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​For my art pieces this quarter I felt very inspired to use paint as my main art material. I found that when painting I felt very calm. Holding a paintbrush and using my imagination to create art pieces felt very therapeutic for some reason.

When I started my first pieces which was the contour drawing I found it challenging since I couldn't see what I was doing, I kept trying to look but in the end I came out with very unique drawings. Then, coloring them in was also a challenge. It turned out to look completely opposite of what it was originally supposed to be, but I think that’s the beauty of art. You can draw or paint anything and it will still be right because it’s something you created out of your imagination.

Then we went on to our own choice of painting, it was around the time of holidays and I was in the christmas spirit so I decided to paint classical images you would see around the holidays, a snowman and holiday lights. I loved creating and painting these pieces. Afterwards we had to recreate a painting and I instantly knew I wanted to create a Picasso. He is one of my favorite artist for so many reasons. His artis inspiring and I find his blue era inspiring, so I decided to recreate a painting from that era. When creating this piece I learned how important it was to mix colors and blend. In the original price some areas were a lighter blue than other areas so I had to mix in some white in order to get in just right.

Afterwards, we had to illustrate a piece of writing. I knew right away what I wanted to do. I chose a J-cole song called “A Tale of Two Cities” on the song he talks about police-brutality and everything a black man has to go through. He talks about black injustice. I decided to recreate this song by illustrating one of his lines “hands in the air run it” and then “Forgive me father for I have sinned” by painting a man pointing a gun at someone else and saying the line and then above two hands praying with the lyrics next to it. In between of the two grains you can see golden bricks and this image represent the line “I know that everything that glitter ain't gold.” The bricks may be painted gold that doesn’t mean they are valuable. This was one of my favorite drawings. Lastly we had to take pictures and then edit them to show depth. I took three pictures that showed depth then edited them and highlighted and used contrast to further emphasize the depth of the pictures.

This marking period in art, we worked on many different assignments. These included: Blind Contouring, Adding Color to Blind Contour, Make a Painting, Recreate a Piece of Art, Illustrate a Piece of Writing and Edit a Photo.

The first two assignments went hand in hand. We had to close our eyes and draw something without lifting the pencil from off of the table. We then ad to color those same drawings. This was my favorite piece from this quarter, it was fun and relaxing in a way. A few of the things I drew were a stuffed animal, a basketball player and a telescope.

The next assignment was Make a Painting. We had to create anything we wanted to, we just had to paint it. I decided to paint the Dominican Republic flag, since that is where I am from. I used the colors red white and blue because those are the colors of the flag, and also used green for the leaves on the flag. I painted the letters in gold.

Next, was Recreate a piece of Art. I recreated a painting based off of ¨El Dia De Los Muertos¨, ¨Day of the Dead¨. Painting the background of this piece was fun. I mixed colors like green, yellow and brown all together. The Painting was two skeletons(a couple) which goes with the entire theme of the day of the dead in Mexico.

After that assignment came the Illustrating a piece of writing. The piece of writing I chose was an album by my favorite spanish artist Ozuna, his album was named ¨Odisea¨. The The used paint to raw the album color which included a brown stuffed bear in a hoodie, with his name in the hoodie and his album logo in black on the top.

The last Assignment of the year was photo editing. I took two pictures and used an app to edit it. I added filters and played around with things such as enhancements.

Overall, this marking period in art I drew a lot of inspiration from my life and my identity. For instance, My flag represents where I am from and the illustrate a piece of writing represents my taste in music.

I had a lot of inspiration for my art this quarter. Everything I created has an explanation.  One thing I looked for is how I could make something that sampled things from other art. For this I looked to music and famous paintings that I felt had their own source of inspiration. While creating my drawings I used pastels and colored pencils mostly. I like to put as much contrasting color in my art as possible and these were two mediums that would allow me to do so. When I do my art though, I like to be in a certain state. When in the classroom, it’s hard for me to concentrate and open my mind up to create whatever it is I want to create. This is why I like to do all my art at home. When I’m at my house in my room, alone, I get fully concentrated and that is when I produce my best art.

Over the course of quarter two we were assigned to create a variety of different drawings and photos, being: Blind contour drawings, colored blind contour drawings, choice painting, recreation of an art piece, Illustration of a writing, and Photo editing.

Our first assignment was blind contour drawings, we had to pick ten subjects we wanted to draw and then gather ten sheets of printer paper and draw each subject. Contour drawings are drawn from a starting point and without looking down at the paper. You figure out where your starting point is going to be, pull up the image or look at your subject and draw it to the best of your ability without taking your drawing utensil off the paper until you're completely done. For the first assignment I decided to draw items I saw around the art room.  

Second, the colored contour drawings were done off our previous contour drawings, more specifically we had to take our contour drawings we had drawn for our first assignment and color them. I colored my country drawings with multiple colors, and gave some contour drawings a background. I specifically did that, to make the drawings more appealing to the eye. One thing I took away from these two contour drawings, was that not everything is going to turn out exactly how you want it to turn out the first or even the second time. Although, you may want to change your idea or subject your, sometimes it’s best to stick on the same path (as said in the direction about keeping you pencil on the paper at all times) and find a better way.

Third, was the choice painting, you were required to choose an art piece of interest, and paint it on a medium sized canvas, which is by far larger than 2 pieces of printer paper put together. I chose to paint a monster from the Tv show called “The Mist” because it seemed very cool and interesting, also the monster was the main part of the Tv show, and due to my strong interest in “The Mist”, I wanted to find something that would respable the whole Tv show. One thing I took away from this, is being able to go deeper into detail with whatever you may be analysing or drawing. For instance, I didn't just draw the base or an outline of the monster. I drew the outside fog, and I painted the fog with a mix of black, gray, yellow, and white paint, to give my painting a more supernatural feel. Overall I put as much detail as I could, to show and give you the feeling of what was happening in the moment when this monster appeared in the Tv show.

Fourth, we had to recreate a piece of art, this piece of art can be anything from a drawing you found online to a drawing or painting you or someone else did last year.  I recreated a painting from a famous artist. This was a painting of a complex multi- colored forest with deer throughout the painting. Instead of painting the original painting i decided to draw it with colored pencils, because it was easier. After doing this drawing, I realize that even the most complex art pieces can be done just as well with the simplest materials.

The fifth assignment consisted of illustrating a piece of writing. Meaning you have to find a piece of writing whether that's in a book or online, and illustrated in anyway you prefer to illustrate the writing. For this assignment I chose to illustrate the quote “Be sure to taste your words before you spit them out”. I illustrated this out in the form of a drawing, because while words get a point r message across well, I think portraying a message/point through a picture makes the message even more powerful than it originally was. Something I took away was the ability to better portray a message through a detailed drawing.  

In conclusion quarter two brought a lot of new perspectives into me life. Last year quarter I learned about time management and being precise. Whereas, this quarter I learned about not being perfect but doing the best you can do, drawing/creating exactly what is asked to be created, making due with the materials you have to make your art pieces, etc. Most significantly I learned how to tell a story and a meaning throughout the simplest and the most complex pieces of art.

For week one we did blind contour  drawings and it was kind of hard for me because I was so used to looking at the paper when I was drawing. Then I didn’t really understand that it was supposed to look messed up so I was throwing a lot of the really bad ones in the trash and starting over. For week three we had to color in our contour drawings and I forgot to submit my work so I was walking around with a zero for it but once I realized it I quickly submitted it.

On week 4 I had to paint, I chose to do perry the platypus  because he is my favorite character from a tv show that I watched when I was a kid, I had a lot of fun working on it because I had to mix the colors together to create the colors that I really wanted. Week 5 and 6 was my worst week this quarter because I tried to recreate the American flag but then I left my flag in my locker and since we had a lot of snow days I was not able to really work on it so I didn’t get a good grade on it, but I choose to do the American flag because it is a symbol itself but within it there are multiple symbols, I just find that to be really cool.

The assignment for week 7 and 8 turned out to be the best artwork I’ve done probably in my whole life, I chose to do Chief Keef who is one of my favorite rappers that are from Chicago. I feel like I did it perfectly. I got points off because for some reason it was turned sideways on the pdf but not on the normal google doc. Week 9 we had to edit a photo and add depth of field to it. To me it was a good way to end off the marking period. I chose to focus on a picture that said “Neither God” and it didn’t take my long to do that but the picture had to be 2 hours of work so I spent the rest of the time add special effects to it.

I would also like people to know that I don’t consider myself to be an artist but I honestly do feel way more confident about drawing since I joined Ms.Hull’s art class, I make sure just to try and have fun with it. For every single one of my pieces of art I never once said I couldn’t do it and I just tried my best.