Ericaswenk’s Weblog

So I was in a group with Michael, Jill, and someone else, I apologize!   Professor told us to each pick up 5 pieces of wood so that we had a total of 20 pieces as a group.  The pieces that we had were odd shaped, some thin, thick, and large.  Had we known that we were going to have to make a masterpiece out of them I’m sure we would have been more selective.

We were given multiple assignments of different things to do, some of them were build a composition that has only 1 negative space, and something that you could do identical to a year or so later.  My group and I struggled, but we made it through!!

Without knowing the instructions for what we were going to be doing we had to pick 4 pieces of colored paper, and pick up 5 pieces of plexi glass.  My partners were Ali & Grace, and they were a lot of fun.  Once we got the instructions of what we were supposed to do, we were stuck, and had no idea where to go from there.  We looked around to see what everyone else was doing, and after we got a general idea we started cutting out shapes.  Grace liked the swirls that were on my shirt, so she wanted to cut some out to put in our piece.  We went through 3 or 4 different ideas, and didn’t like any of them, then when we had 5 minutes left we were forced to throw something together.  Over all it turned out okay, but I would have liked to have had more time to work on it without feeling pressured.

Sarah and I were given this photocopy of a Diebenkorn drawing, and we had to make it HUGE on paper.  This was a very tiresome and annoying project for me, because we had to make sure that everything was JUST RIGHT!  Sarah was a great partner because we decided where we wanted to start and went our own separate ways.  We decided to start with the large gray sections of the drawing, and add detail, darken, and layer it where needed.  The final product turned out great according to the class, and to be frank I was just glad it was over with!

The assignment was to print out 15 google images that came up with your word or phrase.  Mine was high heels. These are the images I used to make my Diebenkorn mylar drawing!!!

So on the first day of class Professor Walton handed out this piece of paper, and on it we had to write down a single word or phrase, and show him.  Then once he saw it we were free to leave, but the assignment was to get on google, and print out 15 images that came from our word.  I first chose the word party, and when it came time to do this assignment he gave us the option of changing our word.  So I changed mine to high heels!!!

The assignment was not easy for me to comprehend AT ALL. haha! I had like 8 different people explain it to me.  Finally I believe I got the general idea down!  Over fall break our assignment was to take 10 photos that resembled Diebenkorn.  Then in this assignment we had to select 1 of our drawings, and only draw the positive space.  No negative space, using our google images.

I used high heels, and even up close it takes you a minute to figure out what the heck they are.  I would have liked to have had some more time to work on this, but I still like the final composition!  I think one of these days when I get bored I’ll do one in color.

So when we were given this assignment I seriously was flipping out.  My Itunes library is filled with some of the absolute most random songs EVER. But, one type of music that I don’t have is melodies without lyrics.  So I was talking to my mom on the phone of course stressing about this project, and she suddenly said the smartest thing she has ever said to me.  She said what about all those songs from Titanic?  She was referring to the songs that me and my little sister used to dance around to when I was 12 and Jennifer was 8.  It was brilliant!!! I got onto Itunes, and found the band that did that majority of the songs from Titanic.  The band is called Nordsee, and the song I selected is called An Irish Party In 3rd Class.

I had a blast making this project, and I was very pleased with the outcome, once everything dried, and the beads were no longer sliding all over the place!  I listened to the song about a MILLION times it seemed like, and by the time I was done with the project I was sick of hearing it.  However, when I was sitting in a dead silent room I found myself humming it. Yeah I guess you could say it was stuck in my head for quite some time after this project!!

To start things off I first painted the background gray.  I mixed gesso, and black paint to get the dark color gray I had.  The mood for this of course is bright and happy, but I was restricted to using only black and white.  So I thought making a gray background would be a nice contrast. Next came the solid black line, which is the bagpipe or horn, whatever it is.  It went on throughout the entire song, so did my black line!  Next came the beads.  I used black beads to symbolize the drum beats, and since there sounded like there were either two drums or two sticks hitting the drums I did two different rows of beads.  I had to use tacky glue to hold these suckers on, because they were wanting to go every which way!  Then came the bumpy gesso line which symbolized the fiddle.  This was the most fun out of the entire project because I could just let loose, and go!  Then of course last but not least came the claps which I simply cut out pieces of white paper and glued them on.  I decided to use squares instead of any other shape 1. because they were an easy shape to cut, and 2. because I had already used circles with the beads.

Like I said I was very pleased with the final outcome of this project!  I got mixed reviews when it came time for the critique, but not everyone thinks the same.  But, if I had the option to go back and do this over, I wouldn’t change a thing!

So I don’t have my drawing because I turned it in for that Target thing, without even thinking twice that I hadn’t taken a picture of it.  My favorite thing that I drew was the screw, so I was going to look through everyone’s and pick out the one that had the best screw on there.  But, I decided against it mainly because I wasn’t sure if people would get bitterly upset for me borrowing their work of course I would have credited them, but i’m just going to pass.

I really liked doing this in class, although it was a bit strange! It was most definitely out of the box, which is probably why I liked Professor Walton so much.  I thought that it was neat that we started with an ink wash that was so light it could barely be seen, and then the final layer was straight from the ink bottle.  Oh, I also like that Jill volunteered to sit at the front of the class, and let people draw her.  I so totally wouldn’t have done that.

To start this checkers game we had to draw one big square outlining the paper we wanted to use, and then 64 smaller squares inside the big square. we decided to draw each square 2.2 inches wide and long. This worked out quite nicely, and before we knew it we had our checker board drawn.  Normally when I play checkers I play as the color black. Sarah wasn’t really sure sure how to play, so I told her the rules, and we began to play.  However, professor Lee had something up his sleeve.  He told us that we would be drawing the checkers in! Since I was black I had my work cut out for me.  Throughout the game we moved checkers, jumped, kinged, and yeah we even had a couple double jumps.  This assignment, although it was fun became very tiresome, and oh so messy!  I even had to go buy a new eraser once we were done with this class!!! The end result didn’t turn out in my favor. I lost, and Sarah was named the checker queen!

Okay, so once we took the Diebenkorn picutes we then were told to compose composition studies from each one.  Pretty much pick a section/object that we liked from each photo and draw.  We were told we could use value if we wanted. =)

So this whole project started when Lee gave us a partner.  He divided us up into people who love to play checkers versus the people who like to play chess.  So with that said…one side of the room played chess and the other side played checkers.  Then once we were done with that game he gave us the real assignment which was to emulate a Diebenkorn drawing.  My partner was Sarah and we were getting very annoyed with this project.  So once we finished that we were like “Thank God”.  BUT, Lee wanted us to go home over fall break and take Diebenkorn pictures…which brings me to these photos.  Still to this day I am not sure what I was supposed to be looking for, but I did the assignment to the best of knowledge, and I took 10 pictures that I thought could be mistaken for a Diebenkorn.  There were many peoples whose turned out much better than mine, because for fall break I went home…to hick town, and really there is not much there to photograph.  But I liked mine, and sometimes it’s good to stand out, and not fit in with a crowd!