Week 10 - Link (Q3 Art)

The first assignment of the quarter was to draw a bike without having a reference image. I decided to draw a very basic image first, and add on whatever I missed afterwards. I chose to use pencil for this assignment, as drawing from memory can be difficult. That meant I would need to erase, so I drew very light lines. I spent the first half of the assignment drawing what I thought a bike looked like, and spent the second half drawing the missing parts. It was interesting to see how difficult it was to draw complex something without reference, because most assignments had some type of reference in the past.

During the next two weeks, the assignment was to draw two optical illusions. I decided to use circles because they are very simple shapes, and it is easy to form an illusion from them. Once again, I drew both optical illusions using pencils. I also used a ruler to create the lines in both drawings. 

Weeks 5 and 6 consisted of practice with shading. I found shading to be a very helpful lesson which I tried to incorporate in the assignment after. I also learned from this assignment the importance of using a key. With the key, I was able to keep consistent shading levels and refer back to them to see if I was actually using varying levels of shading or not. Pencil was the material used. It was interesting to observe how shading changes based on the shape and position of an object. 

The fourth assignment was to draw your eye. Since I was able to use reference, I was able to create most of the drawing altogether. This was unlike the bicycle drawing, where I had to add parts on after I drew the base. Having a reference also helped with proportion and placement. 

The final assignment of the quarter was to create a mandala. I used a ruler, a pencil, and markers to create the final product. I attempted to have symmetry within my mandala and I wanted to keep it as a circle. This was my favorite assignment of this quarter because I enjoyed being able to use color in an assignment and see how different shapes changed the product. If I could redo the assignment, I'd try to make it more circular because once I added color it become uneven. I also really enjoyed thinking about what shapes and colors to use and where, because changing one piece would change the whole mandala. In general, I think for next quarter it would be interesting to test different mediums, so I can find one I to use more often.  

All of the assignments from this quarter were mainly drawn through the use of pencil. Because of this, I believe the shading was a really interesting assignment that I will definitely use in the fourth quarter.