Fourth Quarter Blog post

    This quarter I did something unorthodox; I stuck with the with the assigned work and did not opt out to work on my own projects. I decided that this quarter I would do that, as I felt the last few I did not produce as powerful pieces as I could have. Been having to stick to a strict plan of having a new thing a week, I had to stay on top of my work or less I would fall behind (which did happen for a bit.)
    I started this quarter off creating an abstract drawing. I was undecided of what to do, as it had to be more than just an abstract image, it had to convey motion within it. I had many different ideas that I thought of doing, but instead of spending a large amount of time brainstorming, I just let my hand and pencil do the work. I started to draw an outline of a large circle, then began to draw smaller ones within. The idea of creating something black and white popped into my head, but that would be too tuxedo like. I instead started drawing lines that extended outwards from the center of the circles, which started to look a bit like needs coming out. I still did not see any motion within this drawing, but saw abstract thoughts were forming. I topped off my sketch by drawing lightening around it. When the lightening touched the points coming out of the center of the circle, they would turn the same color as the lines. If they did not, they would remain blue. Next I took this to black paper and used a white pencil to re-illustrate it. This allowed me work out any faults before moving onto my third design, where I added color to it. In this one, I decided to use four colors; blue; green; red; and yellow. I made the different circles in the drawing a pattern of yellow and green, as I think that is an attractive color combination. Next, I made all of the swirls red, and the lightening that touched it. All of the ones that were not red were blue. I really enjoyed this piece, because it allowed me to learn to use phases to create something, instead of jumping right into it and being disappointed with the outcome.
    The next thing I made was an observation drawing of an unclose object. For this, I chose a hole in the wall. I can not give any particular reason why I chose the hole in the wall, other than it was the first thing I saw when handed the assignment. I did this drawing for two hours; I'm not sure why I did it for so long, but I did. I'm happy with the results, but I could have only put an hour into it and have done another drawing. I learned from this drawing to better manage my time to do more within a limited amount.
    After this, I did some make-up work that I did not get around to. I made my abstract emotion drawings. This concept was difficult for me. I associate abstract with something that is indescribable, and I associate emotions that are visually describable. Combining something indescribable and describable was a difficult concept for me to first approach, but after thinking about it, I was able to muster up two drawings. The one I did has an eye in the center with a tear, being watched by many different eyes. This single eye that has a tear running is what all of the other eyes have their attention affixed on. For what reasons? They are indescribable. The only emotion that is describable is the eye with the tear. My second drawing I split between the center. One side depicts more vibrant and lovely things, while the other has things that are mournful and saddening. The only way to understand emotion in the second drawing is by looking at the lips, but without seeing the rest of the face it is difficult to understand what emotion is trying to be expressed, making this indescribable.
    My next two weeks I had to make some alterations. The weather was too poor during those two weeks to go outside, so my drawings were inside the room. I used this time to try and teach myself how to drawing ceilings and floors during this time; more specifically rows of both. I've always struggled with drawing things that are drawn in the drawing far, then come up close. I was able to get the walls in the drawings down well, but the ceilings posed as an issue during my drawings. I ultimately decided to accept it as how I draw ceilings. When I originally drew my ceilings and floors, I did not particularly like them, but I do now. They are me.
    The final drawing I did this quarter was an abstract of a face and a mask. The one inspired the other. For this I wanted to do something that extremely quirky, but interesting. For the face, which was a rough draft to the mask, I designed it in a way where the mouth took up about a third of the face, and there were several rows of teeth. For the eyes, I designed to have one horizontal and the other vertical. I put two eye brows over the eyes and completed it. As I was looking at the drawing as it was finished, I felt more could be done and removed to it. In the rough draft of the second one, I made it so there were only two rows of teeth, as the multiples in the other one were a bit strange. Next. I turned the base into a mask by drawing the dark spots under the lips to the parallel side. I kept the one eye hole on the right hand sign, as I liked it like that, and kept the other one unsymmetrical, but changed the hole to a circle. Both of these ideas have some sort of design surrounding it. The circle has sharp twirls around it, while the sharp eye has a flower on the cheek and an eyebrow above. I'm particularly proud of this piece, as I really enjoyed making it, and I think it came out pretty well.
    I'm glad this quarter I changed my game. I felt that I accomplished more and pushed myself better as an artist to work with things that I was uncomfortable doing. I learned to accepted faults in things that I create, and realize that imperfects are art; in-fact, if something's perfect, it would be a pretty boring piece of work. the imperfections making a piece compelling and unique. That's what I like to think of my work for this quarter; it was unique.