Prismacolor piggy

For this project, the assignment was to draw something transparent with Prismacolor colored pencils.  I must admit, I was not thrilled because I really don't love working with pencils.  I played around with a couple ideas, but most of them seemed pretty boring... all bottles and jars and stuff.  But then I had the idea to work with ice.  I stuck a plastic pig in the bottom of a cup, filled it with water, and froze the cup.
This was the result:

AAAHGGHGHH IT'S ICE PIGGG

It's kinda scary, I know, but I just went with it.  I practiced with the prismacolors a bit

I actually used prismacolor watercolor pencils for the sketch

and decided I was ready to start.
Voilà:

ICE PIG!  he's coming for you.

It was really frustrating because I don't really have the patience for colored pencil.  I feel like I don't have enough control to blend the pencils and make the right colors (a big part of why I prefer painting).  Mistakes feel a lot more permanent in colored pencil than they do in paint, too.  All in all I guess it's not too terrible.  It just wasn't very much fun.

More sheep...

In case you haven't gathered this already, I like to make sheep.  For my first project of the new semester, I decided to make another, only this time, as a 3D piece.

Environmental artist Bryant Holsenbeck visited Apex High and showed us how to make these cute little animals out of trash. (I almost decided to make an elephant instead... silly me)

First, I built a skeleton out of baling wire.  Then I stuffed the skeleton with plastic grocery bags, wrapping the whole thing with yarn so it stayed together.  I swear this thing has dozens of bags inside.  It's heavier than you might expect...

Oh, you were expecting a realistic sheep? NOPE

Next I tore an old pillowcase into strips and wrapped the sheep, because even though it is trash, it doesn't have to look like trash.  I tucked some ears into his head, glued some trash to his face for eyes and a nose, and voilà!

Tada!

I titled the piece "I like ewe", which is funny because I don't really think of it as a female sheep... more like a lamb of indeterminate gender.  He/she doesn't have a name yet.  Suggestions?

Right now this little guy, along with my other sheep, is on display at the Halle Arts Center in downtown Apex until March 14th.  Go check him out! :))

chicken face

When I was thinking about what project to start next, I just kept thinking about how much fun I had painting my sheep.  I wasn't sure what made that sheep different from any of my past projects, but I decided to roll with it and keep with the same theme.  I decided to paint a chicken.  I had also been sketching a little chicken Laura and I make up stories about when we babysit named Bob the Chicken.

Bob the Chicken

I found some references...

I worked mostly from the little guy at the top, second from the left

...and made a sketch...

sketch with oil pastels

...and I just went for it.

Chicken face!

This one was really fun, too.  The hardest part so far has been bringing out lighter and darker values to make the chicken really pop, especially his comb.  I'm still working on that actually :) I am also trying to give him texture without painting individual feathers.  So far I'm very happy with this piece.

...I feel like he needs a name.  Any suggestions?

Fishy

Pretty fishy :))

This piece is also a project from Art III. It is the result of an assignment where we used silk dye. I'd done something similar to this in eighth grade, when we used wax and stuff to batik with a visiting artist. This time, we use gutta and fancy silk dye that stains your fingers and clothes.  (I think my fingers were blue for a while.)  I chose a fish because I thought I could do some cool watery stuff with the dye and because I secretly like fish almost as much as sheep.  I wish I had a picture of the watercolor I made as a sketch because I actually like it better than the final product... Probably because I spent days on the watercolor and the silk actually went more quickly than I expected.  I had some fun with salt, which gave it a kind of bubbly look in some spots.  It was great fun :))  Like I said I'm not as happy with the final as I was with the sketch, but it was something new and I did have a lot of fun making it.

The Beautiful Laura

So this piece is one that I made almost two years ago as my "final project" for Art III. I really enjoyed painting a watercolor of my little brother Jonathan earlier that year, so I decided to do another. I picked out a picture of Laura from when we got our pictures taken earlier that year.  I don't remember whether I projected and traced the image onto the 18"x24" watercolor paper....I think I just drew it out the best I could. I then painted the whole thing with watercolors. I probably could have used a bit more value in the face. I hadn't really worked this large with watercolor before, besides the portrait of Jonathan, and it was a bit tricky to keep it wet so I could blend it all like I needed to. It was also difficult to make her hair really dark like it needed to be, but I think I managed pretty well with that one :)

 My favorite parts are the dress (this picture got cut off a bit... you can see more in the original. I jus kind of squiggled the brush around) and her eyes, which are just gorgeous in real life. Overall I was very happy with how this piece turned out; it is one of my favorite things I have ever done.

I am not left-handed

This is a sketchbook assignment from a couple months ago. I rediscovered it while flipping through my sketchbook and thought I'd share it with y'all :))
It is a self portrait drawn in pencil with my left hand.

I'm beautiful ;)

I am not left handed.

I like sheep

In case you didn't notice from one of my previous posts, I like sheep.  I decided that I wanted to paint a sheep with oils.  So I printed some references:

Sheep!  I chose that guy in the middle as my model.

All of these sheep are a weird off-white color, and that's no fun, so I decided to add a little more color into the wool.  I did the shadows with purple and the highlights with yellow.  It was a bit tricky not to make it muddy, especially because purple and yellow make brown... I think I did a pretty good job though :)
First I did a red-orange wash on my square canvas.  I think the orange color helped me make the blue of the sky as bright as I needed to.  I spent most of my time on the sheep trying to get the texture and values just right and finished up with the sky and the grass.

It's a beautiful sheep.

Sorry this picture was taken at a weird angle...  It was still wet so I left it at school over the break and I will take it home to take a better picture when we get back :))
This is probably my favorite piece I've done this year.  I love how it's realistic-ish and abstractish at the same time.  I also enjoy telling people it's a self portrait and explaining that "Rachel" means "ewe" even though that's not a very funny joke.  I can't wait to bring it home :))