Pinhole Camera

Conceptual Intentions

What did you find meaningful about the process and practice of this project? Where does your voice and style as an artist emerge in this project? If you did not find the practice and process meaningful or you do not feel that your voice emerged in this work, why not?

I think it was very rewarding to be able to create the camera yourself. The whole process allowed me to think differently as a photographer. My style emerged through the incorporating of natural object with geometric objects, I found that this juxtaposition crated scintillating imagery.

Stretch and Explore

What challenges did you face over the course of this project? what changed over the course of your project?  What opportunities or occurrences led to these changes? Given what you know now about building a camera, how might you have changed your concept or approach to working?

For a limited period of time, my pinhole camera was not functioning correctly, but after one class, I was able to resolve this issue and return to a state where I could properly take pictures. But after figuring this issue out, I found a new style to taking pictures, further emerging me in the ever so rewarding process.

Formal Intentions

How have you deepened your understanding of photography in this project? Describe your pinhole prints. Please upload at least three examples to your blog.

I cannot find my pictures.

Adjective

I found the term "isolated" to be an intriguing adjective as it provides the viewer of the artwork with a level of depth and emotion that only furthers their interest in said piece. Isolated describes an object which is singularly represented and seems to be distanced from any other object; almost as if it were in its own world. The word seems to have characteristics that one could see as sad, solitary, and can be seen as an introvert. I feel like this is a good word to focus my art on because not only with it further my level of depth and emotion in my art, but it will allow me to better understand the necessary techniques to use on a camera in order to obtain such a photo (f-stop, shutter speed, ISO; etc.).

Still Life Photography

Final Blog Reflection

Which project do you consider your most successful? How did you develop your craft with this assignment? What tools, methods and materials were essential to your success with this project? What ideas, feelings or meanings did you want your piece to express? How did you go about expressing it? 

I would consider my pop art project to be my most successful of the year. Through this project, I developed my craft by delving into a deeper understand of the juxtaposition of various colors and what makes each color work. I was able to obtain a more vast comprehension of line quality through the working with various brush strokes. The tools that were essential to the success of this project was paint, a brush, creativity, and and understanding of color combinations and how each color works with one another. I felt that the roundness of the binoculars gave off a relaxed state, which is why I chose to primarily work with cooler colors, and a relaxed state is what I wanted my project to express. I also worked with rounded brush stroked to give a sense of depth and 3-dimensional figurative shape.

Which project was the most challenging? Look at your brainstorming or original intentions for this project. How does the final work(s) resemble your preliminary sketches or plans? What changed? Why did you make the changes that you did? What problems emerged in the creation of this project? How did you solve the problems? 

I found the plaster sculptures to be the most difficult because my original intentions for the project proved too hard to sculpt, so I was forced to create another figure from scratch. This figure resembled my original figure, but was altered in certain areas. I found my end result to be much bulkier than my original intentions with much more area to create a lerger sense of directional movement. I made the changes that I did because my original clay scultpure proved to be too difficult tto sculpt in such a limited amount of time, but I fixed those by creating a figure that resembled that of the original with stronger line quality and directional movement.

Please discuss three new strengths you've discovered or deepened this year. One formal strength (your ability to work with things like composition, balance, rhythm et cetera), one technical or media-specific strength (working in a specific medium or honing a specific skill) and one conceptual strength (your idea development in the specific project). 

Three new strengths that I have developed over the year was the conceptualization of figures, the representation of line quality, and the juxtaposition of certain colors with one another. One formal strength that I have developed over the year, was balance. Working with Ms. Seal gave me a much deeper understanding of balance, which I have learned to incorporate into my works such as painting, drawing, photography, etc. One technical strength that I have formed over the course of this year, was working with nature in photography. I have recently been able to work in natural environments and have found it to be intriguing, making for very interesting pictures. And finally, one conceptual strength I have developed was the ability to visualize what areas of my project need to be strengthened, and what each area of a project represents and how it does so.

Plaster Texture Sculptures

In this project, our class worked to create an interesting plaster sculpture that created a sense of texture, and as a result I made this sculpture. While working with this sculpture I did run into many problems, the majority of which was the lack of interest and flow this sculpture had. It had many interesting qualities to it, but was so segmented that it did not flow and work together to create one piece of art, but rather many different smaller pieces of art. To connect these qualities, I created a beam, connecting the left to the right, the front to the back. But as I did so, it still lacked abstracted qualities and the flow I was looking for, so I added another level to give the sculpture a sense of depth. Then I was left with another simple, but very large problem. We were working to create a sculpture that portrays texture, and I did not have texture. In this process of using the many tools I did to create a basic outline of the sculpture, I found one to create a particular interesting sense of texture, and that was the cylindrical grater. So after completing, the basics of my sculpture, I used the grater to create a sense of depth and texture, which shown to be very interesting in the light when taking picture because the contrast between light and dark in this picture, really captures the texture and overall objective of the project.

Towards the beginning of this project, I found myself wanting to work with skinnier, smaller sculptures, but along the way discovered that I preferred using sculptures with a larger base, for it allowed for more interesting qualities such as depth, and more space for texture and abstract qualities. But in hindsight, I think that I would have liked to play a little more with a sense of balance, potentially creating a more interactive piece of art. But for a mid-project concept change and the end result created by that change in concept, I am very pleased with my work and believe that I has allowed to create more interesting line quality and given me a better perspective on textures. Due to this newfound perspective on textures, I believe that it will not only help me in future sculpting projects, but all art projects and pieces across the board.

1. How did you develop your craft with digital camera and photoshop in this project? What tools, methods and materials were essential to your success? How did you use your skills of observation? 
I used my capabilities with a digital camera to take a gray scale picture, allowing me to see a larger contrast in light and dark, giving the shadows more visibility. Allowing to see these differences created a large impact in my painting, as I was able to more precisely shade in and paint these contrasts. My usage of digital technology and observational skills created for a more precise and expressive painting.
 
2. Explain the choices you made concerning the design of your color palette for the digital diptychs and your paintings:
 
a. Did the process of“finding examples”and creating diptychs influence your later painting choices? 
The process of finding example and creating diptychs influenced my choices in painting. I found myself intrigued by cool colors such as blue and green. The cool colors allowed for the creative pairing of diptychs. I separated multicolor paintings and single color paintings. The pairing of cool colors created reasonable diptychs.
 
b. Explain how the“expressive”and/or“formal”qualities of color influenced your choices.
I found there to be much contrast from light to dark, creating expressive line qualities and offering opportunity for  the creation of expressive painting. These cool colors that I used tend to easily differ from light to dark, allowing me to create the contrasts in color.



3. How did you develop your craft of painting? What did you learn about the“tools”of painting? Which specific insights gained in your practice led directly to your becoming a more confident “painter”? How did you use your skills of observation? 
With each painting, I experimented with different brush strokes, creating unique textures and expression of line quality. Using these different painting techniques allowed me to become more confident in the future as I continue to paint, I will have a wider variety of painting styles to select from. 



4. How has this project taught you to observe color? 
This project has taught me to observe color as I know the effects of using cool and warm colors and its contrast when separating light and dark colors.

Color Scheme Paintings

This project is not currently complete, but it is a work in progress. Both paintings are of the same object, but using different color schemes and painting styles. My left painting is monochromatic, using  abrupt changes in color, creating for a unique composition. My right painting is triadic, using stippling, creating texture on the painting.