Margot

=**Concentration part 3**=

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So far, with the help of my self portrait that I did earlier in the year, I'm at 9 pieces. My 6th piece was my first piece in dealing with identity. In this image there is a figure, painted to represent tree bark laying in the grass. This piece turned out creepier than I originally invisioned but I'm very happy about that. I tried to convey the fact that humans are a product of nature. I worked more on the anger/evil piece and while I'm still not competely satisfied with it, it is at least more finished than it was before. I thought by adding fire to the background with markers, it would help to convey my emotion for that piece a little bit more. My 7th piece was an expansion from my original concentration and I'm working more with the concept of identity. This piece to me represents a dreamer or a longing for something more important. I used scientific magazines to find the images for the collage and many of the images are of cells or organisms. This piece is a collage of many vibrant colors but still seems a little dull, which is confusing and I think that helps with the emotion. I'm very happy with how this piece turned out for me. My next piece was done with colored pencils and long, smoothe strokes. In this drawing, I wanted to represent a sense of freedom and peacefulness. I used pastel colors to represent the calmness in the picture. I am also very pleased with my final product for this drawing. I'm not entirely sure how I want to continue on with the final 3 pieces but I would like to expand my topic just a little further. ======

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So this second checkpoint, I actually almost finished my 3 pieces. I continued on with the innocence piece, doing the face to look like a crayon drawing, and the upper body and clothes using dots. I thought to do this to make it look like old cartoon comics in the newspaper. I thought this would help to get my point across in that piece. My second piece for this marking is on a more serious note, and I did this piece entirely in grayscale markers which turned out to be a lot harder to use than I expected. I think I'm finished with this piece and it turned out very nicely in my opinion. It was probably one of my favorites to do because it was simple yet also had a lot of detail. In my third piece, I'm trying to expand my idea more and focus on the background as well as the face. In the other pieces, the face has been the main focus and the background was fairly simple and left alone. In this painting, I'm using the background to help convey the emotion: anger/evil. In the future, I want to expand my idea even more. I'm thinking about possibly shifting towards the idea of identity also, and how people are just a combination of these different emotions that I've conveyed in my other piece. I'm thinking about doing a collage to represent this but I havent completely thought this next piece out yet. ======

**Concentration so far...**
My first piece is took me a while to draw out. I thought I wanted to do this piece in colored pencils, but I wasn't too satisfied with that once I got into it. I found that painting over the colored pencil with very watered down paints gives the paper a really cool texture, so I explored this more. I also explored the usage of bright colors in this piece. The emotion I want to get across is excitement and energy. My second piece is nearly finished and I'm very happy with it so far. I chose water colors to portray the sadness in this portrait. This painting is more loose and drippy, which I thinks adds alot to the emotion I'm trying to get across. I also explored using color as value, painting the area of the face in light with yellows and the places in shadow with purples.This painting is in no way how I pictured it before I began, but I am very satisfied with it at the moment. My third piece is in its very early stages, but what I have envisioned is a piece about innocence. I plan to use oil pastels in this piece, and use abstract colors. Almost to mimick chalk on concrete. Chalk drawings are something that I associate with little kids and youth, and I thought this would make a strong statement about innocence.
 * S**o I had a semi-slow start with my pieces, mostly because i changed my concentration idea right before i actually began. I thought back to how much I liked doing my self portrait a few months ago, and how it seemed to really work for me. I'm really detail-oriented and am better at realistic renderings rather than more abstract concepts, so it took a while, but i ultimately decided on a concentration of portraits. I think I might even be able to use my self portrait for my concentration as well. In my concentration, I'm using media and style to render emotions in different portraits of faces.

= = =Digital Repeated Shape Collage=

I actually really enjoyed working on this project, once I realized you can't save your work to the design server. I lost my project quite a few times in the beginning due to that. I think I liked this project so much because it was using a media that I'm not very familiar with. When we were first given this assignment, I wasn't really sure how it was going to turn out but as the process wore on, I came to really enjoy working on it. I became more comfortable with using all of the filters and other tools in photoshop. Photoshop will definitely help me in my process of creating my concentration, mostly because my concentration is based around surrealism and blurred perception. A concept that could potentially be much harder to carry through with without Photoshop. When I started this piece, I wasn't thinking so much as I was just testing out filters and distorting my original jellyfish image. This project didn't involve too much planning ahead, but in the end I was left with a work as good as if I had thought it out ahead of time. The process of creating these 4 digital images was much shorter than any of my other pieces from this semester, mostly because I had use of Photoshop. So having Photoshop will definitely come in handy next semester when I'm cranking out 12 works.

= = =Embracing Chaos=

When we were first given this assignment, even the name just scared me. "Embracing Chaos,"is generally not my thing. I'm really keen on organization, proportion and reality, so I knew this piece would be a definite challenge for me. On the first day of work, I knew my piece wouldn't succeed unless I just dove right into it, so I did. I was the first one to splatter paint onto my canvas, with almost no preparation beforehand. It wasn't easy for me to do, but it definitely helped me out in the long run by just starting rather than using a few days to plan out my piece exactly. With this piece, I kind of just figured it out as I went along...something I rarely ever do. In pretty much all instances, aside from art as well, I tend to plan ahead. I think in the end, I was able to reconcile my fish and pointe shoe. It was helpful and also very interesting having the newspaper clippings as my background. I also really like how parts of it still show through, and how I was able to bring out certain colors in the comics to match with my two objects. I think compositionally I was able to make my piece work. This piece, to me, carries a message about false perceptions. When looking at each individual object, line or shape in my piece, they make absolutely no sense whatsoever. Realistically, this work is very random and full of nonsense. However, to the eye, the entire piece seems to make sense. I think this piece can say alot about life as well, as the principles here hold true for life. This piece kind of puts down the notion that just because something or someone is different, it doesnt mean you can't function with them. In fact, many times the most unlikely things can surprise you in the end.

= = =Ridiculous Still-Life=



My favorite part of this project was the fact that I was able to work more realistically. I've always done much better with art projects where I'm drawing or painting real-life objects, because I'm more of a realistic person. Realism just seems to work better for me than other styles, so I'm glad I got to do that for this still-life. My least favorite part was definitely the media. I'm not a big fan of charcoal, nor do I think I even know how to use it to my best ability. I have never really gotten a good grasp on charcoal, I don't think, so that was definitely difficult for me to utilize. If this was a concentration, maybe I would try to zone in on more specific areas of the still-life, drawing from different angles. Perhaps using different lighting. Or else maybe I could portray ridiculous objects in other situations. I could use photography to capture objects in a scenery where they would most likely not be on a regular basis. I guess there are many ways I could continue on with this piece, I dont' think I would want to though.

=Self Portrait=



If light was a metaphor in my self portrait, I think it would symbolize a realization, or the truth, either good or bad. In my drawing, it would seem as though this realization was more of a negative one. The side of my face that is lit up has a more pure, unworrisome expression while the side of my face in shadow shows distress. Upon looking at my drawing, it seems as though the light hitting me is the source of the emotion and meaning behind my facial expressions. Looking at my self portrait, it is obvious there is are deeper emotions potentially veiled beneath the surface. I think this self-portrait holds true to who I am in real life. I've been called a mysterious person numerous times, mostly because I've never craved attention or felt the need to pawn my problems or feelings off on other people. I think I chose this expression as the focus for my self-portrait because it shows so much about me. While I can be serious at times, it's never so intense to a point where it consumes me. As in my drawing, although I appear distraught, there is still a hint of a smile creeping up on my face. I try to never get too bogged down, and always try to find humor or goodness in a situation. If this were the start of a body of work, I think I would continue with realistic drawings of facial expressions, or body movements/ body language. But rather than simply drawing emotions, I would convey a feeling but not the typical feeling associated with certain expressions. In this sense, I would be showing an emotion but trying to convey that things aren't always as they seem. I think this idea not only holds so true to myself but also to many things around us everyday. There are so many things that we are quick to judge and once we have labeled them, toss them aside. In my continued work, I would like to spark interest in taking the time to get to know people or things on a deeper level, and find the truth beneath the surface.

=Project 2=



My project idea started out with a flower. I knew I had to think completely abstract if I wanted to present my piece in an interesting way. My original drawings were very simple, the first one being just a simple drawing of a few flowers. After looking at other artists' work involving flowers, I was able to look at my piece in a different way. Rather than just painting a flower, I wanted to go beyond that and focus on just a part of the flower. I chose the inside of the flower to mainly deal with. I then began thinking about what I could put in the inside that would represent what I was trying to portray. Initially I thought about what a flowers' purpose was, and thought about how certain bugs essentially live off of flowers. I then got to thinking that the center of the flower is the source of life for many creatures. I was thinking about having a waterfall and leaves or some sort of plants coming out of the center representing life, however, my idea then shifted to having another sort of world within the flower. My idea then evolved into painting a landscape within the flower. I think that paint was the media that accurately gets across everything I wanted to show in this piece. I knew I wanted color in my art and as my idea evolved, it seemed to be the only media that made sense. What I was trying to show was a sense of unity, between two semi-unconncected things that really in a broader perspective, feed off of eachother. It made more sense to me that the landscpae would be blended into the flower and when something needs to be blended, I think paint is the best way to do it. I think art is kind of the source of life. Art is essentially everywhere. Everything you see is the product of someone else designing it and I think my piece shows another important element of life. If this was the start to my concentration, I would continue it by exploring other elements of the flower. It has so many unique parts that do certain jobs and work together to function as a whole. I think we as humans only see it as a whole and dont really look at it as more than something decorate that we put in our gardens or give to others. I think, through different media, I would explore each individual part of the flowers and its purpose.