Amusement

1. How did you show amusement and variety in your piece? Explain your choice of subject matter and how you created a unified piece of art.
I showed amusement in my piece by choosing to use balloons which I relate to amusing people and events such as birthdays and parties.  I put these balloons on a tree because it almost seems like they are the leaves which also is amusing.  Variety is shown with the different materials, colors in the background, and colors and patterns on the balloons.  My subject was the tree with balloons hanging on the branches.  It was unified with the balloons being similar in size and shape but still being different in color and design.  The tree is put together from different magazine clips but is still unified as one whole tree because it is similar in color and shapes.
2. Describe your experience with using mixed media. What mixed media did you use for your piece?
I enjoyed my experience with mixed media even though there were some obstacles with a few materials I used.   For my piece I used tissue paper, magazines, balloons, ink, and fabric.  The background is tissue paper and water,  the magazines made the tree and some balloons, the balloons were cut up to make some of the balloons, ink was used on some balloons for patterns,  and fabric is on a few balloons. 
3. What role did our lessons on visual journaling play in the success of your piece? Explain.
The lessons on visual journaling helped me choose to use tissue paper as my background.  It also made me more open to using a variety of materials and layering them.
4. Discuss any challenges you experienced and how you overcame obstacles.
It was challenging finding of magazines that had pictures I could use, cutting the balloons and making them lay flat, glueing the balloon to the paper, and deciding how to layer designs on top of the balloons while still making them unique and contrasting. It was pretty easy to overcome all these obstacles by taking my time, being resourceful, and trying to think creatively.

Non-Traditional Portrait

1. Who did you choose to do a portrait of? Why did you choose that person?
I choose to do a portrait of my best friend's puppy. I chose to do the puppy because her dog is cute and she recentlty got it so I thought it would be interesting to do.  I've also seen her dog almost everyday since he waa adopted so I have connection to the puppy.
2. When brainstorming about this project how did you decide what would be the best materials to use to create it? Explain how your material choice impacted the look of your piece. Why was this so important. Explain.
When I was brainstorming I came up with the idea to use buttons, newspaper, yarn, or tape.  I decided to use buttons because I thought it would be interesting to use different sizes and colors to create the value in the dog fur.  My choice in buttons made the dog look more cartoonish and not as realistic.  It also made it look colorful and dimensional.
3. Describe the risks you took or that were involved in creating the project. What were the challenges you faced?
Some of the risks with using buttons was having the hot glue leave strings around them.  Also it got harder to make the buttons fit together without leaving large spaces between them.  I faced the challenge of making the value noticeable and making distinctions between the ears and eyes with everything else.
4. How did your choices impact the look and feel of the piece? Did your choice of materials have any connection with the person you chose to represent?
My choices made the piece look less realistic than I had hoped.  It also didn't allow the tongue or eyes to be very distinct.  My choice in materials didn't represent the puppy because I choose to do buttons because I thought it would look interesting and not because it related to the dog.

Sticky Situation

1. Explain how you developed your ideas for "Sticky Situation"
To develop my ideas for this project, I came up with twenty ideas and picked ten to elaborate on. A few of these ideas were sticky notes, gum, spiderweb, spilled paint, and stepping in a puddle.  Out of the ten I picked my top two which were spilled paint and gum. I printed out references for these.  I made five thumbnails for each final idea.  Then I picked my favorite thumbnail for paint and for gum and made a final sketch of each.  Finally,  I colored both final sketches with colored pencils. 
2. Were you able to think outside the box when you were thinking about ideas?
I was able to think outside the box for some of the ideas like stepping on a nail, bubbles, running late, trying to erase pen, running late, rubber cement, loosing your glasses, and spilling paint.
3. You were to incorporate repetition, rhytnm or pattern. How did you accomplish this?
I incorporated repetition, rhythm, and pattern with the shoe prints, paint splatter, and using red and blues as my main colors.
4. Describe your choice of media (acrylic, watercolor) and your challenges and successes while using it.
The media I chose was acrylic paint and one of the challenges was making value with the paint and mixing colors to get the shade I wanted.  The successes included being able to layer the colors, have them dry fast, and be able to make details and small lines.
5. How important were the mini lessons to the success of your final product?
The mini lessons helped with knowing how to add value and how to mix the paint colors. It also allowed me to deciede that I wanted to use acrylic instead of watercolor.

Up Close and Personal

1. To develop my ideas for this project I came up with fifteen ideas and narrowed it down to ten. Then I elaborated on the ten ideas and picked two. I chose daisy and leaves as my top two and printed out references for both. Then I drew thumbnails and final sketches. I ended up choosing leaves because I thought I could use a lot of value and detail up close.
2. I demonstrated emphasis by contrasting vibrant colors in the leaf with the black paper in the background.
3. The medium I used was colored pencil. I chose this over chalk or oil pastel because I could easily add more small details with the colored pencils. This included the veins of the leaf.  It enhances the realistic aspect of the leaf and the color change by making it smoother.

4. I took a risk using colored pencil because it can be hard to layer the colors. I also took a risk using black paper because it is harder to contrast colors on it and make them stand out.

5. Of the five characteristics of great art I included technique and concept.  I used layering and highlighting with the colored pencils and the concept of up close and personal.

What's the Point?

Some of my solutions were pencils, finger pointing, an arrow, a dancer, and point on a map. I choose the pencil idea because I thought I could be more creative and expand on my idea by adding an eraser, pencil sharpener, unsharpened pencils, a piece of paper and pencil shavings.  I showed contrast with overlapping the pencil over the paper, adding shadows, and making value with cross hatching, contour lines, and stippling. I decieded to use pen and ink as my medium because I knew I wanted to do stippling and pen would be a good option. The techniques I used was stippling, contour lines, cross hatching, and overlapping. I took a risk by using stippling which takes up a lot of time and using pen because its harder to add value with pen. I also can't erase pen so if I made a mistake it would be hard to fix.  The message was about opposites and the literal point of the pencil lead.  The opposites are the sharpened and unsharpened pencils, and the sharpener and eraser.

Three Point Perspective

For this project I used three point perspective to create this building.  I wanted to create the illusion that it was tall so I put one of the view points at the top of the paper.  One of the requirements of the project was to have tessellations so I used it on the sides of the building.  I also needed to make it unrealistic, and I did this by making the building appear to go into the sky and having a planet so close in the background.  In addition I put the building in water.  I added value in the clouds, bird, planet, building, windows, and underwater.  The value makes it more dimensional. 

Acrylic Landscape Painting

To organize my painting I cut out pictures from magazines and used them to draw a textured landscape with marker on a piece of paper.  I used the marker landscape to know the layout of my painting.  Then I had to include atmospheric perspective which is having a sky, background, middle ground, and foreground.  I created this by having sand, water, an island, and a sunset.  My light source was created with shadows around the plant.  My color scheme was analogous using blues and some purple and green.  The brush strokes used for the sky were horizontal and long, but I used small, short brush strokes for the island trees and plant.  I used value in my painting in the sky by making the top of the the sky darker than the bottom.  I also made the water lighter as it was closer to the sand.  I also used value when creating the cast shadow of the plant.  

Logo

To create this logo I sketched designs using patterns and designs that I liked.  Then I chose some that I could incorporate into my logo using my first and last name initials.  I decided to use a flower, anchor, swirls, box lettering, and chevron print to create the design.  I choose the flower because I like drawing them and I thought it would make a good center.  I choose an anchor because I love the beach and water.  The other details are just things I thought would look good in contrast to the flower.  After I created the logo I put it on a piece of white paper and went over it with black marker.  Finally, to make it smaller, the logo was shrunk.   

Ceramics Project

The medium of my project is clay and the size of my project is a diameter of 8 inches by 4 inches high.  The design element that was stressed during the contruction was form.  The technique used was slump which is putting the clay in a bowl.  My piece could be used to hold things but I don't have a function for it.  To create the design for this project I cut out of paper a design for the bowl shape, and I looked at radial designs.  During this project I learned about kilns, the stages of clay, radial designs, and glazing.  If I could change the project I wouldn't have painted the design in the center because a lot of it ended up not showing through.  

Pastel Still Life

To plan my composition I brought in three nail polish bottles and put one nail polish bottle in front of the other two to add dimension and make it more symmetrical.  I used a thumbnail sketch to plan where each bottle would go.  A thumbnail sketch is a small sketch that isn't detailed but shows where you want your objects to go.  The viewfinder helped me decide the angle and perspective I wanted to use for my still life.  To make my items appear three dimensional I added value, shading, and shadows.  To create a light source I made one side of the wall and table darker, and I added a shadow going the opposite way of the light.