This week has been super busy because I have been trying to finish all my studio work before fall break. I painted the majority of the day yesterday, and today I spent the whole day in the printmaking studio working on my intaglio etching project. I finally had time to write a blog post today since I did not have class. Here is a recap of the Inktober days that I missed:
On Inktober Day 8, I spent the whole day working on my design and then scratching my design into the copper plate. I drew the main component of my design on a piece of paper and then did a graphite transfer drawing onto my copper plate.
sketch for my copper plate
On Inktober Day 9, I did nothing. Well, I did do things I just didn’t have time to do Inktober; I had class all day and no time to draw. I still wanted to do a drawing for the prompt (precious), so I did a drawing today to make up for missing yesterday. I drew this from a photo that I took when I was a relatively young kid.
childhood is precious
On Inktober Day 10, today, I worked on making prints using the printing press. Honestly, I am not very happy with how my prints turned out because I don’t like my design, but I don’t have time to change it so I have to stick with it. I had a difficult time with coming up with a design for this project because I had so many ideas that I couldn’t commit to just one. The objective for this assignment is to create prints (using etching intaglio process) related to the theme of memory.
one of my prints (oops, the photograph quality is awful)
Today I actually had time to make a somewhat decent pen drawing! The official Inktober prompt is “exhausted”, which was very fitting because this week has been very tiring what with all the work I have to do.
It’s not the best drawing, but I actually did the prompt today! I also edited the drawing in Adobe Illustrator again because I have already done it everyday for Inktober so far. It is definitely a more abstract interpretation of the word “drooling”.
I spent most of my day in class, and then I went to the painting studio at 6:00 and I ended up staying until 10:30. Now I’m back in my dorm, and really tired (yet again) so for Inktober I have another pen doodle I did during class (the left picture) . It is just a sketch of an idea I have, so it’s not very detailed.
I drew the image on the right a few months ago so it doesn’t really count for Inktober, but the prompt for Inktober today is the word chicken so I decided to include the drawing anyways.
I really ran out of time today, and all I have for Inktober is a bad doodle I did during class. Alas, I am unsure if I will be able to continue with Inktober because I have so much going on right now, but I’m gonna try. I will probably not be able to do the word prompts anymore, but I will see how my schedule works out.
Here is my very bad doodle (and a failed attempt to make it look better in Illustrator):
Sadly, I ran out of time today and didn’t have time to do the prompted drawing. However, I still made a drawing, although it is from my visual journal for one of my classes. I was feeling quite unmotivated to come up with an ink drawing for today, so this is all I have. It’s not the best drawing, but at least I did something! I am hoping to make up today’s prompt another day.
And then, because I couldn’t help it, I put this image into Illustrator and did something with it. It’s not anything spectacular, but it was fun to experiment with.
I was planning on doing a more detailed pen drawing, but I had class all day and by the time I got back to my room, I was so tired. (My hand also really hurt due to all the writing I did for my art history exam.) I did manage to do a quick pen drawing inspired by the word “tranquil”, and then I colored it in Illustrator to save my hand from further pain.
my original pen drawingcolored/ touched up in Illustrator
I like experimenting with Illustrator, but I also much prefer drawing things by hand. Hopefully tomorrow I will have more time to do a better pen drawing.
Oops, I forgot to add a little explanation about this drawing. I chose to draw a road with the open sky ahead because I find traveling in a car to be a very tranquil experience. There is something peaceful about being a passenger in a car, and I like to watch the world go by outside the window.
I thought I would try to participate in Inktober this year, and attempt to follow the official Inktober one word prompts.
Today’s word is “Poisonous”, and I ended up drawing a snake and some poisonous plants surrounding a pair of feet clad in rain boots. I didn’t really like my initial drawing, so I put it into Illustrator and played around with it. I like the Illustrator colored versions a lot better. I definitely want to experiment more with scanning drawings into Illustrator and digitizing/coloring them.
Hello again! Here is an overview of second semester of freshman year (to see first semester see previous post).
The classes I took were Art History (Renaissance to Revolution), Childhood Development (I am an art ed major), Visual Thinking, and 4D Art. The classes second semester were not studio classes, and I learned more about considering what art is and the different forms of art.
4D Art
I had no idea what to expect for this class because I had never heard of 4D art. We ended up learning about making videos and video editing and I learned how to use Adobe Premiere Pro. I really enjoyed this class which I was not expecting because I am much more interested in creating physical pieces of art, like paintings and drawings.
The projects we did:
Performance Art
Making a Cinemagraph (a type of GIF)
Cinemagraph/ GIF, created using Photoshop, 2018
Sound and Image – I can’t add the video to this page, so here is an image I used in the video. The project was to use images from the Library of Congress website and combine the images with sound to create a cohesive video. Link to my video – The Flood
Time – Make a video about time! I made mine about memories and fragments of time in a day.
For the final, I crocheted a giant rectangle and then hung it up in the critique room with a sign reading “pull the string”. Then, members from my class were able to pull the string and unravel the whole piece. At the end, all that was left was a giant pile of yarn.
We also went to the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York City, and the exhibits there were super cool! These are awful pictures, but that is all I have from the museum. The image on the left shows an interactive playground – when you touched the sensors or used the swings, sounds would play. The middle images are some sort of machine where you could press buttons and different things would project onto the wall. The image on the right is a playable wall guitar. It was a cool museum because you could play with most of the exhibits.
Visual Thinking
We had three main projects and a final for Visual Thinking:
1) Reframing an Object
I took a picture of my name written on a wall, and one of my signature on an official form. The signature took on a different meaning depending on where it was placed (wall – seems graffiti-like, official form is important).
2) Image of Power – I was in D.C. and saw this man yelling towards the White House, and the content of the image suggested a variety of different levels of power and hierarchy.
3) I don’t remember what the project was but I made a menu of all the unappealing food in my college dining hall.
Final – Go somewhere alone where you have never been before (get out of your comfort zone) and document your experience. I went to the gym because I had never been to the gym before. I don’t typically work out and I am very clumsy, so it was definitely an interesting experience. I didn’t know how to use the machines, so I just kind of awkwardly walked around pressing buttons. I did use some of the machines, but I don’t think I did it right because nothing happened when I pedaled.
I didn’t do any projects in my other two classes, so this is the end of the post!
I am currently a sophomore in college, and I just wanted to do a recap post of some of the art I made during my freshman year so I can see what I did in one place. So, here is some of the art I made last year:
FIRST SEMESTER
3D Art
For 3D art, the first project was to make a cardboard cube which was very time intensive because the seams had to be smooth.
As difficult as that project was, I actually really enjoyed it. I never thought I could make something so cool from cardboard. Our other projects were working with making a supporting cardboard structure and accompanying performance, wood, then metal and welding, and finally anything.
For our final for 3D art, we had to make a website portfolio and write about each work, so if you’re interested in more in depth descriptions of each project, here is the link to that site – https://annika3dportfolio.wordpress.com/
2D Art
In 2D art, we learned some color theory, the principles/elements of art, and basic functions of Illustrator and Photoshop. We did a lot of collages in that class, and I honestly am very bad at collage so I am not happy with a lot of the work that I did in this class. Here is some of the less bad stuff I did:
Drawing 1
My other studio class first semester of freshman year was Drawing. We did a lot of experimental drawing.
Some of the things we did:
drawing with charcoal attached to the end of a long stick
tactile face drawing in which we closed our eyes and drew only by how our face felt
drawing with unconventional materials
Some of my art ( a lot of this was experimental ). We also worked on huge (~3ft – 5ft) pieces of paper in this class which was definitely new for me.
Rainy Day, charcoal and conte crayon, 2017
My favorite project we did in drawing was the panorama drawing (the top drawing). I used ink and drew my dorm room all the way around and I think it turned out pretty cool. I also had to draw a lot quicker and less detailed than I did in the past because we worked on such large pieces of paper, and we didn’t have that much time to work on each assignment.
My other class first semester was a required freshman course; mine was philosophy. I actually did a ton of drawings in this class because I was so bored, but I don’t have any pictures and I threw away all my notes as soon as I was done with that class.
That is all I suppose, since I am tired, I will do a recap of freshman year second semester in another blog post.
Annika Marthinuss 