FOUR LINE ART
The work: this piece is from one of the ten a days for line art, specifically the "selfie" assignment. The picture that I used for reference for this one was taken outside of a restaurant when my father came to visit me one time freshman year. I think he took a picture to prove to my mother that I was still alive or whatnot. So there's that.
Technique: I used a Micron pen for this one, and went in with the intent of making it more stylized. This photo was taken a few weeks before I cut of (almost) all of my hair a few years ago, and my hair was a bit of a wet, scraggly mess during this photo. I decided to use that to my advantage stylistically and not focus on drawing each little clump of hair but instead drawing the hair just all over the place.
Time it took: This one was around 20 minutes, five minutes under budget.
Success you believe you had: I believe I was successful in my stylistic intent. This was one of the ones that Rusty marked to re-draw twice as large.
Things you would do next time to do better: The eyes and nose, in my opinion, look a little bit awkward. I think I could have taken a little bit more time to be more detailed, but then again, that could also ruin the free strokes of this drawing.
The work: This was another one of the selfies. That's all.
Technique: As noted above, I wanted to use more of a stylized approach in this one as well. I focused on the detail in the features and then just did some basic line work for the hair. I used two weights (I can't remember which they were off the top of my head) for this one.
Time It Took: This was just a little bit over budget, about 31 minutes.
Success You Believe You Had: I liked how this one turned out. I think I was successful in the execution of the features, especially in regard to detail. The heavy weight of the eyes and eyebrows contrast well with the fine lines of the hair. Additionally, the facial expression is captured well in this drawing. I also had success with the hair, because I was afraid that the little curl things at the bottom would turn out looking too ... childish maybe? stick figure drawing? I'm not quite sure what the right word for that would be but it doesn't matter because it didn't turn out that way.
Things You Would Do Next Time to do Better: I think I would clean up the line near the nose that looks a little bit jagged, and maybe clean up the hair lines as well. But there's not much else that I would to do change this piece.
The work: So ... I kind of sold out. Sorry Rusty. I was going to redo one of my line art things because I couldn't find one that I liked but in the sake of time/the fact that I'm going to Oklahoma in 58 minutes, I decided to run with this little deal. Also, sorry I'm not sorry that I picked three of the four to be selfies. So there's that
The technique: This one was done with micron pens, and I did it a little bit stylistically different from the other two self portraits. This was a mixture of crosshatching and whatever the hell the hair is. I focused on detail in the features as well in this piece.
Success: I think overall this piece works well. I think I rendered the features and the overall form nicely but stylistically it's a bit different from what I usually do.
Failures and or what I would do differently: The teeth are kind of a mess. And I have this fear of drawing teeth that has been instilled in me since a young age due to my mother's advisement against drawing teeth in a mouth because it always looks like there's too many. So I went with this. Which was a little rough.
The work: The scaled up of a ten a day architecture. This one was the clocktower at the Anheuser-Busch brewery. (There seems to be a theme here. Also, I have a problem.)
technique: This was a line art with the technique of stipling. Which is an awful decision to make because it takes forever and ever and ever and ever. And is just all kinds of tedious.
time it took: about fiveish hours. Which I think is an hour over the budget that we had?
success you believe you had: Actually I think this worked well. I did well with the shadows and the overall integrity of the piece. (I actually have no idea what that's supposed to mean. Let's try again) Overall, this piece worked well, but there are aspects of it that could be improved. Which leads us to ....
things you would do next time to do better: I'm not quite sure how that line on the right side got so ridiculously skewed. How does that happen? I don't know. But it can be fixed. So that would be one thing.
WATERCOLOR
The work: This piece is one of the ten a days, from the first landscape assignment for watercolor. Actually, this may have been the first watercolor that I did. Don't quote me on that one though. The photographic reference for this photo was shot at my family farm in Pershing, Missouri.
Technique: I knew for this piece that I layed down some pigment on both the top and bottom, and used a range of blue-grays and green. One of the things that I learned in doing the first set of ten a days was patience, that there's a lot of waiting for watercolor to dry. So I layed down that pigment and then worked on other things while it dried. After the first layer, I added in the middle portion which was just dark blueish gray hues and worked with some suggested mountainy hill things. After that, I added in the trees by loading my brush with green and yellow, and later threw some clouds up in there. I liked how loose this piece is.
Time it took: This one was about twenty five minutes. As I mentioned above, I was working on multiple watercolors at a time, and would basically just do an assembly line of work. But I believe this piece averaged about twenty five to thirty minutes. Which was just around the budgeted time.
Success you believe you had: I believe that I utilized the medium of watercolor well in this piece. I was able to "let go" and let the medium do its work after I had made the decisions as to what pigment I would put down and how I would add the pigment to the paper. After that, I put all "fussing" aside and just let it be. Because of that, there were some really nice things that started happening in this work.
What I would do differently: I think I would work a little bit differently in the foreground. I'm not sure what, but something a little different. Also, the horizon isn't totally and completely straight, but I suppose it works.
The work: So this is Kirk Memorial, which was a photo I had taken way back in the day in like the first week of freshman year when I thought it was really cool to walk around campus with my Nikon and take pictures of everything. I was probably even wearing purple at the time. Not lame at all, right? #bulldogpride
technique: Well this is watercolor, so there's that. I sketched this out very lightly with pencil as I believe it was one of the parameters to not use line art. I tried to use different approaches in how I handled the different aspects of this piece, as I used wet on wet for the marble-y (that's the technical term) parts of this building to give it a bit of a worn effect. The bricks were a hot mess. I started at the top and they looked real good but then after a bit of time I lost ambition in the bricks and realized I could have just done some suggested bricks instead of painting every. damn. brick. in the building and that frustration is translated in the bricks smack dab in the middle because a. they're about seven times larger than the bricks at the top and b. they're not even in a straight line.
time it took: This took probably about six hours. I believe our budget was four for this one. I watched a lot of "Undercover Boss" while I was working on this one. If it weren't for the bricks, I would have been right on time, and would probably have saved myself a lot of frustration with this piece.
success you believe you had: Even with the things that I'm not 100% thrilled about, I am happy with this piece. I think the application of watercolor works well in most areas. Overall, I think it's a good work, and I believe it would be effective as a promotional spot for Truman.
things you would do next time to do better: Well, first and foremost, the bricks. I would do some suggested bricks, maybe save myself some time and a little and/or a lot of frustration. But, it's okay. Because I learned a valuable life lesson from that experience. Also in the realm of valuable life lessons, I learned that one should not use a stencil to make a perfect circle unless they are very light with their hand and don't dig ridiculously hard into the paper because then it creates a mess and then said person tries to overcompensate by painting some trees that do not at all in the slightest go with the piece and just look like a mess. I mean that might have happened just a little bit in this piece. But, hey, life lessons.
Technique: I printed off the photo in black and white (this was taken from a playoff game that I went to over fall break freshman year at Busch) and then did the whole Lucy deal and spent a good part of Friday night meticulously transferring the bridles and harnesses to the paper. I didn't quite realize how detailed this was until I was about halfway through tracing. But it's alright. Also I strayed away from using any kind of corporate sponsorship (minus the obvious Anheuser-Busch promotion because that's just the best) but I did away with the other advertisements in the background because I didn't want that to influence the piece.
Time Spent: I'm going to estimate this took a solid nine hours. I spent about three hours Friday night on it, partially transferring the image and partially laying down the initial pigment. Then I spent a glorious six hours straight (I wish I was joking) on Sunday morning/afternoon because I out in the middle of nowhere in Novinger all Saturday/early Sunday morning. So that's that.
Success You Believe You Had: I'm a big fan of this piece. I'm actually really surprised that it didn't turn out a total shitshow. I really liked how the horses turned out, as I used a wet on wet technique for those little buddies. I also liked the contrast between the sharp edges of the wagon and that technical form with the organic form of the horses in motion. Also, fun fact, the dog that's sitting on the wagon's name is King. Also no one really had a name on their jersey but I just really love Jon Jay so some rando got a Jon Jay jersey.
What I would have done differently: (Also, I think the name of each of these subcategories changes slightly with each work. That's okay, right? I mean it is. It's happening) So anyway, there's a lot more that I want to do with this piece but I wanted to get it to the point where it could be turned in. But there is a lot more of detail that I want to add in and a few more layers that I want to work in, especially in the crowd area. Also, the baseballs (which are hard to see right now and might actually just be my OCD in this work) could have been handled differently. Also I knew that I didn't want to draw every single person in the crowd so I just did the front row in order to differentiate between the dirt and the seats but then I didn't really know what to do so I just went with a sea of red. Which is really just what Busch is in postseason October.
The work: Another one of the ten a days from the "landscape" assignment. This was a photo taken of the lake at Thousand Hills.
Technique: I laid down blocks of pigment in this piece for the water, the trees/hills/whatever the hell that is, and the sky. The photo was a little bit "dreary" and wasn't the best in regards to coloring, but I made it do. (What? That's not even a real phrase). I came back in and added the little pink clouds and reflection and the trees and mountainy things and whatnot.
Time Spent: 25 minutes. Right on the money.
Successes you believe you had: I think I handled the reflection of the sky in the water well as well as the texture of the trees. I don't really have much else to say about that.
GOUACHE
The work: One of the gouache assignments. This one was of my dear Great Aunt Shirley.
Technique: I decided to stay monochrome in this one. I ran into problems in the gouache before this one when I tried to add color in, so I wanted to master just the picking out before I went with more color.
Time Spent: About five hours. Which is an hour over budget.
Successes you believe you had: I believe I was successful in this piece in regards to what I set out to accomplish. I handled the highlights of this piece well, and didn't "overwork" or "fuss" with it. The approach to the hair was a tough decision to make, but in the end I decided to use a Kleenex to get the effect and I liked how it turned out. I believe the features were handled well additionally in this piece, especially the ear and the nose. And, this isn't really that important or anything but I just really liked how her wedding ring stood out in the shadow, and I wanted to incorporate that into this work.
What you would do differently: I got a little stuck on the background, and couldn't decide what to do with it so I just let it be. At one point, I had started working on it and then decided against it so it looks like someone violently attacked the right top hand corner of this one and then tried to cover up their tracks. Also I would want to approach the wrinkles a bit differently, although I'm pleased with how they turned out.
3 COMPOSITION GOUACHE w/ ADDITIONS
The work: Here was the three composition gouache. I chose a giraffe, a teapot, and a cupcake (repeated twice). Then I did some trippy-ass modeled gouache in the background.
The technique: I chose the three images and then arranged them in Photoshop meticulously trying to get the perfect composition. Like, I actually spent probably an hour rearranging to get it perfect. So there's that. And then once I got all of that out of the way I traced it onto some watercolor paper. Actually let's rewind. I started with a totally different composition with three different objects. Then I ran into some problems with the pigment and scrapped it. And then I started over with this little composition here and made horrible choices in regards to what hues I used and maaayyyybeee two minutes in I literally threw it in the trash. Wasn't the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life. So then I started over with this one, and went with some more muted hues. I started with the teapot and painted that a dark blueish gray, then the cupcakes, then the giraffe. I did this in bits and pieces and then once I finished all of the picking out and adding in and all of that good stuff I went with a super trippy background.
Time spent: forever.
Successes you believe you had: That teapot. Big fan. I think I handled this really well, and that the picking out on this one worked. The my new giraffe friend wasn't bad either. Overall, I think that this piece works well in regards to the assignment.
What I would do differently: I really need to add in some definition in the giraffe. But sometimes there's just not enough time in the world. Also the cupcakes could use some work, I really struggled with these little guys. The icing on the cupcake was rough.
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