1.My most successful project was my pen and ink project. The landscape depicted two F-22 Raptors in a dogfight with a BF-109 German WWII prop plane. Hence the difference between the age of the planes I titled the piece "Old vs. New". In a painstaking, tedious process, I used only stippling to create a texture among the planes and the subsequent mountains behind them. Most people do not see the second F-22 in the back due to the shadows, but that was non-incidental. It effectively displays the stealthy, look of the plane and also adds more depth to the piece, a major goal in this prompt. I began by drawing a light outline of the three planes and the landscape with pencil. I then went over the lines with a few dots and erased the pencil drawn lines to leave only dots. I henceforth began adding depth to the closest F-22 with dots leaving the plane mostly light. this allowed me to go back in later and make it darker respective to the rest of the piece; you cannot go back to a lighter shade with pen. Next, the same process with the BF-109, and then the second F-22, while making the last F-22 the darkest and also the mountains in the background. I then went over the closest planes, making them an appropriate shade. The last thing I did was add texture to the closest mountain, but unfortunately made it look like an iceberg. In this process the stippling allowed me to get the minute details in the plane correct. The shading is easy to get right when you can only add so much darkness with one dot. This also allowed me to add in the designs already on the plane.
The two mini projects that benefited me the most are the beginning pencil drawings and the recreation of Yellow Cow by Franz Marc. The drawings on the first few days allowed me to get back into drawing. Before this point I hadn't taken an art class since freshman year. I was surprised at how well i was still able to sketch and shade with graphite. The hand proved that i did not need much further instruction in pencil for this class. With that being said it still wasn't perfect. The recreation of Yellow cow was fun because it taught me to look for the little details contained within an art piece. I was able to effectively recreate an accurate imitation through the use of similar brush strokes, and similar color schemes. The area for improvement that I would focus on is the blending of the yellow to make a dark yellow that doesn't look like a green shade. Little to no instruction would have been necessary for these two pieces to be considered a success other than in correcting the shade of yellow
Beginning Hand Graphite Drawing
My Recreation of Yellow Cow by Franz Marc
Yellow Cow by Franz Marc
An example of a project that exemplifies the task at hand is Andy's pen and ink final. She effectively uses the various techniques of pen and ink. Not only does she use all types, but she uses the techniques well. The stippling used to shade the girls face adds a lot of needed detail and shading to the piece. The use of hatching in the cliffs side adds to the important rocky look and effectively adds an appropriate amount of value to the cliff sides. In all, the use of pen and ink in the piece could be described as very clean, precise, and well thought out. In a broad sense, the piece is very creative and original, adding a degree of difficulty to the piece. The creativity and skillful application of pen and ink make Andy's project my favorite of the class.