College Art Part 3

First of all, special announcement! I printed note cards of my garden painting and have some ready to sell! They're in sets of 6 for $15, envelopes included. I currently have 6 left in stock, so let me know if you are interested!

It's hard to believe that I'm over halfway through the semester! With fall break and midterm past, we only have about 5-6 weeks left. With next semester's registration opening soon, I've been looking through classes to take next semester. It looks like I'll be taking three art classes - Drawing II, Design II, and Digital Imagery. I'm excited to see what all I'll learn in those!

In Design we've moved on to value, but had one more black and white project dealing with balance and symmetry first. We had to create one with approximate horizontal symmetry (some similar elements such as shape on both the left and right sides, but not exact) and one with horizontal asymmetry.

Then for value, we started with a fairly scientific class on how light moves, how our eyes perceive light, etc. We then made value scales using graphite, acrylic paints, and India ink to get some practice seeing and creating a range of values. Next we brought in these values for our next design dealing with dominance and movement. We created several little maps, marking points of interest with A, B, and C, then using arrows to show the way the eye should move between them. We used these maps to create 4 designs implementing this movement across the work. Two of these designs we turned into finished pieces, using black and white acrylics.

In Drawing, we just finished our work on the reductive method using charcoal. We had several in-class drawing time practicing it. I really enjoy this method because of the high contrast it achieves and how much it stands out. I've also discovered this lovely tool called a mechanical eraser, which is like a thin eraser tube in a mechanical pencil type holder. With this I can erase thin lines and create precise details and highlights. This method works especially well for glass and transparent objects on dark backgrounds since so much of the image is dark.

We also had an out-of-class project for this where we set up 5 transparent objects to draw. This one didn't work quite as well as the in-class practices because of the rough texture of the paper. It still turned out pretty well, but the highlights aren't quite as bright, and the texture isn't quite as smooth.

Here's the finished piece. I didn't get a chance to take a picture after taking the tape and paper borders off before I turned it in.

I also got over the halfway point for my sketchbook! Here's the latest sketches.

We only have two more projects in Drawing before our final project! We just started looking at polished and satin metal surfaces, and after this we'll move on to fabric. Not much left this semester!