Reflections:
Week1:
We completed our pieces for this stage as a group so that we could all gather and listen to a playlist. Immediately upon hearing the first few songs, I imagined the sky, clouds, and space. They reminded me of the vastness that exists in the world (I believe that’s what the playlist curator intended). In my piece, I tried to capture some of that feeling by creating a scene from above, one that emphasizes clouds and makes rolling hills and valleys feel insignificant by comparison.
Throughout the image I include a free-form grid of piano keys, just to communicate the idea of music. In reacting to the playlist, I felt that the idea of music filling the sky would fit well with the songs I heard.
This was one of my first experiences working with charcoal, so it took some time to get used to its properties when I drew certain things. It was much more forgiving for the shading of the clouds than it was for the solid lines of the piano keys, for example. While the piece did not end up looking quite like I hoped it would in my head (funny how that happens), I thought it was a fine first attempt at a new medium and a reasonable return to art after a long hiatus.
On top of that, I thought it was valuable to be creative around my friends, as the energy of the room helped keep my focus on my task.
Week 2:
My search for a tutorial was brief – anything that looked somewhat realistic and like I could reasonably pull it off was fine for me. I drew a room in one-point perspective, beginning with lines emanating out from a vanishing point to create the walls, door, and window. I started with light pencil and used a ruler for practically every line.
I actually started out my undergraduate career in architectural engineering, so I am more familiar with this style of piece than I was with the previous one. It’s somehow safe to me – I can use a ruler to make sure everything is accurate and clean. I can begin with pencil, trace over in pen, and erase all my first-attempt lines without hurting the end product.
I think this piece turned out reasonably well, though not terribly impressive or complicated. Overall, it looks like everything is basically drawn with good scale and using accurate perspective (at least, for a one-point method). I will point out, though, that the back legs of my table intrude into the wall ever so slightly. I’m guessing most people wouldn’t notice if I didn’t mention it, but it serves to me as a reminder that there’s always room for mistakes, even with rulers and erasers.
Week 3:
For this piece, I used inspiration from a bout of good weather. Though I spent the day working and couldn’t be outdoors as much as some of my peers, I still felt that unmistakable taste of spring – the fresh smells, the bright sun, the sounds of college kids leaving their dorms. I also began to think more about the quick approach of the end of the school year. For me, that means long hours working on final projects, but it also means graduation, time off before grad school, and a biennial beach vacation.
I digress; I just mean to say that all those thoughts went into this piece, as I tried to include bright colors and images of new, blooming life that comes with spring.
If my perspective piece was the most familiar and safe, this piece was the polar opposite. Every stroke of a brush felt like I was leaving myself up to fate. I had to get used to getting just the right amount of water and pigment to create even color but not make the whole thing look watery and amorphous. I’ve even done watercolor before (as an adult) but the whole process still seems like guesswork to me and the piece doesn’t look nearly as polished as I had hoped in my mind.
I think that’s alright, because it gave me more sense of how to create realistic art. I was thinking abstractly as I did this piece – grass is spiky and bright green, flowers are pink and blue, a stream is a dirty blue-green-brown. In reality, there’s more to creating a realistic scene than that. There are contours and shading in the grass, there are spots of green leaves within bunches of flowers, and (most blatant of all) water is dynamic and reflective and transparent to varying degrees.
Final Thoughts:
Over the course of this project, I learned more about my strengths and weaknesses as an artist. Working on such an ambitious and multifaceted piece has given me a rekindled sense of creativity that I hope to explore further in the coming months. Above all, collaborating with my close friends was a rewarding and fun process from start to finish.
