For my two free choice art pieces I used acrylic paints to create a Halloween pumpkin and a forest. There are a few things that I like as well as dislike about both pieces. My pumpkin painting had very good contrast and balance in the painting but some of the paints I used were not good and wouldn’t cover up some of the darker marks that I made on the pumpkin. As for my forest painting, I like the leaves on the two trees up close and I also like the grass in the foreground. I don’t like the trees in the background or much of the grass either. Overall I think that they were two well developed paintings with a foreground, middle ground, and background but there are still things that I would fix if I had the chance.

For my foreshortened self portrait I was thinking about doing a standing pose of this image of Christ.
because I want to make the image be looking at myself from the ground up. The most challenging part of this project is going to be drawing the right shades of skin because I usually like to draw what I know and not what I see. Another good example of fore shortening is in this self portrait.



This is good foreshortening because almost everything in the image is coming at the viewer. I was thinking about doing this pose while showing my full body unlike in this piece. This piece seems as though it is showing frustration and this is often times how I feel so this may be a good idea for me.

 This picture inspired me to do art because it looks like something that a professional artist would paint. It is unique and eye catching. It also has a foreground, middle ground, and background. This picture reminds me of summer because I can imagine them being lit up during the night. This creates a soothing feeling in my head and that is what i like about this picture.

 This is a picture taken in the studio of MIAD. It inspired me to create art because there are many different tools that can be used when creating art. I love art and what better to photograph that something that is used to create art.

This was taken in a cafe on our lunch break. This reminds me of something that Edward Hopper would paint because many of his paintings have one main subject and then an empty room or street in the background. Painting people is not something that I am strong at but 

 This painting drew my attention because of the amazing realism. That is the strongest part about the piece. The thing that could have made this painting a little more appealing to the eye is if the background wasn't just overcast. If the Cathy Martin would have painted the sky blue with clouds it would have really brought the painting together because with overcast there wouldn't really be shadows on the ground. The sun would not be able to go through the clouds and make that dark of a shadow.

 Cathy Martin also painted this beautiful work of art. Once again the amazing realism was what caught my eye. I think what stands out the most in this painting is the red barn in the green trees because without the barn the painting would look plain and boring to look at. With the barn it gives you something to look at. Looking at the barn also draws your eyes to the weakest part of the painting, the pumpkins and hay. This is the one thing in the painting that does not look like a photograph, which is good and bad. It is good because the artist went into such detail that it actually looks as if it is a picture, but then you see the pumpkins and hay and it looks like they rushed to finish and they just added that part quickly and didn't take as much time on it.

I like this painting by Harold Gregor because it looks like something on a cartoon show. It reminds me of the saturday mornings that I would get up at 6 am and watch TV all day. The strongest piece about this painting is the sun. It really catches my eyes when I look at the painting. The least effective thing about the painting is the fact that the sun leads your eyes off the page. The ripples in the sun's light are moving toward the top of the painting. When my eyes look at a painting I want things to lead my eyes back into the painting not out of it.

All I can think about when I think and search my word is energy and things that we use to create energy like windmills, nuclear power plants, and coal power plants. When i searched my word on google and other image sites there really wasn't any pictures that came up so it was really up to me about what my interpretation of the word is. I also searched other words that are similar to mine. This link helped me think of some other ideas that I could use.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/R/Regeneration.html

When I searched my word on Pinterest it still gave me really weird results like busy cities. I started thinking about things I could use for my word and what came to mind is energy and windmills and starfish.

http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=wind%20mills

There was actually a lot of reading on my word and it helped me think of other things like the creation of life and the earth and things like that. Researching my word really helped widen my thoughts about my word.

Today I finished the land on the shoreline. The reflection in the water looks like it's real. I got in all the trees on the land too and they look pretty good. I have all of the foliage done and that was pretty hard to get it to look real but all I did was take a dark color and put it on one side of the brush and a lighter color on the other side. It makes the foliage look more realistic. It's so nice to be able to have a clue what I'm doing now.

I painted the grass and it was easier than I originally thought. It's just had to get the right color tone because at night everything is dark but it isn't all black so its hard to find an in between that looks real. The only colors that can be seen very clearly at night are white and what looks like black. so there can only be a little bit of color in whatever you are painting so that is doesn't look like it is day time.

My third painting is of a man standing on a path and looking at a shooting star. The only hard part of this painting is going to be a challenge is making the grass look real. It will be hard to do most of the background because its hard to paint things that have a light color at night. I know how I am going to paint everything else in this painting  but I have a hard time painting people even if it is only a silhouette. I just don't want this painting to turn out like my first painting.

My painting is finished and I love how it turned out. It's looking good everywhere in my opinion. I am happy with everything and I don't think it needs fixing in any places. I only have one more painting left and there is over a month until school starts. I have some time to think about what I want to do and make it happen. There is this one really cool picture that I found that I was thinking about doing. I'll probably end up doing that but I'm just a little curious to see how similar it looks to the actual picture.

I started my second painting and it's already 100 times better than my first one. I only have the background painted but I know what I'm doing not so this painting will get done in half the time and I will actually be proud to say that this painting is mine. I am painting a river scene and it is going to be reflecting on the water. I love working on it. It looks so good. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I fixed some things on my first painting so it looks better that it originally did. It feels good to get back to doing art because it's so peaceful and I can just paint and think about whatever I want. I just plug in my headphones and chill out and listen to music so that no one can distract me. I love not talking to anyone and being able to isolate myself from everything that's going on. I can't wait until I move out of my house because I'll finally be on my own in control of my own life.

I got so much farther on my painting in the past couple of days. I actually have motivation to do something! I love painting so much and now it actually looks good. The more I paint the better I get and it's so nice. I painted the foreground in and now I just have to paint the focal point tree now and then I'll be done. Hopefully I don't mess anything up so it doesn't ruin the painting.

My first painting is really good for not painting for a solid year. Some of the things in it still frustrate me because some things don't look the way I want them to but I don't know how to fix it. I'm going to need to practice a little more before we actually start working on our AP stuff. It'll be nice too because when I paint that is the only time I can really get away from everyone in my house and just zone out on what I'm doing.

Relearning

Getting back into painting is hard when you don't do it for a year. When I started my summer homework it was like I had to relearn how to do everything. My first painting of the summer is terrible I have to search how to paint things so that they look normal. It's so frustrating not knowing how to paint anything. Everything slowly came back to me but I'm still working on getting back to where I was two years ago. I'm terrible and it makes me angry. I know I am better than what I'm putting on the canvas. I seriously thought to myself how I was going to make it through AP Studio Art if I couldn't even paint anymore. This year is going to be hard