Project 1 Progress

I am getting so tired of this painting...Hahaha..

It's going well though. I am glad I chose digital painting for my medium for this project. I've been wanting to learn how to paint in Photoshop for quite some time now and this project has been teaching me very fast how to blend properly, how to get colors, how to use hotkeys...

I am enjoying the composition of this image at the very least. Good movement, good contrast, everything I've been learning in class this week I have employed well I think.

Man, oh, man my hands are cramping though. And it may have too much contrast because my eyes are bugging out after staring at those bright green leaves all night.

Dreading the camera because it's pretty complicated, but hopefully I'll have that started tomorrow.

First Assignments in Art 1

This week, our exercises for Art 1 have been a written assignment on the Elements and Principles of Design, five thumbnail sketches using a viewfinder, and five photo manipulations to improve an image's composition.

I went to the park to get some lovely fresh air and get some interesting sketches done. I don't particularly like drawing with a viewfinder but it was a good exercise. I find I can only accomplish anything with the viewfinder if I look through it with only one eye. It makes sense because the thing is to help you visualize your subject on a 2D surface. Using only one eye makes you see in 2D.

Here is what I came up with, in the end:

I also did some photo cropping, but I'm not going to upload those because it would take forever and I also don't want to offend any copyrights since I took all the photos right off the internet.

The actual project for the week though is also started. Out of the three project options, I chose a still life project. We have to choose some objects that have some meaning to us and arrange them in a pleasing composition to sketch them in whatever way we see fit. Here are the compositions I'm messing with:

So far I like #6 the most, but both Michael and one of my instructors have said they like #5 better. I'm torn. What do you think? It's due Monday but I wanna get started on it.

Final grade for Art History...

My final grade for Art History is.......

97% !!!

Woo! I rocked that course! And I am happy to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I actually learned a lot about art, and really studied a lot of different artists on my own outside of the class just due to the fact that the course work really got me interested in some of the artists.

It feels so good to actually be passionate about school that for once in my life I am actually taking the time to go above and beyond. I used to just do what I had to do to pass. But now I am actually engaged. You get what you pay for, I guess. I think it has to do with that fact that I'm finally reaching for my actual dreams for once, as well.

Bring it on, Fundamentals of Art 1!