Book Carving

Prompt: Explain how you developed your design for your book carving.
I developed my idea for the book carving after decieding which of the five themes I wanted to use. The choices were simplicity, along for the ride, scientific, questionable, or fears and phobias.  I decieded that I wanted to do fears and phobias because I had the idea of looking up a list of fears/phobias and choosing one that would look interesting carved. I found two that interested me including hylophobia (fear of forests) and anthrophobia (fear of flowers).  After making a few thumbnails I decided I liked the idea of carving trees rather than flowers.  I came up with an idea for the cover and drew my final sketch to see how big to make everything and how to lay out and layer the pages. After I finished planning I began to carve starting with layer one.
How important was it to have a clear plan before starting?
It was really important to have a clear plan because I wouldn't have known which layer to do next or the layout of anything without it. It helped me understand how to carve the book and didn't make the layers confusing.
What were the challenges you faced when working on this project?
Some of the challenges I had with this project was cutting each layer similarly so that pages didn't stick out the further I cut into the layer.  It was also hard being patient and taking my time. Plus cutting the trees on the last layer was hard because they were really small and I had to cut tiny triangles out of them. 
Explain how you overcame them.
I ended up having to go back and re-cut some layers because the pages stook out too much. This took time but it made the book look a lot cleaner.  I took my time because I knew I would mess up and it would look bad if I didn't.  With the tiny trianges I just cut them slowly to make sure I didn't rip the page.
Discuss your design and how it relates to the book you chose (if that was the case, if not just discuss design).
My design doesn't relate to the book I chose. My design was about trees because my theme was hylophobia (fear of forests). I drew a tree on the cover of the book and filled it in with black pen. I added leaves cut out of pages from the book to the back of the book and had them stick out.  On the inside cover I cut out a picture of a tree and wrote 'hylophobia fear of forests' to explain the theme of my book. The actual carving was of trees, rocks, a path, a cabin, and a sky as the background. 
Did you take any risks? How and why?
I took risks with the trees because they were curvy and cutting curves was difficult.  I also used tissue paper which I have used before but I didn't know how it would look in the book. The biggest risk I took was putting the tree on the cover because if I messed up it would be hard to cover up.
Describe how you felt about the overall project and if you felt it was successful.
I felt really good about the overall project and also felt it was successful. It turned out the way I had visualized it. I love the cover, the addition of the leaves, and the color the tissue paper gave for the background.

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.