Box Drawings: Observational Drawing

Here are images of value box drawings that I have been doing in my Observational Drawing class.

Observational Drawing Final Piece

The final assignment for Observational Drawing was to draw a composition with part of the piece drawn with both interior and exterior spaces. I decided to do a one point perspective drawing in Scholes Library looking out the window. My inspiration for this piece was my daily practice that week because the other day the view of the sunset from that particular window was really nice when photographed and the composition looked really nice to me so I decided to draw it but at a different time of day.

Week in Review: 10/2-10/8

Day One: Observational Drawing
On Monday we did a group critique at the beginning of class of the charcoal box drawings that we had to draw for homework over the weekend. The requirements for the drawing was that it would be in charcoal, to have the drawing be on Stonehenge paper, to use sight lines, and for it to be a value drawing. After our critique the professors split the class into two groups and had individual critiques of our pieces. Each student put their piece that we did for homework on their easel and the professors would come over and give us specific feedback on our artwork. After our critiques our homework was to draw another value piece of the boxes with spotlights over the boxes.

Day Two: Observational Drawing

Tuesday started with another group critique of the homework assignment to draw the boxes in high lighting. We had our pieces on the wall and we reflected on the group's progress over the past six weeks and how our works improved. Most of the feedback was minimal because of the individual critiques the previous day in class. After we had time to tweak our pieces and the professors told us about our final assignment for the course. The final assignment is to basically utilize all the skills and techniques that we have learned the past six weeks in class and to show the professors what we have learned.

Day Three: Combined Class
The professors decided to not have class today so we can all work on our art pieces for midterms and let us use the time in the studio and use that time how we choose.

Day Four: Studio Research
Studio Research was to be held in the glass blowing studios to perform glass casting on our small sculptures that we made from the materials in the performance art piece. (There will be a separate blog post about the whole glass casting process in the future)

Day Five:
Class was still held in Harder Hall today and my group took a tour of the glass studios and the neon lab. We also watched a glassblowing teacher do a demonstration of making a glass vessel.

Month in Review: Video

Here is a visual summary of most of the projects and things I have been doing the first month of college. There are many images of field trips, art pieces and extra videos of my daily life at Alfred University. 

Sketches from Block A:

Here are some sketches and art pieces from this first quarter and my progress throughout the first few weeks of school.

Quick Observational Drawings: In under 20 minutes 

 Night Drawing of Kanakadea Hall

 Observational Drawing of The Science Center

 Observational Drawing: Harder Hall

 Observational Drawing: Sculpture Garden

Quick line drawing of Harder Hall

Week in Review: 9/4 - 9/8

Day One: Observational Drawing
The first day of classes that week was that foundations students were divided into two groups A&B. I was sorted into Group B where I was going to focus on observational drawing and studio research. In class that day we did observational drawing in the university's main courtyard using charcoal. The goal of this activity was to try to draw/sketch faster as well as become more accurate with our observational skills. For each piece we did we had five minutes to complete. We did observational drawing for about three hours that day. The homework that night was to draw three scenes with trees/architecture in them. For each piece we did we were expected to spend one hour on. This piece was due the next day and the pieces had to be completed by sunset that evening.

Day Two: Observational Drawing
The next day we had to all hang up our pieces for a critique from our art professors. Everyone had their pieces finished and we had an hour long critique on almost everyones pieces. A lot of the students in class felt nervous in a way because our objective was to draw fast and accurately. The way we did our assignment was very different than most students art styles. For me personally it was out of my comfort zone but also with a medium that I was familiar with to some extent. After the critique there was a presentation of artists and different art styles. There was also a demonstration on creating 3D forms to proportion. The homework was for students to create a fantasy scene incorporating 3D forms into their piece. This assignment is due Monday September 10th.

Day Three:
Wednesday was the day both groups are combined and we watched a movie about an artist who worked with as bunch of different mediums and how his art evolved over the years and where he first started.

Day Four: Studio Research
Classes on Thursday and Friday is taught by different professors than in the beginning of the week so I was also in a different floor of the art studios that day. Studio research that day everyone had their sketchbooks and we were asked to answer three questions:
1.) What is one childhood book that you would reread if you had the chance?
 For me I chose the book The Giver by Lois Lorwy because I enjoyed reading that book in middle school and I have reread it before because I liked the storyline.
2.) What is one item from your past that you still treasure today?
One item that I hold important to me is my first tutu that I wore in a dance recital when I was four years old. This item is important to me because I have been dancing for a very long time and it is nice to look back and see where I started in this tiny lilac tutu and now I am on my 14th year of dance. It reminds me how hard I have worked to be in the place I am today.
3.) What places do you find intriguing? Explain.
I think that anywhere away from home is intriguing because there is so much more out in the world that I do not know of yet and wherever I go there is something to learn or discover.
After the questions we shared our answers and we walked to the university's ceramic art museum. Our homework assignment is to pick a vessel and observe it for two consecutive hours and take notes/sketches of the piece.

Museum Experience:
For me personally I enjoyed doing the work a lot because I never really had a chance to take a ceramics course in high school and I felt like this experience made me appreciate ceramic art much more than I did before. I also think I had a bit of a roadblock when doing this assignment because my professors said to watch a piece for two consecutive hours and I think the idea of sitting myself down for that long was difficult but I ended dup really enjoying myself and not getting bored with it. I know that some students were very bored after a half an hour and even left before the two hour mark. However, once I got into my creative mindset it was easy from there with my full focus on the piece and doing sketches as well as taking notes.

Day Five: Studio Research:
The last day of the week was when we all shared our notes from our observations in the museum to our classmates. We also did an exercise about cognitive fitness where we would walk around the room and draw our surroundings from memory which I found was very challenging yet very interesting. Our next assignment was to create our own little museum of things that we find in a section of campus. By Wednesday we have to find four items of our choice in our select groups. Another art homework we were assigned to was to create or maintain an online presence as an artist to have a platform to display our work. I have used this blog in the past so I am trying to post more updates on my art and my progress throughout the years. Our task on our blog is to post weekly or daily of something we do every day. My current ideas in the works is doing something dance related and pose across campus doing a certain pose of places I go to or have been to before.

Week in Review: 8/28-9/1

The week of August 28th I started the fall semester at Alfred University. I am in the class Foundations which is Art 101 at AU. Foundations is about learning about different art styles and mediums as well as giving students opportunities to see who they are as an artist.

The first week of classes There was a visiting artist named Emmy Bright working with the foundations students to make an art installation by the end of the week. 

Day One: 

On day one the students were introduced to the visiting artist and they did a lecture presenting their work. We were then divided into groups to create linoleum folds/stamps. Our homework that night was to make four letters carved in a creative font or text by the next day as well as a 100 word autobiography of us as an artist. 

Day Two:

The next morning all the students came in with their handwritten or typed autobiographies and we had to keep reducing the number of words in our autobiographies. It went from 100 words to 3 words. Our next task was to use the full alphabet that we made as a group and stamp our three word autobiographies onto big pieces of paper. The homework for that night was to find cardboard as tall as us and use our stamps to make prints the size of our hight.

Day Three: 

Day three was when we got into different groups and we made designs using the prints that we made. We also used cardboard to stabilize the structures and secure them with paper mache. Our homework was to coat the cardboard in two layers of paper and then set our patterns onto the surface. 

Day Four:

The fourth day was putting there three letter autobiographies to the murals and letting them set. 

Day Five:

The last day was installing the murals in the art space and thanking the guest artist for working with the students.