Website Portfolio

For my Tech culminating I was told to make a Website that would sell me as an artist. Click here to see my website. Enjoy!

Painting- Art Nouveau

The style I chose for my painting is art nouveau. I chose this style because I feel it really reflects and expresses me. I found it portrayed the very feminine side of me. Art nouveau is all about the swirls and naturally curved lines. In my piece I got to use a lot of swirls and curvy lines. The background shows my personality because it shows how I like to be very simple yet elegant. I really enjoyed using this style for my piece because I am also fond of things being fancy and decorative. Also I used the warm colours red and yellow because it resembles my warm personality. Of course the swirls in the background are forming inside the ring tying everything together.

My original idea for the painting was quite similar to the finished portrait. Although along the way I had to make a few changes. The first change I made was while painting the skin. A first I decided to make the flesh a very flat tone with no value at all. It was all one colour which was an orange-brown. Later I decided to change the flesh to something a bit more olive and neutral. After I changed the entire original colour of the flesh, I added in value. I ended up putting the lights and darks into all of the flesh. The background for my painting was originally going to be a ring with smaller circles inside of it. I later changed this because I felt like it was not working for my art nouveau style. I needed something a bit more swirly and fancy to really show the style I chose.

I used some simple techniques to achieve my painting. The first step I had to use for my painting was to project it onto my canvas. This is so I could get the proportions right on my larger scaled portrait. Because dark pencil marks would show through the paint, I had to make sure I worked light while tracing lines. When I started working with the paint, I generally used thick brush strokes for most parts where the paints needed to be one solid colour. Although I used thick paint for larger areas, I had to use thinner paint to achieve smooth crisp curves. To make my paint a bit thinner all I did was add water to it. Adding water to my paint made it a lot easier for it to sink in and not leave white spots. It was also much easier to make clean curves. Another technique I used was feathering my brush. Adding value to the flesh required me to use my brush in a feathering motion to blend colours nicely.

The hardest part of this painting would have to be the flesh. I found it most difficult mixing the right colours to do this part. The colours had to be changed several times to get the colour that I thought was fine. It also was very time consuming because there had to be the right amount of darks and lights in the right place. For example, I put too much of the darker shade on the face and had to wait for it to completely dry each time to fix it again. I also had to make sure I mixed enough of the flesh tone so that I would not run out and have to make it again.

If I had to change anything it would be the colours I chose to use. I would probably use different tones of the colours I have used. I would change the colours to something more neutral like lighter shades. The lighter colours would make the background stand out less and not be as bold. Then I would brighten up the colour used for the main part of the portrait just a bit to stand out more. Overall, I really liked the end product of my painting.

Kinetic Typography

 

This is a video called "Do it." It is a motivational video using kinetic typography. This video is based on the idea to just go for it and do things.  The target audience for the video is basically anyone. It was made for anyone who wants to do something. The main idea is to inspire people to try things because it is the only way you can succeed. It talks about how not trying things will not get you anywhere. There might be a few failures along the way, but it is only natural. They can help you learn lessons for next time. It simply tells you to try hard to achieve anything you want in life. I would describe this video as non-fiction. Some techniques used in the video is the use of music. There is very soft, slow and happy music playing in the back. It helped create a calm mood when I watched it. Also, the music was not too loud and aggressive overpowering the voice over. I could really focus on what was being said by following along while reading the words. There wasn't anything making me lose focus or distracting me.

This video is called 'Be water'. It was made from a famous quote by Bruce Lee. This video is based on the idea to "be like water. " It is based on the idea to to be more flexible and think outside of the box. This video was made for pretty much everyone. I think there is more than one message in this video. The main idea is to inspire people to be more flexible. The message is being conveyed by using water as something to relate too. Another message I think comes across is that everything can have two sides to it. The water can be smooth flowing or violent. I do not think that is comes across as fictional or non-fictional, but more as philosophy. The video uses an audio voice over and pictures with the writing. The visuals were great to help me stay interested.

This is also a short and sweet video I found that I liked. It used some audio from "The pursuit of happiness".

Field Trip to the AGO!

Our class recently took a trip to the Art Gallery of Ontario, also known as the A.G.O. This was my second time visiting the gallery after my first visit last school year. Although that trip was more geography based (too look for various geographic landscapes). This time around our main goal was to look at the different paintings and observe the different styles.

We got the change to look at some famous artwork and look for inspiration for our own work. The pieces ranged from paintings to sculptures and much more. I really enjoyed seeing the real life paintings rather than in books or online because I could get a better, closer look. It's much different looking at the paintings up close and observing the different brush strokes and such.

 These are  pictures of two of the paintings that really stood out to me. I realized that they stood out to me for more than one reason. I realized that I really liked abstract pieces. Abstract pieces stand out to me because they are so simple, yet they can look very good. It amazed me how these pieces can be abstract while allowing everyone looking at it to see it differently in their own way. I also liked the different colours used in both paintings and how the colours look together as a whole. I really like how the first painting is very crisp and clean. The repeated colours look great.

I found out the many techniques of the different artists and how they painted. We also learned about the history behind some of the pieces and when they were being painted. it gave us a better understanding about why they were painted in a certain way.

Something else that really stood out to me which was not a painting were these bottles. I liked how each one was so different. I thought they were very cool!

We had a great time at the gallery once again and I sure wouldn't mind visiting it again. If you are interesting in seeing different types of art the A.G.O is the place to go! :)

Skull Composition

This is my skull composition. For this piece I used a lot of shading and value with my HB, 2B and 6B pencils. I am going to talk about the principles of design I used to accomplish my composition. 

The first principle I used was variety/contrast. I had to use this principle to distinguish between the darks and lights in my composition. I created thin and thick lines alongside dark and light lines to give the piece a 3-dimensional look. A range of different values really made it stand out more and look a lot more realistic. 

Another principle I kept in mind was balance. I tried to keep the composition balanced even with an odd amount of objects. The objects were purposely placed how they are to create Asymmetrical balance. I did this by placing a bunch of little objects together on top of each other while putting a much larger object beside it. This balance created a sense of activity and interest. No one side is not too overpowering and that makes the piece look balanced. I also achieved this by not putting anything in the center of the page because√ that would cause too much of a center point of focus. I did not want the cup for example to be the main object sticking out and extremely noticeable. That is why I thought it was a good idea to put everything off to the side and not center them. I have also created balance by putting similar amounts of dark areas on each side so that is stands out as a whole and not just to one side. 

The last principle I used was movement. I wanted the viewer's eyes to move a certain way through my piece. The swirl on the left brings your attention into the entire piece while the role of paper makes sure your eyes stay inside the picture. Then the cup brings your attention upward towards the skull. I have also tried to create movement in the sheet on the ground of my objects. The curved lines bring your eyes into the main part of the piece. 

Those are some of the main principles of design, which I used in my piece. If were to make it better I would probably fix up the shading a bit to make the light parts stand out even more. Overall I am happy with this piece. Enjoy. :)

Oil Paint Filter!

I recently started using Photoshop CS6 and have learned about a few of it's new features. One of the new tools we were introduced to was the Mixer Brush! the mixer brush was a cool new brush designed to mix different colours to create a painting effect. Although I found that really cool I recently found another new way to create that painted look using a filter. The new "Oil Paint" filter. You can change settings to determine however you want your picture to look like stylization, cleanliness and much more according to your preference! I think it's a very quick and easy way of creating something great.  Here is a link to an oil paint filter tutorial if you would like to try it out, enjoy! :)

Mask Type Tool

This is my assignment using the new technique we learned called "Scratch Art". The word I chose to use for this project is "SMILE". When I thought about this word many things came to mind. I could think about at least five things that would make me happy and smile. I thought this was perfect because my word has five letters in it, that could all represent one picture.

The process of making this piece was quite simple. I used Photoshop CS6 to make this. First I opened a new canvas and covered an entire new layer with black. (using the paint bucket tool) Next I picked the five different pictures I wanted to use from Google. The pictures I chose are cupcakes, a smile, rain, flowers and the beach. I re-sized each picture and placed them in a horizontal arrangement in the order that pleased me, each on a different layer. Then I went back to the plain black layer and wrote the word "SMILE" using the mask type tool, making sure that each letter was on top on its' picture. Lastly I used the eraser tool with a diameter of 1px and started to scratch inside the word.

I chose to use this font because it seemed happy to me. I liked the way it was sort of bubbly and not very sharp and strong. If I could change anything about this it would definitely be the way I wrote the word. I would try and make the different types of pictures I used more noticeable because it is hard to tell what exactly the pictures are of. I think a bolder bubbly text could have made the pictures a bit more visible. 

Scratch art is not extremely difficult and is a fun way to experiment by putting different words and pictures together with a cool scratch effect. Try Scratch Art if you haven't already!