Reflection 17

This week, I am making my presentation for next week. I am very happy with my progress. I have a few unfinished drawings, and I am still deciding if I want to finish them for the presentation or if I just want to show the drawings that I have finished. I have been spending more time drawing at home, and I plan to include slides with pictures of the things I've created.

Reflection 16

This week, I started making my presentation. I think I want to include more on perspective in my presentation. I also want to include how drawing can be therapeutic, and how the skills I learned can be useful beyond sketching. Also, I found a really cute template on that slides carnival website and I think it'll go really well with the drawing theme and I am excited about it.

Reflection 15

This week, I finished filling in my linear perspective drawing. I really like how it looks. I am going to watch some more lessons on graphics and graphic drawings because I really enjoy doing them and I find them much more relaxing and fun than portraits. This project is definitely leading me into an interest in graphic design.

Reflection 14

Today I am beginning to fill in my perspective drawing. I already liked how it was looking last week with just pencil, but as I was looking at lessons online I saw a lot of drawings being filled in with sharpies and I like the way that looked even more so I decided to give that a try. The shading definitely gives more depth to the picture. I forgot to bring my colored sharpies today so I am just using black and I will fill in the rest at home.

Reflection 13

I continued my linear perspective drawing. I was a bit doubtful in the beginning that it would look three dimensional but it actually does. I like how it is more calculated than freehand drawing. I've discovered that with freehand drawing I get very hung up on minor details, and then get discouraged. With perspective drawing there are lines to follow as a guide, and I like that more.

Reflection 12

I'm realizing now that I forgot to update this last week. Last week, I continued watching lessons on linear perspective. I learned a lot about perspective in my AP Art History class, so it is interesting for me to watch the videos on how to achieve different kinds of perspective.

Reflection 11

This week, I looked for lessons outside of drawspace. I found some good videos on YouTube and plan to take a break from Drawspace since the lessons felt like I had just been viewing the same things over and over. I like the step by step pictures, but I am going to try videos for a little while. I also decided that I am going to keep the portrait in pencil and not color it in, because I like the way the pencil shading looks.

Reflection 10

I continued working on my portrait at home this week. In all honesty, I am getting a bit frustrated. Right now it kind of just looks like a weird alien thing and I still am having a hard time getting the hair down. I am trying to be optimistic, so I think I am going to look for more lessons outside of drawspace that will hopefully give me some more tips. I aim to take a step back from this portrait and approach it with a new perspective because I know that if I just let myself continue to be frustrated I will give up.

Reflection 9

This week I worked in class on my portrait, and I am still having trouble getting the curls right. I am going to practicing and hopefully I will get it. Unfortunately, I had some personal stuff going on this week and did not have much time to continue working, so my time in class was all I had. This coming week I intend on returning back to my normal schedule.

Reflection 8

I decided I am going to try drawing a portrait this week. I chose to draw my sister, and so far I have a rough outline and I started drawing her face. I am drawing in pencil right now, but maybe if my practicing with colored pencils continues to go well I might add color to the drawing. Right now I am just focused on the basic shapes of her face. When it comes time to start shading, I will decide if I am going to stick with pencil or add color. I chose my sister specifically because I was reading a Drawspace lesson on how to draw curly hair, and she has curly hair so I wanted to challenge myself a bit.

Reflection 7

Over break, I visited the Museum of Modern Art and made sure to see the drawings section. It was really great! I found it very helpful as a way to remind me that drawings can be anything and can be done anyway. Some of the best drawings looked like they were made out of scribbles. One artwork that I particularly liked was drawn solely out of crayon. While I'm sure my drawings are not MoMA level, I did find it inspiring to see million dollar artworks that were not always photorealistic drawings. That being said, I started working with colored pencils and was a bit disheartened. I thought blending colors seamlessly wouldn't be too difficult, and I was wrong. I definitely need more practice but am hopeful I will get better because it really would be nice to add color to my drawings.

Reflection 6

This week, I read some lessons on using color in drawings, and how to use value to create depth and contrast. For this week I still stuck to pencil drawings, because I think it is important to work on shading with pencil before stepping up to shading with multiple different colors. I have a nice set of colored pencils at home that I plan to use next week when I can find some time over break. I have never really tried to draw with color before besides just doodles so I hope it will go well, but I think it will be quite different.

Reflection 5

I still did not get better materials which I really need to do. I started working with proportions and perspective this week, which is really cool but also reinforced the fact that I need better materials. I knew of the grid method for proportions before, but I have never tried it out and I saw a Drawspace lesson for using the grid to draw faces, which I think I am going to read this week. I really like drawing. I find it very relaxing, and this week I found myself going completely off-script from my lesson which I am happy about, since one of my main goals is to be able to just draw without looking at or copying anything. Hopefully this skill will only develop with time.

Reflection 4

This week, I continued shading and tried different techniques to see what I liked best. For the skull I am sketching, I mainly used cross-hating because I liked the way I created different layers of shadows. I hope that as I move on, this technique will only get better. Also, I decided this week that I need better supplies. At least I need a better eraser and good paper. I am going to try to convince my mom to buy me a sketch book or something similar this weekend. Drawspace is working well. I like that so many of the free lessons are centered around teaching methods, and not just copy this or draw that.

Reflection 3

This week I worked on contouring and shading. I signed up for drawspace, which has online step-by-step lessons. Most of them cost money, but from what I saw it seemed that every skill had at least one or two free lessons. This week I worked on a side view of the human skull, and learning to give depth to the lines instead of just smooth and dimensionless shapes. This was a skill that I never even though about before. I always thought jagged or shaky lines would just look messy, but the lesson taught me to apply them in a way that would make the figure look more realistic and less cartoon-y.

Reflection 2

This week, I was very sick and missed class. I didn't not get to work on my in class twenty percent and in all honesty did not get much done at home. I spent a lot of time at the doctor/in waiting rooms/and in the car this week, which does mean that I did a lot of doodling. Unfortunately though, I didn't not learn any new skills or techniques. I plan on making up for the lost time this week.

Reflection Week 1

While it took me awhile to decide on it, I am excited to learn how to draw. To begin, I am first going to focus on styles and techniques. That way, I hopefully will have a strong foundation that will allow me to draw anything. This is important to me because I really like to draw but currently, the only way I can draw something is if I am staring right at it and try to make an exact copy. I want to be able to draw freely without needing to trace or anything like that. This week I started with shading/creating gradients and sketching styles like cross-hatching or continuous line drawings. I am really excited about this project and plan on taking pictures to document my progress along the way.

Proposal 2

For this semester, I finally decided on drawing. I really enjoyed sign language and do plan on continuing my knowledge, but I just do not think I would be able to keep myself motivated in class for another semester. I like to draw a lot but I am not very good at it. Most of my drawing currently consists of doodles on my notebook pages and hand. I would like to learn proper techniques of drawing and be able to expand the repertoire of things I can draw besides eyes and swirls (which is my current complete collection). For this, I could spend class time and outside of class time working on my project as the materials needed are really just a writing utensil and paper. I think this project will be fun for me, but also therapeutic. I already doodle as a way to relax myself so I think immersing myself further in drawing would be a great calming technique.

Reflection 15

This week, I made my presentation for the midterm. I know the content is the most important but I really like how my presentation looks and that is making me feel good about the whole thing. I decided to give some background, and then add three sections to teach the class. The first is the alphabet so they can sign their names, the second is question words, and the third is som basic phrases for introductions. I am excited to show the class what I have learned, but I am a little bit nervous I will forget the signs I want to teach when I am presenting. I need to keep practicing, and hopefully that will build my confidence up.

Reflection 14

This week, I started preparing for my midterm presentation. I will not be able to do the entire presentation, which I realize now was a pretty lofty goal. That being said, I am proud of myself for my progress. I am nervous to give the presentation but excited to share what I have learned, and I am thinking I might include some things to teach the class that I now know. I think the most obvious choice would be to teach the alphabet so everyone can sign their name, but I also want to think of something a little more different or unexpected.