Maren Lamb Quarter 2 Art Slideshow and Reflection

Final Artist’s Statement

The first project we were given this quarter was to do ten blind contour drawings. I did these in pencil on copy paper. It was really challenging for me to keep my eyes off the paper when I was drawing and really feel it out as far as spacing and texture. I had never done blind contour drawings so it was really strange getting used to it, but once I did, it was really fun. The second part of our first project was coloring in our blind contour drawings. I had a really good time with it, and I spent way longer than I should’ve filling everything in. I used colored pencil on certain paintings and marker on others. Both looked great but I liked the effect of the markers better. I used a lot of colors in every picture, but for each one, I liked to stick with a specific palette. One tiny annoyance with adding color to the drawings was that the pencil would smudge and mix with the color.

The second project we were given this quarter was to paint anything we wanted. I decided to paint a beachscape because I promised my classmate Thea that I would make her one to hang on her wall. My paint of choice was watercolor, and I got watercolor paper from home to use. I didn’t really use a reference. It took me about two class periods, and the only challenge I faced was trying to get the right color out of the murky watercolors in the pans. The third project we were given was to recreate a piece of art. I recreated two works by Henri Matisse, Goldfish and Portrait of Madame Matisse. I begun with Goldfish, and wanted to use oil pastels, but found that there weren’t many at school, so I worked on both projects at home. I really like the effect of the oil pastels in lieu of paint. My works are not exact copies of the paintings; I just kind of did a rough sketch and got to work. The only downside, in my opinion, to oil pastels is they can get very messing, and I did my best to try and make everything pretty clean.