Autobiography

Autobiography

During the semester in this art class, I have learned techniques like how to create a distorted image, or where to find different types of texture, how to create animated character, and much more. Distorting images and texturizing were new Medias I learned during this semester. I was taught about famous artwork with distorted images, and I learned some history about animation.

During these art classes I mostly enjoyed doing the distortion assignment because it was really interesting to me. I liked how when the image is being drawn on a distorted grid it looks funny but, when the mirror cylinder is placed in front of it, the reflection made the image look proper. I had a lot of fun doing it. I also liked how this assignment was challenging.

In art I like being challenged because when I do, I try harder to make my piece come out nicer so that I would be more proud of it.

           The art I least enjoyed was the texture assignment because compared to the others, it took a long time to complete and it was tiring finding different types of textures around the school. Even though it wasn’t my favourite, I think I did a good job. I had fun searching for textures even thought it was tiring.

          This class allowed me to practise on my toning and sculpting. I have gotten better since last semester in this art class, I consider all the art assignment to be obstacles, some maybe harder than others but, I would always do my best and try to overcome all the Challenges.

  To improve my art work I must try and tone my art pieces darker and to do that, I have to keep practising and keep trying my best. I have seen an improvement from this semester compared to last.

Thematic Explanation

Thematic Explanation

My Thematic piece is called “Unbreakable Habit”. The reason why I named this piece unbreakable habit was because addictions like, smoking and drugs are bad. If someone is trying to stop doing it, it would be difficult because they would be hooked. Bad habits are not easily broken depending on how determined someone is to stop. There will always be people helping to stop the use of cigarettes and people who are supporting the habits.

            In my piece there is an arm reaching out for a package of cigarettes. On the cigarette box, it is labeled “Death Road” as the title. I choose to name it that because, it shows that smoking is bad and it will only lead to people’s death. Everyone has the choice to choose which path they want. Choosing the path of taking cigarettes basically means you are killing yourself.  The cigarette box has cigarettes about to pour out of it to show that the hand is really close to reaching it. Other hands around the arm represents people either helping to stop the use of cigarette or encouraging the use of cigarettes. The hands that are grabbing onto the arm are the people trying to help stop the use.  The hands are pulling the arm away from the box of cigarette so, that it wouldn’t be able to reach it. The other two hands on the sides are the people who are encouraging the use of cigarettes. One hand is holding a lighter. The hand is holding a lighter because it shows that if someone chooses to use cigarettes, the lighter will help by lighting up the cigarette. The other hand is holding a lit up cigarette. It means that peer pressure could be influencing someone to get into the habit of smoking. 

            Before I started “Unbreakable Habit”, it was hard for me to think of a good idea. I had no idea what I wanted to draw but, eventually ideas started to pop up in my head. I wanted to do something that related to bonds. Bonds are not easily broken. I was going to draw friends graduating or two people in love. I decided to go with drawing something that has to do with habits because I thought it was more original and no one else would have thought of doing it.

            I used pencil and pencil crayons to complete this picture. The pencil was used to draw out the sketch of the hands and box of cigarette. Once I was happy with what I drew, I started to colour with pencil crayons. I toned everything in the picture.

            I had difficulties making the hands look realistic but, I think I did a good job. I am really proud of my work. If I were to do anything differently, it would have been to work on drawing more details on the hand to make it look more realistic. Over all I spent a lot of time working on my thematic piece for this semester and I am very happy with my work.

Drawf Sculpture Assignment

Dwarf Sculpture

            This assignment is connected to the Customized Dwarf assignment. Since I finished my Distortion drawing early my teacher assigned me to make a 3D version of my dwarf out of plasticine. The grade 10s in my class got the assignment to make a sculpture of their dwarf first. Everyone in class thought it looked really fun so, my teacher assigned it as our new assignment.

            I had to start out by drawing sketches of my dwarf. The side view, front view, and the back view. Once I was done, I started using the plasticine. The plasticine needed to be softened before able to mode. I have to need it in my hands. The heat from my hands transferred into the plasticine and made it soft enough to work with. Once it was easy to us I started forming the shape of the head. Since my dwarf’s head was more of a rounder shape, I rowed the plasticine in to a spear. After, I added the side parts of the hair and the bangs. By doing that is helped form the shape of the face for my dwarf. It was hard making the hair because I would dent the face in if I pressed to hard.

Once I finished forming the hair around the face, I made the neck and shoulders of the dwarf so that the head would have something to support it self with. With the neck and shoulders done, the sculpture was easier to hold. I decided to do the rest of the hair for the back part of the dwarf.

            The hat for the dwarf was next. I attached a longer piece to the top of the head and started molding from there. To make it look like the hat was on the head, I put a rim around the space between the head and the edge of the hat. I smoothed it out so that it would blend in together and look like it’s on the dwarf’s head.  Once I had the shape I wanted I added the pom-pom at the tip of the hat. It was difficult to place it on because it wouldn’t stick easily together and it was hard for my fingers to smooth them together so that it would look like it was together as one piece.

            When I finally got the basic things of my dwarf done I started adding details like, the face and the details on the hat. I decided to start with the hat because then I wouldn’t have to worry about destroying the face. I added a pair of teddy bear ears and a nose. I blended out the rough edges to make it look like it was attached to the hat. After I was happy with the hat, I moved on to working on the face.

I rolled out two even spheres and put it in the place where the eyes are supposed to be. I pointed the ends out to make it look like a real eye. After, I put a smaller sphere into the center of the eyes to create the pupil. I added eyebrows next to complete the top part of the head. For the nose I rolled an oval shaped piece and placed it in between the eyes. After, I made the mouth by carving it into the plasticine of the head. I decided to carve it because I didn’t want to add extra plasticine and cause the lips to stick out. When I was finished with the face, I used my fingers to smoothen it out. It was difficult because my fingers had a hard time fitting into tight spaces. Once it was smooth, I completed the sculpture by adding the finishing details to the clothing, for example, the buttons on the collar of the shirt.

            I am happy with my work and by doing this assignment it gave me a chance to practice my sculpting skills. It was a fun task but more challenging then I thought it was going to be. I can’t wait to try doing it again so that I can see my improvement.   



Final Sketchbook Assignment (Celebrate)

Celebrate

The theme for this sketchbook assignment is called celebrates. I drew two people watching fireworks. I name this piece “Bright lights at night” because the fireworks light up the dark night sky. Also I liked the way it the name sound because the words rhyme.  I made the image of the two people a siluet because the couple are supposed to be in the dark watching the fireworks. Also when people see others at a firework performance, all they would see would be a siluet of them. I made the fireworks colourful. Each one has two colours in it that matched with each other. The couples are watching the fireworks on a field.

I used pencil and soft pastel to create this piece. I started off by sketching the picture and then colour it with soft pastel. At first I didn’t know if I wanted to use soft pastel to colour my image because I thought it would smudge a lot. I was scared that the colours of the fireworks would get mixed with the black of the sky. I decide to use the soft pastel because I wanted to experiment. If it goes wrong then I know next time not to use it. The pastel did help make it easier to cover the page with colours. I was going to colour in pencil crayon but, since there were big areas to cover, I knew that my colouring would leave darker lines in certain spots. Also I wouldn’t get the bright effect from the fireworks. In the picture I lightly coloured the outside of each line in the firework to make it look like it is bright.

Before I started “Bright lights at night”, I had other ideas in mind. I was going to draw a Chinese new year’s celebration with pictures of people performing a dragon dance while others danced around and lighting up Chinese fireworks but, I didn’t know if I could have completed it in time so, I went with something simpler and drew people watching fireworks.

I had trouble making the bright light effect for the fireworks because the colours would sometimes mix with the black of the sky. I had to make sure that my figures were clean after touching the black because if they won’t, the picture wouldn’t have come out properly. I also had difficulties making the siluet of the couples watching the fireworks because I had to make sure that after colouring the siluet, it wouldn’t just look like a black blob. Using the soft pastel to colour the siluet was difficult to because the pastel would accidentally go out of the lines when I was colouring. Next time I should be more careful. Making the picture look like it was taking place at night was hard because i didn’t have the right colour for the grass. The darkest green I had was to light so; I had to lightly add some black to make it darker.

If I were to change anything from the picture, it would be to have added more detail in the grass. Right now it just looked like a flat green surface. If I took more time in it, the picture would have looked better. I would have also spent more time on making the fireworks look more realistic. What I liked about the picture is the siluet of the couples because it fits in with the image.

Anamorphic Assignment

Anamorphic

                For this assignment, I was given the task to draw a distorted picture. Before I started, I had to learn about what a distortion and anamorphic was. I saw many examples of anamorphic as well.

By: Julian Beever

                An anamorphic can only be seen properly when standing in a certain angle and looking at the image. In my distorted picture, the image can only be seen properly when looking into a cylinder mirror. The cylinder reflects my image, making it look not distorted.  

This is an example of how the Cylinder Mirror works.

                I started out by finding an image on Google. I was planning to do a picture relating to the theme Alice in Wonderland because when I first thought of distortion, I thought of a strange world with many weird things. The problem was that most of the images I found were going to be very difficult to redraw on a distorted grid.

                It was difficult looking for an image. I was going to do a picture from the music series Vocaloid but, I decided not to because I wanted to do something new.

Rin & Len

                I decided to go with something simpler. As I was searching for pictures related to Alice in Wonderland, I came across a picture of two animated people with bunny ears holding a clock. I decided to use this image for my anamorphic.

                Once I had my image I wanted to draw, I used Photoshop to make the image black and white so that it would be easier to see the lines and, I placed the picture in a 10 by 10 grid. The grid will help me distort the image. I printed out the picture on the grid.

                After I had my image on the grid, I started to redraw it on a distorted grid. It was difficult because I had to draw every line on the distorted grid according to the lines positions in the 10 by 10 grid.

                It started out being hard to get the lines to fit in the squares for the distorted grid but, as I kept drawing it got easier because I started to get the idea of what line goes where. It was fun seeing how stretched out my picture was. I had to constantly put the cylinder mirror in front of my picture to see if I was doing the distortion right.

                Once I finished drawing the picture onto the distorted grid, I had to trace the distortion onto a blank paper to get rid of the grid lines. Once it was traced, I started to colour my image. I had some difficulties deciding on what colours I wanted to colour the picture with. I decided to make the girl bunny have blond hair and wear a pink and black dress. For the boy bunny, I coloured him hair brown and made his clothing black, white, and blue.

Final Piece

                I really liked how my anamorphic turned out. To me, the picture looks really cute even without looking into the cylinder mirror. I am very proud of this piece because of all the effort I put into it. I had lots of fun creating my anamorphic. 

Sketchbook Assignment (Flying)

Flying

            For this sketchbook assignment, I was assigned the theme flying. I decided to draw angels. I named this piece “Flying to Heaven”, because the angels are flying to a brighter place up in the sky. In the picture, there is a burst of light coming out from a hole in the sky. That hole would be the gate way to heaven. The angels are flying into it to return home.  There are four angels in this picture. Each angel has a special symbol to make them unique from others. The angel on the left is the angel or love and happiness, the angel below it is the angel of freedom, the angel on the right is the angel of Peace, and finally the last angel would be the angel of loyalty, that angel would be the dog. To tell that they are different, there is a symbol representing what type of angel they are on the tip of their clothing.

            This picture was completed using pencil.  I used the pencil to draw and colour the image. At first I didn’t what the image to only be black and white. I wanted to have simple colours for this picture but, I decided not to because I wanted to get more practise using pencil to add colour. In the picture I tried to make the light from heaven stand out because it was the main part of the picture showing that it is where heaven’s entrance is.  I left spaces around different parts of the picture not darkened because I wanted to make them stand out more as well.

For this assignment, I had other ideas before I thought of drawing angels. I was thinking of drawing butterflies, fairies, swans, and other birds but, I decided to do angels because I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to see if I was able to draw wings of an angel. I have tried drawing wings for other pictures but, they didn’t turn out looking good. When I finished drawing this picture, I noticed I have done better but, there is still room for improvement. I am hoping that the next time I draw wings, I could see more improvements.

I had difficulties drawing the wings and getting the bright light effect in the gate way to heaven. For the wings, I had to look at different images before I could decide on how I wanted my wings to look. I drew them looking like typical angel wings. For the bright light, I used pencil to make the outer edge of the ray darker to show that the light is brighter than its surrounding.  

If I were to change this piece, I would have used different colours to colour the picture or spend more time toning with the pencil. I would have also worked on the wings of the angel more, so that it would look natural. What I like about this picture is the angel of loyalty. I decided to add him in the picture because I love dogs and dogs are also a good symbol of loyalty.

Sketchbook Assignment (Slither)

Slither

For this sketch book assignment, I had to draw something that represented slither. I drew a snake slithering. In my drawing, you can see a snake approaching a field mouse that will soon be his lunch. I named this piece “The mouse and the snake” because in the picture, it focuses on the mouse and the snake. I drew the snake looking at the mouse with its tongue stuck out to make it easier to inference what happens next. I drew the mouse looking at a piece of food it found to make it look like the mouse didn’t know what was happening or that the snake was behind it.

This picture was drawn and colour using pencil. I started the picture out like the others. First sketching the image, and then going over the lines I liked. Once I like what I have drawn I used a darker pencil and shaded the image.  At first I didn’t want the picture to be only black and white. I wanted the image to have different colours. I decided to go with black and white because after colouring and toning the snake, I realized that it might not look good with other colours in the image. When I first thought of a snake, I thought that a typical snake would be black or gray so, I started toning the snake in pencil. It was hard to decide if I should have used different colours in the image or just leave it a simple black and white. I didn’t want to ruin the image by adding different colour so, I kept it safe and made the image black and white. It was a good decision because usually, most of the art I do with the colours black and white turns out looking good.

Before I drew “The mouse and the snake”, I had other ideas like drawing a snail or a dragon with its body swirled around a mountain. I thought that the snail idea was too simple and wouldn’t look nice because it wouldn’t have a lot of details. The dragon idea wasn’t so bad but, I didn’t think that it related to the theme slither, It was more of a crawl or a climbing action. I thought of the idea of a snake while I was watching a show on animal planet. To make it look like the snake was slithering, I put a pray in front of it so that people would know that the snake is slithering to the mouse.

For this picture, I had some difficulties drawing and toning the snake. I started this picture without an idea of how a snake’s head is shaped. I had to go on Google and look at different images of a snake’s head before I got my snake’s head looking proper. Once I finished drawing an outline sketch of my snake, it was hard to draw the scales on the snake. I had to view more pictures on Google before I got the texture I wanted. After I finished drawing the scales and the rest of the details, I realized that I didn’t know what patterns a snake would have on its body. More images where viewed before I got the different patterns on my snake. Drawing the snake was what I struggled most for this picture but, I completed this drawing with a good looking snake.  

This is a view of the head i drew.

This picture helped me draw the scales on my snake.

I used this image to help with the patterning on my snake. This picture was also used to do part of the head shape and the scales.

I drew the field mouse based on this image.

I really like what I have drawn for slither because I worked hard on drawing the snake and, since my first time drawing a realistic snake turned out nice, I could use what I have learned and apply it to future pictures.