Art III Final Blog Post

Throughout this piece (on left), I collaborated with my classmates. During the planning phase of the project, I frequently asked my tablemates, specifically Claire and Alex, for advice on how to make this piece the best that it could possibly be. For example, I was not sure what to do after I did a "test-run" for the piece and the paint from each section bled into the white area. Then, Claire suggested that I paint the entire piece of cardboard white before beginning the piece. That way, when I went back to fix up little errors where the paint bled, the white would match the background perfectly. My classmates encouraged me to push through and keep working hard at the project, even when it got extremely tedious and a bit boring. I am thankful to have collaborated with them because if I had not, I do not believe the piece would have turned out as well as it did. I believe that peer collaboration, in any subject matter, is beneficial. Just having two sets of eyes on a work can be useful by decreasing the chance of making silly mistakes. It is great to be in an environment of encouragement and support.

The next piece, my text art piece, is, in my opinion, my most successful. It won third place in the Halle Art Show in the category of high school artists. This is a very original piece of art. I used ideas that I found on Pinterest to come up with the idea of using many words to create shapes. Then, unlike the pieces I had seen on Pinterest, I decided to take my own spin on it by incorporating a serious meaning into what is usually seen as a lighthearted medium. After deciding to do the New York City skyline, I was conflicted between doing the positive or negative words associated with the city. The deciding factor proved to be that I could not come up with enough positive words about it. Don't get me wrong, I've visited NYC and definitely enjoy being there, but city is the epitome and embodiment of the greediness in the United States. I came up with a huge list of words (each word on the piece is different) and then arranged them. The picture to the left does not show it well, but I used different fonts and text weight to draw the reader's eye across the picture. Also, the words in each building are going in a different direction, so it is obvious where the building begins and ends. I believe that this is an extremely unique piece because I had to be innovative and creative in order to make it come together. Also, the subject matter has real meaning and the audience is able to connect with it in order to understand my purpose.


If I were to redo any of my projects, I would redo my last one: my picture of North Carolina. I love the idea of doing a piece to represent my roots and the place I've been raised in. However, I did not give the process of this piece enough thought before I actually began working. I initially spraypainted the background black, traced the phrase "DON'T FORGET WHERE YOU BELONG" and then painted the letters in with yellow. Once I finished doing that, it was missing something. There was too much space around the western side of North Carolina that I needed to fill. So, I decided that I was going to paint over the background in red, white and blue, because those are the colors of both North Carolina's flag and the flag of the United States. I began alternating red, white and blue in strips along the western part of the state, but it looked absolutely dreadful. Now, I think that I need to start over 100%, so I am painting over the whole thing in black so I can start with a blank canvas. I think that I am going to try the text again, because I liked the meaning of it, but I am going to play with the fonts some so that it fills up more of the space. Also, I will not use yellow because it was too difficult to make the yellow strong enough to stand out from the black background.

Teens Inspired

For my Artists Inspired piece, I was influenced by this work of Frank Philip Stella. Stella has always been one of my favorite artists and I jumped at the opportunity to take a unique spin on his modern style. I really like his use of geometric shapes and clean lines to create a piece with unity and cohesion. Stella's work"Raqqa II" inspired me to create my piece. I laid down strips of masking tape in order to divide up the piece of cardboard into sections. Then, I painted each one of the sections a specific color, which I had previously planned. Each color was placed where it would create contrast between the darks and lights and the warm and cool colors. I had to paint each part several times in order to get the colors to be as rich and pure as I wanted, but I think the extra work was worth it. I'm extremely pleased with how this project came out because the lines are clean, like those of Stella, and the colors go very well together. Other artists who are featured in the North Carolina Museum of Art, including Richard Diebenkorn and Franz Kline, also inspired me with the idea for my piece. 

Art Snapshot 3

I am currently working on an acrylic paint project. I am creating an abstract piece. Once I am done, I'm going to remove the tape so white lines are on the page. The lines are going to draw the eye of the audience from one part of the piece to the other. I'm super excited about this piece and cannot wait for you to see the finished product!!(:

Art Three Blog Snapshot #2

Since my last blog post, I have completed the text art project. I ended up putting down a layer of newspaper on a canvas, painting over it with grey acrylic paint, and then creating the NYC skyline out of text. I chose this theme because although I love New York, most people who live there are more concerned with making money than with finding true happiness. I'm very pleased with how this piece came out. Taking my time and paying attention to detail ended up paying off with the final project. If I could do this project again and do it differently, I would make more important words bolded. Also, I would buy some better pens so the quality of the piece would be a higher quality.

For my next project, I decided to do printmaking. So far I have created a Pinterest board: 
https://www.pinterest.com/hannahdayy/printmaking/
Also, I have started to create some sketches for my final project.  I decided that I was going to do three prints of the stages of life a girl goes through: childhood, parenthood and old age. I am going to keep the prints very simplistic and only do black and white because I don't want crazy colors to take away from the theme of the piece. 

See you in two weeks!

Text Art

For the Digging Deeper Step I created a Pinterest board. The link is below:
http://www.pinterest.com/hannahdayy/text-art/

My first Challenge was a heart comprised of the words "I love you" in many different languages. I really liked the idea of this because if you look closely at the words, many of them are extremely similar. I made English bold so the audience could understand what all of the other words mean. 

My second challenge was the black out text. The picture is hard to read but I chose words like "fight," "dark" and "enemy." 

My idea for the final project is to create the NYC skyline out of words describing the ideals of many business people.  I will be using pen and ink over newspaper.

Mixed Media: Simplicity and Amusement

The flower was a creative and unique piece of artwork. When I was searching on Pinterest for inspiration, I found a flower with things in each of the petal and was inspired to create this piece. Despite that, I used my own ideas for what to put in each of the petals. I made this piece unique to me because instead of just putting basic patterns or designs in each of the petals, I made each an individual collage of things I like including music, swimming, family, food, and inspirational/motivational quotes. Furthermore, I took the idea I found on Pinterest and incorporated into both of the themes of simplicity and amusement. It displays simplicity because the flower is a simple sunflower and amusement because I included all of the things that I enjoy.
In order to complete this project, I had to learn new techniques and processes. Prior to this project, I had never done a true "Mixed Media" project. I had done simple collages in elementary school art classes, but I had never used gel medium, wallpaper, newspaper, buttons, watercolor, or acrylic paints in one piece or even on their own. Combining all of these techniques was a daunting task, but with Ms. Rossi's help, I believe that I succeeded. Using the gel medium for the first time was an awesome experience and I think that technique helped to pull this piece together. Also, it helped me layer the picture so there is an obvious background, middleground, and foreground. Cutting out images from magazines was another successful technique I used in this piece because they have a nice shiny appearance and have vibrant colors. Overall, I am pleased with the techniques I used to create this piece.
Several times throughout this project, I took a step back in order to reflect on my picture. The first time I stepped back to reflect was after I thought I had completed the petal with the ocean/swimming theme. At first this petal was just the water and the sand with nothing else on it. After reflecting on the petal, I was able to realize that by adding life to it (the dolphin) it would make it more interesting and aesthetically pleasing. I reflected many other times throughout the project, but the final time was at the very end. At the beginning of the project I had drawn in with pencil where I wanted to place the petals, but at the end the pencil marks were still visible. By stepping away from the project and using problem solving skills, I was able to cover up the pencil marks with more pieces of newspaper. After making that correction, I was able to complete my mixed media piece.

Painting: Sticky Situation

References

References

Practice with Value/Paint

Final Sketch

Final Product

This sticky situation project was my best piece of work so far because of my creative idea. The inspiration for this project was the pictures (seen above) that I found on Pinterest. Those pictures gave me a basic idea for what I wanted to do, but I expanded on it with the various designs and color schemes used. This idea is original in the sense that it is both relevant, but also very unique.

This piece of art proved that I am able to solve problems. Throughout the final portion of this project (the painting), I made many mistakes. I found things that some of the ideas I had envisioned were not going to turn out perfectly because of both the tricky medium and my lack of experience with it. Instead of getting down on myself and trashing the piece, I decided to reinvent the idea and take some risks that ended up paying off. Using paint was good to help solve little problems because it can be easily layered and covered.

I think this piece accurately portrayed both my skill set and my artistic flair or sense of style. This painting was not meant to have a pressing or controversial tone. I enjoy creating art that is relevant to modern culture and reaches a wide audience. Also, I personally find it more pleasurable to create pieces that are simple, but still represent my personality. When I first saw pictures of the candy lips and demos of how to recreate them, I was intrigued. I loved being able to show my brighter side with the vibrant color scheme and fun concept.