Final Exam for Painting, Art intro, and Ceramics

___________PAINTING EXAM_____________

My first project for the second semester were these Georgia O'keefe inspired painting of flowers.

The principles of design used include: contrast, showing value in the lightness and darkness in the leaves, color, movement, depicted by the lines and details that make your eye move around the whole painting, and emphasis, drawing attention to the middle section of the painting at first.

 I enjoyed creating the fine details that brought the flowers to life and the relaxing feeling of doing so. I was able to engage in a work flow, focusing my attention on this single task and blocked out all other disturbances. As you are probably thinking, "Cree must've been absent..." :-)

The hardest part about this piece was that i decided to fill in the background at the end, which I've done before and told myself not to do again, but here we are. I chose the colors I believed to stand out the most in a color palette. Bright reds, pinks, dark purples, and various shades white you can create.

The overall process took about a week and a half but it was enjoyable and I found that I love painting in detail to make it as realistic as possible



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My second project is a Fantasia inspired piece from my favorite scene at the end called Firebird. It consisted of a small mythical creature that looks like a tree nymph who has the power to restore the now destroyed forests to their former glory. A volcano erupts, and the nymph rides an elk to safe ground while the natural disaster kills her forests. She loses her enthusiasm and cannot bring the forest back to life again. The elk encourages her by staying at her side and lifts her up by his antlers and she rides on top of his head, becoming happy and having fun, and then gains her powers back and restores the forest again.

 The principles used in this piece are: contrast in colors, movement with alot of lines and patterns, rhythm depicted by harmony of color choices and patterns used, and balance that shows the piece flows because of the arrangement of the whole composition, space is used also as seen in the background. Emphasis on the face, and the use of shape with her facial features too.

 Overall process took about two weeks but it was fun and i really like shading and adding detail and depth because thats what makes pictures pop and become realistic, which is what I am for.

I left my completed piece in the art room, and I never got the chance to snap a picture of it before I donated for a school gallery night. Sorry its upside down too. Imagine the hair completed wit a lot more butterflies.
 

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My third piece is this dog done with a watercolor pallete, watercolor pencils and ink. The watercolor palette I had used had only consisted of primary and secondary colors, so it was fun creating my own tertiary colors and shades of browns.

Principles used include: contrast in the lightness and darkness in his coat, color in the shades of browns, movement by the way his fur is textured, lines shown by the outline of his whole body, and emphasis on his white nose and sleepy eyes.

Inspiration for this piece was my love for painting animals, and our assignment was to paint any kind! So I chose mans best friend. I love cats too and have one of my own, so don't be mad at me you cat ladies.

 

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My last project is this Dali and Benton inspired piece of a girl playing crochet on a field and appears to be looking at somebody in the distance. The colors of her blouse is bright reds and purples, and her skirt is dark and light blues. The background is dali-inspired because I took his technique of paiting backgrounds that include a bright sunrise and dark top of the page that gives a stormy effect. Benton inspired me with his cartoony figures, smooth textures, and use of form.

Principles include line, shown in her blouse, skirt, and hair. Color shown in the brightness of hues. Shape in the composition of the piece. Texture in the clothing, skin, and hair. Emphasis on her face by setting it as a focal point for the eyes to focus on.

I loved working on this piece the most out of all my others because I spent the most time on it and really put my full effort into the detail. I wanted to make my last project be a representation of everything I've learned in this class the whole year.

The hardest part was creating the texture and skin tones. I was slow at first, but I think that after practicing on a mattboard, I got the hang of it.



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___________ CERAMICS  EXAM __________

This piece was super fun to do and i got my inspiration from them being such weird animals
 I started off with a big ball of wedged clay and then started roughly creating the body, head, and tenacles. After i got a basic shape then i went in to detail.

The hardest part was shaping the head the way that it would look realistic and not too eggy or ovally, because i dont knoq if you have but if youve ever looked at an octopuses head its not just a plain circle.

The tentacles were also difficult because they were so long and i had to make stools for them to rest on as they dry so they could be formed into spirals. If i didnt have support stools then the weight of the clay wouldve collapsed ontop of itself.

 Im proud of my piece and I think I couldve done better on the glazing but i guess it came out nicely either way. Mrs. Thompson said she really liked it so thats good :D

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This is my pottery cat and i really liked making this piece because of the difficulty ofs size. The process was starting from the bottom to the top.

So first i started with the lower half. I made the lower body with a big square slabs of clay and then carved off the pieces i do not need also hollowing out the inside. Then i got another square slab and scored and slipped it on the top of it and hollowed out the inside aswell so it doesnt blow up in the kiln.

It ended up blowing up anyways on the butt area so i just super glued it back together.  If i could redo this i wouldve glazed it all black with yellow eyes. It wouldve looked cooler because i think it wouldve. Theres no hidden message for this project, i just like cats.

This was my biggest project and ill attempt more but even this was really challenging and took me a month and a half. To combat again my clay drying and cracking, i kept it on plastic bags with a litle bit of water to keep ot moist throughout the weekends and winter break. That worked out well, but the clay did harden up just because its been cooperating with me scuplting it for so long si i think thats normal.

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This piece started off as a big slab too and i used coils for the arms and legs and made triangles for its spikes. I want to glaze it the colors of yoshi from mario. Hopefully we have those glazes, if not, im sure i can make them either way.

Im happy with the project overall but i wish that i couldve sandpapered it more to make it so smooth. It cracked on the head so i want to smooth that out with alot of glaze to cover it. I wish i redid this project so i xould add more slab to the face and give it some more details, like making eye sockets, goving it a smile and bigger cheeks, and just addingore texture basically.

My inspiratuon came from mario game because yoshi is super cute. Theres no special meaning for this project, i like the ge mario 64 and yoshi is really cute. I played that game when i was little alot and they made so many different versions like mario kart but the original is still the best.

I think this project is pretty cool so far since i havent glazed it yet, and id have to glaze it alot using coats and coats of glazes since the clay i used was terracotta. Terracotta requires alot of coats of glazes because ots a red clay and you dont want any of that red showing through your glazes.

_________________________________________________________________________________This is my third project. Its a wall tole hanging that i made as my forst project with claire. We worked on it together so it was very easy to make and very simple. It started out as 5 flat slabs and we just etched in designs of a tree. The outcome was very pleasing and the color choices came from the way we think they should be.

 We added holes into the piece in the end to insert strings to be able for it to be a wall hanging. I enjoyed making the small designs like the leaves, birds, flowers. I liked that it had alot of detail instead of just being flat tiles. The colors we used were many, which were red, yellow, orange, blue, turqyoise, victorian red, pink, chrome green, teddy bear brown, lemon.

 I like how the colors came out to be so bright and we didnt even need to put a gloss coat since the colors were already shiny and bright. The meaning of this project is that nature is so beautiful and sgould be respected for what it is and be depicted in its natural state, not touched by humans. 

Were taking up all of the forests and destroying the homes of animals rhat live in that area were chopping down. Basically save the forest.

If i could redo this piece id measure everything out versus cutting square flat slabs and eyeing the meaurements to be closest to exact squares. Id use a ruler and stuff and a sharp xacto knife versus the edge of a ruler. Id also smooth out the ridges on the end to give more of a smooth texture so its not sharp on the ends.