Values Portrait

1. Explain the process you went through to develop your drawing.

First off our class printed pictures of ourselves in black and white, and everyone got to choose at random who they were going to draw.  Next we used tracing paper to outline everyone of the different values and transfer the shapes onto our sketchbook. Then was the hard part, we had to use the original picture, and shade in all the values, then blend them together.

2. Explain how you found the different values in the portrait?

There were many different values, in the hair and the face.  I traced what I could at my desk, there were some pretty obvious ones at first, like the highlights on the nose and the white of the eyes, for the values in the hair I had to tape the picture to a window.

3.  Did you achieve a full range of the different values within your portrait?  How?

Yes, I did.  The picture had all the values inside, and I was able to shade them into the shapes.  I did this by comparing the picture to the one in my sketchbook. It was really confusing at first because it just didn't look right.  Just blotches of color, like a Picasso painting. but when I blended the colors together, they took shape and didn't look so bad.  I had to fix some of the values at the end, since they were too dark or too light.

4. Describe your craftsmanship.  Is the artwork executed and crafted neatly?

I think I did very well.  The values don't look blocky and blends together easily.  The shape of the face and the hair aren't contorted. (Very much)  The only problem is that it took a bit longer to shade in than the rest of the class.  Probably because I kept erasing half the face. I couldn't get the color to go together. Also, there were a lot of pencil smears that I had to get rid of when i was done.

5. List any obstacles you had to overcome and how you dealt with them.

Because i had never worked with values before, it was hard for me at first to get the shading right.  I felt like my portrait wasn't turning out right.  Also, the face looked disfigured when I added the values, so I had to erase the whole thing and retrace it. but otherwise, it wasn't that hard, it just took a lot of time to color.

Oil Pastel Shapes

1. Describe your overall thoughts on the final piece.

I really like the way the oil pastels came out. The different colors blended nicely together and gave the shapes a real, three dimension look. The dark, black and blue background also brought out the brightness of the lighter colors.

3. How successful do you feel this piece is and why?

I feel quite successful, the darker colors contrasted with the vivid greens and oranges excellently.  The shapes seemed authentic, and with the shadows, looked like it came out of the paper.

4. What worked about this project? What didn’t work?

The oil pastels mixed and created a blend that worked nicely.  One color would pull into another color as the blends would turn lighter and lighter.  The only thing I didnt like was that the black was really dark, and hard to work with.

5. If you were to do this project over again, what changes would you consider making?

I wouldnt make any changes, I like the way the it is already. :D

6. What was the most difficult part about completing this piece and why?

Blending the colors took time and patience, if you rushed, the colors would not blend correctly.  Also you had to be careful, or else the way the lines came together would look messy.

7. What did you learn from this piece?

To be patient, I messed up the colors more than once. XD