Opacity Project

1. Overall I don't think my piece came out as well as it should've. Chalk was very challenging for me and I had difficulty blending and making certain lines well defined. Some of the bottles blend together making it hard to tell that they overlap. If I understood how to work with chalk and overlap what I'm drawing I could've produced a better quality piece.

2. The soda cans, soup can, milk carton, ect. are what make the piece look  more like the inside of a recycling bin. By putting cans and such underneath my clear glass and plastic bottles I incorporate opacity and make the items look layered and staggered like in a recycling bin.

3. The colors I chose were based on the colors of common recyclables such as popular soda brand. There are a lot of greens, blue, orange, brown and of course white for the opaque bottles. I tried to spread the colors out to create contrast within the recycling bin.

4. Like I said before I spread out the colors I used and put dark or bold colors next to the light and bland colors. I also tried to put different type of bottles or items around each other to create contrast through what was in the bin.

5. I had trouble adding shadows because it came to a point where no matter how many times I went over the paper with chalk no more color would come off on the paper. The shadows I put on the bottom silver of the soda cans made them look more three-dimensional. Also the shadows on the soda bottles and beer bottle made their shapes more round. The highlights on the plastic bottles created the plastic and 3-D look.

6. I chose the dark green background because that is the color of recycling bins and it's a dark contrasting color that would make the objects pop more.

7. After this project I get why it's important to understand the media and how to use it to create a successful piece because if you don't you can't achieve a realistic look. You have to know how to layer and blend and not add to much color at first. I think practice and experimentation is key in this situation.

8. I had trouble layering color and adding as much color as I wanted. For example you can still see brown paper in the background behind the green because the green stopped coming off on the paper after a certain amount of layers. Also I couldn't draw over an object with a different color, especially with white, because the colors just ended up blending and looking like one. If I understood how to layer chalk pastels my piece would've turned out a lot better.

Facial Features

For this exercise I learned how to draw and shade facial features to make them look realistic. To do an eye you need to make the eyeball look spherical by shading around the edges. You also need to shade under the eyelid to make it look like it's standing out over the eyeball. For the ears it's key to shade dark in the insides of the ear and light on the parts that stick out. Also to make the ear look round you need to shade around the outside edges. To draw lips you first need to draw the outline of them then draw what looks like hair coming out either side of the middle line. After you do that you can shade making the area around the middle line and edges darkest (depends on where the light source is) and the middle of each lip lightest. For the nose you first draw the outline of the nostrils and bottom of nose then you can begin shading. To form the rest of the nose such as the bridge you just shade according to wear the light source hits. This exercise has reminded me that shading is necessary to make something look realistic.