Blog Post #1

Artists Create Original Art

Like most artists, everyone comes up with their own unique ideas. In my artwork, this has been a little difficult for me. I am not one of those people that creativity comes easily to. I am a very scientific and logical person, therefore, it takes a lot for me to be creative. In my first major project for Art 1, I drew an eye that was supposed to have a nebula in the iris part of the eye. I soon found out that drawing a nebula or a galaxy is incredibly difficult. My inspiration for this drawing was something that I found off of Pinterest. In the end, the drawing ended up as a mush of colors and looking nothing like a galaxy.

My sources of inspiration were multiple pictures and drawings of nebula's and eyes with different designs in the iris'. I used the eye drawings to figure out the kind of shape that I wanted to draw the eye. In my opinion, I came pretty close. I used the nebula's for what I would draw in the iris of the eye. I looked up multiple pictures and drawing and tried to combine multiple of them for a unique look. I wanted the drawing to be colorful, yet simple at the same time, almost to mimic my personality.

Overall, my drawing did not turn out how I planned it to turn out, but that is just all part of the process. I feel that when doing something artistic, you can't plan it out, which is a huge difficulty for me. You just have to let it go with the flow, which I feel was my problem with this first project. I thoroughly thought out what I was going to do and I ended up not liking it at all.

Blog Post #2

Artists Develop Art Making Skills

For this project, I decided to draw the New York city skyline. When drawing this, I used both oil pastels and chalk pastels. However, about 95% of the art is in chalk pastels. I found that with chalk pastels, I was able to burnish the colors together better. With oil pastels, they are very hard to blend, therefore, you don't get a unified look and when trying to create different hues of colors, it was very difficult to do so with out it looking incredibly messy. With chalk pastels, you can get more details, its easier to blend, and is easier to fix when you mess up than it is with oil pastels.

This was the first time I have ever used both oil and chalk pastels. After experimenting for a while, I found that it was easier for me to use chalk instead of oil. Before hand, I had always used the basics (colored pencils, crayons, etc.) If ever gotten the chance, I would definitely use chalk pastels again. I feel that I would need to experiment more with oil pastels until I understand how to use them a little better.

Overall, I like how my art turned out. I feel like I accomplished the purpose of this project. I found out which pastel I preferred to use, which is most definitely chalk.

Blog Post #3

Artists Communicate Through Their Work

For these projects, we had to do one that showed emotion (color project) and one that showed our own personal style (style project). I decided to focus more on the style project. 

For the style project, I decided to focus on Salvador Dalí. He is a surrealist artist who was famous in the mid 20th century. The painting that I decided to focus on is his Spring Explosive painting. 

I feel that this painting shows struggle with the people running in the background and the flowers looking somewhat like bullet wounds and the dark clouds in the sky. I think that it also shows signs that happiness is nearby and that things will get better. 

For the color project, I took my inspiration from a painting that I found off of Pinterest. 

I feel that this painting represents happiness. I also love this painting because it resembles the ocean. 

The only issues I am having with these projects is coming up with ways on how to execute the techniques that we have learned into ways that it makes the final look good. I have started to experiment with watercolor and layering the blues and other colors to achieve a look that I am happy with. So far, it had not been working well for me.