Landscape

This piece is the first landscape that I've ever tried to paint. They're olive trees which I painted for my friend's mom to hang up in their house. 

This is painted with acrylics on canvas, and its 12 x 24. I really like the way that the light is coming in and how the leaves turned out, and even though you can't in the picture there is a lot of texture on the canvas. It took more than a couple layers of paint to get it that way though, and a few weeks to complete this piece. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though, and I really hope that the family I'm giving it to likes it! 

I often start pieces off in sections, and then go over them in layers. I noticed while painting this piece, I tend to forget that I'm going to be putting a couple layers of everything down anyway and I spend a lot of time in even the preliminary stages when all I really need to do is throw some greenish color down and get a feel for where everything is going to be on the canvas. I get too focused on the details. 

I tried using a fan brush to paint the grass, but it just didn't come out looking very realistic. So I switched to using just a very small brush and painting on each leaf. It took a lot longer, but when you compare the pictures it looks a lot better. 

Alone at Last

My friend Ryan named this picture, jokingly because it looks like they're in bed. But I think the name is sort of fitting if you interpret it as one person alone with their thoughts before they go to bed. When I'm asleep my thoughts flip between day-dreamy and happy and sad. I think this picture captures that. 

Our art teacher has this really cool video camera hooked up to the projector on the white board. We can put up giant paper and project bigger versions of pictures and we even had each other model and draw real time on the board. It's really difficult to model when you're laughing and joking around so much, and I wasn't trying to be too accurate, so the faces turned out really weird. We decided to layer two people on there. I ended up with this: 

I set a goal for myself that I was going to try and salvage this crazy sketch and make it into something worth taking a second glance at. I'm not even sure if I quite accomplished that, although I think I definitely improved the piece. I will post pictures showing the progression, however I really only spent about an hour painting this.  

Tyger Tyger Burning Bright

I don't really know what compelled me to draw a tiger, but this one has an intensity that I love. It's eyes are pretty much staring into your soul. This project was mainly just a chance to practice with a new medium. I think I am going to try a similar picture of a dog or something to continue with this technique. 

For this project I used Prisma colored pencils to begin with. I drew the entire picture in a couple hours Sunday afternoon. I didn't really intend to do that, but I sort of go on art binges and no matter what homework is due the next day, I just can't stop!

This is the most dramatic change though, and what I wanted to experiment on in the first place. My art teacher  brought out turpenoid (which can be used as an odorless, colorless substitute of turpentine) to try and spread on top of a friend's colored pencil drawing to help smooth out the color. Not only did it do that, but it added a very interesting shine and really made the colors vibrant. It was so awesome I just had to try it too, so I quickly spent my weekend creating something to practice on. 

As you can see, comparing these two pictures, the turpenoid drastically changes the picture. 

Anyway, I just spread the turpenoid over top of the colored pencils with a cotton swab. It spreads really easily, so be careful not to blend too much, and switch out your cotton swabs so you don't mix the colors in unwanted areas. 

I also like how after the turpenoid it almost looks a bit more fluffy and furry. Hence why I want to try another animal face to practice this technique more. 

To finish off the picture I added a bit of white reflecting in its eyes, and whiskers with white acrylic paint. 

Mini Art

For my best friends in the whole world on their birthday:

 

I kind of painted these in an artistic frenzy in the middle of the night, and I never stopped to take pictures in between, so I only have the final product. I am happy with how they turned out though. These pictures remind me of them. 

Heart

My latest piece is pretty interesting, and not very similar to my normal pieces. Although stylistically it is sort of the same, and I used my usual media. I cannot remember how I came up with this idea, I just sort of had it. I am actually doing my senior project about the origins of creativity in the brain and how that all works, so maybe through my research I will know more. 

This piece actually really creeps me out though. For those of you who don't know, I have a phobia of needles.   Although veins actually also really creep me out. I was fine until I started to add the intertwining blue veins. For me, that just made it too creepy and real. It looks pretty different in person, but the veins to me seriously make the heart look like its throbbing or something. Creepy. 

I started out painting the heart, mostly because the veins were pretty much the whole reason I wanted to paint this. I didn't realize it would scare me until they started to look very real to me. After I got to this point, I couldn't decide how I wanted to do the leaves. Usually when I am working on the piece I leave decisions on color until right before I plan it out, and decide based on whatever just seems to fit. Everything else I think I plan out pretty well though. A friend of mine helped me decide on white, and I really like how it turned out. She has great ideas. 

I Really Don't Like This Picture

Nearly after the first day of working on this picture, I just really didn't like it. I mean I loved the photo that I took. This is a really interesting angle, and I think that the dress looks really cool on her. Here's what I was going for: 

My interpretation of this was totally off from the beginning. Also because I ran out of charcoal paper I had to use a matte board. I thought that it wouldn't be a problem, except it was. The charcoal wouldn't rub off  or shade at all, and it was just terrible. I had to use this white pastel/charcoal thing to shade with. So her face, in my opinion, looks like a creepy ghost. I also think I drew the eye wrong, among other things. So my friends and I were joking that the portrait was kind of like shes an orphan on the streets, but she works the streets and gets paid a lot so she can afford nice lacy dresses. 

Anyway, I felt it was important to post all of my artwork, even the stuff that I'm not proud of. Not for pity comments or anything. Just because I want a realistic representation of how this works (or how it sometimes doesn't) and that its okay. The important thing is to know when to not give up on a project, and when to put down your pencil and just let it be. 

I'm glad that I didn't just give up on this portrait the minute it didn't go my way. I'm also glad its over. 

I've got lots of more exciting things lined up, and some that I've already started on so that's exciting! It's a little bit different than what I've posted so far, but I think its pretty great. 

Charcoal Portrait

I decided to try charcoal again, because I haven't really tackled it in over a year, and I've been doing a lot of painting lately. A friend of mine has this beautiful black lace dress, and I just thought it would be perfect for a charcoal portrait of her.

I started out working on her face, and it took me a few class periods to get it right, but I think I did a fairly decent job on it. It looks like her :)

To draw the lace I used a charcoal pencil, and lots of spray to set it, so it wouldn't smudge too horribly. The lace is probably my favorite part of the portrait though. 

More to come!