Family Portrait

I not sure what exactly I am going to do with this assignment. I know I don't want it to be one of those studio looking portriats, althought it would be kind of fun to make it like those pretend western family portraits where they all have to dress up. I think I am going for a snap shot looking photo of just everyday life, where not everyone is necessarily smiling and the background doesn't have to be so picturesque.

Summer art process

Here is a summer project where I took pictures of it at different stages.

At first I thought I would just make a drawing out of charcoal, but then I ended up drawing oil pastel over it instead. I mainly used red, purple and orange.

AP 2-D Final

Some advice I would give to future AP students would be to start working on the four summer peices early. It may seem like you have all the time in the world, but you don't. Even work on more peices than just the four, because you can use them throughout the year. Also, it would be a good idea to at least start thinking about what you would like to base your concentration on.

Probably my favorite peice that I made this year would be the one of the elephants that I made for my concentration. Probably because it is painted on the biggest canvas (so it took longer) and the colors are bright and make me happy.

As an artist, I learned that I draw with my paint. I like to push the paint with my paint brush to form lines and it looks a lot like a drawing sometimes. I also learned that I am a big perfectionist and need to work on not being so picky and just paint. Another thing I learned is that I lean towards painting landscape. Before this year, landscape seemed boring to me, cause it kind of is, but all my concentration peices were pretty much landscape and I am still proud of them.

This year, I really enjoyed the Jesse Reno workshop because it was a good experience. We got to see what an artist's career looks like and what thier lifestyle looks like. This was good because a lot of times when I think of art as a career, I can only imagine art schools and don't really know what it is like to be an artist after school.

I also enjoyed CCC regional skills day because it was fun to see what other school work is like, plus the competition part of it was fun. It was a good break from working on our concentrations to and I almost wish it was longer.

Another thing we did I thought was good was the trip to down town because we got to see artist's work and in a way, the work they showed was a concentration too, so it was a good example for what we should strive for.

I think it was good that we got to make our own journals this year so we know how to make them in the future and it makes them a lot more personal.

In ten years, it's hard to imagine myself. I will look older and I will hopefully have a house or at least renting a place, probably in Oregon. I would like to be doing art as a career or a side job, which ever works out. I really would like to travel to Europe/ Greece and Italy at some point and it would be nice if I could do that with in ten years because it seems like it would be kinda lame if I waited til I retire because I'll be old by then. Another place that I've wanted to go even since I was little was Africa and I might as well do charity work or help out there in some way.

Here are some quotes:

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?" ~Howard Ikemoto

Art is Man's nature. Nature is god's art. ~James Bailey

Final concentration peices

Finally dooonnnne, I thought I should probably post my last peices at some point.

Posssible Concentration for Next year

I am already thinking about possible concentrations for next year. Maybe it's a bad sign and means I am not as focused on the concentration I am working now as I should be, but I want it to choose a good one for next year of AP art. I thought of it a while ago actually when I saw how the lights from the cars on the road shined on the pavement after it had just rainned. The concentration wouldn't be about reflections, like Jordyn's is. I was thinking it would be about the different forms of light, eg. rainbows, artificial lights, stars/the sun, sunset...

Also,

my plan for the last three peices are based on bats, whales, and coral reef (octopus!)

March Concentration

Garbage bag pants?!

This week I was watching project runway on TV and they had a challege to make clothing out of things they find at a hardware store. I thought this sounded so cool and some of their work turned out a lot better than anything that I would have expected. One guy made pants out of garbage bags (this isn't a picture of the exact ones) and I thought that it would be fun to try and make a dress out of garbage bag and maybe a bag made out of a garbage bag.

This could turn out fun and kind of cool or really ugly and not cool at all. But- I think it's worth a try.