Printmaking

I took very long time with design. First, I thought about doing animals, then human. Animals were too same and humans were not really fun but no different than Pop-Artist, Andy Warhol. Designing parts was a long process. Finally I came up with tiger with pattern and a general riding a horse. I just didn't plan the whole design of the block but made it as I was carving or transferring the design on the block. 

Carving wasn't that easy as I thought. It took two or three days. My arms got numbed. I needed to take breaks in between. After inking, I printed on the paper. 

I found printing parts the most difficult because if I put too much ink on the block, the fine details will be clogged up and be disappeared. After proof-printing, I had to make some corrections. It was fun. I wanted to do them on the black ink but the bookstore was out of black color; therefore, I just bought brown. 

Printing making was the funnest assignment of this semester because I've get to create as much as i want and can give it to people as a present!! 

Mask

Media: Wet clay (Columbia Red), many ceramic tools, acrylic colors, addable 3D media, etc

I was very concerned about textures on the surface of the mask because I know that once I make a pattern I wouldn't be able to change after it's fired. I was just concerned how would the texture be united to all the other parts of the mask to be one artistic mask. I really thought over and over again. Also, shapes of eyes, noses, and mouth was difficult to choose. Every time I try something new, I wanted to incorporate everything in the mask but I couldn't. I had so many ideas that would make my mask work greatly; however, I was a little sad that I could choose only one style for my mask. Putting every details in one mask will be too complicated so that it wouldn't be nice. Wet clay also made it difficult to working on the back of the clay to make hangers. Wet clay just sat down after I flip it. Some textures were crushed down also. My design was set when I found out scale-like texture. I made up my mind to create Avatar-like character mask. Something like merman. I didn't mean to make my mask so scary because I know that it would be scary at night. 

Mask Texture

 
 

Gesture Drawing

Title :Gesture Drawing

Media: Charcoals, papers, few moving pictures 

I was to learn how to move my hand to make a body movement. I wasn’t asked to draw details but just a proportion of the body by using bubbles and frames. Two dancers’ moves were captured and we were given 2minutes for each drawing. Drawing or sketching a move must start with a frame of the body. The whole shape of the body should appear first, and then added with bubbles and joints. It will be smoothed as we find the right line. Folded body will be seen through other parts of the body. It is pretty unrealistic; however, the drawing was to find the right proportion of the body according to different body movements.

At first, my drawing somehow didn’t balance the body proportion—head was relatively bigger than its trunk, legs were unrealistically long. However, as we tried more drawings, I was able to get a concept of how body proportion is arranged. Human figure perception was affected with almost naked dancers. I was able to understand muscles’ difference as the body moves, bones were popped out when certain moves were made, and joints of the body. 

Cityscape

The purpose of this assignment was to understand 3-dimensional forms in various shapes with two point perspective. Two point perspective technique creates illusion of space. First, I attached two papers at each side (wing) and marked the vanishing points. All forms must vanish into that points. Even if one-floor building is smaller than two-story building, one-floor building will appear bigger than two-story building if one-floor building is closer to me. Also many buildings go straight (not distorted) when they comes to an eye level. Horizontal line is an eye-level. 

After I sketched my city which is a rural city, I used watercolor paints to create various colors of buildings. They were pretty colorful compared to real-existing buildings I have found online. After creating watercolor painting base, I used pastel to create foggy-style look. I made darkness (dim), night, and lights. 

Neutral Ground Drawing-Blue dancers

Media: Ebony pencil, knead-able eraser, neutral ground paper, figures 

Description: 

We continued on neutral ground drawing with blue figures of two dancers. The man had a woman on his head. She had arched and could not see her face, facing upward. First, I started with an eraser to create light values, and then I started using an ebony pencil to create darker values such as woman’s thigh, back, etc. I created light value with white chalk. I highlighted the man’s forehead, ear, and woman’s breast and knee area. I highlighted the areas where would have been closest if I was sitting in front of two figures dancing. I darkened (darkest area) where two figures meet. I thought about surface contour on subjects because actual contour line does not exist on real living things. It is well shown when you look at the picture closely—where woman’s head is, there is no lines between hairs and background. I just darkened the whole area to imply that darkness darkened the area so that we cannot really distinguish hair from the background. I think I increased my range of value from light to dark more than four because I used white chalk (1) and 8B (4) pencil. Other than that, I have erased part (2) and neutral ground (3). Therefore, there is no way that I would have less than four light and dark values when I used white chalk and the softest pencil, 8B. 

neutral ground still life

Media: Neutral Ground, still life, various kinds of B's pencil. 

Description: 

Neutral Ground Drawing was very new approach and new methods, different from what I usually have done. When I actually learned that Michelangelo’s artworks were using neutral ground, I was surprised. His works were amazing and I always have been impressed by his works because his details. His drawings look real.

When I was doing neutral ground drawing in the class, I get grounded pencil and simply smudge them on the whole sheet of paper. Then, by using a knead-able eraser I had to find the light values of figures first and adding darker values with an ebony pencil. When I began the drawing, I thought about the sizes of still life first and then started thinking about reflected lights at the back of the figures. However, I used a chalk to find the brightest parts of the drawing. I used the darkest value on the pot because it was the closest figure from my position. I also highlighted on a steel chair and a pot. I didn’t use very dark values on paper towel, because its texture is too soft to reflect lights as strong as other figures such as a steel chair. Soft figures usually absorb lights so they don’t really reflect lights—this fact makes me not to make figures to have many dark and light values at one.

I liked neutral ground drawing because it takes much less times than crosshatching which requires me to fill the whole sheet of paper. Instead, I can simply use my palm of hand and smudge. I could make light values easily by erasing, dark values by crosshatching or smudging pencils. I didn’t like it because it was somewhat like pastel drawing which makes the drawing foggy. I thought about contour lines even if the figures didn’t have contour lines. I used an eraser to find contour lines—division between background and the object. White chalk was like sprinkles over the cake. It gives higher quality of the drawing.