Art 1- Dry Point Postcard Print- A+

Our third and final project in the printmaking unit used a technique called dry going printing. This involved using sharpened metal tools to carve into a hard plastic called plexiglass, applying ink, removing ink in non-desired places, and finally, rolling it through the printing press. As a bonus, we also chose one of our prints to paint with water color. The theme of this project was "destinations", and unlike our previous printing projects, we were to use a picture we had taken ourselves and turn it into multiple prints.

Part I: Carving

The materials used for this part were as follows: Printed and edited destination photograph, one rectangle of plexiglass, metal plexiglass carving tools, iPhone flashlight, duct tape, fine sand paper, and rough metal filer.

Before we began doing any actual work on the print, we first had to choose a picture we had taken during a vacation to fit the theme of "destinations". I eventually selected a picture I had taken in the Millbrae Japanese Garden of a Japanese stone pagoda-like structure. After uploading it to photoshop, we then tweaked the photo's brightness, sharpness, size, and eventually turned it black and white. After Mr. Laurence had printed these edited pictures, we then got to work with carving on the plexiglass. Despite its name, plexiglass is not actually a kind of glass. Instead, it's a hard plastic made from acrylic, and this hardness makes it an ideal choice for carving. In photoshop, we had edited the photo so that it was exactly the same size as our plexiglass piece, so we laid the plastic on top of it and duct taped it on the sides.

Next, we first used a thicker metal carving tool to carve the general outline of the objects in our picture. The key was to only use the picture as a guideline, so only the objects we wanted to include had to be traced. However, since it was difficult to see where you are carving on a clear, transparent piece of plastic, Mr. Laurence revealed to us a trick. Using the flashlight on our iPhones, we could shine them in direct contact with one of the plexiglass's corners, and all of the carved areas would shine white. After I had carved a general outline of the pagoda-like statue, I then used a much finer and pointier metal carving tool to carve out the finer details of the picture, like the texture of the statue and the tree branches in the background. Especially since my photo had such a strong contrast of light and dark values, I wanted to express this by putting a lot of thick dashed lines in the dark areas and fewer thin dashed lines in the lighter areas.

Once the entire outline was complete, we then used fine sand paper and selected areas of medium value to sand down. Since the areas I wanted to sand down were very detailed, I folded the sand paper and then only used the sand on the tip to create medium values. After a while, I found that sanding in a circular motion worked best, so that's how I created the circular texture in my carving's background. Since my original photo had so much stuff going on in its background, I only decided to include the trees and pagoda in my carving.

When the entire carving was complete, we then removed the duct tape and used the rough metal filer to feel down the sharp surface edges of the plastic. This way, when we rolled it through the printing press, it won't cut through the printing paper.

Some difficulties I faced during the carving process was the carving of the outline of the photo onto the plexiglass. This was because the plexiglass itself had a certain thickness to it, and looking at the photo at a different angle would alter the picture's outline. Eventually, I realized the best way was to keep my head at a comfortable position but to not move it too much. Additionally, I also found it hard to create the different light and dark values in my carving. But when I imagined that this was essentially the same thing as creating values with pencil on paper, I realized all I had to do was create more thick lines in areas of dark value and the opposite for places of light value.

Part II: Inking and Printing

The materials used for this part were as follows: Plexiglass with carved destination picture, a tub of water, thick printing paper, newspaper, thin waxed paper sheets, printing ink, a brayer, plastic inking surface, cheesecloths, Q-tips, plastic palette knives, and a printing press machine.

Unlike our previous printing techniques of screen printing and linoleum printmaking, dry point-printing was more of an ink-reduction method that created a print with very little ink. Because there wouldn't be that much in on the plexiglass while printing, we would need to make the printing paper more receptive to the ink. To achieve this, we submerged the thick, textured printing paper into a tub of water and let it soak while we prepared the plexiglass for printing.

First, we used a plastic palette knife to scoop a small amount of printing ink onto the plastic inking surface. We could either choose red, blue, or black, and I chose to use black ink. After this, we used the brayer to roll and spread out the ink. The ink we used for this printing project was especially sticky, and Mr. Laurence showed us how we should roll it out until it was both evenly distributed but still a bit tacky. Then, we used the inked up brayer to roll ink onto the carved side of the plexiglass.

Next, using a used piece of cheesecloth, we wiped away the surface ink from the plexiglass. Now, the ink was only in the carved crevices and sandpapered areas that we created earlier. Then, we used a cleaner piece of cheesecloth to get the desired un-inked areas cleaner, and for the finer details, we used a Q-tip. Once this was complete, we retrieved our soaking printing paper from the tub using a small waxed paper sheet. In order to get the excess water off, we then proceeded to place the paper in between a few sheets of newspaper and pressed on top, allowing the newspaper to absorb the water.

Now that the printing paper and plexiglass with ink was ready, all we had to do was place the damp printing paper on top of the plexiglass and sandwich it between the printing press paper sheets. Once we finished rolling them through the printing press, we then carefully lifted the paper off the plexiglass, placed the wet print on the drying rack, and washed our plexiglass piece. This process was repeated once more to create two prints.

Some difficulties I  experienced during this process included wiping the ink away with the cheesecloth and placing the wet inking paper on top of the plexiglass before printing. The first time I did this, I had removed way too much ink so that my print ended up being too faint. This was a problem because I had wiped away the ink too roughly, and this resulting in the ink inside the carved crevices to be taken away also. Eventually however, I solved this through being more mild with my wiping away of ink. I tried to only wipe away the general surface of ink so that I could see my carving's outline, and then used the cleaner cheesecloth and Q-tips to only wipe away places I didn't want ink. This left plenty of ink in my carved crevices. That is how my next print proved to be more successful with bolder lines. The only problem with this, however, was that in certain areas (especially in the bottom right of my print), I had wiped away the ink unevenly, leaving smudge marks. By then, it was too late to solve this, but if I had done another print, I would've paid more attention to these areas and wiped away ink more carefully.

Additionally, one of my prints (a third print that isn't shown in this blog post) had water marks streaking the entire print. Later, I realized that I had done everything correctly. The thing that caused these unwanted water marks was that when I placed the wet inking paper on top of the plexiglass, I moved it, smearing the ink disproportionally onto the paper before rolling it through the printing press. This, coupled with how the paper was wet to begin with, resulted in those unwanted water marks. I now know that if I were to create another print, I need to carefully place the inking paper on in one try and to not adjust it once it's on.

Part III: Painting with Watercolor

The materials used for this part were as follows: plastic bowl with water, water spray bottle, watercolor trays with watercolor paints, flat medium-sized paintbrush, thin and pointed tiny paintbrush, and paper towels.

In total, I had create three prints, but for my final presented two, I excluded the one that had watermarks. Out of the two, we were to choose one to leave in its original inked form and the other to paint with watercolor. I chose to use the first print I did since the lines were fainter than the other one.

First, with a bowl of water and paintbrushes next to me, I used the spray bottle to spray water onto the watercolor paints. This activated the gum arabic inside the paint, allowing it to be used for painting. Next, I used my wet brush to take some paint and put it onto the watercolor tray. Then, depending on how mild or strong I wanted the colors, I used water to dilute the paint. Using this diluted paint, I carefully painted the desired areas in my print with a paintbrush. For the watercolor painted print, I decided to make the pagoda-like statue red, the supporting structures orange-brown, the trees green and brown, and the background light blue.

I decided to make the darker-valued areas of my print have a bolder color, so for those shaded areas on the pagoda, I painted bright red. For the lighter-valued areas, I used more water to dilute my brush and only took a little bit of red paint to create a lighter tint of red. A similar process was repeated with my pagoda's support structures. With these two shades of red side-by-side, it successfully emphasized which areas were meant to be shadowed and which were not.

Despite this, I found it especially difficult to keep my printed lines visible. With the stark red popping from the print, I needed something to ensure that the printed lines beside them were still visible. I later solved this by using a thin brush and outlining the printed lines with the same bright red paint. Some of the areas I painted were still wet when I outlined them, so in order to prevent bleeding, I took a paper towel and dabbed the areas dry.

Additionally, when I painted the background light blue, I didn't put enough of the blue paint on my palette. This meant that when I finished painting one section, I would have to recreate the same tint of blue from scratch, and in certain areas in my print, you can still see how not all of the blues are the same. In order to even out the color, I decided to use a wet brush and take away some color from the bolder blue areas and add them to the milder blue area. Next time, I'll know to take enough of the desired paint so that I won't have to remix with water.

Although this project was probably the most difficult out of all the printing projects due to some very new techniques, my final product was still something that I could say I worked hard on. If given the opportunity, I would like to try this project again and create something I would be even prouder of.

Print #1: Black Ink on Printing Paper

Print #2: Black Ink with Watercolor on Printing Paper

Art 1- Map Color Scheme Painting- A+

We have now moved on from our printing unit into our painting unit. For the first two projects in this unit, we used water color. This first project used water soluble pencils, and when you applied water to the colored surface, it would become water color. Using scraps of maps and creating a collage with them, we created a reference for our imaginary water color maps. In addition to using this new kind of water color material, our other main focus was color composition.

Part I: Creating the Map

The materials used for this part were as follows: map cutouts, glue, a medium sized piece of paper, a medium sized water color canvas, H pencil, eraser, and permanent marker-pen.

Before we began creating our fictional maps, we selected several cutouts of real maps from Mr. Laurence's collection. Then, we overlapped them and glued them onto a medium sized piece of paper, creating a collage. The purpose of this was not to have something to copy "verbatim" (as Mr Laurence says), but to have a sort of reference to give guidance to our drawing.

Once we finished making our map collages, we could then proceed to making a sketch of our maps with the H pencil onto our water color canvas. Since I had chosen map scraps that had many different detailed lines, I chose to simply sketch the larger roads, routes, and landmarks in my map. For example, I had chosen a map of a piece of land by the ocean with a couple islands around it. It had several complex thin lines on the peninsula representing roads, but for my map sketch, I only chose to create an outline of the peninsula and islands.

Now that I had completed a general outline of my map, I could deviate from the collage and add my own personal charm to it. I wanted my drawing to be a hybrid world of all the places my original map scraps had been of: Kyoto, France, Munich, Chicago, and the Island of Mull (Scotland). At the same time, my map didn't have any important landmarks, so I wanted to add some of my own landmarks. In the end, my final sketch included a Mer-Lion-like statue, a Japanese temple with deer-like animals nearby, and a hot air balloon floating overhead. I also took inspiration from some of my childhood picture books and drew a treasure map with an "X" over my map's island.

When I had completed my sketch with pencil, I outlined and refined it with thin permanent marker. Once I had finished outlining, I erased all of the remaining pencil lines, leaving only the permanent marker.

Some challenges I had faced during this part was using my original collage as a reference point. At first, I was afraid to deviate too much from it, but once I realized that it was only meant to be a guide, I then created many of my own roads and landscapes. After my first draft was completed, I realized I still had some empty space where my map's ocean was. To solve this, I drew a compass, a whale, and mermaid tail (although it looks more like tempura), and a sail boat. This added my own imagination into my map, and I am very pleased with the outcome.

Additionally, when I first began outlining, I had accidentally taken a thicker marker instead of the thin pen-like one I was supposed to use. I was thinking of simply continuing on with the rest of the outlining with this marker but the realized it would be difficult to outline the smaller details later. In the end, I switched to the thin marker-pen. Despite this, you can still the bolder outline of some of my maps' features on the left side. Although this happened, I am still satisfied with my final outcome.

Part II: Coloring with Water Soluble Pencils

The materials used for this part were as follows: water soluble coloring pencils, a bowl of water, a fine-tipped water color brush, a flat-edged water color brush, and color wheel.

For this project, we had to demonstrate our understanding of three kinds of color combinations: split compliment, triadic, and warm/cool colors. To show these three kind of color combinations, I divided my map into three sections, designating one color combo to each section. There aren't any definitive lines or boundaries to mark these transitions, but you can tell where they are based on my map's more obvious lines. Firstly, the entire section of my map that includes the ocean and island is where I used the split complimentary colors of blue, orange yellow, and orange red. Then, moving to the right where my map begins on land, you'll see I used the triadic colors of purple, green, and orange. Finally, following the red road that ends with the Mer-Lion like statue and the trees beside it, I used warm and cool colors.

Before using any water and activating the paint inside the water soluble pencils, I first colored everything according to these color combinations. First, let's talk about the split compliment colors. On the color wheel, you'll see that on the left and right of each colors are colors that are a "step" closer to the next closest primary color. For example, on the two sides of orange, there is orange-yellow and orange-red. As you can probably guess, the orange-yellow is a "step" closer to yellow (hence making the color more yellow also), and the yellow-red is a "step" closer to red (hence making the color more red). For split compliment, we used three colors. At first, we choose a color, then look at the color directly across from it on the color wheel. Instead of using that compliment color, we used the colors on the left and right of it, the "split colors" of the original color's compliment.

For this color combination, I chose blue. Blue's complimentary color is orange, so then I would use the two colors beside orange: orange-yellow and orange-red. In order to achieve this color, I would first color down a layer of the lighter color, then layer on the darker color on top. This way, when I painted over it, the two colors would blend and create my desired color. An example would be first layering down yellow, then orange (since yellow is a lighter color). These three colors (blue, yellow-orange, and red-orange) were what I used to complete my first section on the far left.

The second color combination we had to use were triadic colors. These were any three colors on the color wheel that were evenly spaced apart, creating a virtual triangle when you connected the lines between them. For example, I chose the triadic colors green, orange, and purple. Like with the first section, I first colored in the roads and shapes with colored pencil before adding water. The only different thing I tried here was that I left some spaces white. Mr. Laurence said that it was good to leave some "breathing room" for the viewer in the face of all the color on our maps, so I decided to leave the footprints, the swan, the spaces between buildings, the spaces between my thin orange road lines (on the far left), and the walls of my stilted house free of color.

The last color combination was used from the top right corner to the bottom middle of my map. You can clearly see a red road dividing sections II and III. Here, we used warm and cool colors. Warm colors were colors that we associate with warmth and heat: red, orange, yellow, and the colors between them. On the other hand, cool colors are those we associate with lack of warmth: blue, green, purple. However, the colors between warm and cool, red-purple and yellow-green, can be either warm or cool depending on the colors around them.

Essentially, all of the colors on the color wheel are either warm or cool, so in that sense, I could use any colors I wanted. However, a focus for this section was to make certain items on our map pop, so in order to do that, I decided to color the objects I wanted to stand out either warm or cool, and then the background the complimenting color combo. For example, I wanted my temple on the far right to stand out, so I colored it in warm colors. In order to make it pop, I colored the surroundings in cooler colors. While I did used yellow-green for the grass, in this case, it acted more of a cool color since the tree trunks were blue. I also wanted the trees and the deer-like animal to kind of stand out (but not as much as the temple), so I also colored them a warm color: yellow. Since this color was rather close to yellow-green, it didn't pop as much as the red and orange of the temple. However, it was still a warm color, so it did give a certain extent of contrast.

Now that everything had finally been colored, we could then proceed to using the water and water color brushes. All we had to do was, for the larger areas, dip a flat-edged water color brush into water and slowly drag the brush around the section. This would activate the water soluble pigment inside the colored surface and create a smooth-like consistency: water color. For this, it was important to only color one section of the same color at a time. Otherwise, your brush could spread the color into an unwanted section. For finer details, I used a fine-tipped water color brush. I then repeated this process for the rest of my map.

Some challenges I faced during this part was the actual coloring with colored pencil. At first, I found it difficult to only color with three colors for my first two sections. If I wanted to color my ocean blue, then what about my whale? What if I wanted my whale to also be blue? I later solved this by realizing that although I could only use three colors, I could use an unlimited number of tints of that color. That is why, for my ocean, I only colored in lightly, but for my whale, I pressed down more, creating a darker blue. I did the same when I encountered difficulties with the yellow-orange and red-oranges also.

Additionally, I found myself wanting to create more variety within a section, but like with my first challenge, I felt limited to only three colors. Instead of changing the pressure of my coloring this time, I decided to only color one section of an object and then later pull that color across with water to the rest of the object. An example would by the purple tree right below my Mer-Lion. I had colored the far left side of it purple, then used my wet brush to drag that purple color across to the right side. This created a sort of ombre effect.

Overall, while this project was very different from my previous experiences with water color, I am still happy with my final product.

Art 1- Watercolor Architectural Painting- A+

The second project in our painting unit also used water color. However, the main difference between this one and the one preceding it was that we used actual water color paint instead of water soluble colored pencils. Like with the color combination requirements in our last piece, we also had techniques we had to demonstrate in this one. Of the 15 water color techniques we learned to use, we had to use at least seven. While the main focus was on using water color paints, we also learned to use other materials like masking tape, masking fluid, salt, and plastic wrap. These materials worked with the paint to create many different styles of water color effects.

Piece I: Water Color Techniques

The materials used for this piece were as follows: ruler, water color paper, masking tape, stapling board, stapler (with staples), H pencil, water color palette with paints, spray bottle, bowl of water, fine-tipped and flat-edged water color brushes, salt, splattering brush, plastic wrap, masking fluid, rubbing square, and paper towels.

For both of the two pieces in this project, we first soaked the water color paper in water. This would expand the fibres and allow it to become more receptive of paint. In order to prevent the "wrinkling" effect that happens when water dries on paper, we then stapled the wet paper onto a wooden stapling board. This way, when the wet paper dries, the staples prevent the fibres from contracting, allowing the water applied from water color paint from creating any wrinkles on the paper surface.

Once this step was complete, we placed the stapling board with our two pieces water color paper on the drying rack. After our paper was dry, would could then proceed to painting on them. This first piece was to practice the our targeted 15 water color techniques: graduated wash, blending wash, bleeding, feathering, wet into wet, wet on dry, dry brush...etc. To practice these techniques, we used a ruler and H pencil to divide our paper into 15 separate squares. By spraying water onto our water color palette paints, the gum arabic inside them would activate and allow the pigment to be used. While practicing these techniques, it was important to first dip our wet paintbrushes inside the pigment and then transfer them onto the plastic palette cap. This way, instead of spreading more water color paint onto our pieces, we simply stained the paper with diluted water color.

While I don't want to go into the specifics of every single one of these 15 techniques, I do want to highlight three of them: graduated wash, water blooms, and masking fluid.

Graduated washes were created by putting on a lot of pigment on one side of the square, then using water to pull that color across the rest of the square. This created a dark to light ombre effect. For water blooms, we painted an entire square a certain color and then used a clean brush to drag or drop clean water onto the square. This would create a beautiful ruffled effect.

Thirdly, we used masking fluid. When painted on top of a surface and then allowed to dry, masking fluid protected the surface underneath it from getting stained with paint, enabling artists to easily retain sharp lines of contrast. To use the masking fluid, we first had to cover our brush bristles with soap in order to protect the bristles from sticking together. Once the masking fluid dried, we could paint on top of it and remove the dried fluid with a rubbing square.

It was important for all of these techniques that I left a little space of dry paper between each square. This way, color from different techniques would not spread to other squares.

Some challenged I faced with these techniques include creating a "lifting out" effect. This effect was where you painted a solid color and then, while the paint is still wet, use a dry brush to take off some of that paint. This was a bit difficult for me because when I first tried this, the difference in removed paint was not very obvious. I eventually solved this by adding more pigment and pressing harder with my dry brush to remove the paint.

Techniques from left to right, top to bottom:

1. Graduated Wash

2. Blending Wash from Primary to Secondary

3. Bleeding

4. Feathering

5. Wet into Wet

6. Wet on Dry

7. Lifting out

8. Water blooms

9. Masking with Masking Fluid

10. Masking with Masking Tape

11. Rock Salt

12. Splattering

13. Tissue Paper Technique

14. Dry Brush

15. Plastic Wrap Texture

Piece II; Water Color Painting

The materials used for this piece were as follows: water color paper, masking tape, stapling board, stapler (with staples), pliers, laminated reference photo, H pencil, water color palette with paints, spray bottle, bowl of water, fine-tipped and flat-edged water color brushes, salt, splattering brush, plastic wrap, masking fluid, rubbing square, and paper towels.

In this second piece, we were to demonstrate an understanding of the water color techniques we had practiced earlier. To ensure the edges of our painting would remain sharp, the first step we did was surround the piece of paper with masking tape, also covering the staples. Then, we chose one of Mr. Laurence's laminated pictures as a reference photo. I chose a picture of our school's elementary playground slide. Once we had chosen our picture, we then used an H pencil to make a light sketch of it onto our second piece of water color paper. It was important to use an H pencil because anything softer (like a B pencil) would smear easily and spread from the water color applied over it. It was also important to not erase too much, otherwise the fibers of the water color paper would get ripped.

When the sketch of my reference photo was complete, I then used the masking fluid to cover any areas I wanted to keep white. Since water color is very translucent, the only way to keep a section of your painting white was to not paint over it. Like before, I first had to cover my brush (my choice was a fine-bristled brush) with soap, dip it into the bottle of masking fluid, and then carefully paint it over the spaces between my slide's back wall, places where lots of sunlight would hit, the tops of my slide's steps, and the dots on the playground floor. After waiting for it to dry overnight, I then proceeded to painting with water color.

Like with the Water Color Map piece, Mr. Laurence told us we didn't need to follow the reference photo "verbatim". While I chose my reference photo because of its interesting color combination of solid blues, yellows, reds, and greens, I knew I didn't have to follow it exactly. In the end, I did choose to keep most of the general colors, however this served as only a base to build upon.

First, I started out with painting the slide in my drawing blue. On the left side of my slide, I used the techniques of lifting out and using tissue paper. Because I wanted the blue paint on that side of my slide to be especially faint, I first used a dry brush to remove the still-wet blue water color. However, I couldn't remove all of the excess water with my dry brush. To solve this, I then used some tissue paper and lightly dabbed crinkled tissue paper over it, overlapping the two techniques. Next, I painted my slide's back wall blue and crumpled a piece of plastic wrap and let it dry over the wet paint. When  the paint dried and I removed the wrap, it created the plastic wrap effect.

After this, I painted the slide entrance archway with diluted yellow water color. Once that was dry, I painted the entire area with clean water and used the feathering technique to drop create hints of green. This was done by dragging green water color over this wash of clean water. Since I didn't want the yellow and green to blend, I had first waited for the diluted yellow wash to dry.

With the red steps leading down into the entrance of the slide, I used three different water color techniques from top to bottom: wet into wet, graduated wash, and rock salt. The first section was wet purple paint onto a wet base of red color. The next one was a graduated wash with red paint, and the one below was a combination of red and purple water color with rock salt sprinkled on top. By adding rock salt to the still-wet paint, the salt would absorb the water and leave a design. Once the paint had dried, all you had to do was lightly scrape the salt off.

I also used graduated wash with the green surfaces of my slide and, once that was dry, used the wet on dry technique on top. This technique involved using varying thicknesses of lines to create designs on a dry surface. By the slide's backboard, I also used green paint and a splatter brush to create a spattering effect. For this, I took the stiff and thick-bristled brush with wet green water color and ran my thumb through it, aiming at the spot I wanted splattered.

The final three techniques I used were bleeding wash, blending wash, and dry brush. In the top right corner of my painting, I painted a thick band of yellow paint, and then while it was still wet, painted a band of  red paint right below it. The water in both paints then allowed the red paint to "bleed" into the yellow paint. Below that,  I had created a blending wash with blue and yellow. To achieve this, I painted a band of blue paint and then painted a band of yellow next to it, continuing down until the only color visible was yellow. Finally, for the playground floor where the masking fluid dots were, I dried my brush and picked up orange paint with very little water on it, dragging it across the paper. On top of that, I had used splattering with green and purple a second time.

In total, I had used 13 techniques:

1. Lifting out
2. Tissue Paper
3. Plastic Wrap
4. Feathering
5. Wet into Wet
6. Graduated Wash
7. Rock Salt
8. Wet on Dry
9. Splattering
10. Bleeding Wash
11. Blending Wash
12. Dry Brush
13. Masking Fluid

With all of my painting done, the only steps I had left were to remove the masking fluid, outline with permanent marker, take off the masking tape from the paper's edge, and remove the piece of paper from the stapling board. The masking fluid was easily removed with the rubbing square, however the masking tape was a bit trickier. It would rip the surface fiber of the paper off, so I had to make sure I peeled away from my painting. Then, since most of my pencil outlines had faded with the addition of water color, I brought my lines back with black permanent marker. Finally, using a pair of pliers, I removed the staples from the piece of paper and the board.

Some challenges I faced while painting this piece include successfully incorporating water color techniques and painting in the slide. First, let's talk about using the techniques. I didn't know when to use what kinds of techniques, and for the first few minutes before I lay down my brush, I was very indecisive about what to do. Should I just go down the list and not care about whether or not my painting looked nice? Or should I paint everything in first, and then add in the techniques later? Eventually, I decided both ideas were either not desirable or too time consuming. So in the end, I divided my sketch into sections and designated a different water color technique to each one. Then, later on, I could add on more techniques if I felt something was missing.

Secondly, painting my slide was rather difficult. In my reference photo, you could tell the slide had bumps and curves and steps imprinted into it. However, how was I to convey that to my viewer with just water color? I spent a long time looking at my photo and realized that the slide space beside the stairs were actually darker than the tops of the steps. I had already used masking fluid to cover the tops of the steps, so all I had to do was make the two spaces the the left and right of it a darker blue. To make my steps actually look like steps, I then used a lot of pigment with then water to create an even darker blue below those steps. This, coupled with my final touch outlining, created an image of the slide I wanted to show.

While this piece was especially challenging since it involved including many technical aspects, I still enjoyed the process and surprised myself with how well my final product turned out.

Art 1- Styrofoam Sculpture- A+

The final unit in Art Foundations is the 3D unit, with our first project being a styrofoam sculpture. The styrofoam we used was extremely light and easy to carve, but before we proceeded to this stage, we first spent a couple of lessons planning out what we wanted our carving to be. The theme of this project was to create a sculpture that somehow represented different cultures, and in addition to this, we had to demonstrate our understanding of four different 3D concepts: cultural connection, surface treatment, mass, and volume.

Part I: Brainstorming & Planning

The materials used for this part are as follows: A3 paper, B pencil, and computer for reference photos and research.

Firstly, we took an A3 piece of paper, divided it into four quadrants, and then designated each quadrant into each of the 3D concepts. To fill out the cultural connection part, I researched online about different Maori, Celtic, Egyptian, and Chinese symbols. In the end, I decided to include two variants of the Maori swirl, a Celtic square loop, my own version of the Egyptian ankh, Chinese characters, and a few other symbols. I drew out these symbols and ideas onto my first quadrant.

In the second quadrant, I had to brainstorm surface treatment, which is essentially what I wanted to carve onto the surface of my sculpture. I knew I wanted to carve cultural symbols on the surface, so before this step, I finished a few sketches of my sculpture's mass. Mass means what physical shape my sculpture was going to be, and I made sketches of a whale and dolphin. Now that I knew what possible shapes my sculpture was to be, I drew two sketches of each shape with my chosen cultural symbols on the surface treatment quadrant.

Finally, the last quadrant was volume, and in this case, volume means: where does air penetrate the inside of the piece? In other words, where are the holes in your piece going to be? The requirements were to have at least one hole that went all the way through the sculpture, so I decided to add three holes on the top of my chosen shape: the whale.

Below is a picture of my brainstorm, and some of the challenges during this process were deciding on what shape to use. At first, I really wanted to create a dolphin jumping out of the water with a sphere on its snout, but eventually, I realized this would be way to complicated to carve in the given time. That is why in the end, I settled for a whale.

Part II: Carving

The materials used for this part are as follows: carving foam blocks, newspaper, carving tools, running water, bamboo skewers, elmer's glue.

The foam that we used was extremely easy to carve, however this also makes the carving space very messy. That is why we first laid down a sheet of newspaper on our worktable. I wanted my whale to be a little taller than the width of the pre-cut foam block, so to solve this, I used two foam blocks and carved them separately. First, I used a fine-tipped carving tool to outline the general shape of my whale onto the first block. Then, on the other block, I decided to carve my whale's top and tail. To do this, I used a flat carving tool with bumps on it, and it served as something similar sandpaper or a nail filer. 

Once I filed away the general outline of my whale, top, and tail, I used the same tipped tool from earlier to outline the designs and symbols onto the foam. Then, depending on whether I wanted the designs to pop like a relieve sculpture or not, I carved away my chosen negative space. For the smaller designs like my Yin and Yang, I used the tipped tool, but for the larger designs like my combination of the ankh and wing, I used the filing tool to carve away the space around it. After a while, it got difficult to remove the bits of carved foam away from my piece, but then Mr. Laurence recommended we lightly rinse our sculptures with running water. Immediately after I did this, all of the remaining bits of foam were washed away, and the foam felt firmer to the touch! This really helped keep my carving sharp and detailed.

Once most of my surface treatment was done, I broke off two small piece of bamboo skewer and used them to connect my whale and its top. This was because I wanted there to be three holes penetrating the whale from the top to the bottom. With the two separate pieces now connected, I then used thick screw-driver-like tool to carve out these holes. Now that all of my carving was complete, all I had to do was properly connect all of the separate pieces. I did this by applying elmer's glue to each end of a piece of bamboo skewer and stabbing them through the space between the two pieces, successfully connecting them. After this, I let the glue dry and moved on the the painting step.

Some challenges I faced during this process was making sure I didn't carve away anything I wanted to keep. Unlike clay, you can't add anything back on. That is why I had to be especially careful, making sure that I wasn't too aggressive with my carving. When I was carving the whale's back, I actually went further than I anticipated, but then later decided to incorporate this "mistake" by increasing the whale's back curvature. Additionally, the surface area connecting my whale's tail fin with the rest of its body was really tiny. That is why I could only fit in two tiny skewers between them. Even after I applied glue however, it was still wobbly and unstable. However, later on in the next part of the process, I solved this with gesso paint.

Part III: Painting

The materials used for this part are as follows: carved styrofoam sculpture, acrylic paint, gesso paint, small flat brushes, fine-tipped brushes, and disposable palette.

Before I began painting with colors, Mr. Laurence explained that if we wanted the colors we painted on to be more vibrant, it really helped to first apply a layer of white paint. However, instead of using regular white paint, I opted to use gesso. Gesso paint is different from acrylic paint because when it dries, it hardens the surface beneath it even more. I knew that I wanted my piece to be firmer to the touch, so my first step was to paint my entire sculpture with gesso. After this, I then decided to make an ombre of colors with a mixture of blue, green, purple, and white paint. Once this base on top of the gesso was complete, I then painted the remaining symbols green, gold, black, and white. 

Some of the challenges I faced in this process included touching up the paint. What this meant was that, for the different colored paints I used on top of the ombre blue, I sometimes got some paint on places I wanted to remain blue. The only way to cover this up would be to use more blue on top of that. However, since I had mixed all of the paint gradually, I couldn't mix the exact same blue again. To solve this, I just mixed the paints until I got a color similar enough, and then lightly touched up that one spot. Then, I would wipe off mu paint brush and carefully blend that paint with its surroundings, successfully camouflaging the spot. Because of this, I was able to create the desired paint job I wanted, and my final sculpture was more than satisfactory!

Art1- Nylon Abstract Sculpture- A+

The last project this entire semester is also the final project in our 3D unit: a nylon sculpture. This sculpture is meant to be very abstract, and like many of our past projects, includes more than one component and skill set. Despite this, our nylon sculpture is arguably the most complex of all our projects because of the sheer number of different steps and techniques we used.

Part I: Creating the skeleton

The materials used for this part are as follows: plastic planting pot, thick and thin malleable wires, wire cutting/bending tools, knife-cutter, and nylon sock.

Like our previous 3D piece, we needed to demonstrate the concepts of mass and volume in this sculpture. Essentially, this sculpture is a wire sculpture with a nylon sock stretched over it and thick layers of paint and other materials on top as a finishing touch. So before we could get to the actual nylon sock and painting steps, we had to create a wired structure for the nylon sock to be stretched over; we had to build a foundational skeleton. This was done by taking a plastic planting pot, turning it upside down and using the holes at the bottom to connect wires to it. I first used two thicker pieces of wire and had one end of my first wire sticking out of one hole, while the other end stuck out of the hole directly across it. I repeated something similar with my second piece of thick wire. The struggle here, though, was to get these wires to remain stationary and not move around. In the end, I solved this by using a knife-cutter to poke another hole next to the first hole and using the wire tool to bring the end of it up and around. By doing this with each of the other wire ends, I was able to successfully keep the wires from moving around. Additionally, I also added some wires on the sides of the planting pot. To secure these wire ends, I also used a cutting knife to create a hole and made an anchoring point.

Next, I used the thinner wires to create more mass around and near the top of the skeleton. This was done by wrapping the thin wire end to another thick wire multiple times, using the wire tool to secure it even tighter. Then, I just shaped it however I wanted and secured the other wire end in a similar fashion. This was repeated for my other thin wires as well.

Now that the general skeleton of my sculpture was complete, I then moved on to stretching a nylon sock over it. During this process, it was important to stretch the nylon sock taut in all areas of the sculpture. This way, when we painted it, the there won't be any loose looking spots that obscure the wire skeleton underneath. After several attempts, I finally stretched the nylon sock over the entire sculpture. With a defined mass to my sculpture, I then could then move and finalise the positions the wires inside were in.

One of the criteria for this project was to also create some volume (where air penetrates the piece), and one of the options we had was to hook a bit of the nylon sock to piece of wire sticking out inside. This creates a caved-in look, and since I had intentionally left wire bits sticking out when securing thin wires to thick wires, I could do this multiple times. The other method to create volume was to use a knife cutter and cut holes into the nylon surface. I also did this several times around my sculpture.

Some of the difficulties I encountered during this process included stretching the nylon sock over my sculpture and getting my nylon sock to be stretched taut in all areas. This was because even before my sock was stretched over, my wire skeleton was way too wide. This made it neigh impossible to stretch the sock over without bending the wires completely out of shape. To solve this, I squashed the wires closer to the middle, creating a sort of long and pointed shape. This allowed me to pull the sock over, however I had to reshape all the wires again. However, once I had "poofed" out my sculpture again, there were still areas that were much less taut than other areas. To address this, I pushed in these looser areas and hooked a bit of the nylon sock surface to a wire hook inside.

Part II: Painting

The materials used for this part are as follows: gesso paint, flat paint brushes, spray paint, fume hood, and mini Lazy Susan.

With our skeleton finished, we could then move on to painting on layers of white gesso paint. Unlike ordinary acrylic paint, gesso hardens incredibly well as it dries. First, we painted on one base layer of gesso. This first layer was the most difficult because it would be painted directly onto the soft fabric of the nylon sock. However, after this first layer, the other two or three layers were much easier. Between each layer, we had to wait until the gesso was at least semi-dry, so this took a couple of class periods.

After layering down the gesso, the inside wires were now completely obscured (except for the few rips in the nylon revealing them beneath). Our piece was entirely white, and we had the option to also spray paint it. Placing the dried piece on a mini Lazy Susan inside a switched-on fume hood, I spun and sprayed my sculpture at the same time. At first, I only used white spray paint because I wanted my piece to have an even more smooth layer of white. Then, I added a few sprays of blue spray paint over that.  After spray painting, the nylon sculpture was left in the cupboard to dry overnight.

For this part, I found difficulty in getting the gesso evenly spread out on my piece. This was because after the first layer, it was hard to tell which areas I had already painted and which a hadn't. Additionally, there were some areas in my sculpture that were hard to reach with my brush. To solve both of these problems, I worked systematically and made sure to only paint one section at a time. For the hard-to-reach places, the only thing that could help was patience, which is why I took more time on those areas. Additionally, when I was spray painting the blue paint, I sprayed more than I wanted by accident. Luckily, my base color was white, so to solve this, I simply sprayed more white spray paint over that.

Part III: Sewing

The materials used in this part are as follows: needle, thread, super glue, scissors, and a thimble.

Another requirement for this project was to include some sort of sewing component. Since this is something I am already very familiar with, I knew I wanted to spend more time making my sewing look nicer. First of all, I cut an arm's length of purple thread and threaded it through my needle. Then, folding the thread in half, I tied off a knot at the end. Next, I looped my needle and thread through my chosen section on my nylon sculpture, sewing back and forth to create a harp-like pattern. When my thread was running out, I looped it once more over the same spot and brought the needle between that loop. When I pulled my thread, a knot was created. Finally, to secure this, I added a dab of super glue.

A similar process was repeated for the other sections with sewing, however there are two exceptions. One if the very top of my piece where I used white thread, and the other is a line where my sculpture face's "eye" would be. If you look at the front of my sculpture, you can see the silhouette of a person's face. For the white thread part, I tried using a the same technique used when creating dream-catchers, however, halfway through, I accidentally pulled too hard and the left side of it ripped away. In response to this, I simply tied the loose ends together and super glued it. Then, I cut away any of the loose strands, leaving only half of a semi-complete dream catcher. For the second exception where my sculpture's "eye" is, I simply weaved back and forth on the same spot.

During this process, the only difficulty I really experienced was the dream-catcher problem mentioned above and having to use a thimble to help push the needle through in places where the gesso paint was too thick. After the sewing part, my sculpture was ready to photograph. Overall, this project has been a rather difficult one due to the many different components needed, however the final product was worth the trouble!

Device Practice

Balance

Fill the frame

Lines

Rule-of-thirds

Leading lines

Symmetry/Pattern

Framing

Point of perspective

Follow the eyes

Aperture

What is the Aperture and how does the shutter affect the subject within the picture?


Digital contact print of 20 images (10 images shallow dof/10 images deep dof)
Identify 3 images that have a shallow dof and 3 images deep dof

In the digital contact above I have taken a whole range of images from water, animals, to people with both freezing and blurring motion. The top images for freezing motion are highlighted in white. My
favorite images from these frozen images would be the fish and the cat as the timing works well overall. The images selected for blurring motion are highlighted in yellow. I really like the image of the waterfall and the man spinning the silk and I will be editing those two for the final.

Final images-

shallow dof 1

shallow dof 2


deep dof 1
deep dof 2


Successes/Challenges