I am Obsessed!

For my final project in Surface Studio, I had to choose an obsession. Something I can be completely obsessed with. Here is an idea of the grading scale and what the teacher expects.

A if we feel you might actually loose your mind

B we are mildly concerned for your health and well-being

C you did the project and it was ok

D we don’t even think you care about the subject

F did you just look it up in Wikipedia

I chose to be obsessed with Legos! As i child I was obsessed with them, so why not bring them back into my life! I missed them so much. I realized there are always so many possibilities of what someone can build with legos. My little brother and I used to build towns, basketball courts, spaceships, and massive race cars. However, this is by far the biggest thing I have ever built...

Here is the front..

The back is like a doll house. On each floor there are lego people including: Star Wars characters, cowboys and Indians, aliens, basketball players, soccer ball players, Harry Potter characters, Spiderman characters, pirates, adventurers, policemen, horses, and more!
After I built it, I went back and numbered each and every block!

Blocks used: 1227
People and Animals: 104
Others: 50
Total: 1381

I AM OBSESSED WITH LEGOS!

Story Still Life!

The Final project for this quarter was to tell a story through your still life using any medium. Can you guess what my story is? Look at the objects very carefully! I used vine charcoal once again because I have grown to love working with it. Drawing studio 1 is over. Drawing Studio 2 will begin after Christmas break! Can't wait!

Let's Try a Still Life!

Is the Paper White or Black?

Today we had to bring in black paper and white conte crayon/charcoal. I helped the professor set up a lovely still life at the beginning of class but once everyone put their benches around it, there was no room for me to sit. :( I really would have liked to draw a still life because drawing fabric has always been a challenge for me. In the end I was stuck having to draw the fabric. Turns out, drawing fabric isn't that hard. If anything, I think it helped me work with value more. Since we started on black paper, we had to apply the whitest whites then work dark. I really enjoyed working with the black paper. It doesn't waste charcoal. If I did this on white paper and had to fill in the black space with vine charcoal, I would have run out of it fast. Here is the fabric I drew from. Note: I did not draw from this photograph. I drew from life.
Here is the drawing!
More black paper drawings to come!

Not Everyday is a Good Day

I realized I have to be feeling well to concentrate on my art work. Today my Professor asked us to draw whatever we wanted. She said we could go outside, around campus, somewhere in DAAP, or set up a still life in the room. Well its way to cold to go outside so I thought I would attempt to draw my friend. After numerous tries I gave up. I guess that is why they wait another year to teach us figure drawing. So I decided to make my own still life. Its not the best one I have ever done but I have learned a lot from this experience. I should be healthy when I am doing art or I won't make good art. I just wasn't focused at all. But let's put it in the past and move to the future!

Digital Collages!

I'm Finished!!! After scanning in the 40 collages onto the computer, I worked with them in photoshop. While working with many layers I did the following:

• Copied and pasted pieces from other collages
• Painted with the brush tool.
• Used the burn tool
• Put filters on
• Added text
• Used the Blur tool
• Scaled, rotated and distorted images

I also posted these images as a video on Youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA7l5dkrNbo
Enjoy!!!

Drawing books!

In Drawing studio, we were sent to the library to pick a book out that has everything we have learned this year in it. Contour line. Gesture Drawing. Organizational line. Value. and Perspective. It was my first time going into the DAAP library. The second floor is the best. The book shelves can move to a touch of a button!

Anyways we brought the books back to the classroom to draw. We had to prove that we could draw the correct angles of the books without a horizon line.

1 and 2 Point Perspective

Started working with perspective. At first, my Professor demonstrated by drawing cubes. Then she sent us out into DAAP to find a hallway to draw. I first went to the part of DAAP that has no right angles. Every wall is slanted. DAAP is not the place to be drawing perspective. The Next class I went to the other side of DAAP and found a better hallway to draw. Here it is.

Then our homework was to draw two point perspective. This was more challenging to start. It took a while to understand that every line always leads back to a point. But once I started it started to just all flow together. Here is the corner of my room.

Trouble viewing the video?

40 collages
I posted it to you tube! Thanks to Adam!

Also, I was wrong about what the final project is. I have to create ten digital collages. I can mix my collages together, add things to them, or whatever I want.

40 Collages

My collages are done! It took a week and a half to get them done! I used to hate doing collages but now I find them really relaxing to make.
I now have to choose ten of these to put together into a digital collage. In the meantime, enjoy!

Drawing a Collage!

In drawing class, I had to make a 3-D collage out of black and grey paper, that I could draw from. This helped me see a better grayscale.

I started by covering my whole paper in a medium grey then I drew in the shapes with an eraser pen. I worked light to dark with soft vine charcoal. It was a very particular process! Now I get to draw it again for homework!

Collage!

I am working on collages in my surface studio class. We can make a collage with whatever materials we have. I only brought four magazines from home. Well it won't be enough. I have to make 40! Once I have done all forty, I will scan in my best collages and use them for new digital collages. "Digital collages can bastardize your old one, dissect them, and add new digitally sourced bits and pieces." Here is a few I did today...

I might have a lot of wall hangings after this project :)

I wouldn't get bored of still life's if I were you

My homework was to draw the perspective drawings of the the cubes in my still life. Then I had to add an egg shaped object. The professor told us to crop the image 8x10 so we can see the perspective drawings we started out with. This made my cubes look more realistic since the parallel lines on the cube end up intersecting.

Here is what I did in class...
I feel like I have definitely improved! Its such a great feeling!!

Comic Book Negative and Positive

This was a group project in my Surface Studio Class. We had to choose a story from NPR StoryCorps and then do two sketches each. We chose the story of Petros and Nikos Spanakos.We collaborated and put our sketches together and made a comic book. Now working with a group made this extremely hard. We had to have matching styles of drawing, writing, composition, and shading. So we decided to split the work up. In the end, it was a very stressful process to get everything finished but we did it!

Light Logic (also known as shading)

I am finally learning how to shade!!! Who knew that shading was broken down into sections. There is the highlight which is the brightest of the brights on the object. Then there is a Cast Shadow which is the darkest of the darks. There is reflected light faint rim of light reflected back onto an object from the surfaces surrounding the object. The crest shadow is the shadow on the object.

Don't forget about the background!!!!!!!!!

Draw, Erase, Draw, Erase.

This is an organizational line drawing. I started out drawing the center axis, top and bottom of every object to get every object in the spot I see it at. Every thirty minutes I had to do a line drawing of a different area of the still life. Finally at the end of class, I was able to put some value in it. Heres the finished product.

Also if you are interested in seeing what DAAP has going on all the time. Here is the blog

http://ucartblog.blogspot.com/

Cubes and Cylinders

I am starting to draw proportionally now! On this piece, I did many gesture drawings to get the composition I wanted. Then I would work on making the objects look as realistic as I can see them. I never have payed attention to such detail in my drawings! It takes a lot of time but the finished product looks awesome! Then we are beginning to work with value! This is the first time doing it on my own.. We will see what the professor has to say!

Study of Proportions

Negative and positive

Draw the space! In class I had to draw my classmates in different poses. Then I filled in the negative space creating the image. I had to draw from a still life of stools. I had to draw the spaces between the stools not the stools themselves. I realized this made my drawing more proportional. Maybe this is a better way of starting a drawing?

Graphic Drawing!

Turning a photograph into a graphic drawing! Drawing studio and Surface studio tend to overlap. In both classes we are working with lines, and negative and positive space!!

Look Mom! I can draw big!

First project in my surface studio class was to do a silhouette of what I fear most. We had to work big because our final project would be displayed on the walls through out DAAP. It was quite a challenge to work this big and get all the proportions correct. But I did it! Mom you should be proud! (She always told me to draw bigger because she could never see my sketches.) If you want to see my piece along with my classmates pieces in person it is on the lower floor of DAAP, to the right if you are walking in from the parking garage. It will be displayed through out next week.

My Fear is meeting new friends and them not being trustworthy (sticking their snake tongue out behind my back) in which it makes me stop in my tracks and not want to continue on and not see the world. (being tied down). I had to work with negative and positive spaces and create a silhouette on black paper. I really enjoyed this project and excited for the projects to come in this class.

Gesture and more contour line drawings

Today in class I had to do about 15 gesture drawings of a still life. Each time I did a drawing the professor would take away time to make it a quicker drawing. The last one I did had to be done in one minute. We had to make sure we got all the objects drawn on the page with a good composition.

Then I had to choose the drawing with the best composition and make a full size drawing from the same view point. I am learning how to make line look different in a contour line drawing. As things are closer to me I made thicker lines and as things were further away I faded out the lines. Doing many of these gesture and contour drawings will help me with composition.

My homework: MORE CONTOUR DRAWINGS!

Contour lines.

According to Egon Schiele, this is art.

Its harder then it looks.

First Post! First assignment: Still Life

On my first day of Drawing Studio I was really nervous about what my professor would have us do, since I haven't done any art over the summer! However, it was actually the best way to start the class with no pressure. She told us to draw a one dollar bill from memory. It turns out I ended up drawing the back of the five dollar bill. Some of m classmates got a kick out of it. But really I never pay attention to this object I use daily. Next she let us study the dollar bill for a bit before we started drawing it again. It turned out a lot better then the one I did previously. The whole point of the assignment is to draw what I see not what I remember. I need to really pay attention to detail. So she assigned the first assignment.

Still life of five objects using ebony pencil. Took about 4 hours.