Firstly we started by looking at art by Georgia O’keefe who mainly painted abstract flowers this was a new style for me as I have never tried drawing in abstract style before, after this we did two paintings in acrylics one of shells and one piece of corn and around the edge of the paintings I then collaged in the background. This was a new way of doing backgrounds for me, as I have never tried using painting and colaging together. We have also tried a picture of natural objects with pastels then used chalk to make a grey background.
I didn’t really like the results of the chalk background because it was so dull. Then we did a picture of fruits in pencils and shaded them this piece was very similar to the pictures I made of fruits later in my book one in watercolour pencils and one I collaged. I was very pleased with my picture in watercolour pencils but the collage didn’t turn out to well. After this I made a page of leaves drawn in 2 styles two in pencils and two in rubbings.
I was pleased with the leaves done in pencil but the rubbings didn’t look that nice as you can only get a single colour and no shading. Next continuing with the vegetation theme I made a picture of Monet’s water lilies. I was pleased with this as it allowed me to experiment with pastels and enabled me to create a strong colourful picture. Next we made a copy of a picture of Jesus on the cross in acrylic this painting was done by Gauguin. This enabled me to experiment with a new style of painting with its simple lines and bright colours.
The next piece of art is the piece that I’m happiest with out of my entire book. It was a copy of a print of black and white natural objects shaded with dots and lines. This was a completely new style of shading for me and it is one that I like a lot. Then I started developing my final art piece for the year I took a section of my garden and drew and shaded it in black pen after this I did 2 or 3 more pictures of this section of my garden one in pencil one in collage and one in acrylic.
These were all to try and develop my picture but the only one I was really happy about was my first picture in black pen. I have also done a picture of feathers one set done in white pencil and coloured pencils on black paper, the other set was done in inks. Using inks was a completely new experience for me as was colouring on black paper I liked using both. Then I did another 2 pictures of natural pictures one of scallops in coloured pencils and one of horse chestnuts done in chalk and then I coloured in the background in grey chalk.
After this we started concentrating on landscapes more. Firstly I made a picture of two tree’s one copied from Van Gogh and one of my own creations. I was very unhappy with both of these pictures I thin I could of improved them by spending longer on the backgrounds. Then carrying on with the landscapes theme we did 2 pictures of skies by famous artists one done watercolour a copy of a sky by Turner and one by Van Gogh in pastel. I was quite happy with both of these pictures and I liked making the strange effects of the Van Gogh sky with pastels.
I also looked at the style of art noveau, which I found very interesting, and I was quite pleased with my picture in coloured pencils, the picture was of a design off fruits. I also did a picture again in acrylics, this was a copy of a painting fruits on a table by Paul Cezanne. Another piece of art I did in this book was a landscape picture by Katsushika Hokusai in an interesting Japanese style using blocks of colour and very bold lines. This was my other favourite piece of art it was an interesting picture of a large frothy wave.
I coloured it using watercolour and used fine liner for the edges of some of the waves. In the latter part of this year we also did some work on something called the mizu project where we worked around the theme of the river Thames and how important it is and we created constructions using different parts from our work so far this year and from our imaginations. I think my project’s worked well especially the one I black and white. I created them by cutting out the thick cardboard making the images and sticking them on the pieces of cardboard then overlapping the cardboard and sticking that together.
Then we started preparing for my exam so we did some work looking at Janet Fish’s drawings of fruits glass and her bold use of colour and light, this was helpful in our exam as we were drawing sweets placed in a jam jar. It was a fairly difficult thing to draw firstly the reflections kept changing and with so many sweets within the jar it was difficult to draw them all the rights size and the jam jar was a difficult shape to draw as the top changed depending on where you looked at it from.
I liked the way this picture came out I think I drew the glass reflections well but I think I should have used stronger colours with the sweets to make them stand out more against the black paper. Then I created my final construction which was a combination of everything from the first 2 and all my work earlier that year but this time we made everything on the construction rather than using photocopies, I was happy with the way my construction turned out and I liked the use of colour on it.
I Feel that overall this year I could have done quite a bit better with some of my earlier pieces, most of the ones I messed up were in acrylic so I think that maybe next year I will do a bit better as I have had so much more practice at using them. While I did do some bad pieces there were quite few pieces I was happy with I was happy with all my pictures done in watercolour or watercolour pencils I also like the pictures that I have done using pastels. I have found this topic very interesting and it has enabled me to experiment with many new styles, materials and techniques.
