This is my first time drawling things like this and I have to admit I am proud of my final product.

My first time drawing hands.

Self Portrait Small 9 x 12

Self Portrait Large 24 x 36

Figure Drawing

Still Life

Clear Bottle Small 9 x 12

Clear Bottle Large 24 x 36​

Portrait of my best friend and I

Final Project for the Quarter 
Artist Focus: Roy Lichtenstein

Crying Girl

Original Crying Girl by Roy Lichtenstein

Ohhh...Alright

Original Ohhh...Alright by Roy Lichtenstein 

  ​In the start of the second marking period I had absolutely no clue what do for a project. All I knew what that I had to do something. One of the first classes during the quarter, while brainstorming and doing a simple painting it was suggested that that could be my art project; making one painting per art class. I do believe it was a great project because over the course of it you could see developing skills, new techniques, and doing something new everyday kept me interested. If I had not been interested the quality of the project would have been poor. But since it was entertaining and quite literally a new adventure everyday I was able to create simple paintings that I am incredibly proud of. 

These are not in chronological order:

Kimberly Parker

I started this patch quilt during the first marking period. I have crotched the entire thing over the passed few months. I would have never been able to produce such work if it wasn’t for my great-great aunt Stella. This special woman taught me how to crochet when I was seven and I haven’t been able to put the habit down since. My piece that I am in the process of working on now is a giant patch quilt with many colors. I am crocheting rows of patches and then going to crochet them all together to form a quilt. This piece is going well because I am following my own pattern and crocheting my own way. When I say my own way I mean my style of crocheting with adjusting the tightness of the stitch and flow of the yarn. This piece isn’t quite finished yet because it takes a long time to construct such a large quilt and will need more time to finish.

            These pictures were taken in this way to symbolize my great-great aunt Stella and what she had taught me. In the background you see another quilt in which she made forty years ago. I put my work over top of her quilt to show how great her skills were and how it inspired me to make a quilt of my own. My great-great aunt was very skilled with crocheting and she passed this skill down to me with her teachings and patience.

            Crocheting to me is very soothing, and relaxing. My favorite thing about my work is that I can just sit down with my piece in my hands and watch television or have a conversation with someone. I can be creating a piece of artwork while relaxing and having time to myself. I see this as a major stress reliever in my life.  My favorite tool to my artwork is my needle. With my needle I can create just about anything I put my mind too. My needle is my gateway to my finished product.

            Finishing my product is the best part for me. My quilt isn’t finished yet but I can feel that point coming soon. The process of completion is satisfying, but not as satisfying as seeing my finished product lay out, nice and pretty. Then I can reflect on this work and think about how much hard work I had put into this piece. I look now at my rows and rows of finished patches and I think about all of the hours I had put into making these squares with neat and tight stitching. That brings me to think about my hands. My hands really wove all of this yarn into something big and useful without giving it much thought. My hands are my main tools and with them I created this giant patch quilt. 

            My favorite color in this quilt is the dark green. It is very appealing to my eye and engages the sense. The color has good qualities such as blending in with all of the other colors I used. It engages my senses and gives me a sense of warmth because it is a gentle color and it is on a quilt, which is warm. If I were to crotchet this entire quilt all over again, I would have made sure all of the yarn was of the same thickness or gauge. Some of the patches are thinner than others, which are fine, but in order to maybe look better, the same constancy of yarn should be used. I would have kept the tightness of the stitches the same because they are very well held together and will probably never rip apart. That is what makes a quality quilt! 

For this marking period i decided to paint something that i loved, Japanese Characters. Specifically from anime (Japanese Cartoons). The anime i choose was Naruto. It's interesting to me how a single miss placed brushstroke or one too many could make the character mean something entirely different. The characters in the blue box stand for nin-dog (Ninja-dog) and Jashin (A type of religion). The ones in the green box stand for
四- forth or four
代-generation
目- japanese counter
火- fire
影-shadow
but when said together it reads
四代目火影 - Yon Dai Me Hoo Kage or Yondaime Hokage.
The characters in white stand for shi, which means death. The one with a black frame and red background stand for shoku meaning food. In yellow near the bottom, that symbol means flower. Lastly the one in the bottom left hand corner is an eye. That eye is the mangekyou sharingan belonging to a character in the Naruto anime.
I also did a second painting of a moon and stars. There are no sketches becuase it was something i just felt the need to draw.
Name of moon painting: Starry Night
Name of Japanese Character painting: 忍者の生活 or Ninja no seikatsu meaning The Ninja Life

I worked on different types of poster making and typography. I got the inspiration from a talented artist on Flickr that I follow. This person creates many interesting pieces with typeface and photos that made me want to create my own. 

I used things I heard around me as well as some of my favorite expressions as inspiration. It was difficult to find photos to mesh together to make what I saw in my head. When I decided on the expressions to use, I had to sit down and think about what they really meant. From there, I envisioned a scene or collection oh photos to fit into the words. All the photos I used were from Wikicommons. 

The process consisted of deciding on the phrases, finding the photos and arranging the pieces. It was quite to easy to pick the phrases. After that, I had to search the internet to find pictures that suited the scene I had pictured in my head. Through this process, I had to familiarize myself with public domain as well as several Creative Commons Licenses. One I had the photos the real fun started. I twisted, turned, cropped and flipped each picture many ways. I tried out all different fonts, sizes and colors. The fonts, I chose fitting typefaces and in most pieces used color-matching for the photos and fonts. 

 

For the second marking period I didn’t know what to do until one day I was so angry that I wanted to draw how angry I was. I realize I need something to do for the art and I thought that I should draw about my feelings. The first picture is about how I wanted to go back to Africa while I was talking to my friends from Africa. The flowers next to it are one of my favor flowers from Africa. The second picture was drawled before taking a math quiz and the only way I would have remember one of the question on the quiz was by drawing it. The third picture was drawled the day I realize my block is a long block. Since I live at the end of the block and every time I walk up the block I feel like I’m walking a mile. The fourth picture was drawing the day I got my history benchmark, I felt like I was in hell because I didn’t know what to do but then when I was done with the benchmark I was so happy that I felt like I was in heaven an that’s my definition of heaven and hell. When the fifth was drawing when I went back to the middle school I used to attend and I saw some of the pictures I toke during middle schooling and I want to redraw them into one picture. The last picture was drawled the last day this project to was due because I want to sign off, that I’m done with is project. I really enjoy doing this project because I got to   draw how I felt most of the time and every time I draw my feelings I feel good about it. With or without this project I will continue drawing my feelings.

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