Form Challenge

 Form Challenge

Relief Project

Relief Project

I want to make a mountain landscape on a clay tile. There will be a total of 5 mountains, the sun, 2 clouds and a border on the tile. I will remove some the sky in the background but leave the clouds and sun. The clouds will be built up over the border and so will the mountains. The closer the mountain the more built up it will be. 

Part 2

Looking at my original plan my piece was pretty successful. The mountains layered well like I planned and the sun and clouds pop out well. Also the colors I chose compliment each other well and the glazed mountains, cloud and sun look good against the arcryllic sky. Next time I would make the mountains have more dimension and I would shape the cloud to look softer. I think if I were to do the project again I would plan something more intricate and creative and not so simple. Originally I planned to have two clouds on my tile but soon after I began scultping I realized there was not enough space for two. My sketch also made the mountains look more dimensional because of the shading and the clouds were more round. The mini tile project helped me get a good idea of how to use relief with clay and gain basic skills with clay tools. One downside of the mini tile project, which was my fault, was that I did not think of how relief can be created outside of a flat clay tile. The cardboard project showed me relief can be created through other mediums rather than just with clay. Throughout this project I had to overcome building up objects without losing the shape of what I was trying to create. Since my peice was so simple I had to really focus on perfecting the simple shapes. My battle with having such a simple piece worked out for me in the end because I recieved many compliments.

Inspired Artist

Elicia Edijanto

Elicia Edijanto is an Indonesian artist who strictly uses black and white watercolor. Through her work she expresses relationships between human and nature. She says most of her paintings depict a small child with a large animal because "they are honest, sincere, unprejudiced and unpretentious". Her paintings are inspiring to me not only because of the way she can work watercolor but because her subjects are so pure. I love animals so the fact that she incorporates one in almost every painting is really awesome especially since she is showing their gentleness and personality by creating a relationship with humans. Every painting provides me with a sense of tranquility but at the same time gives me a sense of lonliness. They make me feel something which is how it should be.

http://www.eliciaedijanto.com/index.php/work/

Practice collage

My collage's theme was based on the 50's-70's. I wanted to incorporate black and white elements because TVs were still black and white up until 1967 and then I included tie-dye because of the 70's. Newspaper was a common thing back in this time period and so were VW bugs. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Marilyn Monroe were all popular stars and were partially what this time period was known for. To stick the newspaper to the paper I put gel underneath the newspaper then gel and a little water over top of it. After that I would rub the newspaper and press it down then I took it off and a thin layer would stay in most spots. The bare spots looked cool but I stuck the newspaper down this way mainly because lack of time. In all the bare spots I added water color which gave it a really cool torn and old look. After the background was finished I pasted one of The Beatles album cover over top and replaced two of the members with Elvis and Marilyn buy pasting them over top. Then I went around the edges of the picture and added some more newspaper and water color. To the left of that page is another part of the collage which I haven't finished. My plan for the right side is to add some newspaper and water color to the left of the newspaper. Then I will have the VW bug come out of the bottom right corner on top of the newspaper and water color shooting into the tie-dye. I really like how the left side turned out so I think the right will look great! I love this time period because of the music and lifestyle I have seen in it. My new records (one being a Beatles album) inspired this piece. I also love buggies because they are so cute (especially the old ones)! I did have some struggles with this piece though. The water color wasn't looking the way I wanted it to so I had to work with it for a while and the newspaper was hard to make stick with the method I used. Overall I really enjoyed learning how to make a meaningful collage.

Collage

I Take Risks

I had a vision to start off with but as I was working on my collage I started running low on time and had to make other plans. I was not sure how cut up mountains from a magazine and toothpick mountains would look together but it turned way better than expected. The grass was the most time consuming thing in the whole project because I had to take different pictures of grass from different magazines and cut them into different shapes then paste them together based on shape and shade. I had a lot of trouble finding enough grass so I decided I would just have to print out some grass and hope it looked as glossy and the other two areas of grass. The risk I took that did not work out so well was with the sky. I sprinkled sand and glitter over the blue sky hoping for a cool texture but all it ended up doing was clumping together and ruining the paint. Then I painted the the matte gel over top hoping to fade the sky some but the canvas was so ruff that it just came out as blotchy white smudges. In the end I just painted the blue sky back over it and placed cotton balls as clouds. 

I Communicate Through My Work

The assignment was to create a story through a collage so that is exactly what I did. I find the creativity of fantasies very intriguing so I wanted to use the fantasy element to tell my story. My piece does not have a lot of story line to it but I wanted the viewer to be able to use their imagination to create their own story. There is a light side with a tree and flowers and green grass and then there is a dark side with dark twisted trees and vines and black fog. The light side symbolizes the good in a fairytale and the dark side symbolizes the evil in a fairytale. 

I Reflect

I stepped back and analyzed my collage many times throughout the process of making it. I looked it over after every element I added. I think my idea was too detailed for the amount of time and effort I had to put into the project. I was planning on adding a house and many more trees and flowers but it was not practical so I worked with what I had. Many ideas I thought would work out didn't such as having an abundant amount of grass pictures, the flowers aren't my favorite, the original sky was ugly, and the background of the evil forest doesn't flow very well. The collage looks great though! The mountains are my favorite part because the magazine mountains give it a more realistic look but the toothpicks look more fairytale like.

Up-Close Pine cone

These are my sketches

This is my final

I Create Original Art

How did you use your own unique ideas in your work? The idea of a pine cone I thought was pretty unique because it was something you don't seen drawn very often especially up close. The angle of the pine cone was also very unique and the details were different. 

Did you use a source for inspiration, then combine it with your own ideas to make it original? The fact that it was fall was very inspiring to me. I love fall and how the nature looks during this time. All I could think about is beautifully colored leaves all around me and then it hit me (not literally)! I could draw a pine cone! Leaves are so commonly drawn especially up close so I wanted to do something different but still related to nature. A pine cone was has rich browns and interesting shapes so it was perfect for something that had to have detail.

I Reflect

When did you step back and analyze you work during this project?  I stepped back and really analyzed my work at the end. I analyzed throughout the project but I really payed attention to all of the little details at the end. Now that I look at it I see I could've improved on some things. The transition of brown from the middle of the branch to the edges is kind of choppy and there is a large color variation there. Also some the branches are crooked and not pointing the same way. Lastly I think I could've added a little more detail and do a better job on the detail I did add. Overall the drawing is really unique and the colors look great. I like how I shaded underneath each branch a little, it gave depth. 

Did you pick a material or technique that was new or different over something that was familiar? I picked a familiar material. I used colored pencils because I had experience with them and I knew this project would be challenging if I wanted a real looking effect. I had to use multiple colors to get all the effects. I used black, tan/brown, and red/brown. 

 I Developed My Art Making Skills

Did you learn new techniques or processes as part of the work for this project? Not really because all I did was shade and color and create depth which I had already done before.

Did you gain skill with familiar materials? Yes I gained skill with the Prismacolor colored pencils which I had only used once. I  learned how to shade better with them and create different effects with the way I went back over the colors I had already put down. 

Clay Food project

I really enjoyed this project! I think my clay pieces turned out really well and would love to work with clay more often. My perfectionist side definetly came out while doing this project but I didn't have enough time to make every detail flawless. If I were to change something abut my pieces I would make the bowl smoother, put some support under to tomatoe soup so its shape doesn't blend into the bowl, and add more texture, value and color variations. Although I really like how the cheese in my grilled cheese turned out. Overall it was a fun project and i'm happy with the results.