In my art piece of still life, I depicted a corked glass bottle, positioned behind a foamed banana. The pieces were displayed on a standard table in Mrs. Hertz’s room. When viewing the pieces the way I aligned them was to have the bottle be a strong vertical on the extreme left and the banana to be a strong horizontal with a curve on the extreme bottom. This allowed for a lot of negative space to be explored behind these two objects. This negative space contains the texture of the table these objects are sitting on.

         In this composition I also remembered to include a horizon line on the very top of the picture which shows the edge of the table. This was important to show that the objects are not floating in space but have a place that they sit. I also tried to use some shadow and light, especially on the bottle. Because the bottle is transparent you can see the lines through it. The cork also has pencil marks to create texture.

       In general, I tried to create a simple composition that is also strong because of its use of extreme large shapes and where I positioned the objects on the page. I tried to make the negative  space as interesting and important as the positive space. I think this piece is successful because it is balanced. I think I could make it better if I added more shadow to the banana as I did with the bottle. Also, I think I would leave more space under the banana so you could see the bottom and some shadow under it so that it really looks like it is laying on a table. All in all I am pretty happy with this drawing.

Tykeiah Martin

Ms. Hertz

Art

Artist statement

December 20. 2017

  My art piece essentially represents the thought, of overthinking. Starting off with a head, specifically the perspective of the side of the face. Leading to a person sitting on top of a head concluding them to also thinking. The thinking person lies on top of a thinking head. Portraying a lot of thoughts. I would like my work to communicate for those who are looking in, is that I'm an artist who thinks a lot about everything and the image of a thinking person on top of a head, visually shows my idea of overthinking. The tools that were used to create this image were a charcoal pencil that shapes the head and the person on top of it. While outlining the art with a white charcoal pencil, to add attention to the person. Also, I used Conte crayon for a darker outline. Leading to the smudge stick with smoother lines in the photo. Lastly, creating this drawing on textured paper. With an edgy effect. I think my old work relates to my new work because often I use the charcoal materials and it’s wrapped also around the mind and me personally. When created this picture, first I stepped into creating the side of the face and looking for the right angle. Then I created the body sitting on top of the head to show a feeling of the body simply relaxing in the process of thinking. Next, i started to shade around the body on the head to show thoughts prospering on top of the body around the head, concluding the ideas altogether. Then I used the smudge stick in 7 out to smooth out the thoughts surround the head of a person, next I began to outline with the white charcoal. Salvador Dali is an artist who focuses on surreal, which is what my art is most likely compared to. I think a certain technique is important to the work to enhance your quality and create the image that you see in your head for others to visually see from your perspective. A new technique I learned was starting off darker shade leading to lighter shade from smoothing it up and down. I'm most proud that I was able to reflect exactly what I was thinking on paper, and now I can let others have a look at what I might be thinking. If there was one thing is could change about this picture is the shading I used around the image. Throughout the completing of this art project I learned to justify what you want, and it can be however you prefer to cause it's yours, and if you use the right utensils everyone else can see your vision as well.

For this quarter I decided to do a Still life Image . My art had a story behind it just a light one though not to crazy.My Still life image included a Mason Jar, Mortar and Pestle, and Grapes. For this creation I used shading pencils, regular pencil, eraser, and a color pencil. I wanted my Still Life Image  to be somewhat dry and not too shiny this is why I chose these tools . My portrait consist of no colors what’s so over making it bland but detailed I really like this because the art really speaks to you. The colors don’t throw you off you just sit there and look at it.

This Still Life Image has a short story behind it. The creation of grape juice and what not.. In my creation the mortar and pestle are shaded more because they’re behind the Mason jar and for the grapes they’re resting on the mortar and pestle causing the top part to be shaded as well. The story is the creation of grape juice of course. Mortar and pestle are used to smash herbs and make medicines and what not. So basically you smoosh the grapes until they’re all mushy and nasty with mortar and pestle liquidate it and then pour it in the Mason Jar.

I Am more of a visual learner so while drawing I pulled up images of the things you see in front of me as well as had the physical objects in my general direction. While doing the outlines of the object I made sure to make it poke out which is why I used the shading pencil. I then had to rearrange the initial positioning of the objects to create as little space there was. When done with that I used different shading utensils giving the objects distinct colors making sure no object mimicked the other.. An artist that inspired me is Willem Kalf.. His art is very abstract and he’s known for doing Still Life Art.

If I could change one thing it’d be to add more color, add a surface, and redo the grapes. I hope to get better with the shading.

All in all I feel as though this project went really well. I learned a lot while doing this such as the different type of utensils as well as multiple ways you can use them. I also learned that I have a little bit of artist in me. I was actually proud of my art it looked great! I also learned that something so basic could come out so complicated or be considered abstract art when lots of time is put in.  I hope to use my experience now for projects later on in the future. I can’t wait to do more projects close or similar to this one and see the improvements.

 My artwork is a drawing of two warriors that are ninjas but they are out of uniform. They have elemental abilities and supernatural powers in general. I didn’t generally want my artwork to communicate anything, it wasn’t a deep peice that makes you think. It was just something to look at, that I think looks cool. It does show my personal interest though. It shows that anime and cartoons influence me a lot. My project involved mixed media as well. I used charcoal, color pencils,a pencil and a micron pen to add depth and feeling to my drawing. The charcoal was used to shade and add a sense of tone and shadow. My color pencils just gave the drawing color and I went over the drawing with the micron pen.

 This drawing was similar to my other artwork because it started out with a pencil sketch. It also uses the same process as my artwork in the past. The theme was very similar as well. I used to frequently draw super powered warriors with elemental abilities. To create this drawing I first started out with a stick figure base of how they would be posed. After that I flushed them out, adding muscle and more details like facial structure and features, then added clothes. I went in with the micron pen and outlined the drawing. I then chose my colors for my characters and colored them. Going in with the micron pen was important because it stopped some of the potential smearing that the pencil, color pencil and charcoal could have done. So I believe it was important to use it. I also learned how to use charcoal. For example you can spread it with your fingers opposed to coloring the whole thing with the whole charcoal stick/pencil.

 An artist that inspires me is akira toriyama the creator of the dragon ball series. Other artist of popular series like naruto inspire me. A youtuber by the name of Jazza inspires me a lot. His artwork looks more western, he has a comic book style. The thing I’m most proud of is my character with the low cut face. It came out exactly like I wanted it too.

For my Q2 project, I decided to make a charcoal drawing. This drawing is supposed to be a man with wings looking into the moonlight.