Quarter Two
In art this quarter, we learned to main things; sketching faces and using the pastel media. The beginning of this quarter started out with us drawing the face of a mannequin, which was difficult for me because I couldn't draw faces that had no eyes. However, after some practice, it became a lot easier. The second thing we did after that was learn about lighting techniques and shading techniques, which meant that we shaded the mannequin's faces based on realistic lighting. The next step after that was learning pastel techniques, for this we drew the mannequin's faces of pastel paper and shaded it with soft-pastels. Then we moved on to drawing expressions on paper, followed by drawing faces realistically based on an example. The next step was choosing a member of the teacher and staff for our final artwork, which was to sketch their faces. For this activity, I chose Ms. Janet because I was interested in challenging my self to draw a face of a different racial group. This proved difficult, however, in the actual process because Ms. Janet's facial features are extremely symmetrical, so a slight change would make her look like somebody else. My best product his quarter was that final artwork, which is because it reflects my improvement throughout the quarter, merging my improved face-sketching skills with my new-found pastel-working skills. What I think I did well in this artwork is taking my time to sketch the face as close as I can to reality, because through that essential step I could almost guarantee that that face I sketched would be a least a little bit similar to reality. Something else I also think I did well is take extra time to work on the coloring, so the colors were vivid. In the background of the artwork, I chose to imitate the art period of impressionism (particularly the style of Edward Degas) which was done because I thought it suited Ms. Janet's out-going personality. To improve in the future, I should continue practicing my sketching and pastel skills, so the final product will be more "mateng" and well-done. This activity relates with the Global Context "Orientation in Space and Time" because it reflects two different art periods; the way I do pastel is a lot more modern and pop-art than the periods in the past, but the way I did the background is based on a historical art-period. Merging those two styles created an artwork that is different, which is a positive thing.