5 Project Write Up

The initial theme for my concentration pieces were "things that get me through the day". Kind of like, things that make me want to continue living, as dark as it sounds, things that make me not want to kill myself. I chose this theme because I knew it was something I couldn't get easily bored with. I have a problem with not wanting to do things because I get bored and don't really have any emotional connection to it, which then leads to poor art. 

This was the first art piece I completed for my concentration. It focuses on a very big part of my life, which is music but it then it focuses even more on my favorite band, The 1975, and the new album they released at the end of February. I was very excited for this album, the fan base has been waiting 3 years for them to release a new album and when they finally did, it was absolutely extraordinary and I recommend this band to everyone with a heart and soul. A very prominent principle of design that is piece I would say is variety because there is definitely a little bit of everything in there. But also I would say pattern because there is a certain net-like texture I put all in the background that is repeated throughout in black and pink. My intent of the interpretation was to capture the essence of the band and how the band makes me feel, in a sense. I just wanted to make it look as unique and special as this band is to me. I didn't use many references for this piece, the only main one I used was for the watercolor piece at the bottom for the band members:

  I think a strength in this piece is that it is a good example of my evolving art style, I used to always get mad at how I never seemed to have an art style, I was just kind of wandering around and I like how this piece is a start of my actual art style. Something I would like to grow on is like, adding more details all throughout, just like making a ton of little details to really take my art to a new level.

 This was my second piece that was part of my concentration and I would like to just mention that this piece took literally hours after hours. This piece is to represent my desire to travel the world, it is something I've always wanted to do since I was a kid because I can't stand staying in the place for too long and I think that is partly due to the fact that as a child, I never got to go many places, the furthest I ever went was to Georgia to visit family. And it was only this past summer that I finally got the opportunity to venture further than the three states I have been stuck in my whole life: Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. I think that is definitely prominent that pattern and repetition are two principles of design that are very evident in the piece, with the hundreds of paper flowers that create the continents. My intent of the interpretation was to really give a unique twist on something other just a boring, simple globe. I of course used references for each of the land marks but I think an important reference was this one:

And that is because it was where I got the idea to put the landmarks around the globe rather than in the globe. I think a strength in this piece was actually work ethic, not the ideal strength but I really believe that that is the best strength of this piece. I have a hard time finishing things and having motivation to do almost anything and the fact that I was able to do this whole entire piece and not give up, for me, that's pretty wicked. And again, a grow that I need to do is just to add maybe more detail in the landmarks, the water and the continents are so detailed and I feel like when you get to the landmarks, it looks like a two year old did them. 

This is my third piece for my concentration. It was purely inspired by my love for my cat, Toby. I have had Toby since 5th grade and he is the sunshine in my life. I realize that I am a total cat lady but I don't mind at all because I love my cat and he is really great and totally photogenic. I did this piece using the cardboard stamp method we did during semester one, I made a simple cat head and stamped it on a piece of paper four times with four different colors. I then went back in with color pencils to add details. With each cat, I created a different sort of character, I did a detective, a robber, an artist, and then a little hipster kitty cause I thought that would be the cutest thing ever and it honestly is. A principle of design in the piece is balance, you could cut the piece in half either horizontally or vertically and either way each side would balance the other out. My intent of this interpretation was really just to find a way to intertwine my cat into my art work and I really enjoyed the first cardboard stamp we did and I wanted to do it again. Most of this piece is purely out of my imagination but I did actually reference my cat to use his proportions for the actually head of the cat in the stamp:

 A strength this piece has is that I am really proud how the stamp came out, especially for it being only the second stamp I've ever made. Now a reoccurring growth through out this concentration is that I feel like I could of added more detail overall with the color pencils.

This is my forth piece of my concentration, and it is conveniently also inspired by my favorite band, The 1975. I didn't originally plan to create another piece dealing with them but I had the absolute amazing opportunity to seem them live in concert on May 10th and it honestly was one of the best days of my life and I was inspired to do a piece that reflected the concert. The left side represents the beginning of the concert and their newer album, the lyrics "and hey would you" are the first lyrics of the first song they sang at the concert. And then on the right side it represents the last part of the concert, the lyrics "you've all got boyfriends anyway" are the last lyrics they sing from the last song they do at the concert and its black and white because the song was from their first album which had a very black and white theme going. A principle of design would be variety between the two sections of the piece and then balance from that evident line between the two sections that I feel balance each other out. My intent of the interpretation was to kind of wrap the whole concert into one art piece and now looking back at it, I don't think that is even possible, there are just somethings that you can't put down physically and I feel like the feelings from that concert is one of those things. Again I didn't use too many references for this piece, the main reference I used was that I reference the three rectangles that hang from the ceiling on the stage:

 I referenced those with the three rectangles in the middle of the piece. I think a strength of this piece is that it is very expressive but a grow that I would want to fix would be that I don't feel that the left side is as bright and "pop!" like as I wish it would of been.

This is my fifth and last piece of my concentration. I definitely by this piece, was lacking ideas and inspiration because there aren't really many things that get me through the day I realized. But anyways, for this piece I decided instead of concentrating on one major thing, like music or my cat, I decided to make a piece inspired by all the little things in life that I enjoy. The most noticeable thing is the lyrics in the middle that says "life's too short to even care at all" I did this quote because it one of my all time favorites quotes and i feel it describes my thought process quite well, it is from a song called "Cough Syrup" by Young the Giants, it's a pretty well known song. I have the daffodil in the left bottom corner representing my favorite flower which is the daffodil and funny fact is that it became my favorite flower after the lyric "I brought you daffodils on a pretty string" which is from the song "Another Love" by Tom Odell. The snail represents my spirit animal, which is the snail. The little smiley face in the left top hand corner is actually a sticker and it represents my deep love for stickers, I really stickers and I have a lot of them and I mean a lot. The red umbrella with the rain drops very simply represents my love for the rain. The four circles are actually the top view of my plants that I love dearly, I have two cacti and two succulents. The long movie tape ribbon represents my love for movies, I watch a lot of movies, they are one of my favorite things to do, I am definitely a movie person over a TV person. A principle of design would probably just be variety since nothing is really the same but there could be rhythm and pattern in my plants since they all quite look alike. My intent of this interpretation was to really just capture the essence of the quote "it's all about the little things in life", I just feel like people something focus too much of the bigger things that they forget to enjoy the little things and I just wanted this piece to be like a little tribute to the little things in life. I referenced a couple things such as pictures of snails, a picture of my plants and I referenced a picture of the movie tape:

A strength in the piece I feel is the quote in the middle, I'm really proud of the color mixing and it was actually the first time I ever used art masking fluid and I think it actually turned out pretty well. A growth for this piece is to get rid of all that negative space, I don't want to say I ran out of time or anything but, I ran out of time so there is definitely more I could add to this but I honestly don't know if I ever will.

Artist Connection HW 4.14.16

For my contemporary artist, I chose Randi Feuerhelm-Watts:


I chose her because she is the type of artist I would look while thinking about my next project. She has a style that sort of is never the same but at the same time forms into her personal style of originality, because she works with multiple mediums and uses them in different ways which makes all her pieces look distinctly different but you can still tell how it is the same artist.

As for my master artist I chose Robert Rauschenberg:

Something that I really like about his artwork is how "dirty" or "raw" it seems. When you look at Feuerhelm's artwork, there is some sort of lightness or "good-vibe" to her artwork because of her choice in colors and the general content of her art. But when you look at Rauschenberg's art, it seems more down to earth with its more bland colors but then random stripes of color that make it really pop but not like in a happy way, if that makes any sense.


When comparing their artwork to my own, I see the influence of Feuerhelm in the color scheme, I use a lot of brighter colors which I never understand why I do seeing as I'm not a very bright person but I for some reason use a lot of bright colors like Feuerhelm does. When it comes to Rauschenberg I feel like his influence comes into play with the content of what I create. His artwork is clearly about things hes passionate about such as President Kennedy and I feel like my artwork mimics that with how most of my art work has some sort of music related background. Music is a very important part of me and I think my artwork reflects that.

My concentration idea is more on the symbolical side. I wanted to make art that is related to the things that get me through my everyday life. Things that I get out of bed in the morning for. Something that even when all is going bad and I feel like crap, I know I at least have this going for me or this to look forward to. I just feel like it's really hard for me to concentrate on something simple like portraits or flowers, so I felt like if I am going to be having to concentrate on something for a whole semester, it might as well be something important to me personally. I don't want my projects to feel like homework, something to do merely for a grade in a computer, I wanted the projects to be something I would enjoy making and I could spend all 90 minutes of class working on.

For my project I decided to start with something really important to me that is approaching faster than ever, much to my approval as well. This piece is concentrating on my favorite band, The 1975, and their new upcoming sophomore album, which will be released February 26th, 2016. Which is next week, NEXT WEEK, I have been waiting months for this album, I preordered it in October and it is finally about to come out. I plan to have a listening party in my house with my cats, it is going to be a blast. Anyway, the giant Feb. 26 in yellow represents the date when the album comes out. The four men in the left hand corner are the members of the band. From left to right it goes Ross, the bassist, Matty, the singer, George, the drummer, and Adam, the guitarist. The stenciling that takes up a majority of the matte board is the title of the upcoming album: I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of it. A long title I know, but that's Matty for you. The rectangles on the right represent their logo, which consists of a rectangle and their name. The eyes with the blue eye shadow represent Matty and his eye makeup in the Love Me music video, their first single from the new album. And then under the drawing of the band is actually a lyric from Love Me, "And love me if that's what you wanna do", it's from the chorus of the song. Lastly, in the top right corner I attached a little bundle of "tags" to the matte board. On each tag is a song that is on the album, there are going to be 17 songs total on this new album. That is a very exciting fact.

4th Project/Donation

Description: This what my 4th project ended up turning out to be, I also ended up deciding to turn it in for my donation piece. There are four fish all moving together in a circular motion, and there is a ring of lavender flowers around two of the fish. This was all done in watercolor and pen.

Analysis: A more prominent principle in this piece is movement. There is just a lot of movement as you eyes follow the direction of the fish as they go round and round. There is also a form of unity because there is a very harmonizing feel to the painting. The fish all just work really well together, evening each other out and in general creating a very harmonized piece of art. 

Interpretation: I particularly didn't have a certain direction for this artwork. It kind of just blossomed as I continued it. I started with the lavender ring and then added the fish in middle. I then was left with a lot of negative space which is where I then got the idea to add colors to contrast with the colors in the middle and then the contrasting bigger fish as well. 

Judgement: This piece turned out to be ok. I don't particularly think it is anything great or special. I really loved how the lavender ring turned out, it is a lot more detailed in person than through a picture. I think the color mixing in this is also pretty well, just in all its nice I just feel like it lacks depth and meaning.

Print Making Project

Description: This was the print I made with the stencil made of cardboard. It is a form of The 1975 logo, which is a band and my personal favorite band, ever. I used black paint and then the parts where the paint didn't show on the paper, I filled in with pink oil pastels. 

Analysis: A really prominent principle of design is rhythm. The lines from behind the The 1975, is a rally good example of the rhythm. There is also a lot of texture with the pink oil pastel, the texture is really bumpy and it makes the art piece itself look really texturized and interesting. 

Interpretation: This was my interpretation of The 1975 logo and just something that would really fit the band's style. I chose to add the pink oil pastel because it correlates with their new album coming out in February, as the transition from black and white to color. 

Judgement: I really liked how this piece came out because it really makes me happy. I like how I am able to correlate my favorite band with my artwork. I feel like it really shows more of my personality and my likes and interests. It turned out really well and I really liked the process with the print making and if you were to makeit a class next year, I would definitely take it. 

Cut Paper Project

Description: This is the final result of my cut paper project. I decided to have a theme of stars and I added two cats to make it look they were knocking the stars out of the sky almost. And for the background I just made it a cool, galaxy looking sky.

Analysis: I think that a really prominent principle is unity. I feel like all the parts come together really well and take up the whole area, there aren't any negative spaces. There is also some emphasis on the cats which are more towards the middle of the art piece. I think there is a really color mix in the sky, I added a lot of blues and purples but I also added a bit pink to lighten things up a bit. 

Interpretation: My idea for this piece kind of blossomed as I was creating it, which is a common factor with most of my artwork. I started out with just the hanging stars but then I got the idea to add cats in because they were inspired by my own two cats. And then I thought it would be clever to have them seem like they were knocking the stars of the sky, which is why they have stars scattered around them because those were the stars they have already knocked out of the sky. 

Judgement: My personal opinion of this piece is that I think it's really cute. Someone squashed the piece a little bit so the cats aren't lined up with the stars like they originally were but that's okay, I guess. If I were to redo this piece I would want to paint the stars on the ground a different color, I don't like how obnoxious the yellow is, I would like them to be more pastel. 

The Sad Pond

Description: This is a watercolor painting I did of a pond. I was really trying to bring out that value that water gives but I still think it looks a little flat and not like it has depth. I used a lot of different shades of blue in this and even some white for highlights in the glare the lights reflects off water.
Analysis: I believe that a prominent principle in this piece is movement. I tried to make the water look like it isn't completely still and there is movement going on throughout the water. There are many different colors which makes the viewer look around at the painting looking at all the different shades and colors.
Interpretation: I was really inspired by Monet and his paintings of ponds. I really tried to capture the glare of light and get the color mixing just right. I think I used too blue of colors, because honestly, ponds are not that blue. I really wish the painting didn't look so flat, that would be something I'd try to fix if I were to redo this piece.
Judgement: There are things I like about this piece and then things I don't like about this piece. Even though the colors aren't exactly accurate, I really like all the different shades of blue in there, I think i adds a nice texture to the piece. I was not a fan of the way the lily pads turned out, I just don't think they turned out nearly as well as they did in my rough draft of the piece. And as I have mentioned before a couple times, I'm really disappointed on how flat the painting turned out, but that now allows me to keep that in mind if I ever do something like this again.