil-observation
Center sketch: oil pastel- observation
Right Sketch: Graphite Pencil-continuous line

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-I used a graphite pencil to define the details on the  mountains and also to write the text and completed the scene in watercolor paints

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I used a graphite pencil for my preliminary sketch on the canvas and completed my painting in acrylic paints

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For my garden studies, I chose three different points of view and types of landscapes. The first being a scenic walkway, the second a English Wall garden, and the last a observational study of cactus and succulent plants.

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Graphite + Led Pencils

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My idea for this piece was for it to have a theme of the Broadway Musical: Newsies. The musical is well known for it's memorable song "Seize the Day" where the determined newsboys are inspired to rise up together for what they believe in. Since a central element are the newspapers, or as the newsboys call them: 'papes', I decided to leave my background as a newspaper collage displaying significance to the theme. For example, some of the headlines I included read "A Casting Call That Is Like No Other", "Helping You Live Better, No Matter Where You Live, and " New Stories Await". For the drawing I decided to depict the newsboys in their final pose that lands them on the front page --above the fold-- as they vow to take a courageous stand for a bold cause: "One for all, and all for one!"

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Paper mache collage with bricks shaped and cut out

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Wall with paper mache collage

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Cardboard brick layout before adding paper mache