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.