Art Show 2: Lincoln-Way West Show

05/15/13 Today I went to the Art Show at Lincoln-Way West! It was awesome! All of the work was fantastic!

 My "Waiting For a Tow Truck" piece won an award of excellence for painting.

My Hand painting also won an award of excellence for painting.

 This is a picture of my painting (At Dinner in Galena) with my lovely mother who is the subject of the painting standing next to it.

And my Caramanico-Terme painting was honored with Best of Show!!!

This was a great night. Thanks a ton to the Lincoln-Way West Art Department especially Mr. Faris. And Congratulations to all of the people who had work in the show!

Old Pictures 3-5: Colored Pencil

Concerning Colored Pencil: To this day there are only three materials I like to use, and of those two are paints. The third is colored pencil. Though it was once my most hated art type, now it is my favorite, and my progression through colored pencil can mostly (besides for the horrid practice pieces I can not bear to ever look at again) be seen in the following three pictures, my first three Prismacolor colored pencil pieces:

Old Picture 3: Christmas Ornaments

12/2009

This picture does not do this piece justice; it is even worse than it appears here - much much worse. I did not know what I was doing; I did not understand the concept of layering colored pencils; I did the entire piece with no more than 15 different colors (a 12 pack plus Tuscan Red, Indigo Blue, and Cream). I am just proud that I was able to draw all of those ornaments (drawing is my weakpoint, I speciallize in shading and coloring) and finish the piece.

Old Picture 4:

Colored Pencil with Watercolor Background

2009/2010

I did this piece after I bought my 36 pack of Prismacolor colored pencils, and I finally started understanding how to use colored pencils.

Old Picture 5:

Colored Pencil

Summer 2010

 

Suddenly everything made sense...

Though this is not a perfect piece and I rushed the right side and the background, after doing this piece I felt invincible in the world of colored pencil... and since then I have understood that I can still be much much better.

This concludes my highlights from my history of Drawing I and II.





Old Pictures 1-2: Charcoal

Old Picture 1: Koi

Pen, Pencil, Charcoal

10/13/2009 from Drawing

Honorable Mention at Scholastic Competition (I think; it was either this one or Old Pic 2 below)

Award of Excellence at Joliet Junior College Art Competition (2009)

This piece was my first experience with charcoal and pen. I did all of the stippling in one night... I will never do that again. Unfortunately I do not have a good picture of the finished product; the best I have is the one directly above which blatantly compares my piece with the reference photo. When I did this piece, I did not really get it. All I saw was a fish. But now I really like it. He is not just a fish; he is MY fish!

Old Picture 2: Portrait

Charcoal

04/25/2010

Drawing II

(After doing this piece, I do not think I will ever use charcoal again... or for at least a long time)







Painting 3: At Dinner in Galena (First Acrylic Painting!)

At Dinner in Galena

~Acrylic, 15x20

January 2013

This painting was based off of pictures I took of my mom while we were eating dinner in Galena, Illinois. Unfortunately while working on this picture I was recovering from ACL reconstructive and meniscal repair surgery, so this picture is not quite as it was meant to be. The assignment was to paint a grisaille of a portrait in sepia tones. Unfortunately, because of my surgery, by the time I started painting my burnt umber dried out (thank goodness the rest of my palette was well enough preserved, especially my titanium white). (Please forgive my ignorance of the exact colors I refer to in the following sentences, but I am still unfamiliar with my acrylic palette) At first I used burnt sienna and blue to create a darker brown, but soon I exhausted my remaining burnt sienna. Therefore most of this picture was painted by mixing green and red with a little bit of yellow. I had planned to paint a slightly blurred brick and wood panel background, but I ran out of time. Despite my many difficulties with acrylic paints and other circumstances, I am very proud of this piece, but someday I would like to go back and tighten up some of the details. I am even considering glazing over this in color.

What I learned from this piece: Acrylics are hard; I still have a lot left to learn...

Final Piece in Progress:



Painting 2: Waiting for a Tow Truck

Waiting for a Tow Truck

~Watercolor, 18x24 in.

Fall 2012

Honorable Mention - Scholastic Competition

My second complete painting ever! This picture to me has a great story to it. The guy in the picture is my brother. Four years ago he and I went to a Civil War reenactment. That day I took around 200 pictures by literally following him around and constantly taking pictures. Out of all of the pictures, there is only one of me from when he stole the camera while we were eating and snapped a fantastic picture of me taking a bite out of a burger. Though it was probably really annoying while I was doing it, now it's really cool because we both remember everything that we did and saw because I have pictures of everything we did and saw. Anyways, even after we left the civil war reenactment, I continued taking pictures of my brother driving.

Progression of pictures: Brother driving --- brother making goofy face while driving (looking at the road, not me) --- brother with his sunglasses upside down while driving --- Brother with upside down glasses and mouth open in utterance of a choice word of profanity --- Brother on side of road with broken down car.

After almost an hour of driving, my brother's car broken down literally minutes away from our house, and of course this picture is based off of the pictures I took of him waiting for the tow truck (and our parents).

Preliminary Painting:

Final Painting: In Progress