Origami Flower Wreath Project
When I was trying to pick a project to do for the next week of art, I decided to do the "Your choice" assignment. I was making an origami wreath from a kit I had gotten a few birthdays ago, and wanted to finally finish it. The week before, I had created an Easter wreath out of scraps, on which I had put a few origami flowers, which helped me prepare for making this origami wreath. As I had only folded a few of the flowers, I started by finishing folding the individual flowers, branches, and leaves.
The flowers I folded were the foxglove (pink on stem), lily of the valley (white on stem), hydrangea (light and dark pink clusters), bellflower (blue and yellow clusters), lantern flower (purple cluster), and the tiger lily (big orange flower). After folding the individual flowers, I folded stems for the lily of the valley, foxglove, and lantern flower. Most of these flowers, however, were assembled differently. The foxglove flowers had to be glued onto a main stem, while the lily of the valley flowers were glued to individual short stems and then the main stem. The hydrangea and bellflower clusters were assembled by gluing the petals together. The lantern flowers were each glued to an individual stem that were tired together with wire, and lastly, the tiger lily had wire twisted around its base so it was able to be attached. To start assembling the wreath itself, I attached four cardboard puzzle piece-like shapes to each other to form the wreath shape. (They had come with the kit.) Then I glued all but about four branches onto the section of the base that would not contain flowers. I attached the white card stock "N" that I had cut out earlier onto this section. Next, I started attaching the flowers. I first placed the tiger lily, which was the biggest flower, to help me place the rest of the flowers. I then attached the foxglove and lily of the valley flowers, securing both the top and bottom of each to make sure they wouldn't fall off. Finally, I attached the light and dark pink hydrangea clusters and the yellow and blue bellflower clusters. After attaching all of the flowers, I went back behind them to add the branches I had put aside to cover any blank spots. I lined the inner and outer rims with the branches to hide the cardboard, and unrolled some of the branches underneath the flowers to make sure none of the cardboard would show through the flowers. After gluing on all of the branches, I attached all of my leaves to the wreath randomly. This added another color and texture to the wreath, as well as covered up spots I had missed when working with the branches. I believe that the most successful part of my origami wreath is the folding of the flowers and leaves. The hardest part for many of these flowers was that they contained approximate folds, which did help in making all of the flowers look different and original, but made later folds harder. If I hadn't folded these folds correctly, the flowers would look off or folds wouldn't work. However, I did figure out how to look at the pictures in the instructions for clues on how far or big the fold should be, which helped me make the correct folds. |
|
Observational Drawings
For this week, I chose to do the observational drawing assignment. While making the pieces, I tried to focus on showing depth and creating a sense of 3D, as well as making the object I drew look realistic.
To start this assignment, I found two objects that I wanted to draw; my water bottle, and a carved candle. I first started on the water bottle. Turning to a new page in my sketchbook, I quickly sketched the water bottle from two different angles, as seen in the pictures to the right. As I have many stickers on my water bottle, I had to decide which ones I felt more comfortable drawing, as well as how they would show up without me adding color. I also kept two bands around the bottom of my water bottle. To start drawing, I picked the angle I liked better from the two sketches I did earlier. I then sketched the approximate shape and size of the water bottle. While I would probably erase most of this, it would help to keep the different parts the right sizes, in comparison to each other. Next, starting with the top of the water bottle, I redrew and shaded, as well as erased parts to show light and shadows. After finishing what I was doing with the top, I went on to the body of the water bottle, first tracing the sides, then drawing the stickers and bands on the bottle, then finally drawing the shadows and showing the light on it. During this stage, I went back to the top of the bottle to try and resize it in relation to the bottom part. If I drew my water bottle again, I would draw the bottle first, then the top, because it was easier to see what size the top should be when I had drawn the top. The next day, I started on the candle drawing. Again, I did two sketches at different angles with the candle. On these, I tried to focus more on the position of the bow and wick than trying to make all of the swirls perfect. After choosing the composition I liked best, I sketched out a candle shape and an estimated bow position on it. I tried to experiment on the candle top to make it look pointed but still as if I was looking down at an angle at it. Starting with the bow, I drew the knot, ends of the ribbon and finally the ribbon going around the candle, shading as I went. Then I went on to sketch the swirls on the candle. As the picture to the right shows, the candle was carved with these swirls. To try and show this depth, I drew the swirls, then shaded around the lines to show shadows, as well as smeared the pencil to blend it. To try and show how the swirls continued on top of the candle, I drew the swirls with an angle. If I drew the candle again, I would focus more on how the top looks a lot lighter than the bottom and sides of the candle, and try to show that. The most successful thing about of these drawings to me was that the water bottle looks rounded and 3D, and the candle bow looks realistic. If I did this project again, I would try to draw the objects in a different light. |
|
Everyday Object Piece
After choosing the everyday object art topic for this week's piece, I went around my house looking for an object to use. For some reason I had been wanting to create a flower that day, and when I came across my dog's orange ball, (which he never fetches) I thought it would make a great flower center.
To start making this piece, I traced the approximate size of the ball. Then, removing the ball, I drew random petal shapes radiating out from the circle representing where the ball would be. After researching a little on realistic-looking flowers, I started shading. This layer would later be covered up when I brought out my colored pencils, but I took care to try to show depth in each of the petals. This helped me show depth later while coloring the petals. Realizing that blue was complementary to the orange center, I started with a navy blue on the inside of one of the petals. Accidentally, I used a blue violet colored pencil, and decided to make the blue to purple color gradient instead of solid blue. Using two different colors with different shades also helped me show more depth. I chose colored pencils for this project because I knew I wanted this piece to look colorful. I did not use markers or paint, however, because I felt I could show more depth if I used colored pencil. Before the color, I used my pencil to shade and experiment on how best to show depth. With the colored pencils, I improved my work by using a white colored pencil to highlight and blend, and a black colored pencil to help shade and show layers. I think the most successful part about my everyday object piece is that the flower I drew looks realistic and the ball actually looks like it belongs in the piece. If I did this project again, I might take an object and make it into something, like the lemon-turned-minion example, instead of creating a piece around the object. |
|
Arrangement Piece
The night before I made this piece, a large storm had come through the area, with lots of loud thunder and bright lightning at two a.m. that pulled leaves and branches off trees, littering the ground. As usual, my mother and I took our dog on a walk through our neighborhood. We noticed all of the different types of leaves on the ground - maple, sweet gum, tulip tree, oak, pine needles, crepe myrtle, and others - so I decided to use them as my main material in the arrangement. This piece, therefore, was called "After the Storm."
I started by collecting different types of leaves and a few sticks off of my driveway, just to start playing with the material and get an idea of what to do. I rearranged my sticks and leaves to resemble a tree, as seen in the picture to the right. After this experiment, I decided against arranging the leaves into a shape, but liked the idea of laying out the leaves. I wandered onto my back porch, and when seeing our circular table, decided to arrange the leaves into a radiating pattern. It was divided into four by supports on the underside of the table, so I collected four different types of leaves and put a different leaf in each section. The four types of leaves I collected were oak, maple, sweet gum, and tulip (tulip poplar). Starting with the oak leaves, I placed the biggest leaves I found first on the table, then filled in the blank spots with the smaller leaves. Because of the wind remaining from the storm, I found boards to cover the leaves to keep them from blowing away. When I had finished arranging the oak, sweet gum, maple, and tulip leaves, I noticed that the leaves would look similar and blend into each other unless I created some sort of divider between them. I gathered all of the pine cones and gumballs (seeds of sweet gum) off of the porch, and created a divider between the sections of leaves. This helped to keep the leaves, being the same color, from fading into each other. If I did another arrangement piece, I would most likely use some sort of bead or marble as my main material. While the leaves were a good choice, if I had run out of a certain type of leaf, I couldn't have pulled any more off of a tree, and would've had to hike around my yard until I found more. Or I would have had to redo an entire section and pick another leaf. With a marble or bead, I would have been able to go out and buy more. I also would have done this piece indoors or at least in my garage, to have gotten out of the wind. If I didn't have a section covered while I was working on it, the wind would throw all of the leaves across the deck. |
|
Value Drawing
During this unit, we experimented with two main different mediums, charcoal and graphite. First, we did basic sketching, drawing birds, hands, and eyes. After this sketching, we went on to learn about value scales, drawing spheres to experiment and show value to make shapes look 3D. At the end of the unit, we made a final piece out of either charcoal or graphite, with an image of an object we brought to draw after learning about composition.
During our first attempts of sketching, we tried to draw a bird from memory, without any reference photo. While everyone knows what birds look like, it was very hard to draw a bird without anything to look at for reference for angles, shadows, ect. to make the bird look real. Later, we were shown a video featuring seagulls flying, and were told to try and sketch them. It was easier and harder to draw the seagulls, in my opinion, because the seagulls were always moving in the video, but we did have an image to help show the shadows and how the seagull moved. After the first attempts with the birds, we went on to learn about value scales, as well as composition. We drew a long box, which we divided into six parts. The class then numbered the boxes, six to one, and shaded in the boxes. The boxes varied in darkness and value, from the darkest at six to very light at one. After drawing value scales, we drew spheres, using both graphite at first, and later charcoal. The charcoal and graphite both had weighted pencils, which drew with lighter or darker shades, varying on the number assigned to the pencil. Before starting our final, we did more sketching, drawing a hand, which was in a certain shape or position, and an eye, which was drawn in charcoal, showing value in the darker and lighter portions of the eye. We then learned about composition, with the rule of three, and how we could crop the image to better show composition. When we got the assignment for the final piece, we first chose what medium we wanted to use in the piece, and bring an object from home to draw. After choosing graphite, I took my object outside to take pictures of it from different angles, showing different compositions and values, and capturing different shadows as well. We cropped multiple pictures and picked our favorite one to print out and use as a reference photo for the final. After printing out my reference photo, I divided the picture and paper into thirds, relating back to the "rule of three" rule of composition. I then worked on the darker parts of the turtle, mainly its body, and added shadows and the decorative details present on the turtle. I then worked on the shadows around the body, and finally did the shell. I cropped the photo, and decided against doing the background. If I did the value drawing project again, I would spend more time on the details and shadows on the turtle, and also the shells. While I was drawing the turtle, I felt very down on myself because certain aspects weren't proportionate or perfect, but I learned to take a step back and look at it from afar. Then I felt much more confident in both the drawing and my drawing and art skills. |
|