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This padlet was created to fit my laptop screen perfectly. Wide margins on the right may appear on another device.

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Untitled, Self-Initiated
Completed

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Untitled, Teacher-Assigned Character Analysis
Completed in March
Illustration marker and Watercolor

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In the Deep, Self-Initiated
Completed February 10th
Acrylic on Canvas

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This piece features three female faces, each with different patterns drawn in terra cotta-toned ink. The first, as seen to the left, represents a middle-eastern tribal ethnicity, with sharp bone structure, full lips, and a dark eye area. The second is of Norwegian descent, exhibiting traditional patterns found in Norwegian folk art. The third represents African cultures, with curly hair and patterns common in African tribal art.
This piece represents the appreciation of cultural differences in their entirety, and portrays culture as beauty and art that lies within all of us. Especially in America's current political sphere, it is essential to recognize the importance of cultural identity, and to view it as something to be celebrated rather than scrutinized. I chose female figures because women are (and have been for all of history) experiencing great injustice socially, politically, and economically. Particularly, a woman's cultural identity often compounds the discrimination she faces. I thought it was very important to bring this issue to further prominence in the BHS community and in society at large, and I feel this piece does this subversively and speaks to viewers on a subconscious level. In truth, this piece is "more than just some pretty faces."

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For my character, I chose to mirror Kuzco as a llama from Emperor's New Groove. I loved that movie as a child, and personally identify with the character of Kuzco. I added small details to look like me, like the triple-pierced ears, curly/wavy hair, and bracelets.

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In small text just above the beginning of the neck, "pitiable" sits at the bottom of the page. I chose to place this word in full view because I feel that it is quintessential to the characterization of how we often perceive ourselves and our struggles, as well as the "first world problems" we face. Intended as ironic and satirical, "pitiable" represents the folly of privilege and perceived suffering.

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Protruding into the waist of the figure is the heading "disrupter." I focused on placement with this word: "disrupter" has a negative connotation, and, in this piece, is represented as a "thorn in the side."  Especially in high school, many struggle with their identities, much of which is shaped by the criticism we receive. "Disrupter" represents the analysis of one's character and potential by outsiders.

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Flipping through the L section, I came across a small section with "Life insurance" and an illustration of a life preserver in the same area. I found this to be ironically poetic, and chose to add it to the left shoulder area of the figure.

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While the backdrop features randomly selected pages of the dictionary, I chose the pages of the foreground more carefully. "Elitism" is depicted in the head area, as seen here. I chose this word specifically because I think it encapsulates the major psychological construct trend, both at BHS and in American society. With the prevalence of capitalistic values, elitism defines American society, and is extremely burdensome in the BHS community.

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Detailed photos showing texture of book scraps

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To finish the neck, I chose to create a collage-looking collection of dictionary scraps to replace a head.

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After finishing the acrylic, I added torn dictionary pages to the foreground of the piece, creating an interrupted, fractioned view of the acrylic figure.

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This was the final stage of acrylic that I added to the piece. As seen in the chest, shoulders, neck, forearm, hand, ribs, and lower stomach, I used a light lavender-peach to create highlights that improved the overall look of the piece. I also intensified the blue tones, using a pure warm blue on the edges of the figure to imitate blue lights.

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This stage proved to improve the quality of my piece greatly. I brushed in more shadows, as well as improved color quality throughout the piece. I worked in detail on the hand, ribs, and upper chest. The figure took on an anorexic, thin look, which I established specifically to offer sharp angles into the piece.
In future stages, I focused on adding highlights back into the work and reestablishing dimensionality and lighting.

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Here, I was beginning to layer in more complex shadows and highlights. In this stage, the chest area is clearly rough and too light on the right side, which I improved in the next image.
My favorite artistic decision that I made in this stage, though, was the addition of the venetian red to the lower abdomen and the blue glow to certain areas of the figure. In retrospect, this added much more contrast and interest to the work itself, as well as potentially created meaning for viewers to interpret.

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At the beginning of the project, I was struggling to make the piece how I wanted it to look, and was becoming frustrated. I was poring over references and my sketches, but it just wasn't turning out right. Once I learned to let go of my perfectionism and fall into my naturally rough, stylized technique, I found myself much more satisfied with what I was creating.

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At first, I thought this project was a fun idea, and drew me into character design (an area in which I am interested but have very little experience.) Through the course of this piece, though, I quickly found that it was more time consuming than I had expected. I was spending all my time on bringing my character to life, which, in retrospect, took away time from my other self-initiated projects. I ultimately abandoned the project, as it consumed too much time and I had to move on.
Looking at the piece itself, I really enjoyed using illustration markers. The alcohol-based markers proved to be great for blending, and created a smooth, professional look to the tones in my character. One big mistake I made, though, was applying water color to the marker paper. The color ended up streaky in the background and was not what I was looking to create. If I were to redo this style of project again, I would find a medium that would work well with smooth bristol and creates a nice background wash.

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For this project, I decided I wanted to do something new that I hadn't tried before. I wanted to go back to the basics of graphite-and-paper, as I had been using other materials all year long and forgot about the medium I started with. The subject of faces always proves to be a challenge. Yet, for this project, I strayed from my reference images and trusted my artistic judgement, and am happy with the result.
The ink was fun to use, and I feel it adds a great deal of interest to the piece overall.
In the future, I will definitely use this style again, and will continue to create art based on societal issues.

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Clearly, I struggled in the beginning to embrace my original design concept, realizing that it wasn't in the style I naturally fall into. I had chosen a cliché subject, and was dissatisfied with the way it was turning out. Yet, I believe the 180 change in both subject and style proved to be a success. For this project, and throughout the year, I worked to let go of my perfectionism and let my artistic brain take control of the project. The texture of the acrylic was something I've never tried before, and I ended up being very satisfied with the result.
I will definitely try this style again on a number of different subjects. Looking back at my progress this semester, I have really enjoyed painting as well as drawing. This experience opened my horizons from just pencil-and-paper art to the medium of acrylic.

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In preparation for AP Art next year, I chose to create a piece on a scale larger than I've ever tried before. For my text-based project, I focused on using words and language as a conceptual construct rather than a structural one. In the past, I've made works that involve using text as shading, but I've never used text as a symbolic attribute. This project was refreshing and meaningful for me, and continued the theme of social commentary from my previous piece. I am very satisfied with how this piece turned out, and I feel that it shows my growth as an artist throughout the semester and overall complexity in both concept and design.

This semester, I found that as I let go of my desire to achieve perfection, my art took on a style that was more natural and characteristic to me. In previous years, I had always looked, almost religiously, to reference images to guide my art and often thought very little about aspects outside of the foreground. This semester, though, I found myself putting down the references and creating what felt right to me. This resulted in a development of my own individual style, as well as art that satisfied me when it was completed. Instead of modeling my work after other artists' styles, I found my own.

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While on the AP Art field trip, I encountered a magnificent piece (which was very large, though not pictured in its entirety) that inspired my project for the text-based assignment. In the photograph, the technique used to create the backdrop for the piece is shown in detail. I used this text-and-white layering throughout my piece as well.

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After the base layer of texture began to dry, I began to lay in more shades and volume to the waves.

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For this project, I wanted to try something outside of my normal style. I layered the paint on thick, creating texture in the waves sheerly with the volume of paint. I incorporated blues, violets, blacks, whites, and yellow ocre.

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I decided that I didn't like the way the feet were turning out. So, I painted over the feet (another reason I like acrylic: layering is ideal!) with blue and white tones. I didn't know exactly where I wanted to go, but I was inspired by the fluidity and tonal variation of the ocean.

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I decided to smooth and blend the skin tones out.

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Here is where I began establishing more clearly the shadows and highlights of the feet.

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At the beginning of this project, I had decided that I wanted to paint feet walking over an abstract landscape, possibly water. I began painting the feet in acrylic, choosing rosy undertones and brown shadows.

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To create the surface of the piece, I tore whole dictionary pages our of the binding and applied them to a layer of wet gesso on the board I started with. After covering the whole board, I went in again with gesso and created a semi-transparent layer of white over the text, allowing certain areas of text to be more visible than others. As seen in the photo, I started mapping out the foreground with basic shades (to create a base) and white-pink to sketch the shapes out.