For our first homework, we were asked to create a doodle page. I restarted this several times, messing up something new each time. Below is the penguin I started with. After starting this for the fourth time, I figured I was missing the point of the assignment, which was to “strive for spontaneity and create a dense variety of drawings organized into a harmonious composition.” This was actually why I was so afraid of taking this class at first. From what I had heard about the assignments and what I knew about my struggles with timed exercises and spontaneous drawings, I thought that I would do really badly. I tend to panic under pressure, so I couldn’t do almost anything for the first exercise and I was scared that I’d do the same with the others. I also knew that it was a good opportunity to improve, so with my last attempt I didn’t allow myself to plan anything beyond what I was currently drawing. I remember being quite impressed with myself since this is something I’d normally be so uncomfortable with.
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When we were asked to draw ourselves, I wasn’t quite sure what I should look like. I wasn’t comfortable drawing myself, much like I hadn’t been in drawing a few years back. The idea to just draw myself as a lizardtype creature came when I doodled a similar creature during Art History class. It was fun at the time, so I figured I’d reuse it for this. I didn’t use this character again though, so I kind of wish I’d been comfortable enough to do something that would’ve been better practice for later comics. I was also uncomfortable using a mouse to draw, but too stubborn to bring my tablet in. Honestly, I was just convinced I’d drop my laptop and have to replace it. I also thought that it was a good opportunity to force myself out of my comfort zone. Drawing with a mouse during class the whole semester was actually a really good decision because it forced me to get more comfortable with drawing simple, quick lines with no pressure sensitivity. I probably would’ve worked a lot slower if I had been using a tablet. On the right, I put our index card exercise. As above, I was still uncomfortable using a mouse to draw, even using the pen tool. I’ve only ever really used the pen tool in illustrator for graphic design purposes, so not a lot of drawing in the sense that I had to for this class, but I was determined to get better at simplifying form and using the curves to my advantage. I do wish I had had a better image from the exercise to start with, but I was also uncomfortable drawing traditionally under a time limit. I think that’s probably the area in which I’ve improved the most. I was always really afraid of timed drawing and simplifying form before. While I’m not super confident in my ability to draw quick, simplified forms yet, I can definitely see a difference and I’m no longer afraid of it in the way that I was.
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The silhouette/monster project was also really scary for me because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to simplify forms enough and that I wouldn’t be creative enough in my monster designs. There were a few ideas I had from when we were doing the silhouettes, but I ended up not even using them and choosing to only do unplanned monsters. That was definitely for the best because it lead to much more interesting designs than I would’ve gotten if I’d gone with my first ideas. With the grayscale version and the colored version, I was actually really comfortable for the first time in this class. I was already comfortable using Photoshop to draw in general, even if the art I’ve made for this class is vastly different from what I’ve made in the past and would normally make. I started experimenting with different brushes and a lot of different blend modes on the next page, which was my favorite part of the project. While I ended up not liking those particular monsters in the end, I was really satisfied with some of the colors and textures I achieved through this, though it made it hard to use the textures on those in the next step. The texture library and incorporating it in the monster designs was more challenging because it’s also very different from how I normally work. While I’ve incorporated textures in the past, the goal wasn’t necessarily to make it part of the image so much as enhance it a little. I usually find that a little texture goes a long way, so I would normally be pretty subtle about using it. Having to use them in the way that I did was hard at first, but became really fun as I did more. I enjoyed playing with the blend modes the most and ended up having 3-5 layers for a lot of the textures. I continued to do the same kind of experimenting with the other projects using textures. It was probably my favorite thing about the class. I could still spend an hour just playing with one texture if I had the time.
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This was another use of texture that I thought was really fun. I was still unsure of how to approach a self portrait and uncomfortable with that, but I was happy to have a direction to go in. We were told to try to show what we were feeling at the time and because I was extremely stressed at the time, all I could think was “like a piece of fruit with bugs crawling all over it.” Unfortunately I found out through this exercise that free images of dragonfruit are probably the least cooperative images in existence. I had to use three just to get a usable “head” for this and even then, I wasn’t satisfied with it. I mostly stopped messing with it because I was going to run out of time otherwise. I then had to make a repeating pattern out of the image of ants, which was kind of frustrating because the ants made it difficult to find an area that could repeat without being obvious. In the end, I took out some of the ants in order to do so, but it also made it so the ants appeared almost in bands, which I thought was probably more interesting than my original intention to have them be scattered completely randomly. I used a lot of my favorite texture library photos in this, like two of my bee pictures, the abstract painting, and the fruits. I think that the composition could have been better, but the use of textures is something I was pretty satisfied with, especially the flesh of the dragonfruit in the background.
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The first photo exercise was frustrating because I still couldn’t draw quickly enough. I got further than I would have at the beginning of the semester, but I still wasn’t satisfied with the final product. I didn’t even have time to draw the second girl’s head or most of the car. When coloring and using the texture library, I tried my best to make the most of what I had, but in the end, I think I just needed to work a little quicker and try to simplify more. I was pretty satisfied with the way I manipulated the textures though, because as with other exercises, it was the most fun part about it. I really liked trying to make the textures I used on multiple objects look different. In the case of the sky and the windshield, however, I had to try to make them look more similar, which was frustrating because there were a few effects I achieved with blend modes that were much more interesting, but ultimately hard to use.
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With the second photo exercise, I think I was much more successful. I had a better idea of how much I needed to simplify, though if I remember correctly I only finished this because it was the day that we were all having meetings about our grades and the time limits were not strictly followed. The textures and coloring actually went pretty quickly anyway, so it worked out in the best way it could’ve. I was really excited about the look that I got for the jacket. It was a combination of a couple different layers with different blend modes but I think that the final product was worth it. I’m still really happy with it, maybe because it reminds me of an album cover I saw as a child or because of the colors I got. This was also around the time I realized how much I loved using the bees. When you combine the bee picture with multiple filters, it can take on some really fun colors. It usually becomes abstract pretty quickly, though sometimes I was working to make it more clear what it was, depending on what I was using it for at the moment. Not related to process, but I was really excited about this picture. The dogs hanging down from their owner’s arms and the looks on their faces were really interesting to me. I also really liked the lamp in the background.
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This was hands-down my favorite homework we did. I started out with the skeleton, then the cowboy, the fish, and the lizard followed. The progression from a more complex image to the most simple was interesting to me. I can always look at my homework and tell in which order I drew things. I think that the challenge that my group’s template provided made for really fun designs, like the twisting of the skeleton’s body or the proportions of the other characters. I tried to go for a different look with each character so I could experiment more whith shape and colors. I definitely had the most fun with the skeleton, but using the texture with the fish was also really fun. This homework also required the least messing with blend modes and textures. I did a lot to change most of the bacgkrounds, but otherwise there was little to do that wasn’t just using the brush tool.
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With the final exercises and projects using our public domain library and analog library were a good departure from the texture library. They used different skills and ended up looking so different from what we had spent the last weeks doing and it was really exciting to see that difference after working on the monsters for so long. I was mistaken on the due date for the homework, so I ended up posting it early, which I do kind of regret. If I had taken a little longer on it, I think I would be more satisfied with the colors, values, etc. This homework was inspired by a late night walk on campus during which I found a deer wandering around near the sculpture studio. While this is far from the first time I’ve seen a deer on campus, it was the closest I’ve ever been to one and probably the least startling experience with one on campus. Immediately after the moment in the last panel, it actually rounded a corner and when I rounded the corner after it, it had disappeared. The exercise above was just a moment from a walk I took with my dog not long ago. I considered putting her in her wheelchair for the drawing, because her back legs are paralyzed, but she can still walk if she keeps them stiff and that was what she was doing that day. I also decided that because of how dog wheelchairs look, it was better for reasons of time and visual clarity to just leave it out. For the background, I just used the first painting I did for Painting I because I wanted to put the characters behind the lighter strokes of paint.I do kind of wish I had added another image to the right because I’m not quite satisfied with the look of the trees behind the yellow paint, but I think that if the paint had a harder edge to it, it would also improve it.
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