My art piece is a butterfly gracefully sitting on a flower. I tried to make the color scheme more on the dark side but I did end up using some brighter colors to color the flower. I used a dark blue and purple to paint the butterfly, while I used pink, red, green, and yellow for the flower. My art has some similarities to my previous work because this is a limited palette painting. The painting was supposed to come out elegant but once I added paint, it kind of ruined any good parts about it all.

In my last limited palette painting I tried to paint over any stray marks with white and it helped to bring out the other colors of the painting which I did in this one. I also feel like I had hard lines to paint over and I wanted everything to come out straight and smooth but I didn’t.

I used big, wide, brushes to fill in large gaps of space, and I used thin, smaller brushes for outlining and filling in smaller lines of space. I had to dump my water out a lot because if I didn’t, the water would’ve mixed in with my new colors and I didn’t want that.

Something I would definitely change about this is the object I would paint on. I feel like with what I used, it was too textured and I feel like I should’ve just used wood so it would look cleaner and better. I also think overall, I should just stop doing limited palette in general and do something that doesn’t require good painting skills.

For my quarter 2 art benchmark, I created a clay 3d rose. The rose is created with solid color clay and colored with paint. I created the rose to represent “beauty in everything” since the rose has been known for that. For the rose, I used a few specific art tools to create my piece. For the first, I used clay along with my fingers for carving the clay to my liking of petals. I then used red paint for my petals and a green paint for a leaf. I made sure this piece related to my previous work by making sure the theme kept the idea of having beauty. The steps of this process did not take too long. You first want to take a good amount of clay. You then want to start breaking off pieces of your clay, molding them into petals of your liking. When you’ve gotten your petals, you want to connect them together going into the direction of a rose. When you’re satisfied with your looking of the rose, let it dry for a day or two. Your final step would include painting/coloring your rose. My work reminded me of Hukasai since he is known for making garden like pieces. When creating your piece, painting is an important technique because you want to make sure your paint does not interfere with the other petals that will be different. I am most proud of my consistency I kept throughout creating this project because the project was a challenge and did include a lot of fails. Although, I wouldn’t want anything to be changed. In conclusion, this project was a learning experience and is now a fun new hobby.  

In my project I chose to create a clay model of a women’s open legs. In place of genitals, there is a large flower. The skin of the piece is comprised of patches of tan and brown to represent different skin tones. I want this piece to encourage an empowering message about sexuality and femininity and masculinity. It is often looked down upon to be open with sexuality and I want my piece to show that all people should not be ashamed of who they are. To create this work I used metal wire, air dry clay, acrylic paint and a fake flower. First I created the frame with the metal wire and then wrapped the wire in the clay, shaping legs and the bottom half of a torso. I then let the clay air dry, and painted over the entire thing with different shades of brown. I then hot glued the flower in between the legs of the sculpture. This piece is definitely more meaningful than my last. I chose to create this piece in the light of something I think about very often.

Another artist that has inspired me to want to start sculpting is Lynda Benglis. Specifically her exhibition titled Female Sensibility inspired me to go in the direction of sexuality.

http://www.cheimread.com/artists/lynda-benglis/exhibitions

The most important technique to my piece has to be the smoothing. Making sure the clay dries smoothly and not rigid was accomplished by wetting the pads of my fingers and smoothing over the surface. A new technique I learned has to be the ability to shave layers of the clay off. You have to remove and reapply to effectively shape the sculpture. I am most proud of the actual shape of the body. The legs and hips and everything else look very nice in my opinion. If I could change one thing about this project it would have to be the color of the skin. I wanted it to be a bright color like purple or green. I have learned to be more comfortable with clay.

For this project we had to create a piece of original work that incorporates 3 mediums or more. I decided to create a piece of artwork that was a physical representation of my heart. I decided to use marker, oil pastels, soft pastels, charcoal, string, staples, cardboard, and newspaper. I used the marker to outline the heart. I used oil pastels to make the artifact look like and actually heart. I used 4 different shades of pink and tan. I used soft pastels to blend before I used the charcoal because oil pastels and charcoal doesn’t mix well together but soft pastels and charcoal does and soft pastels have a similar color to oil pastels. I then took the side that the charcoal was on and put one line of string through the paper and stapled it down to make it look like stitches. I then took some cardboard and glued little pieces of newspaper to it. I put the heart and glued it onto the cardboard so that the newspaper was a background to the heart.

I decided to make a heart for this project because I had a great idea of how the make the heart look unique. Instead of making a regular heart, I made the heart one side healthy and the other side not. The bad side had charcoal to make it seem like the heart was dead and rotten. It also had string and staples to make it look like someone attempted to fix it but it didn’t work out. I did this because, I have got my heart broken so many times and everytime I try to start over or get over it it doesn’t help. You can’t fix a rotten heart by putting stitches in it right ?  I made the newspaper background because I wanted it to represent how my heart is publicly displayed. I make it known through my actions that I have had my heart broken in the past and I don’t want it to happen again.  

For this quarters project, I choose to do a limited pallet painting.  The limited palette painting is when you only use 5 or fewer colors of your choosing.  For my limited palette, I chose the colors: green, red, flesh-toned, brown, and black.My drawing is of a girl with her eyes with her closed and hand on her chin.  I mixed the flesh-tone and brown together, to make a light brown skin tone.  Her head is tilted to the side with light and dark brown dyed hair flowing down to her neck. With her eyes closed, I made her lashes long and full, while her nose is small and long. Her lips are full, with pink lipstick.  She also has a tribal pattern above her eyebrows.  The piece that I made shows self-reflection, and peace. It is a reminder of how you think about yourself and knowing your worth when your eyes are closed to the world.

The materials that I used for this painting was 5 different watercolors. To create the strokes on the painting I used small brushes. The surface I painted was watercolor paper.  The small brushes are used to create detail and I used them for the whole painting.  The watercolor was used with more water than the actual paint in some cases or vice versa to create the colors of the painting.This piece of artwork connects to my previous work based on having a meaning connected to me or my family.  For the first step, I looked up simple sketches of a girl.After that I got my desired paper to do the artwork on which was watercolor paper.  Then I sketched out where I wanted everything to go on the watercolor paper( I was taking a while on that) In short I began to paint in the last few class periods we had. Finally, I went over some final detail in pencil so it can stand out more.

There are also some very famous artists that have done similar work like me that have deep means in their work. Some of these people are Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. An important technique that's involved in my artwork is the brush stroke. When painting you tend to use a light hand strokes/ movement of the had to create texture. For me, I used a light hand as well as a heavy hand to make some parts stand out more. When doing the painting I also learned about the usage of the water to the color ratio for different opaqueness of color.  When I was creating this piece of artwork, became fond/ proud of my choice in color, and how it turned out to be more realistic than I thought.  I also like the way her head is tilt, her long eyelashes, also the different colors of brown in her hair. Aside from what I think is good, I would like to change the way of her hands. I want to change them so that they can be more realistic. I also want to shade in some more parts in to make some contrast. I learned that there are many ways to create paintings with different forms of makeshift texture from the stroke of a brush and, using limited colors to create an array of things.

So, my project represents one of my favorite fruits which is an orange which I decided to create. So, on my picture I made an orange, the show how good it is and how tasty it is. In this artwork I wanted it to represent my way of eating and how good it was and how when I eat it feels like the sun is shining. For this artwork I used a lot of materials well just color pencils and then when I used a blue color pencil to make different shades and also I used gray and mad different shades I used each color pencil in a detailed way and also pencil which I used to outline. This only related to my work by how it symbols my living situation but, the other I used different materials and had fun. Vincent Van Gogh makes self portraits and has done crazy things for the people he loved so that’s why I did. I learned a new technique in art called shading along with my outline and it was the best thing to use in this artwork. I am most proud of my use of color and different shades because I think it was well done and fits great in my portrait. If I could change one thing I would change the clouds because maybe I should have kept them white to resemble more happiness in the portrait.

For my quarter 2 project, I did the still life drawing because I wanted to try something different. For my project, I drew a candlestick and an orange. I want my artwork to communicate that it wasn't easy to draw this. My current work relates to my previous work because I have done shade and texture in art before. The materials I used when making this art was a 2H, 4H, and 6B pencils. I first drew the candlestick and orange with a 2H pencil. Then, I used a 6B pencil to outline the shape of my drawing. After outlining the shape of my drawing, I used a 4h pencil to shade my drawing so it will be easier to erase parts that I mess up. After shading my drawing with a 4H pencil, I used a 6B pencil to darken the parts that I wanted. An artist who makes similar work is Zheng Chongbin. He uses a lot of shade and texture in his drawings. A certain technique that's important to the work is using a softer pencil to shade the drawing, then going over with a darker pencil to darken parts that you want. A technique I experimented more with the process of making this work is shade and texture. I'm most proud of the way my artwork turned out. I really wouldn't change anything about my project because I like how everything turned out. In conclusion, something I learned through the completion of this project is to not waste all your time drawing your object because you're not going to have enough of time to add shade and texture to your drawing.

For my art project I did the limited palette project. I choose up to 5 colors and from those five colors I can only use them for my whole project. I could mix them together, or use them by themselves but I had to use my choice of colors. My portrait is a painting of a black woman's silhouette. The portrait t shows her neck up, so her dark brown hair with her bold red lips. I didn't draw any eyes or nose of that nature.I believe that one of the notable features of a black women is her hair and lips. I just wanted my portrait to communicate the black culture. I used acrylic paints colors including: brown, pink, purple, and white. I also used a mixing palette and a palette knife to help me mix all of my colors together. I did my painting on a piece of cardboard. Now looking back on it I wish I used canvas because I predict that it would have looked better. One of the most important technique of this project was mixing for me. I had to thoroughly go in and use my palette knife to mix my colors together to create a new color. If I could change one thing about my project I would change one of my colors which is purple. I really didn't use it as much in my painting. In conclusion I really did enjoy doing this project it was really fun and studying when I was mixing the paints together.

When I first began this project, what came to my mind was, “How was I going to express my message to the viewer, the audience?” It took me a couple days before beginning it in order to realize what I truly wanted to say in the form of strokes. I finally was able to map out what I wanted my message to be and finally, it came out to be, “Messages can take the form of colors.” This statement was able to guide me through the whole project as it allowed me to only purpose my message. The colors were there to convey it and have the ability to communicate the message to the viewer. Before coming to this high school, I was able to conduct a deeper analysis of the arts and literature. During that time, I tried to find the meaning of the art besides just dismissing it with, “oh that looks nice.” There is more to the piece than what we make it be. During this project, I was able to analyze an artist who I am really fond of and produced my own style in the process. For this project, I decided to do Limited Palette. Limited Palette allows the artist to only use 5 colors. I decided to use watercolor paint rather than acrylic paint.

A technique that I had to develop was trying to “stitch” using the paint brush. I am uncertain as to what the technique is called, however, it played huge contribution to my work. The technique allowed me to display the leaves of the trees and make value into the piece. The technique is essentially using simple “x” strokes across the canvas. However, you want to make sure you have a small brush if you decide to make the image further away. This is a mimic from one of Bob Ross’s own technique I saw on his tv show. As such, his art has inspired me to do something similar, creating the beauty of nature using just 5 colors. Techniques are very important to the work and especially the artist. The artist needs to develop a technique in order to make the work consistent. A consistent story can tell a story whereas a dictionary cannot.

Present in my work, there are trees scrambled all over the place. However, there is one tree that seems to be close to the viewer, located on the right. Finally, there are mountains in the background, coated with a lot of colors. For the project, I decided to use Permanent Light Green, Phthalo Blue, Burnt Umber, Brilliant Red, and Chinese White. The Light Green was used primarily on the leaves, and I knew I could make the paint more transparent due to the fact that this is water coloring. Phthalo Blue was used more on the sky and the mountains, with some on the ground. Burnt Umber was used mainly for the trees and giving texture to the wood. Brilliant Red was also used for the mountains. Finally, Chinese White being used mainly for giving definition. I mixed the colors Brilliant Red and Phthalo Blue to get a similar purple color. Personally, the color looks like the many visible colors in the galaxy. Thus, I decided to use it on the mountains because it felt “distant” enough. At first, I watered it down to get the concept of what I pictured the base to be. Then Mrs. Hertz instructed me to use less water to get more of the colors into the piece. For the trees, I used a mixture of Burnt Umber and Permanent Light Green. Mixing the colors gives a very light brown and it was very good to give the contrasts of the trees. The stitching technique was very useful for the trees as well. I was able to stitch leaves into the canvas using the technique. I even combined Phthalo Blue and Permanent Light Green together in order to paint in the ground, the hill. This work is very similar to my previous work. It had trees and hills, however, lacked the mountains in the background.

In conclusion, I have learned a lot through the process of this project. This project allowed me to explore the many colors and possible combinations to get a different result. The Limited Palette was very challenging, but it makes the artist improvise when producing his/her artwork. Throughout the challenges I had to face, I could say that I am very proud that I was able to use colors to make other colors stand out. However, with many warm accomplishments, I also wish I had done things differently. I wish that I could have made the grass more visible rather than being transparent. The difficult of water coloring makes it very challenging to make things stand out since the water only makes the colors more transparent. I also wished I had not used such a big brush as it started to ruin up my canvas by giving it visible “cracks”. Overall, I am very proud of my work and the project was very challenging but fun.

In this quarter we were allowed to choose what type of art project we wanted to work on. I worked on the still life project and in this kind of art we had to draw 2-4 inanimate projects. We had to draw from life and not from the imagination.

I decided to draw flowers in a vase and try to share how pretty nature is to the world. Growing up my mother has always told me we should treat flowers,trees, and etc. with kindness. I only tried to show the true beauty of nature and show that we have to treasure this beauty.

The process of drawing this inanimate object was difficult at first. I tried to start from drawing the petals first and I am glad I did because they are really hard to draw. The vase was also a struggle to draw but I was able to get feedback from Ms.Hertz to make it look more still life. Overall, it got easier the longer I worked on it.

A major tool that I used throughout this process was a charcoal pencil. I was already familiar with charcoal because of my previous benchmark. A learned how to draw soft lines and rough like lines. It was very fun to experience with and I feel like pencil is more of my thing.

One thing I am very proud is the fact that I am still learning how to be a great artist and you can see that based off of my drawings. If I could change one thing then it would be how I drew the vase and that is because I feel like I can make it look more realistic. Overall, this quarter 2 benchmark was interesting because I learned more about myself.