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!