AP Art: 2-D Design Portfolio Concentration
While most people focus on the face to portray emotion in a piece, body language can be just as important when describing a subject's mood and person without words. How they hold themselves, or how they may shrink or grow under certain circumstances can define whether you are able to embed the personality you want into the subject you have. I attempted to focus on this throughout my work, specifically expressing moods through body language.
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For a very long time, in fact for most of my childhood, I would cringe when people called me an "artist". Not because I had a negative correlation with the term, but rather because I had long admired greater artists whose works wowed people across the world. Their works were breath-taking, inspiring, and my mediocre sketches and doodles could never possibly compare.
But the main reason for this was not because I was not, per say, an artist. It was because my definition of artist was incorrect. I had long thought that only masters could be true artists. That anyone who said "You're a great artist!" to me was only being gracious. That they really should have said "You're good at drawing". Now I realize the truth, however. I do not need to be a master to be an artist. I just need to be someone who tells stories through what they create. I'm not particularly fantastic at that, either, but when I put my heart into a piece that is when it truly becomes art. And, failing that definition of artist, I suppose I could also go with "Artist in Training". I haven't learned everything the subject can encompass quite yet (has anyone, really?), so any lessons I learn I keep and hold to heart. Almost any new piece teaches me a new lesson, too, so I certainly do a lot of learning. Amiria Robinson's article, "The Top 10 Mistakes Made by Art Students", is an important piece to consider when talking about art class and just art in general. Every artist is different, will tell a different story, but there are instinctual habits we all fall back on from time to time. These are all things to avoid, and there are quite a few. My biggest mistake is likely underestimating art. I have always known that artists work incredibly hard, and that art is not an easy subject. But just how extensive it is, I really didn't understand until now. Especially since I have never created pieces on the scale that I do in our class. It takes intense concentration, and there are plenty of days I simply do not have the inspiration to work. Even then, I must continue, in order to preserve our schedule and meet deadlines. This could also, perhaps, apply to procrastination, although it is less about doing nothing and more about having too much to do. Perhaps another, more deadly problem to me is the section about continuously restarting a piece. Now I don't particularly restart a lot of pieces, but it takes a great amount of drive not to toss a piece that I really don't like instead of continuing to work on it. I spend far too much time staring at my pieces wondering what I could do better and simply not finding an answer. But that is when one seeks to experiment. Trying new things doesn't always end in success, but more often than not a new skill can be expressed through an old piece that was initially going to be tossed. One of the last points I wanted to call attention to in my work is presentation. There are several pieces in this gallery that I really must rephotograph, as their presentations are less than satisfactory compared to what the actual piece looks like. If I take more time and care on focusing on how I photograph these pieces, they will look a lot better-- and represent my work far better. The acrylic painting of the bell is the most urgent of these rephotographs, as the glare of the light simply does not do justice to the shades I tried to highlight. So I leave you on this: being an artist is about what you put into a work, and not what you theoretically "get" out of it. If an audience can look at your piece, and truly feel something, (whether it is what you intended them to feel or not) then you have created art. Expression has often been a source of frustration for artists. How does one express their thoughts effectively? How can I draw something that will get my message through to my audience? Of course, one does not want to create a piece of art that will offend others, so sometimes the limit of what society accepts becomes the limit of what an artist can create. Sometimes, in one culture, one type of expression may be seen as immoral, or against the culture’s codes (such as graffiti in America), and therefore it is looked down upon and not respected for the peace it was meant to be. However, in a piece, specifically in an ideologically sensitive piece, certain parts of the painting can symbolize something else, that way the audience can interpret what they wish. Medium is an important part of this, as the way a piece is presented can greatly affect the effect it has on the audience. When talking about boundaries, buildings are important to remember at this time, since the walls and doors act as boundaries to the outside world. Using a building to express the idea of either strong or severed boundaries helps reinforce the idea in people’s heads, especially when they can experience it. For my art piece, I took a different direction. My idea for “boundaries” was not physical, but rather a mental boundary between two paths in a person’s life. The main subject of the piece is the boy, Sorin. Like Rose, his story goes back to his parents, who were old friends of Rose’s father. However, a betrayal led the group to split apart, creating bad blood between the families. Like his father, Sorin also faces a choice: to follow in his father’s footsteps, or to overcome that evil nature and fight for what he really believes in. This image, though not representative of two different futures, is actually meant to symbolize the boundaries between these two “lives”. The sunflower field is his happiness, while the snowy field is his sadness while he is grieving over a lost friend (luckily, not the red haired girl). The ravens and the roses that separate the two scenes are Sorin’s boundaries, the ravens being representative of a god-like spirit that, for some time, controls him. Thus, they box him in this scene of sadness and perpetual grief, a mental boundary of sorts. Meanwhile, the rose vines represent the boundaries of his happy life, and while the scene is happy, this state of ignorance he experiences before the other scene, the raven scene, also boxes him in in a way, since he will never know the true nature of himself or his family. Only when he breaks both of these boundaries can he truly be who he is. Now, the process with this one was pretty clear. I had a very good picture of what I wanted to do with it, so right away I began with pencil, sketching out the line. Then I lined it with a micron pen, making the lines stand out much more, and was happy with the product. However, there was a bit of difficulty I had, as after I had outlined it with the pen, I discovered that the body I had drawn for Sorin in the snowy scene didn’t really look right, and I wanted to fix it. Having already penned it, I instead used a bit of white acrylic to cover it over. This, later, gave me the idea to use some acrylic paint in the final product, used for the feathers, trees and clouds in both scenes. Although I was nervous about using the acrylic paint, I really liked the way it all came out, and the solid color against the more fluid colors of the watercolors creates another nice effect of boundaries.
This was the final product! I was very happy with how it came out. In the very beginning of this project, I had a lot of trouble. I had no idea where I wanted to use as a subject for my piece. I knew for a fact that I wanted to do something with calligraphy, but I had several ideas running around in my head, and I loved none of them. Eventually, I settled for a photograph of a old piece of forest that I would play in as a child. My plan was to paint over the image with calligraphy ink, but with the paper and the quality of the image, I did not end up happy with the result. Scrapping the project, I decided to do another piece based on a character of mine. After first sketching the image in my notebook, I tore it out and began to draw over it with the calligraphy ink. This is a work in progress. I originally chose this character as the subject because of her name, which is “Rose”. Obviously, the theme about blooming would at least start me off. However, I fear the exact nature of how this relates to the theme might be a bit obscure.
In short, Rose is the daughter of a very powerful and prestigious warrior (the main character of another of my arcs) and thus has a large attachment to her family and their legacy within the land. The rabbit doll which she is holding has a small scar mark on its cheek, which is actually a marking that her father shares, and thus in a way the rabbit represents her father and his love for her. The rabbit itself is also a gift from her childhood friend and lover, whose own lineage drives a wedge between Rose and her family. However, being founded in both parties, the love from her lover and her father prevent the theoretical “thorns” from harming her, despite the animosity between them. The theme is intended to be that she wishes to bloom in both of these places where she has been planted, but the conflict is causing thorns to sprout instead. As stated before, the image was finished off in calligraphy ink, and although I intended at one point for the lines to be flat, I ended up making a mistake with too much ink on my pen, and after that decided to add more depth to the lines by making some ends thicker. For the most part I tried to stay to a light scheme, but some of the lines may not follow it in an attempt to give the image depth. In the end, however, I was very happy with the final project, and I felt it captured the effect that I wanted it to, and would give off the feelings that the story invokes. The final image is below. Here is another example of a project that I was really excited for in the beginning. When we began our practice project, I followed the original instructions, but after being unsatisfied with a few different attempts, I decided to change my approach toward the assignment. At this point, I was incredibly impressed with the way the lines seemed to form a crystalline shape. As a fan of fantasy work, and thus fantasy art, I have always had a particular affection for magical-looking pieces, especially with glowing lights. Fantasy art especially seems to have more saturated colors, making the world appear more lively and just colorful in general, which I have always admired. One of the greatest collections of art I’ve seen, actually, is the art done for cards from the game Magic the Gathering. The team of card makers has a wide collection of artists, although they’re all incredible. The universe of Magic is incredibly vast, allowing for many different types of art to be included in these beautiful cards. (Amazingly enough, the artists who drew the art are credited right on the cards!) Art like this, especially those of Magic the Gathering Cards (as I was once a big player) is one of the reasons I love fantasy art like this, and helped me decide on a subject for my project here. The other big thing that influenced this piece was a show I have just begun watching called Steven Universe. Like any other child’s cartoon, the animation is simplistic, but the big part that was inspiring for me was the fact that the main characters are all based off different kinds of gems. In addition, the show itself is quite colorful, as the aforementioned fantasy art is as well. Now, it wasn’t really the show’s artstyle that inspired me, but rather just the focus on the color and the way they drew the gems. Having seen similar art of crystalline shapes, especially with bright colors like pinks and purples, it brought me back to a lot of pieces that I really loved. Crystals, because of the way the light shines off them and through them, are excellent representations of the theme of value, especially because of their geometric form. Which is exactly why I decided to stick with the crystal look for this piece, and include the bright colors and the various reflections. Art like this, done by Caterina Caligiuri, is just one of the many examples of art like this that represents this “value”. (As stated, this art was done by Caterina Caligiuri) Now, because I made the practice piece that I did also my final product, the medium I was using was already chosen for me. I also decided to use colored pencils for this project because when I have done value before I always seemed to be able to achieve the best transitions with colored pencils. I got right to work with a ruler and a pencil, making the lines for my crystal shapes so I could color them in later. After that process was complete, I started next on the subject that was being reflected in the crystals: an eye. The character that this eye belongs to has a long backstory, and one that I won’t detail here, but the crystal was the perfect setting for him, so I knew that that’s what I wanted to include. I did the coloring of the eye before the crystals, to get a look somewhat like this. Next, I worked on the crystal colors, which ended up coming out a lot nicer than the eye, which by the end of the process I was actually disappointed with. If I have time, I may eventually attempt to go back and fix some of the issues I find with it. However, the colors I chose to fill in the crystals with were bright and fun, and I really loved the way they turned out, since they were almost exactly what I was hoping for. However, I would like to make the value transitions in the piece a bit more dramatic, and like with the eye, if I ever get the time I would like to go back and make some adjustments to the piece. However, overall I am happy with the way it turned out, although it did not exactly live up to my higher expectations.
(This is a hypothetical overview of our year in AP Art)
Senior year was definitely a fantastic year! Just remembering everything gives me goosebumps, especially thinking about all the amazing things we did in school. The best part of it all, was that I received a 5 on my AP art portfolio! It certainly was a difficult task, let me say it now, and as much fun as it was it was such a draining process. You know how artists are, after all! Everything has to be perfect! The year started off simply enough. We started off with some simply activities, outlining techniques with the carving tools as well as simple shading techniques. I enjoyed the carving quite a lot, and made it a point to try different things with the ink I was using. After that the year moved into more of a self directed style, and though we were still learning new techniques, our projects became more expressive and self-evident. While still using the skills we were learning, I also wanted to connect my other pastime with my projects, that being my writing and character design. Our first project, that may have been quite simplistic for its instructions, I took it to another level and did something different, practicing with 2D lines to create a 3D looking space with a crystalline pattern. In the end it turned out quite well, and I included the reflection of an eye in the center of it, which was a reference to the backstory of one of my characters. By the time the next project rolled around, I was engrossed in my senior project, which was a character creation club. Being that a lot of my attention was focused on my characters at this point, I worked hard to include a lot of my characters into the projects I was working on. My characters are a big part of my character, and I feel like including them in my projects this year definitely helped me express a lot of my ideas. However, my focus still had to be on 2D design, and I turned to a more digital project, something I had practicing with lately on my own time. Testing with shading, color, and line weight, I created the bust of one of my characters, a piece which I am actually quite proud of. Here is the finished product below: I was very happy with the final result, and though it took a long time, it was exactly what I had pictured in my mind while creating the piece. The shading also was difficult, the skintones being a bit odd, and the hair was especially a hassle, because too large of a brush size wouldn’t capture the strands of hair while too small of a brush would lead to a strange striping pattern. However, I liked how it came out a very great deal. For our next project, I wanted to focus more on painting, and with that in mind chose a subject that I could picture easily in my mind. Inspired slightly by song lyrics, it was a tragic scene from one of my characters backstories (including my characters, again, got me more interested in the projects). This project, however, turned out to be very difficult. The end product was not exactly what I had in mind, and after all the hard work I put into it I was disappointed to see that it had no turned out the way I wanted. BUT, this has a happy ending. Towards the end of the project, I decided to go a different route, and adding a bit of watercolor to the acrylics I had already used, I achieved quite a nice effect on the background and sky. After the additions, I was very happy with the product, and was quite excited to show it off at our next critique. The year was winding down to a close and, while excited to end the year, I wanted to go out with a bang. My senior project, being the character creation club, had seen great success with its few attendants, and in my excitement I decided that I would draw a portrait of all the characters my club had worked on. It was A LOT of work. Bodies are always very difficult for me, and because of that I was constantly erasing and changing every little spot on the portrait. My friends were encouraging, however, and Tsvety especially helped me pinpoint some things that could be added in to add to the atmosphere: little jokes that had been made in the club, things that the members seeing the portrait would enjoy. While it was hard, however, I did get a lot of practice through the experience, and it was definitely a lot of fun seeing all my work from the year come together. I was excited to end the year on such a high note. In short, the 5 I received on my portfolio was well deserved, and I was so happy to see that all my hard work had paid off in the end. It was definitely worthwhile, knowing that I had tried very hard to focus on the 2D design issues listed in the AP guidelines. I focused especially on unity, knowing that a lot of my pieces had to stand alone as themselves without seeming too crowded. I also paid close attention to variety, and tried a lot of different methods of drawing and coloring with my various projects. Every project was an experiment with different materials, and even on some, like the painting, I took an important risk and it worked out great! This year I felt like I really expressed my voice, especially when using my characters, and was incredibly excited to see the end product of all my work. I think this year was amazing. Summer is always a difficult time for work, even something as enjoyable to do as art. However, these two projects were very enjoyable for me, as they both touched upon subjects that I enjoyed. I first started with the still life. Knowing we would do this project since the beginning of the summer, I almost had in my mind exactly which area I would use as a reference. I planned exactly how I would set up the objects, as I wanted to make sure I had as much variety as possible on the textures while still maintaining what I wanted to represent. This project was especially fun for me because I felt that the final product really took a picture straight out of my life, with the way the items were arranged on the desk in their usual messy fashion, and how I use those items a lot in my own personal interests, as I enjoy gaming as well as playing a lot on the computer. This project gave me an opportunity to express things that I enjoy. The next project, the self portrait, was slightly more difficult for me, though I enjoyed it just as much. It was because I was unfamiliar with the technique, and even after reading the overview of the assignment in itslearning, I still didn’t quite understand how to do it. However, I followed the link that was attached to “chiarascuro”, a term that I had heard several times before though never really knew what it was, and after studying the images attached in that album I finally realized what the project was. It was very interesting to experiment with the idea of a reduction, as well, as this is something I had not done before. I tried a few different ways to begin, because I was unsure how to approach it, but after re-charcoaling the background finally I found my bearings and was able to get a good base. Taking the reference picture was also a lot of fun, because like the still life I wanted to be able to communicate something about me through the pose and the picture. Although it is difficult to tell in the piece, the image is actually of me in the light of my computer, which again, takes a piece of who I am and adds it to my art. This piece also proved to be slightly more difficult because of the subject of the human face. I typically draw in a cartoony style, meaning realistic pieces, especially faces, are not particularly my strong suit. However, I found that after studying the reference picture I had taken very heavily, I was able to get at least a few of the features to come out looking alright, and I feel like I improved slightly in my realism in the process (which also allows me to give a little bit more definition to my cartoony style). Though the face may seem a bit warped and awkward, I am proud of the product, as I feel I was definitely able to improve on my realistic art. Our project here was to use clay to create a pinch pot, before applying facial features to create an monstrous countenance. I really enjoyed this project for the most part, as I love working with clay, and I enjoyed creating my little monster man even though the glaze came out somewhat funny. His left ear and horn also broke off before he was put in the kiln, and now he's only half a monster unfortunately. However, the process of creating a pinch pot was new to me, and I really enjoyed the simple process to create such a nice piece of pottery.
Our project here was to cover a bottle in gesso and then paint a design of our own over the white. Because the project was more or less self driven I didn't exactly explore anything new here, except the experience of drawing on a cylinder shape. I enjoyed the project a lot, since it finally gave me a chance to use my own style in an art project, and I was also able to incorporate some of my characters-- my major interest-- into the product.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2016
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