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This drawing was inspired by a window I saw in a small French town next to the Alps. The window was picture perfect, it was special, unlike other windows in the town, this one had 2 different designs on each flap. There was a ray of light shining onto the window from the left, which made it even better. The window was also positioned on a flat brick wall, the wall was in a very washed-out orange color, which provided great contrast for photography. This was a memorable moment for me because I like photography, and have been doing it for some time, seeing this picture-perfect moment at the only time of day when I don't have my camera really made me regret my mistake. I used a pencil to draw this because in my mind, the graphite from the pencil resembled the material on the wall, and the grey stripes on the window and wall that had formed over time.

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Although not finished, this painting about a glass of iced chocolate that I made. I made this iced chocolate in a hurry which is why I didn't get the chance to take a picture of this. Despite being made in a rush, it was the best iced chocolate I have every made, period. I used water color because I feel like it resembles the water condensation forming on the side of the cold glass.

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The event I am looking forward to happening this year is to be able to compete at Vex Worlds. I will achieve this goal by having dedication to Vex and working hard. For this collage I only used collage as I think it connects with the building and crafting aspects of Vex robotics. I used robot minifigures that i found in a newspaper to resemble the robots in Vex robotics, additionally I tried to find things from many different regions to resemble the Vex Worlds Competition. I used 2 different languages, Vietnamese and English to represent diversity, i would have included more languages but I had trouble finding them, I also included the IB Programme logo to represent the international and diversity of students taking the IB Programme. I feel like my collage have communicated my message well, however, I think if I had more time I would emphasise more on the internation/world aspects of the prompt, potentially adding more flags to symbolize different countries.

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Please post your group's work and answer the following questions:

• Exploration of Media

How can experimenting with different tools and materials (e.g., pencils, ink, charcoal, brushes, found objects) change the variety and expressiveness of your marks?

Different tools leave very different marks on a piece of paper. For example, a marker might create straight lines that look sturdy, strong, and intentional. While ropes tied to a stick being draged on the paper creates random twisty lines that look weak or uncertain.

• Intentional Choice

In what ways does the choice of media influence the mood, texture, and meaning of your artwork? How do certain tools help you communicate specific ideas or feelings?

In my opinion I think my answer for question number 1 could also be used for this question. Adding on to the idea, choices of media like colors can also simbolize mood or tone, for example, red organge might symbolize anger, while blue and purple might simbolize fear, anxiety.

• Process and Reflection

As you layer, repeat, or vary your marks, what decisions do you make about control versus spontaneity, and how does the media you select either limit or expand these choices?

Control is something that everybody has to learn in life. Similar to controling yourself in life, controling yourself in art means being able to control your emotions in your artwork, otherwise, it would be too confusing and your tone/idea doesn't get communicated effectively.

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Why might the practice of contour drawing be more about understanding structure and relationships in a subject than creating a polished final image?

The practice of countour drawing is more about understadning the structure and relationships in a subject than creating a polished final image because contour drawing is about appretiating the way the object is made, how it is formed, the lines on it, the patterns in that moment. You are not comiong back to it to improve it, its about how you intepret the image in that moment. The more you do it, the better your hand and eye coordination will be and that will help make your drawing look better.

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How can the "imperfections" in blind contour drawing help you embrace experimentation and discover new expressive possibilities in line?

The imperfections in blind contour drawing shows your progress and thinking in the moment. This approach prevents you from worrying about the final product. Results at the end may reveal expressive qualities in line that you didn't know existed. By doing this you are being more open to different outcomes, providing you with more perspectives.

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How did your hand respond to what your eyes were seeing during the blind contour exercise?

During the blind contour exercise, my hand followed what my eyes were seeing without looking at the paper. I moved my hand slowly, trying to match the lines and shapes I saw. Even though the drawing looked weird, it helped me focus and really pay attention to the details.

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How did the primed substrate affect your line quality, focus, or control?

The primed substrate made the surface smoother but more soft, which helped my lines be more precise but also at the same time harder to move the pen, forcing me to draw slower. Drawing slower gave me better control over my hand movements and made it easier to stay focused.

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What strategies could you use next time to strengthen the connection between looking and drawing?

Next time, I could slow down and move my eyes and hand at the same pace, today I felt like sometimes my eyes had moved on to the next detail before my hand had finished the last one. I could also practice more blind contour drawings to improve focus and observation.

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• How did starting with a positive shape contour and then layering gesture drawing help you better capture the proportions, movement, and personality of your classmate in the portrait?

Starting with a positive shape contour helped me outline my classmate’s basic form so the proportions looked right. Then, layering gesture drawing added realistic details to the drawing, such as folds in the clothes or details in the face. The gesture lines made the drawing feel more natural and realistic. Together, these steps showed both the accurate shape and the personality of my classmate.

• When adding details from the reference photo, how did you balance accuracy with your own creative choices in media and mark-making to strengthen the final outcome?

I balanced accuracy by carefully observing the main features from the reference photo, like the shape/curves of the body and for objects I look at the lines. At the same time, I used my own creative choices in the way I shaded and made marks with the media. This let me keep the portrait recognizable but also unique to my style. By mixing both, the final outcome looked realistic while still showing my artistic voice.

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Thibault - Art Foundations: Drawing Styles Self Assessment

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Today I spent most of my time exploring different artists for inspirations. I started off by looking at the artists that Mr. Larson had uploaded on to the slides, however, these artists didn't exactly match the idea I had in mind. I started to look for more artists on Google, after a while, I landed on Leonardo DaVinci. I chose Leonardo DaVinci because I was really interested in his style of drawing, especially his sketches. His sketches used gesture drawings for his human drawings, he used detailed contour mostly on his engineering sketches and also sometimes he sketches on gridded paper. From looking at his art, I decided that my 3 style of drawing would be grid drawing, gesture drawing and detailed contour. This process had taken much longer than I had anticipated, therefore, I did not have enough time left to sketch out my ideas. Nevertheless, I still had an idea of what I wanted to draw. There was one photo that I had captured on my recent trip to the Alps, it was a very simple photo, just a black and white photo of a pigeon sitting on top of a lamp post with people walking around underneath it and mountains in the background. This was a very simple photo, however, it stuck with me because of the meaning in the photo, the photo felt peaceful but full of small stories, with nature, people, and urban life in one frame, the pigeon is higher than all the humans in the photo, this symbolizes the calmness that exist amidst the rather busy human world underneath it. The humans were all to caught up in their own lives, a woman engulfed by her phone, a middle aged man being by himself, etc. This photo reminds me to pause and think once a day to just appreciate the world around me through simple, but beautiful scenes of everyday life.

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Trying out different media really changed the way I saw my artwork and helped me think about it in new ways. When I used pencil shading, the lamp looked more realistic and had a softer, calmer mood, this stood out to me as it gave it a very mysterious and dark feeling. While using markers gave it a style that was bolder and made it stand out more, I also tried a silhouette like drawing while also incorporating in some pencil shading for the sky, to me the marker version was almost like a graphic design. Each material showed me new details and created a different, new feeling about the same drawing. It also showed me that the tools I chose can completely change how my artwork is understood by other people. Trying out different media gave me more ideas and gave me more play time, free from restrictions, and it made my overall vision for the piece stronger and more creative.

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I chose my three drawing styles by spending time looking at different artists for ideas. At first, I looked at the artists that Mr. Larson showed me, but their work didn’t really match what I wanted to do. Then I searched online and found Leonardo DaVinci, and I really liked how he drew. His sketches looked realistic and full of small details, which inspired me a lot. From his work, I decided to use grid drawing, gesture drawing, and detailed contour for my project. I used grid drawing to help me keep the right shapes and proportions, gesture drawing to show movement, especially in the people in my drawing and the pigeon. Detailed contour to add fine lines and texture, mainly for the lamp and the refine lines on the humans. While working, I noticed that some parts didn’t blend well together, some of my lines were too dark and stood out more than I had hoped, to try to fix this I decided to try pencil shading and rubbing a piece of tissue over my art to blend the lines together, which worked.

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Thibault - Art Foundations: Drawing Styles Self Assessment

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While looking for inspiration, I came across the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Especially his sketches which I was really drawn into. I liked how he used gesture drawings and detailed contour for his human sketches, specifically his drawing titled Vitruvian Man. In most of his sketches, Leonardo used contour drawing to add details to his work, and often drew on grid paper which I assume is to help with proportion and scale. His art showed the importance of paying attention to the structure, balance, and small details of the subject, which I tried to implement in my own work.

My final piece is inspired by a black-and-white photo I took during a trip to the Alps. The picture shows a pigeon sitting on top of a lamp post, with people walking below and mountains in the background. Even though it might look simple, there is a meaning behind the photo which I really like. The pigeon, sitting high above everyone else, represents peace and calm in the middle of a busy world. The people below seem distracted and focused on their own lives, some on their phones, some talking, while the bird just sits still and watches, undisturbed by the busy life beneath it.

The contrast between the still pigeon and the moving people shows how fast life can feel, and how easy it is to forget to slow down. Using black and white made the photo feel more peaceful and focused on the contrast between busy/movement and stillness. Using black and white makes the drawing feel more timeless, able to be understood and related to by more people from the present and from the future which could also be said the same for Leonardo’s sketches.

This project taught me to be patient and to notice the small things around me. Taking this photo reminded me to pause once in a while and appreciate the quiet, beautiful moments in everyday life. My goal with this artwork is to help others do the same, take a moment to stop, look around, and find peace in simple things.

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I decided to choose these 5 pieces because they all utilized the same media as I did, pencil. I feel like if these drawings were put together it would have a nice flow to it. I also noticed that all of these artworks used contour and gesture drawing which I also did in my piece. I also chose these because they included humans (except the first one), having the same subject as me which should looks good when put together in a space.

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If a risk, is there any change with application and usage? Are there any other principles arising?

This principle was movement, this was a risk for me because at first I didn't really know how to show movement in my drawing. I was stuck with the idea that movement is something that has to be shown with arrows, not with lines and flow. I experimented with drawing a river which I thought showed movement through how our eyes would naturally follow the bends in the river.

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When focusing on the negative space of your objects, how did this process help you with proportion of the object? What drawing techniques from unit 1 did you find useful? How will simplifying into black and white help you with composition and the principles of design?

Focusing on the negative space helped me see the shapes around the object instead of just the object itself. This made it easier to notice if something looked too big or too small. Because of that, I could fix the proportions and make the whole drawing look more accurate.

A technique that I found useful from unit one would be positive shape contour as it basically the same thing as negative space just the opposite.

Turning an image into black and white helps me see the main shapes and light or dark areas. It shows what is out of line and what needs to be balanced out. This makes the design stronger and easier to understand.

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I created three different sketches as three iterations of the same idea based on the city of Esmeralda. Each sketch shows a different way the city could look while still retaining the important designs of the city, for example, the zig-zaged river. In my drawings, I used curved, straight, and diagonal lines to show movement and lead the viewer’s eye through the city using the zig-zaged river in the center of the drawing.

I created depth by overlapping objects (the mountains), making things smaller in the distance (river width), and having cars driving on roads in the background, which helps create the illusion of space.

I used design principles such as balance to keep my drawings from feeling uneven, movement to show how people travel through the city, and emphasis to make certain areas stand out such as the bank in all of the drawings since one of the characteristics of the city Esmeralda is its high crime rate. The design I plan to follow for the sculpture would be sketch number one, as it shows the zig-zaged river the clearest, which I believe is one of the most important characteristics of the city Esmeralda.

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On day 1, I began planning my design with simple sketches, and as I continued creating new versions and multiple viewpoints, my idea became more clear and detailed. Drawing the front, back, left, and right views helped me understand how my design will work as a 3D form and helped me fix problems from earlier sketches. This also made me realize that the placement of objects in my sculpture needs to be planned out not only laterally but also the depth since the sculpture is 3 dimensional not 2 dimensional. This made me realize how much the multiple viewpoints helped me envision my sculpture. A challenge was keeping everything consistent from each angle because some parts did not line up at first. I plan to solve this by using careful measurements and drawing guidelines. For the final sculpture, I may need cardboard (as main strucutre for most of the buildings as it is also easy to paint over), wires

(potentially for a suspended bridge), hot glue (or other glue since I know this is banned), tape, paint, and a strong base to help support and hold the sculpture together.

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For the practice invisible city the construction techniques that I used were tab and slot, the rod brace, the X slot, scoring, and scoring bend. I focused a lot on the scoring bend as I plan to have alot of curvature to my city in the final version as it contrasts well with the straight zig zag lines in the promt we had. The scoring on the bend also adds functionality to the carboard and also texture, which alligns with my idea of making the city look "rough".

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To make sure both of us are heard, my partner and I talk through our ideas before we start building. We take turns sharing our thoughts, and if we disagree, we try to combine our ideas into one design that has ideas of both of us or we just rock papaer scissors depending on how important the decision is.

For the texture and detail, we plan to use materials like cardboard for the main structures of the houses, bridges, and with stripped cardboard for the roofs which would have more texture. For the mountain we are thinking of using cardboard egg containers which is another different texture from cardboard. We are also planning on adding rocky textures to the city with shrap pieces of coardboard, however the details and texture would be added towards the end of the project when all the main strucutres are already finished.

Today I cut out the base of the city, the small islands, and glued them all together. I started by drawing where I would want each house to be first on the main base, then I drew the rivers in between the houses focusing on making them zig zagged to match the prompt. After that I cut smaller islands that would fit around the rivers which the houses would be placed on later. I used 2 types of glue, the all purpose glue Mr. Larson provided and a smaller bottle of super glue. The all purpose glue was used for bigger pieces as it is gel form and we also have more of it, for smaller islands I used the super glue as it dries quicker which makes the glueing proccess much easier with smaller rpieces.

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This is a video of my partner working on the challenge. I was not at school during this day as I was away in Hanoi compteting in a robotics competition.

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Today me and my partner focused on filling in the negative space in our city. Me and Quentin we both tried to make as much houses as we could to fill in the negative space on the left. After that I made the mountain on the top left by using cardboard egg contaners and wet thin cardboard drapped over the top. After today we need to work on making more huts or houses to fill out the remaining negative space as there is quite a lot left. We also noted to make the houses more diverse to give the city more

"pop".

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During today's studio time I spent most my time on exploring different textures. I managed to come up with one that I was very proud of, the string. This could be seen in my water tower above where I built a 2 story round hut first which I then placed on top of 4 skewer sticks which made the water tower stand out and seprerate it from the other huts beneath it. However, I fet like there was more I could do, first I wanted to paint the water tower black, however, I felt like that would ruin the vibe of the city since as of today my partner and I both agree that its giving off Vikings vibe. I then looked up photos of what Vikings vilages looked like. I noticed that they were all made out of wood and straws which are both color of cardboard, I thought about what other material had this color and came up with the string. So I wrapped it around the first story of the water tower while leaving the top normal as it provides yet another point of contrast.

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A challenge that we had today was being able to build enough houses to fill in the negative space so that our city wouldn't look empty. This caused another challenge which was determining how we could balance speed while still maintaining the quality of the houses. We wanted to make as many houses as possible, however, we still wanted them to look nice, which was something that we found a little bit harder to do. In the end, we were able to fill in a lot of the negative space on land, however, we still had some negative space left in the rivers, which we did start building small boats to fill in.

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Today we built alot more boats to fill in the rivers and oceans. We also recycled out cardboard pieces by cutting them up into a random assortment of shapes whch we glued together to create a rocky texture next to the lighthouse.

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For today I arranged my still life by placing the Star Wars figure and the robot facing each other to make it look like they were fighting, with the skull in the background as a larger presence watching over them. I chose this photo from the ones I took because it had the most contrast and the chiaroscuro effect was the clearest. I then brought the photo into Photopea and posterized it to 6 levels, which separated the tones into clearer blocks of light and dark and made it easier to identify which areas needed shading.

Before today I usually started a drawing by drawing the outlines first and then adding shading inside after. Today was different because we focused on shadow shapes instead of outlines, which was confusing at first because I kept wanting to draw the contour of the skull before shading. What felt familiar was recognizing where the dark areas were, but treating the shadows as their own shapes felt new. I used cross hatching to build up the dark shadow area on the left side of the page, and lightly sketched the placement of the skull and the two figures.

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For day 3 I got peer feedback from twp people (Quentin and Kylie) who said the background needed more blending and the skull needed more shading on the sides to look more three dimensional. I spent most of the session blending the background so it had a smoother gradient instead of flat dark patches. Comparing my day 2 progress to the final drawing, the skull now has more shadow on the sides which makes it look rounder, and the two figures at the bottom have more detail. The shadows underneath the figures were also improved to ground them on the surface. I also took extra time to fix the lines and dimensions of the 2 figures at the bottom, I added a lot more detail onto the robot on the left which is really helping my drawing come together better. Overall the drawing improved a lot from the basic outline sketch on day 1 to a full range of tones in the final version.

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Quentin and Thibault Invisible Cities - Artist statement template

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Thibault Value Drawing- Artist statement template

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My example is my attempt at creating a notan design. First, we draw a shape, cut it out, then flipped and glued both pieces onto the opposite colored paper. The cutout and what’s left behind both matter. Negative space isn’t empty. It’s part of the design. Through this project, we learned how contrast and balance can turn something simple into something that actually looks intentional.

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I used different marks to show how surfaces feel. Tiny dots make the paper look grainy like sand, while round, loopy scribbles make it look soft like a rug. I used straight lines and rectangles to show hard materials like wood and bricks. By changing the shape and size of my lines, I can show if something is scratchy, smooth, or soft without anyone having to touch it.

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I was absent

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I challenged myself today by using a fountain pen for the first time and combining it with a fineliner. I wanted to see how different pen tips would change the look of my sketch, and I was really surprised by how dark the fountain pen ink turned out. It created a very deep, bold value that made the drawing pop much more than I expected, which was a really cool look.

This experiment went so well that I plan to use a mix of fountain pen, pencil, and ink for my final project. Trying something new helped me see that I can get much more variety in my work by layering different tools. If I ever feel nervous about taking risks next time, I’ll just do some small practice sketches first to see how the ink reacts to the paper before I start the main piece.

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Based on my experiments from last class, I decided to start with my fountain pen, however, at the start of class today Mr. Larson introduced us to a black piece of paper that we can use to bascially trace our drawing to get the proportions correct. Unfortunately, I accidentally used the black paper on the wrong side the whole class. I didn't notice until the end. The marks still showed up but it was what on the reference picture instead of my actual drawing.

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Today I worked on getting the outline of my structures more defined on the right paper. I focused on the water tower since it's the main element of the composition. One skill I applied well was using line weight to separate the foreground from the background. The heavier lines on the tower make it stand out from the structures behind it. One area I need to improve is my use of value. I find it hard to decide how dark to make certain areas and where exactly the shadows fall. To improve, I'm going to look more closely at my reference photo of the sculpture to understand where the light actually hits.

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The part of my drawing that caught my attention most was the texture of the water tower. In my sculpture I had wrapped string around the base to give it a rough texture, and I wanted to capture that in the drawing. I tried using short, layered pencil strokes going in different directions to show that roughness. For value, I made the bottom of the structure darker to show shadow. I think the contrast between the lighter upper block and the darker base helps give the tower a solid, grounded feel.

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The element I've been thinking about most is value. Some areas of my drawing still look too flat because the values are too similar. I've also been thinking about contrast, since the water tower needs to stand out clearly from the background structures. Both of these are areas I want to improve. I've been using them as a checklist each class to see if the drawing is reading the way I want it to.

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I wasn't in school, I went away for a robotics competition

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After the robotics competition, we had a week of spring vacation. Since I had missed so much class time, I decided to use the break to catch up and keep working on my drawing at home on my own. I set up my materials and started where I had left off before the competition. Things were going well at first and I was making a lot of progress on the shading and value work. Then I accidentally knocked over my orange juice and it spilled over the drawing. The paper was soaked and completely ruined. I tried to dry it out with a hair dryer but my fountain pen ink on the paper didn't hold very well.

It was really frustrating, especially since I had already missed so many classes. I decided to just start over. Starting again was actually useful in some ways. I already knew the composition I wanted, so I didn't have to figure that out again. I also knew which parts of the first drawing I wasn't happy with, so I could fix them from the beginning instead of trying to correct them later. I got the outline back down and started rebuilding the structure.

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I kept working on the restarted drawing at home during the second half of vacation. Since I was working alone, I couldn't get feedback from classmates, so I had to be more critical of my own work. I kept stepping back and looking at the drawing from a distance to check if the values were the way I wanted. I noticed on my own that the background was too light compared to the tower, so I went back and deepened those areas. Because I had already gone through the whole process once with the first drawing, a lot of the decisions around texture and value came more naturally this time. I knew which marks worked and which didn't, so I spent less time deciding which to do. I also tried to apply what I had learned from the skill builders more deliberately, especially when it came to making the different surfaces feel distinct from each other. By the end of the day the drawing was looking a lot more cohesive and complete than the first version ever did at this stage.

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My drawing is based on the city of Esmeralda from Invisible Cities. Esmeralda is a city built around water. The most important feature is the zig-zag river that runs through the center. Everything in the city connects back to it. I wanted my drawing to capture that same feeling of complexity and roughness.

The main element I focused on was the water tower. It was the tallest part of my sculpture, so it made sense to make it the center of my drawing too. When I was designing it, I was inspired by Viking villages. Both Esmeralda and Viking architecture have a raw, unfinished quality to them. I wrapped string around the base of the tower during the sculpture phase to show that texture. I wanted to bring that same feeling into the drawing.

For media, I used pencil and ink on kraft paper. Early on I experimented with combining a fountain pen and a fineliner. The fountain pen ink was a lot darker than I expected. It made the lines pop in a way I really liked, so I carried that boldness into the final piece by focusing on strong contrast between light and dark.

The process wasn't easy. I missed a lot of class time because of a robotics competition. Then during spring vacation, while I was working at home to catch up, I spilled orange juice on my drawing and ruined it. I had to start completely over. It was frustrating, but starting again actually helped. I already knew what I wanted, so I could fix the mistakes from the first version instead of repeating them.

For texture, I tried to make each surface feel different. The supports of the tower use short layered strokes going in different directions to look rough. The main block on top is smoother to contrast with the base. I used value to create depth throughout the whole drawing. The foreground is darker and the background fades back.

I kept checking my drawing against my reference photo of the sculpture to make sure the shadows and proportions were right. I'm happy with how the texture and value came together in the end. The drawing has a sense of weight and dimension that I think represents Esmeralda well.

If I had more time, I would go back and add more detail to the background. Right now it supports the tower without distracting from it, but it feels a little empty in some areas. I would also spend more time on the value in the middle ground, since some parts still look a bit flat compared to the foreground. I think adding more contrast there would make the whole drawing feel more three-dimensional. I would also try adding ink washes to some areas to get a smoother range of values instead of relying only on pencil strokes.

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The most engaging workshop for me was the robotics and automation one. I actually ended up doing it twice. One of their members was sick so they needed an extra person and since I have been doing robotics for a long time I helped out. The hands on aspect made it work well. People got to interact with the robots directly which kept them interested. Having someone who knew the subject helping out made things run a lot smoother too.

I also led the Notan design workshop with my group. We taught people how to make designs using black and white paper. The idea is simple. You draw a shape, cut it out, flip it, and glue both pieces on the opposite colored paper. Starting with a live demo helped because people could see what to do before trying it themselves.

Both workshops helped me connect with people in the exhibition. With robotics I already had experience so I could actually contribute instead of just watching. It felt good to use something I have been doing for years in that setting. With Notan, explaining it to others made me understand it better myself.

If I could improve next time I would give more time to experiment. Thirty minutes was a bit short and some people did not finish. For Notan I would definitely come up with a better plan to advertise our workshop, as the entire time we only had 2 people stop by our workshop. This partly was due to the fact that our workshop was in the class instead of outisde. For robotics I would make the instructions clearer for beginners since some people were confused early on, but this wasn't my station so I think I did pretty good.

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My topic is the scale and depth of mountain landscapes. Mountains have layers. The further back they go, the lighter and smaller they get. I want to capture that sense of depth using photos I have taken myself.

I chose this because photography is something I do outside of school. Mountains are one of the hardest things to photograph well because the scale is hard to show in a single image. A collage lets me combine multiple shots to build the depth that one photo alone cannot capture.

My point of view is about how mountains make everything else feel small. I want the viewer to feel that when they look at my piece. The cyanotype process will give the whole image a cold, distant feeling, which matches that idea. On top of that I will use techniques from this year to add a foreground and bring the depth out even further.

For this project I also learned a new technique called Cyanotype printing. It is one of the oldest photographic printing processes. It works by coating paper with a solution made of two chemicals. When the coated paper is exposed to UV light, the chemicals react and turn a deep Prussian blue color. The areas that are blocked from the light stay white. After the exposure you wash the paper with water and the image appears. I learned that the contrast between dark and light in the original image matters a lot because the print only produces blue and white tones. This technique adds value to my piece because the blue tones naturally create a cold and distant atmosphere. That atmosphere matches my topic of mountains since it is usually cold. It also makes the piece feel more unique because cyanotype is not a standard art process. It connects photography and chemistry in a way that most people have never seen before.

I have also linked a Google photo album where I have uploaded a variety of mountain pictures that I took in the past.

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Art final pictures · Jun 18 – 19, 2025 📸

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For this project, today I merged two photos I took together in Photopea. I used a Levels adjustment to control the overall brightness and contrast. Then I added a Curves layer to push the tonal range further. I used an Invert layer to flip the tones and create a more dramatic, almost negative effect. A Hue/Saturation adjustment helped me pull the color out and keep it fully black and white. The final result is a high-contrast mountain landscape with a dark, moody sky. I liked how combining the two images made the composition feel bigger and more intense than either photo on its own. This was mainly done to ensure that the picture would be able cyanotype printer which is completely different than normal printers. Since today was an experiment day, I wasn't focused on making my experimentations look good, but instead I was more focused on being able to explore photopea and find the different combinations of pictures I can merge together.

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I merged two photos I took into one image in Photopea. The goal was to prepare it for a cyanotype print. You can see where the two images meet in the middle. I used Curves and Levels to boost the contrast so the details in the snow and rock would show up clearly. I also added an Invert layer to turn it into a negative. That's how cyanotype works. The light areas expose the paper and the dark areas don't. The snowy mountain worked well for this because the white snow and dark rock create a strong contrast that prints well.

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After messing with the settings, I managed to get the ice parts of the images to emmit a light blue color, I think this is very cool considering that the cynotype print produces blue prints. I hope that this could create an interesting effect once printed but I have never used the printer before so I don't really know what to expect.

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These are my test prints from the cyanotype process. Before doing my final print I needed to find the right exposure time. I did a series of test prints and went up by 15 seconds each time. I started at 15 seconds and went up to 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90 seconds.

The shorter ones came out really light. The image was there but the blue was faint and the details were hard to see. There was not enough contrast. As I added more time the blue got a lot deeper. The shadows in the rocks and the foreground got darker which made the snow stand out more.

The middle exposures looked the best to me. The longer ones started to lose the lighter details because everything was getting too dark. It showed me that even 15 seconds makes a big difference with cyanotype.

Doing these tests also made me realize how important the Photoshop editing was. The high contrast negative I made is what let the details show up clearly on the paper. If the negative did not have enough contrast the print would not have worked well no matter how long I exposed it for. Overall I think the test prints were really useful because they let me figure out the right time before committing to the final print.

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This was my second day of printing. The day before I had done test prints on paper to get an idea of the right exposure time. But I still needed a more precise way to narrow it down. So before printing on paper I used a piece of cyanotype fabric to do an incremental exposure test.

The way it works is you start with a piece of black paper covering 90% of the fabric and expose it for 15 seconds. Then you move the paper back so it covers 80% and expose for another 15 seconds. You keep doing this until the whole fabric is uncovered. By the end you have one piece of fabric that shows you every exposure time from 15 seconds all the way up to 150 seconds side by side. It made it really easy to compare and pick the right time because everything was right there in front of me. I could see exactly where the detail looked good and where it got too dark or too light.

From that test I went with 122 seconds for the first exposure. That was where the rocks and foreground had the most detail without losing too much in the shadows.

The problem was that after the 122 second exposure the top part of the image was still way too light. The sky and clouds were just coming out completely white with no detail. This happened because the sky in the original photo was bright, so that part of the negative was very transparent and not blocking enough light.

To fix this I cut a piece of black paper along the shape of the mountain ridge so it matched the line between the foreground and the sky. After the first exposure I placed the cover over the bottom half and did a second 30 second exposure on just the top. That extra time darkened the sky enough to bring the cloud details out. Instead of a flat white sky you can actually see the clouds in the final print. I thought the double exposure was a really cool way to solve the problem and it ended up making a big difference to how the final print looked.

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For my final piece I took two of my best prints and put them together as the finished project. The settings I went with were 85 seconds for the full exposure and then 40 more seconds on just the top portion using the black cutout to cover the bottom half. This double exposure technique brought out the clouds in the sky while keeping the detail in the rocks and foreground.

One change I made for the final prints was switching from normal paper to parchment paper. I found this out while experimenting earlier. The parchment paper let the highlights show up a lot more clearly, which made a big difference for the brighter parts of the image like the snow and the clouds. The texture also gave the print a nicer feel overall.

For the presentation I printed two of the same image but one was inverted to create a mirrored effect. I think this is called a mirror diptych or a Rorschach style composition. The two prints together gave the piece a nice symmetry and made it more interesting to look at than just one print on its own.

I mounted both prints on a big white foam board. I picked white over black because I tested both first. On the black board the shadows in the print just disappeared. Everything blended into the dark background and you could not see the detail at all. The white board made the shadows pop and kept the whole image visible.

To stick the prints down I used gloss coating instead of glue. The gloss has a natural sticky feel to it which works perfectly for attaching the prints. First I used masking tape to mark out the exact area where the gloss would go. Then I used a brush to put a thin layer of gloss inside the marked area. After that I went over it with a roller to thin the coating out even more. This step was important because it made sure the prints would lay completely flat with no bumps or distortion underneath.

Once the gloss was smooth I placed the two prints on top. After they were down I repeated the whole process again on top of the prints. I brushed on another layer of gloss and rolled it out. Doing this second layer had two purposes. The first was to protect the prints from getting damaged. The second was that a gloss finish just looks really nice and gives the piece a more professional and polished look.

Even after all of that I felt like the presentation was still missing something. The white board was clean but it felt a bit empty around the prints. So I grabbed a brush and some squid ink and drew a border around the whole piece. I did not want the border to be neat and perfect. I wanted it to feel flowy and a bit messy on purpose. The idea was to show the same brushing motion I used when I was layering the gloss. It ties the whole presentation together and makes it feel more handmade.