Art Class Reflection #5

Today was the first art class we did online. It was an interesting change but worked out well. Luckily, I had the materials needed to complete this project. We took our sketch from the last class and needed to paint it using five different techniques. Since I did not have my original sketch from the last class, I needed to redraw the sketch. I had a picture on my phone of the items I needed to sketch. The first thing I did was re-sketch the outlines of my objects. After I completed this, I was able to start painting my different techniques on my objects. Before I started painting on my sketch, I used a scrap piece of paper and practice a variety of different painting techniques. I also practice using different colours and making some new colours. As we only used red, yellow and blue paint which are the primary colours, I needed to make any secondary colours that I wanted to use (green, purple and orange). I was also allowed to use black and white paint to help make tints or shades. The materials I used in this exercise were paintbrushes, sponge brush, palette, paints (blue, red, yellow, black and white) and paper. I started my painting but working on the outer space of the picture. I used the technique sgrafitto here. I choose to use the colour red and used the back of the paintbrush to make the lines through the paint. I then moved onto the pear. In the pear, I used a technique called tinting and shading. I started in the middle of the pear with the colour green and moved to the right by adding a little bit of white each time and blending it together. By adding white, this is called tinting. I then moved to the left and added some black each time while blending, this is called shading. After the pear, I started a piece of the bottle and used the technique called dabbing. This is when you take the paintbrush and dip it into the paint and tap the paintbrush on the page. I had to mix yellow and red together in order to make the secondary colour orange for this part. I then completed another part of the bottle with the technique called blending. I choose to blend the colours yellow, orange and red together to show how red turns into yellow. I then started working on the pinecone using the technique called streaking. When doing streaking you make a series of lines. I choose to use the colours blue and yellow here. I did this to try and show the texture of the pinecone. I then finished the bottle off with a sponge technique. This is when you take a sponge and dip it into paint and dab it. I choose to use blue for this technique as shown in the photos. Finally, I finished the painting by filling in the rest of the background with red using the sgrafitto technique.

Through making this project I learned about a bunch of different techniques that are used in painting. I thought it was interesting how there are so many different techniques you can do with only paint and a paintbrush. For example, the sgrafitto technique, it was neat that you can use the back of the paintbrush to drag through the paint to reveal what is underneath and develop a texture. It was also neat that by adding more or less paint, having a dry or wet brush all changed the way the paint showed texture which was neat.

Through making this project, I communicated a variety of painting techniques and textures. The textures communicated in this art are both real and implied. For instance, with the dabbing technique, this is an example of implied texture, as it appears to have a texture however you cannot feel it. While the sgrafitto technique is an example of real texture as you can feel the grooves of where the end of the paintbrush was dragged. I also communicated primary and secondary colours, and the need to mix primary colours together in order to make secondary colours. Value was displayed in the pear, as it shows a range of lightness and darkness within the painting.

The thing I enjoyed the most about this project was trying out the different techniques. I liked experimenting with different techniques to see what they displayed. One of my favourites was the sponge because of the final product of how it looked. The thing I liked about this project the least was that I didn’t pay enough detail to the photo. The sponge technique was done in two places and I wish I had changed the sponge technique at the top with the orange dabbing section.

If I were to do this project again, I would pay more attention to pictures and make the same parts of the sketch the same technique and colour. More specifically the bottle. I find this part of my painting is very random. I would like to change the top of the bottle where the sponge technique is with the orange dabbing part, as the image shows the bottle there to be the same as the bottom piece that consists of the sponge technique. This would just make the image look more appealing and more successful.

During today’s lesson, I used the creative process by planning and focusing on the sketch that I was going to create and use for my painting. Following this, I used the creative process step of exploring and experimenting by trying the different techniques on a scrap piece of paper before starting my main painting. I then started producing my work on my sketched drawing. Finally, I engaged in reflection by discussing my art and examining the different materials, techniques, and designs I used while creating my piece of art for this week.