Concentration: The Emperor

This is the first oil painting I've done since the disastrous still life that I did at the beginning of the year, and honestly, I feel like the results are a lot better. I have not finished, and hopefully will by tomorrow, but I feel that this is a good piece, especially considering where it's coming from, and that it shows a lot of improvement.
    This is a painting of my brother, who does not want me to divulge information about him ever, so I will only say that the Emperor is a card of strength.  It is associated with the number four, which is considered one of the stablest numbers in numerology, and is also associated with the earth, which is the stablest element.  I have never known my brother to compromise on anything, and his unyielding sense of morality is one of his strongest qualities. A bit like Ron Swanson!

A draft sketch of the shadows that I really liked!

Sketching it out on the canvas. Note the nose.

I fixed the nose! And added shading areas.

Beginning the fabric, which is always my favorite part.

The bricks will keep changing, I kept
painting over them. 

The wall hanging on the left really annoys me.  

The bleachers were also difficult. 

I know the color of his skin looks weird in the pictures,
but it looks better in real life I promise!

I think the crown is pretty great. 

Background people and fixing the face!

More background people and extra
details!

I would like everyone to know that I regret my decision to stay on blogger and not switch to weebly when I had the chance.  It's just not letting me move the pictures! That's why this looks so horrible, okay, I promise I'm an artist. Sort of. 

     But more about this painting! It is fun to make, and I like it.  Also, the oil staying wet longer has allowed me to go back and fix the little things, and honestly I feel like I have paid so much more attention to this painting than I have paid attention to my art in a long time. And I know it's been taking forever and we only have a few more weeks to do everything, but I get a lot of satisfaction from knowing that I have done this painting as well as I could. 

    I didn't use any liquin either! The last oil painting I did, I doused everything in liquin, but I didn't use any this time, and the paint went on so smoothly. I love the way everything blends together, and how you can still see some of the brush strokes. It makes the painting look so concrete and abstract at the same time.  

    I will be posting the final painting as soon as I finish it, which will be some time next week, and I am excited to show you my next series of six!  Hopefully my improvements will be evident as I go through each medium again.  

Concentration: The Moon

The moon card is a symbol of creativity and intuition, as well as an uncertain or vaguely identified future. Dave chose this card for himself, and those were the qualities he mentioned when I asked why he chose this card.  He also said that this card corresponded with his birthday,  So, I guess, that was why he got the moon.
    Though the symbolic aspect of this card might not be up to par with the others: Charcoal!!! The light of my life, the beauty of my soul.  I started this twenty minutes before class ended on Wednesday and finished it halfway through class on Monday.  I know that I should not be proud of my speed, but it was really refreshing to not do a piece where I got all caught up in the specifics and was able to just draw.  Also it came out 1/4s decent, so I'm pretty happy.

Day 1

Like, 15 minutes later 

The linework is represented here.  Um, He chose an odd picture to send me. He's making a face while looking down into the camera, which is held out at arm's length, but the face he's making looks sort of like his normal face.  That is to say, I had some trouble with the facial proportions and his arm.  Also, Randy, the cat.  I should not be allowed to draw animals.

Day 3

End of day 3

I think the fabric came out okay. And, props to me, I think the moon was a fantastic idea, and I think I did it very well. I tried to match the craters and stuff up to the actual moon, but I don't think I did it that well.  Also, I redid his eyes several times, but I don't think I ever got them just how they should be. He was widening them, and his head was also titled, so it was difficult to accurately draw his face. Honestly, the only thing that I feel went wrong here was my initial drawing, because my charcoal technique is amazing.
     Just saying

The final

I thought this was going to be the final
but it wasn't that great
 

Overall, I am happy with house this turned out.  Yes, I could have done better, probably, and no, this doesn't really look like the picture I was given, but I think that it is a good addition to my concentration, and it looks pretty much how I imagined it would look when I began. 

Concentration: The Fool

The Fool, or card 0 in the deck, is seen as an optimist who wears their heart on their sleeve and ventures fearlessly into the unknown.  Often pictured with a bindle over their shoulder and white dog at their heels, the card is seen as a sign of blithe innocence and freedom.The person whom I've chosen to represent this card is one of my oldest friends, Ryan, who remains upbeat, even annoyingly so, when I find it difficult to do so.
        There is a reason behind each medium that I choose, and for Ryan I chose prismas because I feel that the medium is immutable, and it takes a lot of effort to create something from prismas that is worth any attention.  Both of those descriptors, I feel, could be applied to my friendship with Ryan.  Although, prismas remain my worst artistic enemy.  I thought I had it down with the mice, but honestly, I should just stay away from faces.
       That's what Ryan said: "Maybe stay away from faces, dearie."

One of the final days

Close up of the face before I put other shading in

The face before I erased it the first time

Day 1, photo 1: I was so hopeful 

Beginning the face for the first time

I had high hopes still, on day 2

Say what you want about my artwork, but I do cloth
pretty well 

Final!

 Honestly, I don't think the final was as bad as it could have been. Did I make some poor artistic choices? Yes, but who would I be if I didn't?  The picture was taken in the gym lobby, and that's why I made the walls yellow.  I wish they weren't so yellow, but the color lends a more "prisma" feel to the entire pieces.  Like, it meets my expectations of what I think a prismacolor piece should look like.
      I think my most daunting obstacle is my lack of talent as an artist.  Because I truly dedicate myself to my work, and I try to make my artwork beautiful.  But my vision exceeds the my capacity to express it.  I hope I don't wind up insulting someone by drawing their face poorly.  Everybody I know deserves way more than that.
      Speaking in terms of the work, though, I think that this was one of the best prisma color things I have ever done my life. Not only is it relatively large, I believe I managed to keep a consistency of quality across the entire work, technique wise.  I wish, of course, that I had done better with color, especially his skin color, and better with the shape of his face.  To me, this picture just doesn't look like my friend. I know that the AP graders are unaware of what my friends look like, but I am personally disappointed in myself.
       His knee, shirt, and jacket, though. I am proud of those.

Concentration: The Empress

The Empress is card number 4 in the Major Arcana deck, and it symbolizes dual aspects of femininity, strength and beauty.  Emma Grace, who I chose to be the subject of this portrait, exemplifies both of these qualities.  Not only is she one of the most gracious and beautiful people I know, both personality wise and physically, she is strong in a way that I one day hope to be.
     Sadly, I feel that I could not capture this with my piece.  It is acrylic paint on illustration board, and the photo was one she took of herself.  The odd angle in the photo, and my difficulties with the colors in this piece were really a detriment to the overall effect.  People who have seen the piece told me they liked the simplified look, but I am disappointed that I could not capture the intricacies I could see in the photo.

Day 1

Day 3

Day 5

Day 6

One of my biggest difficulties with this piece was mixing the paint, especially the skin tone. Every time I wanted to touch up a shadow or add a highlight, I had to completely mix new color of paint because I found that it wasn't matched the to tone that I had put down before it.  
        Another difficulty was in finding the shadows themselves. The photo was taken in soft focus, and I found myself having to guess where the shadows would be if the light hadn't been so completely evened out.  Most of that happened under her chin and across her chest.
     I also had a lot of difficulty with the shape of her face, just because of how it's positioned? Also, her make up in the photo made her eyes seem bigger, and I kept drawing them twice as large as they should have been.  I think my drawing was the best part of this piece, though, and am sort of disappointed that I painted over it.
      I do like the roses, though, and her eyes.  Those were two pieces of the painting that I felt were particularly strong.  I am glad that I got this chance to work with acrylics, and hopefully next time I do so I will be able to improve even further.

Concentration: The Sun

Initial sketch 

On the big sheet of paper  

Coloring in the hair 

Highlights and the shirt  

Starting on the skin

After I added the sun 

With the background

For my second concentration piece, I focused on my long-time friend Aiyana, whom I've known since I was in third grade. In all that time. Aiyana has been one of the nicest people in my life, and she has always been there for me. Whenever I am feeling doubtful about myself, she is there, an unyielding pillar of hope and change that inspires me to be a better person. As the sun card, in tarot, is a symbol of optimism and the promise of a better dawn, so Aiyana is a constant reminder of all of the joy of life.
      Speaking more to the mechanics of the piece, I am not happy with how this turned out. Looking at it now, I'm going to have to add more hair to her forehead to make anything proportionate at all, and the hand itself still really angers me.  Before I put the background in, everything was looking alright, but the moment I put it in, her hand and arm seemed much too small in proportion to the rest of her face.  Hopefully I will be able to fix that.
     Also, I sort of tried to do something with the colors? Like, the top is supposed to be yellow, her shirt is supposed to be predominantly blue, and the background is green. I don't know, I thought that it would be an interesting composition? But, upon reflection, I see that it doesn't work out so well.
    I think the gradient in the sun works out very well. I wasn't going to do it, but I think that it was a good decision. Also, I had a lot of trouble with the skin, and I'm proud of how well that turned out. I used a pale peach color as the intermediate color, and then used white and pink for highlights as well as orange a light brown for the shading. I was really proud of that innovation, because the orange definitely made  her skin more vibrant.
    I don't really have anything else to add to this dissertation at the present moment.  Other than the fact that I will be changing her hairline as soon as possible.  And also possibly doing some more shading on the arms and on the hand.  Also, over the right eye.

Final picture

Concentration: The Star

For my concentration, I decided to do the people in my life as tarot cards.  And the first card I chose was The Star, or number seventeen.  The Star means inspiration and guidance, and someone who provides both of those things in my life is one of my best friends, Allie.  At the time when I was supposed to be starting this project, I only had one picture of her and no way to get more pictures by the deadline, so I referred to a picture of her that was a year old?  It's been her contact picture since last spring.
     Anyways, I decided to do this picture in pen and watercolor, because I had a lot of fun doing that with the interior spaces.  I used watercolor pencils where I could, though, because I really enjoyed doing the mixed-media map/nature vs. mechanical fruits with those.
     Another reason that I chose watercolors is that I feel the gentler colors of the medium are more in sync with Allie's personality.  I almost wish that I'd made the background darker to make her stand out more.  Also, I added a crown of stars to her head, to emphasize the point of the painting.  Originally, I was going to make the crown of stars by using a wax stop in the shape of the stars, in the same position that they're at right now, but since I put the wax on first it got really dirty.  Because it wasn't standing out as well as I had wanted it to, I scraped it off with my fingernail and painted the glitter on with modge-podge.

Reference picture

First full-sized sketch 

Adding color!

More color . . . 

Beginning the background

More of the background

A close up of her face. 

Almost done!

The final!

A final close up of her face with the crown of stars

I think that my pencil drawing in the beginning was much better than what I was left with, but I believe that the final product has its own sort of charm to it? It was really difficult to make skin color, and I messed up on her right arm. I know you can't tell, but the paper is all peeling off.  It pretty much blends into the rest of the picture, but.
     I was asked to write more about why I created this piece as I did, and all I can honestly say to that is that it felt right.  The colors of all Star cards that I've previously seen are softer, and the medium of water color also felt appropriate.  I feel like it added a texture to the painting that otherwise would have just been a girl standing in her kitchen.  I don't have a better answer to why than these.  I wanted to paint Allie in a way that was eye catching, as a star is, but not harsh or shocking to look at, because stars are quietly beautiful and don't draw attention to themselves. Hopefully, I communicated all of that in this piece.

    I know the background is a bit rough. I didn't get the perspective right initially, and I kept making snap decisions with the guache, which I used for the background.  The crown of stars around her head represent the ideas of the card itself, though I plan on making the distinction more clear in further pieces.  

      Overall, I like the piece a lot.  I know it has its faults, but I also feel that some of the faults fall into the acceptable category for watercolor and my style.  

Maps and Nature vs. Mechanical

Originally, I was planning on doing the Nature vs. Mechanical project, with just like fruits that were cut open so you could see cogs and stuff inside of them? But they would be placed on a table, or in a normal setting near a fruit bowl, so you would assume that this was some sort of alternative reality where it was completely acceptable to have mechanical fruit.  I guess I was going for more of an absurdist thing.

    So, I drew out my apple and my banana--they're water color pencil--and then I drew the cogs and gears in pen, and then I painted them with water. They came out looking fantastic, and I was really proud of myself, so I started on the marbled granite of my counter using oil pastels.  Honestly, it looked terrible, and I was really disappointed. 

   

       So, I did what any normal person would do and I cut the pieces of fruit out individually.  As you can see here.  Now that I had the individual fruits, though, I needed a background to put them on.  I had already planned on doing the map project after I was finished with this one, so I decided that I would just combine the ideas.
      I had a better plan for the map project than the nature vs. mechanical project, so I continued on with that theme, which was road trip.  I know that that was a pretty stereotypical idea for a map, but I was going to do a monster road trip. So, I sort of incorporated that into this piece.
      The map that I chose was of Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs.  Ms. Rossi said that she liked the little newspaper and pen monsters I'd put in the water, so I decided to really amp it up and make the piece about monsters attacking New York City? And this was just someone's plan to get out. So, I drew escape routes directly onto the map, wrote a list of things that you would need to do if you were escaping the city, and sponged holes into the paper itself, and glued monsters coming out of it.  On top of all that, I added my banana and my apple because I thought that they fit the idea well. Sort of a steampunk atmosphere and also the color scheme went well together.
     Whenever I make collages, I'm thinking of creating more of a story that I do when I'm making another sort of art.  The combination of different objects from different locations lends itself more to storytelling for me.  So, the idea behind this is that someone is quickly leaving their home, and they have fruits that are lying on top of their map.  Fruits and a bunch of other stuff that they'll need, as well as representations of their future and what's going on around them. So the piece is a still life of a moment in time.  It's not a very cohesive idea, I know, but I love it a lot.  
     The note in the middle of the page was one that I found in the book of maps, and it's handwritten by my uncle. It's directions to somewhere, so that is the coolest piece of this collage.

This is a planning stage. 

This is probably my third or forth stage. I hadn't even glued the banana down yet, or glued down and
torn off a thing of white tissue paper.  

This is the final! 

     I don't know if you can tell, but there's a monster crawling out of the map by the banana, and then there are a bunch of cut out letters that say 'avoid water' like a ransom note in the middle. The picture on the bottom is of my mom's car with a bunch of luggage on top booking it down the highway. And the gears in the top left and bottom right corners are yellow, to keep the banana from standing out so much.  I definitely could put more stuff on top of all this, but I don't want to obscure any of these details, because I'm so attached to them (that's a problem I have with collages, I think), and I wouldn't know what else to put.