Shading

   You see that photo up there, well that's my shadow project.  Most people will think it's weird, unless of course you're from New Zealand.  I wanted to draw something that reminded me of home and someone who's maori is as pretty close as you can get.  When I started drawing him I used tracing paper to get a faint outline of different areas of darkness.  After the outline was complete I started with the darkest part and then tackled different areas of the face.  Even though I don't think this drawing turned out well I'm happy I at least attempted to do it.  The only thing that was bad about this is the inexperience in shadowing and that is the only thing I would change.  Personally, shadowing is hard and not so fun but I wasn't unhappy drawing him.  I learned that even if I don't like something I can do better next time.

Junk Project

 In this enjoyable project each table in trailor 14 had to design some random thing out of junk so that its shadow looked like it was something whole and interesting.  My table started by finding something to make our light a different color, the picture above shows the color best.  We used a small translucent, yellow cup and covered the head of the projector.  After we figured out what color our background would be we had to figure out what to make.

     First we thought of things that could be yellow and decided the sun would be best.  We'd made our decision and went back to the junk pile to find things for eyes, mouth, and sunbeams.  Another person at my table had already found a long strand of tough, green wire and we attempted to curve it so that it looked like sun beams, as shown in the above picture.  However after several tries we decided that the sun beams weren't going to work out because of how hard they were to manipulate.  We turned our attention to the face.  We then proceded to test round objects for the eyes and unique objects for the mouth.  One eye is a giant bead and the other is a plastic wheel from a toy, lastly the mouth is a piece of cardboard.

Even though this project looked rather simple, I am extremely happy with its outcome because looking at it makes me happy and like I've accomplished something.  If I did this project again, I would definitely hook the facial parts up to something so that they didn't have to be held up by hand.  However the most difficult part of the project was figuring out what we were going to make.  It was a hard decision and took most of our time to decide.  In the end I learnt that an art piece doesn't have to be sophisticated to be good to at least one person and/or yourself.

First Photoshop!

      Today I completed my first photoshop!  First I used a pentagonal tool in photoshop and cut out the background behind the rhino.  After doing that I moved the rhino to this beautiful image of prehisoric sea animals.  Then I shrunk the rhino a bit so that you could see the face of the magnificent Mosasaurs.  In the end I think it turned out pretty well.  :)

Unit 1

This Unit has been fun and enjoyable!  The class has been a lot more fun than I was expecting it to be.  Visual Arts has turned out to be my best class this year (not just grade wise).  I was excited to see the difference in my drawings of Mr. Sands girlfriend.  The newimals bones project was fun and I loved drawing the skeleton.  Hand painting was another fun project and probably my favorite, I did this project in an hour and trust me my hand ached for another hour afterwards.  Overall I'm looking forward to another enjoyable unit!

Thanks for reading. :P

Hand Painting

          For the Hand Paintings project we had to first draw a selected shape of our hand in our sketchbook and then over that draw our selected animal over that hand.  Once this was completed we showed the rest of the class our drawings and then painted the animal on our hands.  I had to hold my hand in a very uncomfortable position for an entire hour until I finshed painting.  Even though there was discomfort I did enjoy this project and had lots of fun.  The end result was better than I had expected but left room for improvments.  For example if you look at the picture included then you'll see there is still skin shoeing at the top and I don't belive that the painting as is realistic as I would like it to be.            

           The project went smoothly without any problems, I did exactly what I wanted to do since day one.  However if I did this project again I would probably select something without fur so that I don't sit there drawing hair the entire time.   Drawing the eye and having to hold my hand in that position for an hour were probably the hardest parts of the project.  Doing this project helped me learn about how to pain on skin,  how to draw insects, and how to have some fun on a bad day.