JMcClain's Quarter 4 Art Blog

Artist Statement: Abstracty Motion. 

I choose to use very vibrant colors for this piece. I found that to me abstract meant bright and for that I used the brightest charcoal pastels I could. I started off with a simple drawing that I did not know where I was going with. It was simply just some circles and swirls never ending in pencil. That was my goal at first. I wanted the piece to at first show some sort of motion happening, without the traditional circle, black and white wheel that looks like is moving. Then I wound up taking those swirls and coloring them with black charcoal pastel. I did not like that very much, so the next time I tackled the project I had used black paint, turns out that came out very good. Some how a very brilliant idea came to my head and I just thought of vibrant, bright, and appealing. I realized that abstract meant vibrant, and striking to me so that is just what I did. This is my final piece. 

An abstract piece that shows motion in a very odd way. 

Artist Statement: Dandelion Dreams

I decided to freely draw something I just came across on Google when I was looking up flowers randomly. I studied a picture of a dandelion, it took my attention and I  tried to replicate it the best way that I could. I concentrated on the dandelion and on a 8 x 11 sheet of paper I drew it on paper. It turned out to be a simple drawing of a dandelion in pencil on a piece of brown construction paper. I know if I would of pushed my artistic thinking I could of been dead on with the dandelion and add color to the flower but all in all I still end up being very content with what I came up with. 

Artist Statement: Leaves

During class one day, I doodled in my book. Excuse me, I found a project I could turn in for Advanced Art however. I drew a leaf. A very pretty leaf, one that is of elegance. Haha. This leaf then bloomed into flowers of leaves. In my notebook I tried doing this in pencil and in pen. I personally felt more connected to the leaves drawn in pencil. That started this piece right here. I first started with one leaf and started making bunches of flowers all over the page with them. I loved the pencil so much I kept it just like this. Because I had chosen a yellow flimsy piece of paper to work on I wanted to add a touch of shading and smudging of pencil to fill in such openings. The piece turned out to be very good in my opinion. I loved even more how it came about just by the boredom of a class for me. 

Artist Statement: Leaves Part II

Apparently I like leaves, and as a fan of nature, I then turned this project into a project dealing with leaves as well. However I have also received this idea from a formally drawn sketch of leaves. I wanted to replicate my own version and this is what I came out with. It took me about two hours, a few differently sharpened pencils and a huge eraser to finish this.  I wanted the leaves to look like the ones you would pick up on the ground just walking by to school. I examined the photo, and took a mental note of the curves, crevices, and gentle lines and strokes. There is always room for improvement however I can say that this piece did come out the best of my ability. I say this because I was so focused on the leaves, that I forgot to really examine the stem that connected each of the leaves. I figured that if I was also to even attempt to color this in I would deter the image and be unpleased with the turnout. I like simple, modern, and plain - straight to the point things so this was a challenge studying the littlest details but on a good note this was a piece made by me and even has my very own signature. 

Artist Statement: Culinary Arts; Baking and Art

Even though, I was not marked off for the 25th of May for my Advanced Art Assignment, I still manage to create and whip up some art. I love baking. Baking is what I love. It is that simple. My Capstone Mentor, Ms. Carmen Castro allowed me to work with her on one of her cake orders for a regular customer of hers. Ultimately, the cake was a fisher man that was in his boat sleeping, not even realizing that he is fishing out the lake a whole car! The theme of the cake was just beautiful. As far as it pertains to art, I helped create the decor of the cake. I made a bucket, an S.O.S. life saver wheel, some worms, and the fishnet. I also made a fish that managed to not end up on the cake but that was okay. In order to do such things I used rolled out white fondant that I had to sculpture and mold into these various things. This indeed was a challenge, however I still managed to create artwork. For the bucket, I rolled the fondant into a ball and then simply stuck my finger in the middle of it to create an opening. I then shaped the fondant into a nicely shaped bucket. I then rolled an extra piece of fondant to create a handle to my bucket. Once that was finished I took some black food coloring and water and created the color gray to paint the bucket with the paintbrush. I did this thing with all of the things I created. For the S.O.S life saver wheel I simply rolled out a piece of fondant and took some red dye and place 8 strokes on it. Very simple and easy. The worms had to be my favorite to make. I ended up with five small pieces of fondant and I just rolled it, then swirl them to form the worms. Then I took the brown food coloring dye and brush some on the worms. I placed the worms in the bucket. AHHHH! Awesomeness. For the fishnet, I simply just flattened a piece of fondant and took a necklace of "Jerry Springer Beads" and embedded them into the fondant to make the print. Lastly, I have a fish. It didn't make out to be apart of the cake but I did make one. It is shown below as well. This had to be my favorite art project of the year. It included the elements of art and baking. Two things that are inevitably added to the career of my dreams...