This quarter I had the opportunity to try a couple different mediums. I enjoyed experimenting with new forms of art and I am pretty satisfied with my final products. This quarter, for the last project especially, I started to further think about the meaning behind my choices while doing art and the importance of putting a lot of thought into every aspect.

I used india ink for the first time for the first assignment of the quarter. I enjoyed the initial experimenting and doing the studies. I didn’t enjoy doing such a large painting entirely with ink; I wasn’t able to control the ink very well. My final product feels unbalanced and I wish I spent more time adding details, especially to the left side of the painting. I like the way the tree turned out, especially the detailing on the trunk.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve done printmaking but I did learn a few new things about the medium this quarter. Similarly to the first project, I enjoyed the process of experimenting, especially with mixing colors. I am proud of the designs I made for my prints. I wish I experimented more with the colors. My prints weren’t very even; I had trouble spreading the ink evenly. I enjoyed the process of printing my designs even though I am not entirely satisfied with the final product.

Artist’s Statement: In Q2,  the main focus was on various colored pencil techniques. In particularly, we completed various blind contour drawings, pieces of fruit and a color wheel that helped us practice and hone the skills we learned using colored pencil. The blind contour assignments showed me how not to rely on the paper for reference when drawing something but rather to focus on the actual image I am drawing. These assignments taught me how to blend colors as well as what colors mix well together. One assignment that stood out to me the most was the fruit basket because I saw myself using the techniques I learned and then applying them to create colorful and realistic pieces of fruit. I hope I will be able to use these skills that I’ve learned from this quarter and apply them into the next.

Quarter 2 Senior Art was by far the longest art quarter that I have ever experienced and there was a wide variety of projects that were completed over the, roughly, 13 week period. Most of the projects this quarter were color pencil based and all involved some sort of coloring with a colored pencil. All except for the first project.

The first Senior Art project for quarter 2 was a blind contour project. We were tasked with creating, not 5, not 10, but 15 contour line drawings all which had to be completely different. Being a student at SLA, you never run out of subjects to draw but the challenge was picking what you were going to draw. After the contour drawings, we were to practice our colored pencil techniques by drawing spheres and practicing our shading using color. This was much more difficult because it was my first time trying to bring a drawing to life with actual color. We also needed to do a quick sphere shaped drawing of our own and I decided to do a colored skull which was extremely difficult to color since all the different shapes that make up a skull… shading was far from easy.

Next, we created our very own color wheels using nothing but the primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. The difficult part of this project was mixing the colors to make all the tertiary colors in between the primary colors. This really helped me understand how colors work though. The project after this was a colored portrait. I chose to draw a picture of my cousin. After the portrait, we were tasked with drawing and coloring four different fruits and this was by far the most difficult project for me. Not only am I very new to using colors but having to make these colorful fruits look lifelike made things 100x harder. I chose to draw a mango, pear, blueberries, and an apple. Later came more contour line drawing but these required colors. My favorite of these was the drawing of a friend of mine who is building a personality on YouTube and is doing very well. His name is Pingy, or Jonny He (youtube channel) and he is in the drawing of the male with the blue and yellow t-shirt on. Finally was a free drawing. We were allowed to draw whatever we liked but we had to color it as well. I chose to draw a fictional character named Sasuke from the anime, Naruto Shippuden.

This quarter I learned much about colors but I also learned that I need much more practice in order to create colored drawings that I will be comfortable with. I plan on coloring all of the drawings that I do on my free time from now on just to get as much practice as I can.

Throughout this quarter we have all been working with colored pencils and as a result I have improved my technique and come to enjoy the medium. We started with blind contour drawings which I found pretty difficult. It was probably my least favorite assignment of the quarter but I also realize that it was an important assignment. I wish I had practiced blind contour drawing a little more; my drawings aren’t very good. However, the process was useful and made me more aware when drawing a subject. The next assignment, colored pencil techniques, taught me three new techniques. I enjoyed this assignment very much and I am proud of the finished product. This assignment taught me how to add perspective and color gradation using color pencils. The last assignment that builded on technique was the color wheel assignment. This involved using three colored pencils to create a color wheel. This assignment taught me how to blend colored pencils and better create gradation in color. The circle itself is a little lopsided and some of the colors aren’t blended as well as I hoped but overall I am proud of my work.

Once we learned basic techniques we worked on a colored pencil portrait. I had trouble with layering colored pencils to create realistic and complex skin. I tried different combinations but most of the time the subject just looked sickly. I wish I had worked more on this and used more layers to build up the skin. My favorite assignment of the quarter was the colored pencil fruit basket. I chose to draw an apple, peach, cantaloupe slice, and pear sitting on a table. I spent a lot of time layering colors and creating smooth gradients. I also worked hard on the shadows and highlights and tried to make the fruit look as realistic and three dimensional as I could. I am very proud of the final product and I especially love the color gradient in the pear. Through this assignment I learned how much I enjoyed blending colored pencils.