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Credit: Camelia Pham Illustration

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I think it is interesting to work with shapes, therefore creating an artwork full of that. I was very excited to see what I could do and to challenge myself. The most important part I want to achieve is how I present my ideas to others, rather than forcing myself to create a masterpiece. I choose to come up with a theme first, then I will start planning the tiles. I find this project challenging with random shapes and somehow it also trained my patience in repeating the same drawing, but I believe it will turn out cool anyway.
My final project kinda represents a predator-prey relationship. I had more ideas to put in but the shape that I chose just did not allow many features other than the animal because the space was limited. But I would consider another way to do it instead of inking because it turns out to be messy between which is rabbit and which is fox. The ink lines went to free, and sometimes I messed up because there were many small details to remember. For me, I think that although I quite understood the elements of art and the principles of design, I did not pay much attention when I was drawing to apply into my artwork.
I’m glad that I got to spend time on an artwork like this. Overall, I’m proud of myself for completing this.

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This time, I pay more attention to the elements of art and the principles of design. Honestly, I forced myself to draw too many details, and it turned out that the spaces were too tiny for me to draw many lines. I struggled. The lines kept touching each other and I could not identify which line belonged to which muscle. This artwork mostly emphasizes the middle part that I use colored pencils, it creates a strong attention for viewers and also shows the curvy movement of the body. I pick colors because I want to play with them and develop my coloring skills. For the legs, I just use a pencil, which does not take long and is easy to fix. The problem is my pencil is not dark enough. Once I finish shading, I could not even draw the muscle line because it is too dark to be able to identify such small lines. I remember there is an activity using one-line contour, so I choose to do that for the head. To be honest, it looks kind of hilarious and creepy at the same time, it is not my advantage but I am glad I understand how to control the line to create face features.

To be honest, I was impressed with myself for putting 4 different drawing styles into an artwork, and I think it is well-balanced, too. I also think I should put more effort into it because this could turn out much better. In addition, I need to remember to take photos of every step for the next project.

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In this project, I get to understand and apply different types of perspectives to drawings. For me, this is not new, but still requires patience and carefulness so it's not as easy as a piece of cake. I can also get to know about more-than-one-point perspective, and how to draw objects more correctly in various dimensions. Linear perspective will help me a lot in the short as well as in further future, especially when I am planning to do art majors in college. In all of these 3 pieces, I have carefully identified the vanishing point and building up horizon lines. Therefore it allows me to illustrate the structure of buildings, hence creating a more realistic and deeper view. The part that I am most proud of is the use of watercolor. To be honest, I do not often use watercolor so it is a little bit hard for me to handle how it works. But this time, I learned how to use it more effectively and it turned out much better than I thought it would. In addition, I still think that I need to use a ruler more often because linear perspective requires straight lines and sometimes I forget to so my drawing turns out quite bumpy. Therefore, the result might be a bit imperfect. In summary, even though I may feel suffering and tired, I am proud to say that I truly enjoyed doing this project.

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For the final semester 1 project, I have to present illustrations based on imaginary description, which is called the invisible cities. My team includes me and Michelle, end up choosing Moriana because it allows us to describe it easier. The city Moriana will be demonstrated on different scenes and can be flipped to see the next one. Additionally, we divide the city into 4 drawings: the landscape, the gates, the beautiful side, and the dark side. The parts I am in charge of are the landscapes, which is the mountains and river before coming down, and the beautiful side, which has mermaids and aquariums. Thus, I decide to be more creative by adding outside elements to my drawings, in order to make it special and interesting. Alongside with my partner, we have brought up so many amazing ideas. We have been communicating and helping each other really well, such as suggesting different elements, or adjusting the colors. For the landscape drawing, I use 1 point perspective with a high horizontal line. For the city, I use 3 point perspective, with a bird-eye’s view. By developing my understanding of linear perspective through the urban sketches assessment, I now can confidently say that I have enough knowledge to apply different types of perspective into drawings to demonstrate themes and concepts better. To be honest, I feel very pleased with my final pieces, both the inking and coloring part. Although the process has been very exhausted and time-consuming, I have not given up and submitted the illustrations that I feel imperfect. Additionally, one of the skill that I have improved that is drawing straight lines. This time, I do remember to use a ruler and it has improved my drawings so much, in order to present the perspectives. Besides, I really love how I do inking, with various types of lines, dots and directions of the pen. It has done such an amazing job indicating the shading. However, with the coloring part, I would do it a bit different by using different shades of colors, since I feel the total piece is not completely united together. That would be my only adjustment for my drawing. Overall, I am very satisfied with the final drawings, from the ideas to the ways I developed them. Throughout this project, I have learned and grown a lot, and I have impressed myself a lot as well. I am truly proud of the artwork and my team.

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Overall, this drawing is journey for me. The reference was the best photo that I find interesting to elaborate on, with simple objects forming from complex shapes, and a wide range of values. However one of the disadvantages of not choosing an image of a normal still-life object is that I can not identify the direction of the light. For the background, I choose blending, so it can create a smooth texture as the reference. For the cup (or similar), I decided to go with scumbling, since it’s an interesting technique and I would like to add a more creative texture to the piece. Stippling is a very time-consuming technique, so I end up not applying it. Instead, I use little circles on top of each other. Although I find it quite messy for the brush part, it brings such a cool texture to the overall toothbrush. Moreover, I pick hatching and cross-hatching for each toothbrush. The process was quicker than the other projects, but one of the most “annoying” problems that I had was: was the overall piece had the right values or not. Building up the darkest and lightest tone of each object was fine, but I kept wondering if all the values of all the objects fit well together. But in the end, after fixing and checking multiple times, I would say that I am quite satisfied with this drawing. Additionally, I wish I had paid more attention to details since I find the overall drawing a bit messy and sketchy. I have learned a lot from this unit. I can now confidently identify the elements of shading, using different techniques to create different values and build up various values to create depth in drawings. In summary, this piece shows the skills and techniques I have learned during this unit, it also shows my growth and development.

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For this project, I was given a small section of a large drawing to work on. Our goal was to replicate the reference image on paper using pens and the understanding of values we had learned and practiced in a previous project. Initially, I wasn't happy with the image I had been assigned as it seemed difficult and boring. However, I was determined to be the best in my art class so I forced myself to take the time and carefully draw every line. To achieve the desired effect, I had to examine the reference image and identify the values closely. Since the image was blurry, it took me quite some time to examine and understand it. Nevertheless, I didn't give up. I used my pen to draw every line with great care and precision. Some parts of the image, such as the horse's hair, I drew using hatching, which allowed me to control the direction of the hair and make it fall in a particular way. Moreover, I also illustrated the background and mostly everything else using hatching. For the horse with fur, I chose to be a bit messy and drew lines in various directions. I also added some stippling under hatching to make it more similar to the reference image. By doing this, I was able to create a sense of depth and texture in the artwork. Although I didn't use as many techniques as I did in the previous project, I was able to demonstrate the directions and movements of shading. One takeaway I learned throughout this project was that every successful piece of drawing needed the plan and careful consideration, to create the best result. Furthermore, I understood how hard-work and time-consuming a magnificent artwork required to be. I felt really satisfied with how the artwork turned out and was proud of myself for trusting my skills and abilities to accomplish it. Despite my initial doubts, the finished artwork proved that I could achieve what I aimed for. It was a validation of myself and for myself. I learned that with determination and hard work, I could accomplish anything.

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Overall, this has been my proudest artwork so far. My piece contains 14 clear sheets with a size of 21x21cm, each layer is stuck to a cardboard piece to be viewed as a whole piece. In this project, I have applied various techniques such as “texture as value”, “shadow blocking”, and “chiaroscuro”,... I think have done a pretty good job honestly, the techniques had been shown as a highly in-depth skill. “Texture as value” was shown in how I created various tones for the forest and the grass. While the layers of the forest had curves and random shapes, which can be seen as leaves, the grass included layers with spiky cuts. “Shadow blocking” was used through how I identified the unnecessary parts that needed to be cut out. It was a very important technique because it helped with showing various values. Also, I used “chiaroscuro” mainly for the roofs of houses and the rabbits, which were small objects. Not to mention, different from previous projects, I explored the use of paper and collage in this piece. I learned how to create different textures using different cutting styles, and how to deal with such fragile material but also quite interesting.

One of many takeaways I have learned from this project was that I need to think about all of the risks that I might face once the final work is done. Because sometimes the final piece might not go as it was planned before.

However, I still believe that this project was so much fun and it challenged my craftsmanship as well. I have learned a lot from this, including art skills and my thinking. I truly enjoyed working on something that I have an incredible vision that I would want to make successful.

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From the collage as a reference for this painting, the sea represents the flow of memory, and the shirt with people passing everywhere represents everyone in our life that we have interacted with.

For this painting, I have divided into 6 parts of 6 different color schemes, from top to bottom: analogous, triadic, complementary, monochromatic, shade, and tint. In this artwork, I chose the primary blue, which represents peace and calmness of remembering the people who have been in our lives, to be the main color throughout all 6 sections. Starting with analogous, I think I have done a great job of placing the colors as they are easy to identify but also transition smoothly. In the triadic section, all 3 colors stand out independently but they complement each other and evaluate the overall section. Thus, blue and orange as complementary colors, help each other to stand out well. Additionally, I think shade and tint are quite interesting as well. Seeing the contrast between adding black and adding white to a certain color makes the painting even more abstract. Also, I am happy with having multiple kinds of blue for the monochromatic section.

In this project, I have used acrylic on canvas, which I have never done for any project before. One thing I would improve on my next project is that I would use the same colors from the same brand throughout the whole piece. During this painting, I have used several different types of acrylic paint and they have different densities as well as color palettes, which made it harder to control the consistency of all 6 sections.

In conclusion, although I may seem tired, I truly enjoy doing this project. This is one of my favorite artworks so far because I have had a delightful time making this painting. Even though there are still some areas that I am not completely happy with, I have learned a lot of things from them. In addition, practicing and experimenting with mediums as well as techniques will be beneficial for my future career.