Frog Tongue

??? That's what I was thinking too. But I think that this turned out pretty well. We used another photoshop tutorial to blend a picture of a frog and a tongue to create this. I learned a lot of new tools that are available to be able to blend together two pictures in order to make it look realistic such as brush tools, color changes, value tools, and more. Learning these tools will be very helpful in the future to create new forms of art. I really enjoyed this assignment because it was a new way to look at art!

Angry Pancakes



 For this assignment, we watched a tutorial on how to use photoshop and the tools that it has to offer to create a stack of "angry pancakes." This assignment was really neat because it allowed me to see for myself the different techniques that are used a lot of the time to create pieces like this. All of the different tools on Photoshap can be used to create something one of a kind. Although this didn't allow me to be very creative, I think that the things that I learned from making a picture such as this will help me create unique forms of art, different from what is normally thought of as "art." I won't ever look at pancakes the same way again!

Portrait Stencils

Original Photo (My best friend and I!)



Finished Product

I really enjoyed this project. Believe it or not, this started as photograph (which I was very inspired by because I love this girl :))  After much messing around with it in Photoshop, the photo was transformed to be just four colors based on the value of that shape. We then transferred those value shapes onto posterboard, carving them out to create our own stencils. After the stencils were finished, we spray painted the layers of values. Many days later, after waiting out the rain and then the muddy grounds that followed, the product was finished, a re-creation of the original image, just much more colorful!


This project was interesting, from the design process to the completed product. It was really neat to see how what we learned about value in the classroom could transfer to different kinds of art, not just what you can create with a pencil and a sketchbook. I do think that there was some things that I could have done differently, including paying attention to the precisness of the stencil and maybe a different color scheme, but considering this was my first time even picking up a bottle of spray paint, I think that this was pretty sucessful! I value any experience that I can get working with a new medium and learning a new skill that will help my personal art. I hope that you enjoy as much as I enjoyed working on it! 

Contour Line Shoe Drawing

Contour Line Shoe Drawing



 

For this assignment, we had to draw a shoe using contour lines and contour lines only. Contour lines are basically lines that define the shape that you are trying to create. This shoe is drawn using only one continuous line, just shaping them differently to form a sneaker.

We had spent days doing contour drawing after contour drawing, everything from blind contours (of which I will not be posting, your welcome) in which we had to draw an object with one continuous line without looking at the paper, to drawing pretty much any inanimate object in sight.

Through the use of filling up probably five or six pages of my sketchbook creating these contour line drawings, I think I have grown tremendously as an artist. Not that I will be going around drawing shoes all the time, but learning how to use the contour lines has helped me to get out of thinking that I have to draw what I think I see, as opposed to what I really see. I believe that this will help me as I continue to grow as an artist and with all mediums as well.

Value Forms with the iPad

Forms using values made on the iPad

In class, we have been studying value and how it impacts the two-dimensional drawing. We had previously been doing this with pencil or with oil pastels, but with this assignment, we had the opportunity to use the iPad. The iPad has an App called Layers Pro that allows you to virtually "paint" on it. In a way, using this App was very similar to using oil pastels because the techniques used were similar. The App allows you to use layers to go back and fix mistakes and in addition, a blending tool could be used to blend the colors together. This was also similar to using oil pastels. My "painting" did not turn out exactly how I had planned, but I think that overall, it was a good experience. It allowed me to elaborate on the skills that I had previously acquired.

Using technology to create something like this was new to me. The use of technology can allow you to create many things that paper and pencil does not allow. However, I don't think that using technology allows the artist to be as creative. Nonetheless, this is a different medium to explore that can really help to improve art skills. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience that I gained from this!

Cartoon Skeleton Drawing

Final drawing compared to the original
cartoon.

Final drawing

For this assignment, we were asked to choose a cartoon character and from there, sketch what we thought that particular character's skeleton would look like. The character that I chose was Ferb from the Disney cartoon, Phineas and Ferb. I chose this character because I was intrigued by the odd proportions of his body and the exagerated shapes. In my drawing, I displayed the full set of primary bones that a human body would inhabit, but the proportions were exagerated; for example, the head is almost as big as the rest of the body. I really tried to focus on the fun and the interest that this created and play that fun into the outcome. I think that this was a really unique intro project because it allowed me to practice my drawing skills in a creative way. Now I can't wait for the rest of the class!