Value Influences Shape

 

The box you see above took different steps to get to look the way it does now. Just like the drawing of the chair I started this project using the string method to get the various angles of the box. Even though I knew what I was suppose to do with he string it was still a little difficult to exactly get the angles of the box. 

By the end of this project I had learned a lot of things. I learned that cement glue is really erasable and in some ways it was very satisfying. I also learned how to mount a board, as well as the ranges in value. However, the most important thing I have realized is that values form shape and influence the object your drawing in my case the box. Seeing the out come of the final project was surprising. I wasn’t expecting the different values would give the box some “life”. In some cases the different values created depth and allowed the boxes to have a 3D shape. The individual boxes seem like they had their own characteristics.

Jessica Burke’s Work

Jessica Burke depicts the characters of Spock and Betty Rizzo as females. She takes what’s known about the characters and replaces them to give off a different meaning. The soft lines and the difference in the values of the graphite create this settle and gentle image. Even though the women are wearing their hero’s costume, as women they still come off as soft and settle compared to giving off boldness of a hero which are associated with the characters of a hero. This relates to the controversy of women and how even if women are powerful and heroic like Spock and Betty Rizzo, they are still perceived as soft and gentle which are unfortunate labels they have to live under.

 

What is art?

In the simplest way, art is how you see and interpret things that are around you.

How we’ve arrived here…now!

Carrie Mae Weems- reconstructing history through photography

Carrie Mae Weems uses her work to help others to understand what happened in the past and construct that history by using different photographs of historical events. Looking at her work she wants her viewers to have an emotional response to those events. She wants people to understand “how we’ve arrived here.” Consequently, history is very important to her work from political history to the history of her family. She uses her photography to help people to connect to “a story that is bigger than them.”

Carrie Mae Weems’ method of constructing historical events by recreating the same event using different people from different background is part of visual thinking. She allows the participants in the photography to experience the very emotions of the original people who were in the picture. The new participants have to put themselves in the place of the people they are reenacting, not only physically but also emotionally. This idea allows the viewers to go through the visual processes of thinking back to the event and to see the relation to the photography in front of them.

Blind contour drawing allowed me to concentrate and focus on the lines I was seeing instead of the familiar shape of an object. For example, I know how the shape of a hand should look like but in this exercise I was able to see the different folds and curves just within one finger. I think this exercise adds on to the idea of fighting or ignoring what you know in your head and actually drawing what you see even if that goes against your pre-existing knowledge of the object.

Final Drawing

Intorduction to Blind Contour

Today I was introduced to the concept of blind contour drawing. It’s a very interesting aspect of visual art. The idea is to draw your object without looking at your hand as your drawing. And also you are not suppose to move the pencil or your writing utensils. Those two concepts together makes this exercise difficult and also explain the “messiness” of my drawing below.

Blind Contour Drawing Exercise

                     

    

September 18th- Critique

The chairs overall looked really good! The different perspective gave the chairs characters. Some of the drawing had fine details with curves and others were were drawn with straight lines. I think mine falls in the middle if those drawings, because the bottom part of my chair had more details than the top part.  Also as a group the chairs fit the page, and as anticipated everyone did make make a mess-beautifully. Even though there were a some similarities in the group of chairs, but everyone’s seat of the chair was different. If I had to change anything on my drawing, I would change the curve of the seat and the length of the back leg.