AP Art Project One- Insert Series

 Through each piece of art I make, my personal choice, interest or expression is always present. One of my favorite mediums to use is a basic black pen. Stippling is my most common technique but after playing around on a few sketchbooks I created my own little version of pen stroke. Dragging, shooting and letting my pen run freely on my paper gave me very unique gesture drawings. the human body is so beautiful and it is my favorite object to gesture draw. Adding red ink and charcoal were new things I tried out on this piece which I am glad I did. The second and third mediums add an extra dimension and also depth to my figures.

I took a risk with this pen and ink by not specifying the gender of my bodies. By not including hair, certain boy parts or even facial features, I let my audience define and insert their own genders. One thing I struggle with is gender. I absolutely hate identifying my bodies by gender and actually find I am limiting my audience. I want my art to speak to every one, Every race, every age, every background and ofcourse every gender. I feel people underestimate how alike other people are to them. I know I have something in common with every single person on planet and Earth and I believe this piece definitely represents that. 

My personal story to this piece is that the two figures are both me. I titled this the Insert Series  because I want people to make this work personal. For me, I constantly am relying and reverting to my innocence. The adolescent me is often stressed, frustrated and scared about how fast my world is turning and constantly changing. I always wish to go back to being a little girl. What was my biggest worry? I doubt I even had one, playing on a playground, drinking out of a curly straw and laying in my parents' arms when struggles arose. This work examines how much I miss when life was simpler, before I was exposed to the evil of the world. 

Art IV Honors, Projects 8&9

The drawing class was using charcoal and I thought it would be a great medium for my eighth piece. Thinking it would be easy to shade and show contrast, I decided on buildings. Why I thought charcoal would be easy, I have no idea. It was constantly smudging and after each day of work, the charcoal was always leaving the paper. The buildings I drew were based off the Brazilian slums. I titled this piece A Conflict of Interest. How one city can go from drab and dreary to big and promising. 

Aside from watercolor, paint is not a first choice. Our teacher made oil painting a requirement and I had no choice but to comply. I had initially picked a sketch I had drawn out but with feedback I went with a portrait I had taken of myself. (A selfie basically.) I was told blending skin color would be easy, and it was. 

I chose warm colors to portray the intense heat I feel from critisicism. Since the beginning of time I have yearned for a place or a feeling of acceptence. In the painting, my eyes represent me finding what I was looking for. I titled this picture Home, because my search is now over. 

Art IV, Project 6&7

I started getting more into my concentration and decided my focus would be on myself. Mental disorders always interested me, people can't see what's on the inside. This piece was a focus on the difference from being busy to overwhelmed. This line is thin and easily crossed for people like myself. Feeling overwhelmed with day to day life, not having time to do what you need to is exhausting. Some days I wish my head would stop spinning and I feel like cutting it off. I express my relief through the color change of purple and red. How relieved I would feel if my stopped feeling overwhelmed. 

Why didn't anyone tell me collages would be tricky? Especially one so large. I started flipping through National Geographic magazines and started pulling out landscapes that I used for my background. I had no idea what my focus would be. I started finding pictures of people looking from different view points and arranged them by perspective. This was a multi-media piece using acrylic paint, tissue paper and magazine clippings.

Project Five, Art IV

One of my required mediums to use was paper sculpture. I was excited and nervous about doing something 3D. I thought about doing an animal but felt that would be too difficult to accomplish in three weeks. I decided on a tree because although the shapes were simple, there was so much depth I could add to them. 

I knew I was using white paper but still wanted to bring color to my piece. I thought adding colorful message slips. 

This project  took up so much of my time. I placed the man at the trunk of the tree hiding and slouched to express gloom in the midst of something so beautiful. 

With different angles of my tree in some you can see the man slouched and in other angles you cannot see him at all. I decided to title this Somebody's Christmas because even on such a beautiful day like Decemeber 25th, there's no telling who might not be enjoying that day and why. 

Project Three, Art IV

My inspiration from my third work comes from a class mate. I like the patterns tye dye makes, because it's not repetition at all. It's more of a different shapes repeated in random places. 

I wanted to recreate this tye dye image onto paper with watercolor. Blue was definately the color I wanted to go but India Ink was something I picked up. I started randomly blowing on this small sheet and realized they had turned into trees. 

I tried to recreate what I had done on the practice sheet onto my final. The blues on my final were so intense and the shots of yellow were perfect. 

My teacher felt this piece was incomplete and I agreed. I needed something for this forest, to bring it to life. For weeks I couldn't decide on what should be apart of my blue-green forest. My deadline was approaching fast and I still hadn't thought of anything. I was I desperate need of life. I had suddenly found it! I added yellow to highlight them, I didn't need to add life to piece because it was already there. I couldn't believe I was searching for things to pile upon my forest but the life was already there. My forest had lungs! It was already breathing. 

I titled this The Living Forest, for obvious reasons. 

Project Number Four, Art IV

I love my hair, there, I said it. I love painting and drawing and showing the texture of it. My curls have definition and tons of depth and I felt acrylic paint would be a great tool to express that. 

I immediately knew I did not want to just use a canvas for this piece. A few if my peers were working with cardboard and I loved the idea of the it's texture coming through the piece. But I felt I could take that idea a step further...

I was excited to use the wood but it was also driving me up a wall. No matter how much paint I used, the wood would just soak it up. I admit to not working so neatly but I also prefer not to jut slab globs of paint onto a project. It took over two weeks til the colors finally starte working together and were made bold... 

I am not that into realistic drawing nor am I great at it. Although I painted all three bodies from the same photograph I interpreted them in three very different ways. No nose the same, nor the brush strokes on each collard shirt. I wanted the colors I chose to reflect that as well. Who has orange skin and purple hair? Who do you know with deep black piercing eyes? I decided to title this Surfaces. 

First Two Projects, Art IV Honors

I took our first assignment very seriously.  My theme for this project was A Moment in Time and  my topic was Movement. 

I was a liitle rusty from being inactive over the summer and wanted to showcase my best talent: pen and ink. I used several techniques to separate the trees, from the raven, from the sky, book and glass jar. 

Stippling, hatching, cross hatching and a few techniques that I made up helped blend and create variation. 

I felt like my first work wasn't personal. What's more personal than creating something around yourself? My younger brother took this photo of me in my garage. My original idea was to do a simple pen & ink. But water color soon invaded its way in...

I really liked my piece in black and white but people kept telling me it was 'incomplete'. They were right although I had put myself at the center of the piece I was still blending in. I wanted to pop...

I brought some color to my work, to me. I chose the brightest colors too, yellow orange and red. I love how vibrant I look. Looking at this five feet away I am the only thing that stands out.