If I'm being totally honest art was not my first elective choice, I'm not totally sure it was my second either. So when I saw that I had art as one of my electives this semester I was needless to say, not that excited. I was nervous walking into art that first day, I've never really had an art class in my life before, and I wasn't sure what this 90 minutes of art would consist of. I was nervous that my art ability wouldn't measure up to the other kids', but after this first unit I feel a lot better about my art ability.
The first things we learned were how to proportion correctly, that composition matters, what value was, and how to shade to give something depth. With these lessons I could feel my art ability growing stronger, the only place where I really truly struggled was with perspective. When we went into the hall and were told to draw what we saw I had absolutely no idea where to start. The first perspective picture I ever drew was kind of a train wreck. There aren't any ceilings and the detailing on the walls and floors does nothing but take away from the perspective. I had no idea what a vanishing point was or how to use one, as is obvious in the picture. However my second perspective drawing is a wealth of obvious improvement.
This new and improved perspective drawing was done in class, when we were showed how to correctly draw first perspective drawings. Now this one you can tell is actually a hallway. Here I understood what a vanishing point was, and how to use it. A vanishing point is where all the lines in the picture disappear, it helps you show perspective and depth in your picture. This drawing has more detailing, with the lockers, lights, and and extra hallway leading off from the main one. In this sketch I decided to actually include a ceiling. My second drawing pays more attention to detail, uses shading to show light in some places, effectively uses a vanishing point and has straight lines. Everything is proportional, and it looks very realistic. Overall my understanding of perspective changed drastically over a period of days, and in the end I was able to realistically recreate a hallway on paper.
For our final project in the artists observe unit we were given the choice to draw a still life, a scientific drawing or a perspective drawing; I chose to do a still life. When planning out this still life I wanted it to give a little insight into my life, and what I like. So I decided to include my favorite Harry Potter book, a book with Parisian stationary, some albums I enjoy, lipsticks, my birthstone, and various vases filled with dried roses. I used charcoal in this drawing because I like the idea of being able to blend something to make it the shade you want. Using charcoal makes adding value easier, because you have control over which charcoal stick you use and what shade your final product will be. I also used colored pencils to give it some color, where color was needed. When working with colored pencils I found that there was no give like there is when you work with graphite or charcoal. Once you make a mistake with colored pencils it's very hard to cover it up with blending or erasing which I found very frustrating at times. I used my eraser to add highlight on the vases, and added shadows on the desk to show where the light source was coming from. I used some of my new found perspective skills when drawing the albums, books, and little box the jewel is on. Overall I am very pleased with how my final artists observe project turned out, I used new skills and proved to myself that I do have some artistic ability.
Emma Albrecht