When you first look at my art work you see a man with a colorful sweater on talking into a mic , He is Russell Westbrook The reigning Mvp 2 Time scoring champ,6 All Nba selections back to back All star game Mvp and many more accomplishments . This year he just got the most triple doubles in nba history at 42 and even this season he is still getting triple doubles at a crazy rate .Also i feel like people undervalue the triple double , Also he has the best fashion in the entire NBA .Legend has it he doesn't wear the same clothes twice .With the clothes he doesn't wear again he will donate them to others in need .He doesn't hesitate when it comes to helping others ,He donated 17 Million to UCLA (His college ) .This is another thing that makes him my favorite nba player Hands down.Some people judge his dress game because they dont have good taste in fashion . At first i thought the same but you have to stay woke to see why he dresses the way he does . Whenever he enters a room everybody stares .This confidence is something we all should have.

I based my artwork off the show Rick and Morty so I can create a depiction of it from my point of view. I enjoy watching the show and it would make sense for me to draw about something I dislike. I used a small amount of materials: colored pencils to color in most of my picture, white tempera paint to lighten up any colors I felt were too dark, and a black sharpie to even out the darkness of the lines. I think this work has no correlation to my previous work except for the fact that t includes things that I like. In freshman year, I has drawn a picture of a room full of food and I love food so much. I had never drawn pictures of people before so that was something new for me. I think this picture was a fail. I don’t like the outcome of it very much because it could’ve been way better. I wish the pencil lines hadn’t smeared because it would look way cleaner I also wish I got a thinner sharpie because those lines are very thick and I wish I took more time trying to get straighter lines. Rick’s eye is a little bit off, he looks like a Simpson. His hand is very small and so is his portal gun. My inspiration comes from the love of this show and the animators and artist(s) who drew him. I’m most proud of the attempt. I want to say I tried my best but if I did, it would have been better. I would spend less time on paint testing and more time on actually drawing and painting because I didn’t even end up using any other paint color but white.

I drew a picture of my inner grandmother. I drew this because I was really close with my grandma when I was younger. They called me her and her twin sister (my great aunt) triplets because we all looked exactly alike. They even put her name (Verlene) as my middle name because they knew she was going to love me dearly when I was born. I remember going over her house when I was younger and she would feed me my favorite food, mashed potatoes and chicken and give me red wine and me, her and my grandpa would sit and watch scary movies together.  Unfortunately she died in 2007 of a heart disease.

In the picture I included an old lady face with no wrinkles. I included no wrinkles because she didn’t have any wrinkles, she died when she was 50 which is very young. I included her with big lips with green lipstick because green represents life, growth and harmony and I felt like this was apart of her personality. I feel as though she will live on forever in me, she is apart of me forever. She was always happy and positive no matter what. She always saw the good in situations and the good in people. I made her with dimples because both her and I have really deep dimples, it is one of our best assets. Last but not least I created her with a lot of curly hair. My grandma had a buzz cut but she always wore curly wigs to church every sunday. I didn’t want to make her with a short cut because I always felt like that didn’t match her personality. She is fun and spontaneous. Because of me, My grandma with live forever.

The tools I used to create my work of art was colored pencils. I used colored pencils because it had all the colors that I wanted to incorporate into my artwork. When I colored my picture I made sure all the colors were vividly shown, I colored the lips and dark as possible so that it can pop out. I also learned while making the curls that the harder you press on the pencil the more defined the curls will be.

I am most proud that I was able to not just draw this picture, but bring it to life and tell a story through it. I would say though that if I had to change one thing, I probably would have tried harder to make her eyes even and make it look like she has a body at the bottom.  To finish this off I just want to say that drawing this picture have brought back so many memories and I learned to always cherish your loved ones while you still have them with you because tomorrow isn’t promised for anyone.

I created my artwork to portray the idea of connection and family. I love my family and we are so huge. My grandma had six children which started it all. She had four boys and two girls. Later on, my grandpa had four more boys which made ten children. This made two girls and eight boys. Which gets me to the idea of my artwork. Since I have a lot of uncles and all of them are very talented I wanted to bring them to light.

My drawing is of a girl , that I like to think is of me. I have placed a crown on top of the head to represent that she should be treated like royalty and that she has importance to other people. Also the girl doesn't have eyes because it shows that she tries not to judge people based on what they look like but what the character of the person is . The girl in the picture is black because I am a black girl and I wanted to show that black girls should be treated like a queen and have respect from everyone and for themselves. While I was making my drawing I first started off with the idea that I wanted to make a portrait of myself. Then I started to think about what I wanted to have in the picture represent when it is finally completed, that is how I came up with the ideas of the things that are in my drawing. I think that this drawing is very good for me because it showed myself that I can make a drawing that has meaning. For my drawing I used color pencils because I felt as though it would really making my drawing better and embellish it better than other materials. At first I started by testing the color pencils that I wanted to use, so that I knew which color I wanted to make everything. I am proud of the finally outcome of my drawing. I think it showed my growth in my art journey.

In this benchmark I had to draw a portrait. My portrait is revolved around my brother and how his disability has affected not only him but me too. My art communicates how stressful it was for my brother growing up especially with his disability. Growing up I was aware of how my family would be constantly worried about my brother and I always thought they wouldn’t give him space to breathe.

The materials I used was paper, and charcoal to complete my art. It took me awhile to get used it to it since charcoal is really black and when I wanted to color in light it was a struggle. Overall, I was able to use it and get the hang of it.

My current work relates to my previous work because it is a part of me that I am revealing to the people. I decided to use charcoal because dark colors are my thing and I wanted to represent something personal that wasn’t happy.

The process I went through to complete my art was a struggle. I would get stuck on what to draw to represent what I felt, what my brother felt and how what he felt affected me. When I would get stuck I would ask Ms.Hertz a way I can express myself and she would suggest me ideas.

An artist that inspired me was Frida Khalo. She went through a lot and even though my story isn’t as tragic as hers I could still relate in someway.

A certain technique that is important to my art is how the charcoal surrounds my brother and it puts him in the spotlight. Without it there wouldn’t be any point in my art since it would just be blank. I am trying to make a statement.

I am most proud of taking my time and giving a lot of thought into this project. I wouldn’t have expressed my thoughts in any other way because sometimes it’s hard to express your thoughts talking. I will forever be proud of my artwork. I would change how big his head was. I would have liked to added more details and tried to express my thoughts a little clearer.

In conclusion, this project was a great way for me to represent my thoughts and feelings. I learned how to use new material and I am glad I did. This project was a great way to show how everyone feels and maybe even let out some stressed because of all the classes we have and assignments.

Alex Bonner

Art

Nov 2

Artist statement

Artist Statement

For the quarter 1 project, we had to draw a self portrait of anyone and have it convey an important message to you.   I drew a picture of me back when I was on treatment for Leukemia.  This picture is of me getting chemotherapy but instead of chemo, I drew in all the emotions and things I was feeling during my experience.  During treatment I felt a lot of different things.  My emotions were all over.  I was sad a lot of the time, sometimes happy, tired, grateful, I tried to convey this in the picture.  

The picture is me bald.  I have a port in my chest which I used when I got chemo.  There is a bag of chemo going through me.  I specifically made the chemo in the backround yellow because that was the color of one of the chemos that made me feel most sick.  My goal was to make my skin color look on more of the pale side being I was sick.  I drew makeup on myself because it was one of the things I got into when I was sick to help me feel more pretty.  The things I drew in my chemo bag were the emotions I was feeling.  

I drew the litle explosion spark to express me going crazy.  I drew the skull to represent feeling so “dead” and out of it.  I drew the heart because I was grateful for the expirience and meeting the people I met.  It shaped me into the person I am today. I drew the “zzz” to represent how tired I was physically and emotionally.  I drew the first pump to represent me as a fighter.  The shot and pill bottle was to represent treatment.  The upside down over represents me being over with it.   The happy and sad face represented my moods changing often about things.  And lastly the survivor ribbon represents me being a survivor.  

The tools I used to make this picture was a pencil and colored pencils.  I chose colored pencils because I wanted the final product to have a light easy to look at appeal, not too many bright colors to distract from the point of the drawing.  

My current works relates to my previous work because of the style and materials I used.  Colored pencils is a material I usually use and this is a style of drawing I have done before when it comes to drawing people.   Something I might use next time is oil pastel because I have not used them in a while and it would be nice to try again.  

These are the steps I took for creating this piece.  I brainstormed some different ways to convey the message.   I looked up some up pictures of myself to base my drawing off.   looked at each picture and drew what I saw (I looked at pictures of chemo bags, ports, shots, etc.)  After that I got colored pencils and colored in the picture.  I got it critiqued from Ms Hertz and fixed the background which was her one piece of advice.  

I had a picture inspire me for my work.  I saw a beautiful picture of a girl who was bald which inspired the style I drew my picture in.  I tried to get all the details on her face but make them look similar to mine.  https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1CADEAA_enUS761US761&biw=1366&bih=702&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=bald+girls+tumblrwith+makeup&oq=bald+girls+tumblrwith+makeup&gs_l=psy-ab.3...13707.14542.0.14627.6.6.0.0.0.0.123.529.1j4.5.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..2.1.121...0i13i30k1.0.yXmEWb2EUEM#imgrc=vzlmV8eeRh9Z7M: (link to the picture).

A certain technique to the picture that is important is the light pencil marks.  I tried to make it light and simple to not take away from the message of the drawing.  Personally when I was making this I did not learn a lot of new techniques.  Art is something I have done a lot before so this was nothing new to me.  

The thing I am most proud of in this piece is the girl I drew representing me.  I think I drew her well with good detail to tell what it is.  Also proud of the things I drew to represent my emotions during treatment.  

Personally I don’t think there is anything I would change about the project.  If I did it again I would maybe try a different material to try something new, but I really like how it turned out.  Something I would try next time is new materials and to do someone other than myself.  

Something I learned from this is how to convey a message through a self portrait.  I have drawn a self portrait before but never tried to convey a message through it.  I got to explore different ways to show a message by looking at the examples and doing some brainstorming.