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Media: Pencil
I really wish that I could have had more time to work on a full piece, however the portrait painting took a lot more time then I thought it would. I only had time to do a couple of quick sketches. If I had the time, I would have liked to work on something more realistic that would have dealt with a lot more observation. I think it is always good practice to draw figures from observation. Observational drawing was one of the first things I had done when I began taking art classes, and I think that continuous practice has helped me sharpen my skills with drawing what I see.

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Media: Oil Paint
This portrait is THE most complicated I have ever done. I drew inspiration from the artist Nikos Gyftakis who does amazing oil paintings with a similar line technique. When I first started the process, I had drawn out an outline on paper of where the shadows were and of where I would place the lines. It was quite daunting when I first began painting, simply because I had never done a painting with this much detail. This was only the second painting I have ever done and I still wasn't that comfortable working with oil. I struggled to find that the color scheme that I wanted, making it hard for me to start. After I had finally finished the face, I realized that I had no idea what to do with the hair, hand, and neck. I decided that continuing that line technique on the whole rest of the painting would have taken away from the detail in the face. When I finally figure out how to paint the hand, I realized that I had to familiarize myself with a completely different technique. Completing this portrait was quite a long process, however I feel like I learned a lot in the process. I am now much more confident with painting.

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Media: mixed
This was one of my favorite projects of the semester. I had never done anything with creative reuse because I had always thought I would prefer to build on my own background. I really tried to work more abstractly in this piece, just adding anything I thought looked interesting. It was very eye-opening working with so many different mediums all on one piece. This project really allowed me to experiment and discover new mediums. When I had first "finished" the piece (without the white bubbles), I found that the overall tone was too dark and needed some contrast. I'm no really sure why I chose bubbles, but I really just wanted to do something more whimsical and fun to contrast the dark background. I feel like that the white bubble really bring a even more abstract element to the piece. I like how that piece really doesn't have any meaning. It's just a jumbled mess but I like it just the same.

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Media: Charcoal
I had originally wanted to focus on a looser drawing of birds; however, I struggled to find a composition I liked. I then decided to work with a theme: trapped vs. free. While I still feel like the composition isn't that strong, working with the them definitely helped me develop my ideas. In the piece, the bird isn't contained by the bars; however, it doesn't seem like it is completely free yet.

After I had finished working with the black charcoal, I realized that no matter how I manipulated the media, it still seemed flat. Consequently, I decided to go in with white charcoal to really bring out some of the stronger highlights. I feel like it definitely brought some more contrast to the piece, but I think the technique could have worked better with a warmer toned color (to match the color of the paper).

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Media: mixed
I found the mural experience very interesting. I love the whole idea of choosing a subject at random and collectively building on a piece. At first, I had struggled to think of ideas that fit with the suggestions. Once I became familiar with the process, I thought it was really fun to build on someone else
work with something of my own. I thought that my group had many different sections and ideas, but struggled to make our piece flow together. Overall, I feel like it was a good exercise that opened me up to the idea of adding to someone else's artwork.