Quarter One Art Project

Throughout this first quarter of senior year I have worked on four time consuming projects. I have painted a ceiling tile, designed a fall wall hanging, created a self portrait of myself, and I have designed a fruit/vegetable watercolor painting. I have struggled but still was able to accomplish each project each time learning new tactics.

I have learned how to go further with my art. Detail is important and it’s an essential in most art pieces. With detail I have gone further by adding shadows, lighting and different textures on each of my artwork pieces. At first I was struggling to do these things but with a little help and some extra practice I was able to pick up on the skill and be successful with it.

I also learned how important “patience” is. Patience is so important because you need a lot of it when you are completing any art work. You need patience because everything takes time and if you don’t take your time you will never have a good final product. Once I learned the key to patience my artwork began to look much better.

During our pieces I used color pencils, water color, water color paper, and paint. All of these materials were used when creating my projects. Each project I used different materials some that I worked with before others new. I had fun with new materials because it is new and I like trying new things sometimes.

My favorite artwork piece would have to be my self portrait. At first I didn’t like this project but as I sat and thought about it I have began to like it more and more. I like the project because it took me the most time and I helped me with discipline. When you take your time it makes the artwork look even better and it shows discipline because it shows that you had the focus and patience to complete the project. If I were to do this project again I would probably add even more lights and darks than I already used. I would also find a picture of myself involving more detail then the picture i had used.


Q1 Artist Statement Thea Risher

Artist Statement
Thea Risher
This quarter, I was very proud of the art that I made. To start, we painted ceiling tiles, then did fall wall hangings, and finally self portraits. Throughout the quarter I had a lot of inspiration and had to independently come up with my own ideas for most of the projects. 
For the ceiling tile project, I found it very difficult to find an idea. I knew we had to paint with acrylics, which was a medium I did not use before. I went through a lot of rough sketches because I did not like my ideas. For inspiration, I thought about past art pieces I made and eventually came up with the idea of a hot air balloon. I looked up some photos and finally made a sketch that I liked. I use past art of mine as inspiration for a lot of my work. After this, we got a ceiling tile from the ceiling and I remade my sketch onto the smooth side of the tile after cleaning it off. Next, I painted the a light blue for my base color to represent the sky. Because the paint supply was getting very low, I ended up using water to make the paint last longer. This ended up being a very effective technique because it also made the texture of the paint very smooth in addition to using less paint. I thought that painting with acrylics would go very quickly, but I spent all of my work periods as well as one lunch period on the project and just barely finished in time. The paints required a lot of mixing and different layers and such. I enjoyed this art piece because I think I expanded a lot of knowledge about different art mediums and worked really hard, so I was proud of it. I learned about acrylic paints, which I look forward to using more in the future. 
The next art piece that I made was a fall wall hanging. We had a lot of creative license for this project, so I easily decided to make a charcoal drawing because charcoal is one of my favorite mediums to work with. I wanted to make a tree because I was inspired by my neighborhood and all the falling leaves in autumn. Nature often inspires me as well. The tree that I drew started as a tracing of the basic outline. Then I began to texturize the bark and branches with pencil because I like sketching in pencil. Finally, I went over and shaded with charcoal and added more color as well as added leaves and more background setting for the tree. I think for this project I managed my class time very well and focused the entirety of the time. I liked this art piece a lot because I think I exercised old techniques that I don't use in my artwork as much as I would like to, and I think this expanded my different techniques. 
The final project was a self portrait. I was a little nervous about this because a strong point of mine has never been peoples faces, especially my own. I find it very difficult to replicate peoples faces in general. Because of this, I used the technique of tracing. I found a picture of myself on my computer that I wanted use, then traced the screen using tracing paper. I downloaded a photo of my tracing to the computer, then projected it onto a larger paper where my final drawing was going to be. For my medium I decided to use pencil just because I think it is very easy to draw small details with pencil and a face has a lot of tiny details on it, such as wrinkles and eyelashes. Once I had the basic tracing outline of my face on the paper, I used my phone to look at my reflection and started filling in all of the details. This was harder than I anticipated, because a lot of the details are very hard to replicate on paper. I spent a lot of time shading in around the eyes, but I think the end product was very well done. What this project taught me about art is it requires a lot of patience and dedication, but the time you put in will pay off if you focus and invest yourself in it. 
I learned a lot of new things about art this year. I learned more about mediums that I thought I was familiar with, such as pencil and charcoal. I learned more about shading and how to lightly use pencil as well as charcoal, and I used more blending techniques with both of these mediums. I had never used acrylic paint before, so I learned that watering them down makes the paint smoother and the colors mix very easily. I learned throughout that you need to always be working and use all of your time, because you never have to be finished with a work of art. I learned that focusing and trying new techniques pay off and you are always expanding your knowledge. For process, I would want everyone to know that I am still learning and improving but this is my art so far and I am happy to share it with you! 

Q1 Art Portfolio

I painted a wall tile, and made a fall wall hanging and a self portrait using colored pencils. I painted the tile with a purple dragon with a black eye and a dark blue background. This is actually a version of a doodle I like to do. The only two differences is that the tail does not usually curl like it does on the tile, and the eye is blue in the doodle. For the fall wall hanging, I drew two leaves falling through the air. The background is light blue, which symbolizes the sky. The self portrait was particularly difficult to figure out. I do not consider myself to be good at drawing people, so I decided to go for a style similar to the kind seen in Japanese animation, or anime. The pink on my face, just below the eyes, is supposed to be blush. The variety of different colors I used in the background of the self portrait is purely a result of me running out of colored pencils.

My main process of arting starts with me making a rough draft of the art in my sketchbook, and then making the good copy on a separate piece of paper. I developed this method during this art course. I spend most of the time in class working on my art, unless I felt I had nothing to do. This mainly happened on the last days of work, since I did not want to get too much of a head start on the next assignment. I usually like all art materials the same, but I prefer colored pencils over crayons, because I like the way art made by colored pencils look.

I learned that when more time is spent on the artwork, the final product will turn out better. Before, I did not consider myself good at art, but the art I have done before was always done in less than an hour, compared to the four days spent on these projects. I’m a new artist, but I hope my art is good enough to be noticed.


Art Q1


In quarter one of advanced art, we created three different art pieces. The first one was painting one a ceiling tile that would be placed in the school. The second was a fall wall hanging where we were instructed to draw something that reflect what we related to the season fall. The third was a self portrait. All three of these examples can be seen in the slides below my post. 

Most of my art pieces were inspired by my adoration for seasonal men's fashion. For the first project, the ceiling tile, I think the hardest part is actually deciding what you want to draw because you only get to do one. So I chose a bow tie. To me, the bow tie represents a form of fashion that is old but never dies. After taking a look at for a while I started to realize that the bow tie looks like an hour glass. Which kinda to me represents its' timeliness. 

If you choose to take something away from my art work, let it be this. My art represents who I am and what I'm about. I appreciate a good sense of style. I tried to have my art reflect on how much fashions means to me. I'm not the best artist but I know that even if I'm not great, I still was able to express what I love in one way or another. 

Art Work Q1

This quarter in art class was really fun and I really enjoyed creating these art pieces. I got to use different tool and materials, like very different types of paints, charcoal and other materials necessary to get my end result. While using these materials I also learned new techniques such as how to hold charcoal in order to create shading using pressure, or how to use different colors to create ombre-like, effects.  Now as for my art I had different inspirations for each art piece. 
    My very first art piece this year was the ceiling tile. For me, this is the most important art piece that I have created so far this quarter. For one, my inspiration behind it was the dreamer's act movement. Around the time that this assignment was assigned Trump had removed the Dreamer Act and many immigrants were left with nothing and all they could do was fight for their rights. I am Latina and I wanted to show my support to the thousands of Latinos that had been hurt by this, so I painted the word dreamers on the ceiling tile. I also painted a moon and stars to show that to them the stars and moon are the limits. As long as one fights for what they believe in anything is possible. I wanted to create an ombre-like effect so I used the two colors of the sky, light blue for daytime and dark blue for nighttime, and created an ombre-like effect as well. Throughout this whole art piece, I used paint as my main material. I felt very proud creating this work of art.
    The second work of art that I created was the fall wall hanging, this assignment was one of the more easier ones and an assignment where I had one image in mind. For this assignment, a typical fall scene was the inspiration for my artwork. When I thought of fall I thought about the leaves falling and the time change. I tried to create a theme throughout all my artwork so for the sky I also created an ombre-like effect like I did for the ceiling tile, however, I went for warmer tones. The main material I used for this drawing were color pencils. I had fun creating this drawing. 
    The final art piece that I created was the self-portrait. This was one of the longer and harder pieces. I really had to learn new techniques and work with materials that I had never used before to create this piece. For one, I had to use charcoal as one of the main materials and at first, it was very hard working with it but after I learned how to blend it to create a nice effect with it. I made the self-portrait by using a picture of myself as a guide. In pictures and everywhere else we have shadows, so one of my major struggles was creating these shadows in the portrait. I learned how to create shadows by using different pressures on my materials and learning to press harder or lighter when needing to create different lightnings. I also tried to use the theme of ombre again in this drawing and I decided to do it in my hair. I used black charcoal to make the ends of my hair much darker and then blending it out and making it lighter in the roots. In the end, I had an art piece that resembled me. I was very proud of completing it.  
    I had lots of fun in this class. It was a very joyful environment in which I felt like I could always work in and have focus in. All three of my art pieces were created with much work and inspiration. 

-Cristina-Valenzo 

Q1 - Art Portfolio

This quarter I wanted to focus on my shadows, and trying to shade in a way that will give my artwork a more realistic feel. For my ceiling tile I wanted to experiment with painting skin tones and playing with light. The fall wall hanging was a collage that was created out of mixed media. I used paint, markers, and colored pencil to make it, and in the same vein as the last, tried to figure out how to add undertones to skin with the painting and turned out making it very emphasized and exaggerated. For the charcoal portrait, I worked a lot on shadows and trying to understand how to manipulate charcoal on the page. Because I spent most of my time playing with shadows I didn’t have the time to make the features look extremely similar to my own so the portrait did not turn out to be a perfect rendition of my own. Lastly, the watercolor fruit bowl was more playing with the colors and experimenting with the paint.

Artist Statment

This quarter my art mostly focused on painting. I am more of a sketch artist than painting. I really wanted to improve my painting so this quarter I used water colors and paint for the ceiling tiles. My art work was more colorful than even before. The shapes and ideas I used were different to me because they looked more realistic than my usual art. I tried a new type of art which gave me room to grow. I definitely think with more practice I will get better at realistic art. I was not so proud of my self portrait. Using the white on black paper was challenging. The shading was harder to use and it just made the face look less realistic. I think next time I will stick to black on white paper. I really enjoyed the ceiling tile because it came out nice and you can see the effort I put into it. 

Slideshow & Artist’s Statement - Emmett Tsai-McCarthy

Artist's Statement:
The main inspiration for my artwork is anime and manga.  I've always loved the style of anime, and I've even adopted a few of the techniques used in the medium.  Another inspiration would be animals.  Not real-life animals so to speak, but fictional animals/creatures that have real-world inspiration.
I mainly like to use pencil, but I have used pen on multiple occasions throughout my sketching career.  I do want to change my habit of drawing in pencil for the sake of honing my skills in different mediums and to give my sketchbooks more "color".  Speaking of color, this marking period was the first time I've actually used multiple colors to fill an entire page on my sketchbook.  I can't exactly remember any other time I've used different colors on more than just a character so this was new territory for me.
I spent most of my time doing the assigned art project during our "studio time".  There was the occasional point where I took a break and did homework, listened to music, and/or read a book.  When doing work outside of "studio time", on the other hand, was very annoying.  It wasn't because it was hard to draw in the conditions (since I finished most of my work in class) but it was because it was such a nuisance to take a picture of my art pieces.  The lighting would always be bad, sometimes using Snapseed (a photo editing app) would make it look worse, a whole bunch would go wrong basically.  I would mostly put the blame on my phone since it's such an old model and its functionality grows weaker and weaker by the day.
One of the most important things an artist wants a viewer to understand is all the hard work he or she put into making their masterpieces and I hope you see that in my work.  So please enjoy the slideshow!

Quarter 1, Final Project

In quarter one, I created a variety of things, those things being: Fall wall painting, Self portrait, and Ceiling tile. Many of these projects consisted of; paper, pencils, paints blank canvases, pictures from online, and the imagination. My process of making these pieces was much more than just following the instructions and using the right materials. It was about drawing something that related to me, and meant something to me, while still following the directions. In addition that, if a picture did not have meaning, it was then part of my job to find meaning in that picture, and make it meaningful. Which included editing, and re-drawing.

Each project out of four in total, I learned from. The ceiling tile taught me perspective. How even though you see one thing, not everyone is going to see the same thing you do, but instead something totally knew. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, itś something we do naturally. The fall wall painting taught me, to not let myself down. For the fall wall hanging, I took one of the easier ways out, and did a quick 2hr drawing, and submitted it. Which was fine, but didn´t get me the grade I could have gotten because I took the easy way out. I told myself not to take the easy way out, and to the drawing last minute, but I ended up doing exactly that. The self portrait taught me, appreciate myself more. When drawing my self portrait I had to pay close attention to details on my face and clothes. At first I didn't like it at all, but soon I like it. I realized the things that I would call my ïmperfections” aren't imperfect, they are parts of who I am and they are perfectly me.

I feel that art is more about the youself within then what you see on the paper. It's about the process that counts, when you look at the picture you can't see the process that was gone through, you only see the finished product. The behind the scenes process, including influences is what produces the meaning of your art piece. Art can teach you many things about the art itself but most importantly it can teach you about the world around you, it can even teach about you. However art means different things for different people, honestly art is what you make of it.


Q1 Art Portfolio - Mekhi Granby

In Quarter 1 of Senior Art, I created four pieces that showcase my abilities with different levels of art. In the process, I developed a level of comfortability with: watercolor, hand painting on untraditional materials, sketching, coloring, and expressing myself through art. Some of my most important sources of ideas for art come from cartoons and animation. I love the multiple styles, incorporating my take on them is fun. My preference in materials are those I can make make mistakes on, I’m a visual learner and find myself best grasping information through experience. I spend my time in the studio creating pieces that satisfy myself in the moment and display my emotions at a specific time. This quarter, I gained confidence in my art and learned to accept that my version of perfect isn’t always necessary. I’m my biggest critic and a perfectionist, (with my creations) during this quarter I realized that when trying to make things better they can get worse. I would like people to know that tons of effort and time go into every piece of art I create. I work until I’m happy with the finished product and put all my energy into making something that myself along with others can appreciate.


My Q1 Art Portfolio

The art I have created in this quarter was really an accomplishment. I feel like as the more classes I take in art the more I get better at being a artist. The art piece that I am most proud of would most likely be the ceiling tiles because It was something I enjoyed doing and loved the outcome. Also with one of the ceiling tiles a piece got broken off but I got my way around it and made that into part of my art work and it was just great.

Quarter 1 Art Work

In this quarter, I created a Beatles album cover for my ceiling tile, a leaf wall hanging, and a self-portrait drawn with markers. My ideas for art come from my passions or favorite things. When sketching ceiling tile ideas, I drew tiles that related to my favorite foods, bands, and people. For my fall wall hanging I incorporated a leaf I took from my favorite place, the shore, and got inspiration to paint it with bright fall colors, since my favorite season is fall. For my self portrait I was inspired by one of my favorite decades, the 80s, and tried to draw with colors and styles that reminded me of an 80s arcade floor pattern.


To create art in this marking period, I used different concepts and techniques for each assignment. With the ceiling tile, I tried to use a focal point on the Beatles, and blurred out all the background characters of the album cover by using wispy strokes of many different colors layered on top of each other. For my fall wall hanging I used the design concept of a painted leaf with warm gradient colors, and then I made it shiny and preserved both the leaf and paint by coating it in vaseline. Within my self-portrait I tried to show myself fracturing or “coming apart” at the seams of my sweater, by switching into warm colors and lines that all went in different directions, clustered all around each other. Something I learned about painting this quarter is that the finish of paint seems very rough without water mixed into it, because when I tried to stretch a certain color as I painted my ceiling tile, I noticed that with water mixed in, the paint went on so much smoother. I had not known this before, and it showed me some new aspects of painting.


For this quarter I used a variety of tools and materials to make my art: scissors, pencils, markers, colored pencils, string, tape, glue, paint, water, and paint brushes. Each of these materials either helped me physically draw my images, or enhance my artwork by cutting it apart or taping pieces together. I spent my time wisely in art, working every possible second I could to get my works of art done, and I even came in the studio at lunch for extra time to finish my ceiling tile. I made sure to be efficient with my time, and I finished most of the assignments before their due dates, but still put in hard work and effort to make my pieces with high quality. I would just like to leave people knowing that when I make art, almost every piece I do has some greater meaning or represents something about myself. Nothing about my artwork is ever simple, because a lot goes into the background thinking process to complete them.