Stop Putting Science in My Art

I've discovered that landscape design may not be the best fit for me. I mean, I love coming up with landscaping ideas, and I love implementing them, but I'm getting fed up with site plans. Given that that's most of what I would be doing as a landscape designer, it might me time to find something else.

The problem with site plans is that they remove what I love most about art. I love the adrenaline rush of spilling my ideas onto paper, or canvas, wire, soapstone, linoleum - whatever medium I'm using. I love taking mistakes and redirecting my work around them. I love getting messy and cleaning up. I love interpreting reality however I want, whether it's realistic, abstract, or something in the middle. I love communicating ideas and emotions, personalities of people and places, things that can't be said just with words.

With a site plan, I'm thrilled while drawing haphazard sketches, but once I approach the tracing paper that joy is replaced by grim determination. My materials are limited to a few different colors and weights of paper, thin black pens, and reasonable, tame shades of markers and colored pencils. Mistakes mean starting over or having a flaw that nags you every time you glimpse it. There is no room for mess; smudges are detestable, and every line has its proper place. The only freedom of interpretation I have is choosing/coming up with the best shape for this bush or that tree or determining how realistic I want my shadows to be. I must communicate the plants and features in the landscape as succinctly and obviously as possible. It's true that different landscapes express different emotions and ideas and whatnot, but that doesn't easily translate to a site plan.

Reusing the same shapes over and over again isn't art. Getting better results by tracing others' symbols than by creating your own isn't art. Marking where to put this plant or that lamp isn't art. These designs are more like a mechanic's blueprint than an artist's landscape. I can't stand to cold, scientific, restricting sense of it all.

So what now? I'm not abandoning Landscape Horticulture and Design. At least not yet. This week I meet with my advisor to take care of scheduling, and I will be taking classes assuming that I will remain in LAHD. I'll probably take an art class both as relaxation and to prepare for the possibility of switching. The following week I have a mid-semester meeting with my professor for the landscape architecture class that set all of this off, and I'll be voicing my concerns to him. Maybe I just haven't given site plans enough time, or maybe he has suggestions for learning to view them differently. It's possible that I will be switching majors to fine arts, adding it as a second major, or considering an art master's. At some point I'll talk to a fine arts advisor about whether or not that would be feasible, what sort of careers are available to art students, how likely it is that I can find and get one of those jobs, and other things like that.

However, each of the three aforementioned possibilities (switching majors, dual degree, and a master's in art) have their fair share of problems. If I switched majors after this year, I could still graduate two years from now with problem at all. Unfortunately, I'd need to leave the College of Ag and the HLA department, and they're sort of my home away from home. I see my friends there more consistently than I see anyone else, and I'd hate to leave them even if I'm just crossing Marsteller Street. There's a sense of family on the ag campus and in the hort buildings that you can't find anywhere else at Purdue (except for my church).

If I do a double major, I would need an extra year to graduate, and I'd be taking at least 18 credit hours every semester. I would no longer have a scholarship for the final year, and if Josh were at a different college for grad school that would mean yet another year of separation.

Getting an M.F.A in studio arts seems like my best option, but it still has a few drawbacks. First, I don't know what my chances are at getting in if I don't have a B.A. in art. Taking lots of art electives in addition to the requirements for an art and design minor would help, but I'll need to talk to a fine arts advisor to get more information on that matter. Second, I don't know how easy it is for art grad students to be T.A.'s or what I would get paid for it. It would definitely be a lot less than I would get paid for working as a full-time landscape designer. Once again, I'd need to do some research to see whether or not that's a realistic concern. Third, if I were to get a job in landscape design after all, would people be less willing to hire me because they might have to pay me more as a person with a graduate degree? This is another fear that may not be founded in reality, so I'll be bringing it up to my hort advisor when I meet with him next week.

And then there's always the possibility that I will learn to love site planning for what it is rather than disliking it for what it isn't. That would be convenient. I'm not giving up on it yet. And whether I pursue a career in landscape design or not, I can assure that I will be gardening for as long as I am able.

I apologize for my lengthy and angsty rant, but I just thought I'd get it out there. Putting this all in writing has helped me see what my best option is and how to go about planning my course of action.

This is one for the good days. I have it all here in red, blue, green...

It's time for another happy list! This one, too, came from Sara, Courtney, and me during AP Calculus our senior year. The title came from a fantastic song ("Videotape" by Radiohead) and refers to the pleasant memories from Rahn's class and the fact that we used three different colors of pens (they were red, blue, and green, unfortunately). Courtney's additions are in courier, Sara's are in georgia, and mine are in trebuchet.

• creating a new world (after watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with magical creatures and wars and magic and somehow create a best-selling book out of all of it :D)
• picnics at Winton Woods
• swinging (especially at nighttime)
• finding random words in Japanese
• watching the sun rise or set
• odd but pretty names
• doodling
• the color combination of these pens [1]
• untrodden snow
• delays [2]
• the sound of a waterfall (or any other body of water)
• birdsongs
• soft thunder storms at night
• coral reefs
• fall colors
• taking pictures
• splatter-painting
• June 4, 2009 (only 17 weeks from today!) [3]
• books that suck you in
• knowing 3 of 17 weeks we aren't here! [4]
• multiples of 3
• budding flowers
• fresh-baked cookies
• the wind
• color guard
• JESUS!
• tea (it's kind of hard to follow yours Sara - it kind of wins)
• music (any kind - it's all great)
• dancing down hallways (Shantytown...haha)
• working with charcoal (or any other messy art medium)
• all cello bands (Apocalyptica, Breaking of Reality...)
• acoustic guitar music
• reading beside a fire while watching snow fall

[1] Courtney had lime green, Sara had teal, and I had purple.
[2] Snow delays, that is. We had gotten one that morning if I remember correctly.
[3] Graduation Day
[4] She was referring to the trips and breaks before graduation.

Doors

In my spare time, I enjoy photography. One of my favorite photography subjects is the door. I don't know what it is about doors that makes me want to take pictures of them. Perhaps because there are so many different types of doors. Whatever the case, I've ended up with quite an extensive collection of pictures of doors, and now I'll share some of my favorites. (Note also that my background picture is back to the dandelion. It will be staying that way until the advent of fall.)

Bogota, Colombia (summer 2010)

Bogota, Colombia (summer 2010)

Bogota, Colombia (summer 2010)

Bogota, Colombia (summer 2010)

West Lafayette, IN (fall 2009)

Ludington, MI (summer 2009)

Ludington, MI (summer 2009)

Cincinnati, OH (spring 2009)

Cincinnati, OH (spring 2009)

Loveland, OH (summer 2009)

Cincinnati, OH (winter 2009)

Ludington, MI (summer 2009)

Happy Lists

Last year several happy lists emerged from Mr. Rahn's AP calculus class. There were some days when Courtney, Sara, and I simply couldn't listen to calculus anymore, so we passed around sheets of paper and listed things that made us happy. Here's the original list. My additions are in the Trebuchet font, Sara's are in the Georgia font, and Courtney's are in the Courier font.

• •    soup
• •    blue eyes
• •    reading a good book on a rainy day
• •    this pen*
• •    a hillside when its leaves change color
• •    Benny and Joon
• •    the scent of fallen leaves
• •    books/movies that make you cry
• •    chocolate, anytime, anywhere
• •    the wind
• •    perfectly golden roasted marshmallows
• •    doing random things at random times without caring what other people think about it (ex: taking jumping pictures in the rain during lunch)
• •    singing in the rain (both the musical and the actual activity)
• •    singing in general (the girls 100 building bathroom, best acoustics EVER)
• •    feeling good for no reason
• •    climbing trees (especially if I get covered in sap)
• •    trying on clothes at stores and striking poses in the mirror
• •    maria's hat**
• •    the oscillating universe (both the awesome dance move and the woefully obsolete astrophysical hypothesis)
• •    decorating Christmas trees (the good-smelling kind in your living room and x-mas tree shaped cookies)
• •    going through the day with a good song stuck in your head and dancing to it at random moments
• •    walking barefoot in nice, cool mud
• •    the smell of an herb garden
• •    the dog at Imago
• •    Imago in general
• •    harvest moons on midnight-black nights
• •    Halloween
• •    Reese's cups
• •    being in love
• •    being in love with someone who loves you back
• •    playing "Adagio" on the piano
• •    playing any piece in 6-8 time
• •    not playing class music
• •    bubbles
• •    saying "je ne sais pas"
• •    swinging
• •    prismacolor colored pencils
• •    the color of KMnO4
• •    photo booth pics!
• •    separation of photosynthetic pigments on chromatography paper
• •    cozy sweatshirts
• •    caution tape and duct tape
• •    gaff tape and glow tape
• •    the Festival of Lights
• •    any shade of green

* The pen I was using was my teal G2 pen.
** I was wearing my colorful stocking cap from Colombia.

A Few of My Favorite Things

And by "a few" I mean eleventy-one. There are more, I just thought I'd limit myself. I think I did one of these a while ago. It's just going to be a list of a large number of my favorite things. Things that make me laugh, smile, or, in a few rare cases, cry in a happy sort of way.

1. alphabetical order
2. bare feet
3. bees
4. birches
5. birds
6. blowing bubbles
7. california poppies
8. campfires
9. celery
10. cello
11. Celtic music
12. chai tea lattes
13. chalk pastels
14. charcoal
15. cherry cordial ice cream
16. chlorophyll
17. cinnamon
18. climbing trees
19. clover crowns
20. columbine flowers
21. cornflower
22. crocuses
23. dandelions
24. dragonflies
25. eskimo kisses
26. family
27. fingerpainting
28. fire
29. fireflies
30. fog
31. friendship
32. frost
33. fuchsia
34. galoshes
35. God
36. grass
37. green, blue, and orange together
38. guitar
39. hearty sandwiches
40. hearty soups
41. hugs
42. ice fog
43. Jesus
44. juice
45. ladybugs
46. lakes
47. languages
48. lily-of-the-valley
49. lists
50. long, flowing skirts
51. maples
52. microtubules
53. millipedes
54. mint chocolate chip ice cream
55. mountains
56. mud
57. musicals
58. my plant friends
59. names
60. oaks
61. ocarina
62. old hymns
63. orange gerbera daisies
64. origami
65. otters
66. parsing Latin names
67. painting
68. pennywhistles
69. peonies
70. piano
71. pines
72. planaria
73. polarity
74. puddles
75. rabbits
76. rain
77. rapier fighting
78. reading
79. Rick Astley
80. scented candles
81. scylla
82. silence
83. singing
84. skype
85. slugs
86. smoothies
87. snails
88. snow
89. snowdrops
90. spring beauties
91. spruces
92. stars
93. storms
94. streams
95. sunrise
96. sunset
97. swings
98. the moon
99. the smell of old books
100. the sun
101. the trololololo man
102. the word "picaresque"
103. the word "turtle"
104. the word "whimsical"
105. twilight (the time of day, not the silly book)
106. umbrellas
107. viola
108. water striders
109. wildflower bouquets
110. wind
111. worms

An Unorthodox Bedtime Story

A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me to text her a bedtime story. The story you will find below became my standard bedtime story (for some reason several other people asked me to text them bedtime stories in the months that followed). Last winter I turned it into an art project, and the pictures accompanying each paragraph are photos of that project. Enjoy!




Once upon a time in a cottage at the edge on a forest there lived a little girl along with her father, mother, and baby brother. The little girl liked to walk in the field of wildflowers near her house.









The little girl was frolicking merrily among the flowers one pleasant morning when a fearsome dragon swooped down and carried her off to its lair in the formidable mountains beyond the forest.








She had not been in the dragon's cave for long when a knight on horseback came galloping up the stony trail. He vanquished the dragon, but when he learned that the little girl was not of noble blood he rode off in search of other damsels in distress and left the little girl behind.






Back at the cottage, the little girl's father had seen the dragon carry his precious daughter away. He wasted no time in finding out where the dragon lived and immediately began his trek up the treacherous mountains. After a time, he found the lair of the deceased dragon.






Both the father and the little girl were overjoyed to see one another. The father swept the little girl into his arms and carried her down through the mountains and the forest. They arrived back at the cottage just in time for a delicious supper of homemade soup before bedtime.



the end.

New Art

I'm just going to comment on the ones that I didn't have pictures of last time. Most of them are the bi-weekly sketchbook assignments I did last year, which accounts for the over-whelming dominance of graphite as my medium. I can inconspicuously carry around all sorts of pencils, making it easy to work on my assignments in spare moments during class.

I believe I did this the summer between ninth and tenth grade based off of my second grade yearbook picture. It definitely has its issues, but I'm very proud of it considering when I drew it.

In the last batch of art pictures, I displayed the ink drawing I made from this graphite drawing. I think this one turned out better, but the medium of ink is much more interesting than the medium of graphite. I prefer to work in graphite - it's a much more familiar medium - but I like the way the ink drawing stands out a bit more.

I wrote a bit about the complexity of this project while I was working on it, but I never showed the finished product. My copy of the collage is virtually dead on, except for the fact that it's about two shades lighter. I wanted to fix that, but the more I worked into the paper, the more it started coming apart. It wasn't very good paper.

Here's a closer view of the collage...

...and here's a closer view of my colored pencil drawing. I think my favorite part of the collage is the bee-homes and my favorite part of the drawing is the fir bonsai in the lower left-hand corner.

This was my second-to-last project from this past year. I just now realized that I should've had Ronda take a picture of my final project. I wonder where I put it. Back to the point, this is my piece of social-political art. I did not like having to do social political art, but I didn't have a choice. I chose Christian persecution as my issue. The words were painstakingly hand-written headlines and scriptures relating to persecution. Contrary to the common assumption, the red streaks aren't supposed to symbolize the fires of hell. I just used red because it was an attention-grabbing and violent color.






Here is my second sketchbook assignment of the year. I stayed up until 3:30 am the day before it was due. It was after that that I decided to simplify my sketchbook assignments. This is somewhat based off of reality, but I took some artistic license. The gerbera daisies were actually red, the little pink flowers (I can't remember what kind they were) were actually yellow, and the pot was actually terra cotta. Plus, I was getting pretty tired by the time I started and the pink flowers and their leaves, so most of that part is completely made up. I was done caring way too much about how close to reality it was. The important thing is that the daisies are beautiful and the attract the eye.

This may have been my final assignment. I don't remember for sure and I don't feel like checking. Although I completely finished it in one evening, it's one of my most realistic pieces. I can see how much I learned over the year. Especially in regards to speed. I still draw at a snail's pace, but I've moved from the speed of a comatose snail to the speed of a robust snail.

For our sketchbook assignments, we were given a list of possible topics and were to choose a new one every two weeks. I liked to take the topic and twist it in a slightly unexpected way. The topic for this one was "mirrors". That can be a fun subject all by itself, but mirrors reflecting into one another is even more fun.

And this is just a close-up of a grasshopper. My teacher commented that it looked incomplete. It is incomplete. I decided at 1:30 AM the day before it was due that it looked good enough and that I'd probably get at least a B as it was, so I just left it unfinished. That decision took an awful lot of will-power. I have a major issue with leaving things unfinished.





I kind of rushed through this one, so it's less realistic than many of the others. Yet I can't be dissatisfied with it. It has such a fascinating perspective. I'll admit, this is one of the few assignments that I did based on a picture from the internet, but I did tweak it a bit to make it mine. I normally work from life, from pictures that I take myself, or from my head.

This is the inside of a water bottle. My teacher complained that there wasn't enough contrast. In my head, I replied that it's hard to push the darks when you're drawing a clear plastic bottle, but I decided I should just keep my thoughts to myself. I'm content with it even if it's not even close to the best I can do. I'm learning to appreciate the reduced stress I experience when I let things go and realize that I don't have to make everything perfect.

This is my shoe. I should have sprayed a sealer on it, but I didn't so now it's covered in smudges. I paid particular detail to texture on this assignment. The shoelaces are actually shaded using nothing but minute cross-hatching, and I tried to show the difference in reflection between the parts that were unpainted and painted canvas.

This picture is completely from my head and was done the day it was due during my other classes. It could use some work on contrast (more so than the rest of my work). I do like how the cup turned out.

So much for posting more often during the summer...

I have a knack for making summer resolutions and then completely blowing them off. Let's see... I planned to finish my summer reading by the end of June, finish a third of my summer artwork by the end of July, stay well-hydrated, post more frequently on my blog, practice my viola a lot, get my room cleaned before CIY, emailing my friends from Colombia (it's so much harder to read and write a language I don't understand, and Babelfish doesn't help much)... the list goes on and on.

Right now, as you can see, I'm starting on the goal of posting more often. It was brought to my attention on Saturday that I haven't posted since the first of July in the year of our Lord two thousand and eight. I'm currently working on two or three posts, but they could take a while. Especially now that I've forgotten how to use the scanner.

So I guess the point of this was just to say that I do intend to write more. I think my next post will be on my artwork, even though I've written on it in the past and the pictures are on Facebook. The old pictures weren't nearly as good as Ronda's old ones, I've finished several more since my last discussion on art, none of my sketchbook assignments were in the last batch of photos, and I can't really critique them all on Facebook. Well, I suppose I could critique them all on Facebook, but I'm choosing not to.

I'm done rambling for now, so, in the words of Tigger, ta-ta for now!

It's Almost Over

My junior year is almost over! As of today, I am forever more done with French class! I really do love learning the language, but I can't say I'll miss Lorenz. I'm also done with my english classmates. I love my teacher and the class, but my classmates are so immature I can barely stand it. After our exam, a couple of my friends decided to make a list of things that are more mature than our class. The list was getting too long, so they just ended up writing "everything" at the bottom. Hopefully most of them don't get to take AP english next year.

Most Finneytownians consider 11th grade to be the year from hell, so I dearly hope that next year is not as busy. The schedule I've made for myself may kill that dream, but that remains to be seen. Now that I know what it's like to take classes wherein I actually have to read through my notes or even actually study before tests, I should be much more prepared for next year than I was for this year. My schedule and my opinion of the classes is as follows (although the classes won't be in this order, for I have put them in alphabetical order):

AP Art History: If I end up having to drop a class, I think it will be this one. History is my least favorite subject, and this class actually gets me another art credit instead of a history credit. If I got a history credit, I wouldn't have to take psych, as I will explain momentarily. This class is a huge workload. Normally, we'd get to start the work over the summer, but I'm not sure how that's working since the teacher is bed-ridden with a leg broken in three places.

AP Art Portfolio: I'm extra excited about my portfolio! Hopefully, mine will be half finished and completely planned by the end of the summer. More on that when I finish the post on my portfolio. It's one of the many posts I've started but not finished. If I finish all that I plan to over the summer, finishing my portfolio by next May shouldn't be an issue.

AP Calculus: Also known as AP Calculator, this class is taught by a monotonous yet hilarious and informative teacher. Last I heard, there were only fifteen people signed up for this class. I like small classes. It should be challenging, unlike my past math classes, but not unmanageable.

AP English/American Lit: If the current AP English teacher keeps this position next year, the class will be a piece of cake, but any real preparation for the AP exam will be done on my own. I would be elated if most of my english classmates from this year weren't taking AP next year, but that's not likely.

AP Psychology: After English, psychology is considered the easiest AP class in the school. I don't really want to take it, but I need another history/social studies credit since I got to skip 10th grade history and go straight to AP US History. I could take two semester social studies classes, but there's only one that's even remotely appealing.

Black and White Digital Photography: I've been wanting to take this class since my freshman year, and I'll finally get to take it my senior year. This will be my chill class. The only deadlines I'll have to worry about are the teacher's, not the college board's, and there aren't many facts to memorize.

Chorale: I've also wanted to take a chorus class since my freshman year, but it has always come down to a choice between art and chorus. Art has won every time. Now that I finally have room for chorus, I got into the most select chorus at our school (okay, so there are only two select choruses) after not having taken a chorus class since eighth grade. I'm pretty excited.

Music Theory: This year, music theory and music history were offered as semester classes for the first time in a few decades. Those who took theory this year were already fairly advanced music students, so the course moved along at a fast pace. I'm hoping for the same next year.

Orchestra: Next year, our orchestra will have only between 25 and 30 members. The viola section will only have three of four, and I will be its fearless leader. This could get interesting. The director has already pulled aside myself, the first chair cello for next year, our harpist, and the two best violinists to tell us that we get to work on separate music twice a week. I can't wait! There is, of course, the problem that I really don't practice my viola. I love to, but I don't have time. I suppose I will have to make more time.

My Artwork

Last week, I re-decorated my walls in artwork. After a few hours of hammering my task was complete. And now I give you pictures of the 20 pieces of art on my walls. I apologize for the poor lighting in some of the pictures, but my room doesn't get much natural light after 9 AM and my lamps emit a very yellowish light that isn't much good for this sort of thing. I have presented them in the order in which they were created.

This is one of the few with a title. I call it Orange Pangea. It was made either during the summer before ninth grade or the summer before eighth grade. Technically, it's made out of trash, but as an artist I can do pretty much anything I want in the name of art. I peeled an orange, tore the peel into little pieces, pressed them for a few weeks, and then glued the pieces onto a cardboard square painted with interesting watercolor effects. The green sepals at the top were painted on with acrylics.

This was my first real project of my high school career. Really, it's more of an exercise in the use of line, but I like how it turned out. The assignment was to trace the outlines of a picture given to us by the teacher and fill it in with various types of line using Sharpies. It's hard to see all the detail in this photo, but it's interesting close up.

This was called The Lip Dude by my classmates, and the name stuck. For this we had to pick a 9x12 picture from the teacher's stack and draw it double the size using a grid for guidelines. The medium was ebony pencil.

This was also done my freshman year. The assignment was to demonstrate understanding of perspective in some way using colored pencil. The only evidence of actual technical one-point perspective in mine is the alternating black and white rectangular planes and the block letters on either side of the tree, so this wasn't exactly what the teacher had in mind, but she liked how I changed it to be more unique. I could have gotten away with murder in that class if it was artistically and originally done. It's hard to see it in this picture, but I'm really proud of how the sun turned out.

This was simply a study in color theory using tempera paints. We could divide our matboard however we wanted as long as we had four equal sized pieces: one in a monochromatic color scheme, one in a complementary color scheme, one in cool colors, and one in warm colors. I didn't like how choppy the other students' looked, so I went an extra step and tried to unify the four parts - thus the greyscale, dark, light, and black-and-white strips across the painting. At one point I named it, but I've forgotten its name. It had something to do with lava lamps, I believe.

This little fellow was my first experience with linoleum printing. I have mixed feeling about this medium. I love the carving process, but I don't like the texture of the finished product. It really aggravates me for some reason. It's kind of gritty and just... weird and aggravating.

This is the actual linoleum print that made the armadillo. I painted it with acrylics. It's mounted on plywood to make the printing process easier, but it likes to fall off of the wall due to its thickness.

This was the final project of my freshman year: an imitation of a painting using acrylic paints. I chose one of van Gogh's early pieces. I have no idea what it's called. It ended up looking very similar considering that I was only fourteen, but I was pressed for time so I had to let some things slide.

This is from last year. It's simply a negative space drawing of a fake palm with the negative space shaded in with pastel. If you were to look at the original, you would observe a speckled appearance to the pastel. This is how I learned that you really need to use aerosol hair spray - not spray hair gel - as a fixative. The top right corner of the picture is actually what I made up in my mind the night before the assignment was due. My teacher said time was up and put the tree back in the closet, but I wasn't done, so I had to use my imagination for the rest. It shows.

There's not much to talk about here. We took five pieces of watercolor paper and painted each a different shade of one color and then ripped them up to use as mosaic pieces to make a self-portrait. This one has a name too. It's called Mosaic Me.

This is called I hate you Ms. Althoff because I put hours upon hours of work into this beautiful landscape but I can't do anything with it but look at it because you had us using copyrighted images. Actually, pretty much everything I did my freshman year along with this piece from my sophomore year can't be entered in most contests because the picture we were working from were all copyrighted images. Thanks Ms. Althoff. This is a 9x12 colored pencil landscape made from a 1.5x2 snippet from another picture. The background is my favorite part color-wise, but it's all black in this photo.

This is my hand drawn with four different objects, each shaded a different way. There's the whelk shaded with inks using the hatching technique, the doorknob drawn in ink with a weighted contour line, the skateboard axle in normal pencil, and the pencil sharpener stippled with ink.

This is a white skull wearing a light tan hat against a white box, all shaded with various ink strokes. I had some serious issues bringing the darks into my composition because of the reality of the still life, but I may go come back to it and pretend it was a dark hat. It will work nicely as a portfolio piece if I take AP Portfolio next year. This was actually done based on a fully shaded graphite drawing of the same thing, but I gave that to my mom because she wanted to hang it, but I'm not sure where it is now.

This medium is one of my favorites: scratchboard. I find it to be extremely easy and fast, and it can also be used to do interesting things with movement, expression, and the like. After I finished this, I realized the eye was lacking eyelashes, but my teacher told me to forget about it since it was just an extra credit assignment and we had to move on. The "actual" project I turned in for that unit was a scratchboard of an orange daylily. I have no pictures of it because it is currently on display in the office of a company that sponsors a contest I entered it in.

For this, we used white colored pencil on black paper and drew a still life of shiny objects. I came in countless hours after school to work on mine, and I'm proud of the results. It could definitely be lighter. I tend to have this issue a lot. If the paper starts out white, the end result is a project that's too light; if the the paper starts dark, the end result is too dark; you'll see later that if the paper starts grey, the end result is too grey.

This was my first homework assignment this year. As advanced drawing and painting students, we get biweekly homework projects. At the beginning of the semester we get a sheet of topics such as close-up of an insect, potted plant, or self-portrait in harsh lighting (that's what this one is). Every two weeks we turn in our sketchbooks with a fully developed piece on one of those topics. Graphite is the most common medium, but I've used colored pencils and torn paper before, and one guy used markers once. My teachers chose this as one of the pieces from my school to be entered into a student exhibition at a local college during the winter.

This is a contour line drawing of some shoes that we did at the beginning of this year as an exercise. My table-mates and I decided that the fringe on the boot was satanic fringe straight from the pits of hell. It liked to move when we weren't watching it. At one point, we all decided that we were just going to put the fringe wherever we wanted instead of drawing strictly from the actual shoe, much to the amusement of the other art teacher.

This project is how I got tendonitis in my wrist, which I neglected for weeks until the swelling caused some carpal tunnel and the pain became so excruciating that I cried when I moved my wrist. If I'm forced to tears because of physical pain, something is drastically wrong. If I were smarter, I probably should have done something before it got to that point, but I have inherited from my grandpa the philosophy that if I ignore pain long enough it will go away. We shaded the paper entirely grey first (I used the blending stump improperly and with far too much pressure during this stage, which is how I hurt myself) and then made it darker and lighter to form the still life. The glare in the corner kind of messes up the overall effect, but it was a boring corner so you're not missing much action. I definitely used a full range of values, but it would not have hurt to have more extreme lights and darks.

This is the most recent full project that I have at home. My teacher has one on display and one in storage for our spring art show, and I have one in progress at school and one that was due in January, but I turned it in incomplete to be graded and now I can work on it for however long I like. This was a really fun, non-objective project. At first I flipped out because we weren't allowed to plan it in advance (I did to some extent anyway), we had to work with it as we went. I ended up really loving the fact that I didn't have a specific end goal. It's really hard to explain without showing the steps, so I won't do so at this time. Maybe I will later.