My last post

So this brings about the end of my passion project blog. This semester is coming to a close, and although I have not been able to do all of the different art topics that I had planned to, I was able to do a fair bit. The list of things to do in this project that I had in my head was probably not very realistic, but I think that I got a good amount done in the duration of this project!
 Looking back I realize that I was more or less succesful in reaching my goal, which was simply to explore and improve overall in art.

Though I still have a long way to go to get to the point that I would like to be at, I think that I have gotten more confident in art, and I have learned some very valuable things about many different types of art. I chose to do this project on art because I enjoy it a lot, and I really wanted to improve. I would see amazing sketches or other pieces, and I would think "wow, I really wish I could do that!". I already knew the basics, and I was able to do art to an extent, but I wanted to get better and be able to do more. And I think that I did. I have learned alot of valuable things like different techniques, and I have become alot more comfortable with different types of art. Especially in sketching portraits. I also was able to explore in different things that I was not at all used to, like felting.

This project was more or less a success because it made me force myself to take time to do art. I often get a bit lazy ( I am a very skilled procrastinator, which is definitely not good!) and I don't find the time to do stuff like this. This passion project made me find the time to practise and try new things, and now I am deffinetly a lot more confident in doing artsy stuff! :)

So thanks to everyone who read this blog, I hope you enjoyed doing so.

Connecting Christianity to art...

In Bible class throughout the duration of our passion projects, we were asked to think about how what we are doing can connect to our Christian faith. I discovered that there are many things that can connect this project and art to living our lives as Christians. First of all, we can enjoy God's beauty, order, and creation through doing artwork ( especially if the art we are doing is inspired by or is a picture of nature.) by doing this we can see and recognise the beauty of creation and the fantastic order that God has created everything in. We can see more of God when we enjoy what He has made, and we can learn to see the beauty in everyday things.
Secondly, when we create we are reflecting the image of God, who is the ultimate creator. We are made in His image, so we are reflecting this when we create things ourselves, being inspired by and in awe of Him and his creation. It can even be a form of worship, in a way.
Those are just a few ways how we can connect Christianity to art. We can apply our Christian faith in all aspects of our lives, and we should, whether its our hobbies, careers, or lifestyle. That is definitely a big part of being a Christian.

Watercolour

This my first art piece for the painting unit of this passion project. I used watercolour for the painting of the white leopard, and I am pretty happy with the way that it turned out. Like I said in my last post, I am not as comfortable with watercolour paint as I am with many other types of art, but I think I did an alright job regardless.

I have had a bit of experience with watercolour in the past, and I do like several things about it. First of all, I really like that you can create a lot of different shades from a single paint colour, just by adding water. In other types of paint, you would have to add a lot of white or black paint in order to change the darkness or lightness of a colour, which takes much more time and much more paint. Watercolour is a lot simpler and more enjoyable ( at least I found that it was) because you can simply use water instead. The more water is added to the paint on the pallet, the lighter the paint colour will be, and vise versa. For example, in my painting I only used one type of paint (black) for the whole thing, except for the eyes.
Another thing that I like about watercolour is that you barely need to use any paint at all. Because you mix it with water, all you need is a tiny dot of the colour you want. This is also nice because if you mix too much of a colour ( which is what usually happens to me) you don't really waste any paint.

One thing that I don't like to much about watercolour is the fact that the paint tends to run sometime. Since it is mostly water, it is a lot thinner than other paints, I had to be careful because the paint would sometimes drip. Also, at times I moved the paint brush too quickly, and as a reward I got a spray of little paint speckles all over the page. Luckily I managed to save the painting when this happened by quickly dabbing the spots up with paper towel before the watercolour happened to sink into the paper too much.
Also, you need to be careful with how many layers of paint or water you put onto the paper. If the paper gets too wet too many times, then it starts to "disintegrate" and the paper turns from nice and smooth to slightly rough and pulpy very quickly. I used artist paper that said would work well with all types of art, including watercolour, but I wonder if actual watercolour paper would be better.

This things can, however, be easily avoided if you are more careful and comfortable with watercolour paints.

The original painting of the leopard that I looked off I got from Pinterest. The artists name isn't given, but the painting is originally from silverridgestudio on a webpage called Etsy.

Painting

As the pencil sketching portion of my passion project is finished, I will be moving on to a new art type. So for my next art "unit" I will be focusing on painting. Probably watercolour, and maybe some other types as well if I have the time for it.

I have done some painting in the past, but usually I try to avoid it. I am not very comfortable with it at all, probably because I simply never do it. See, with sketching and pencil work you have a lot of control over what the finished product will turn out like. Its usually pretty easy to make your sketches have the type of pencil strokes you want, and you can always use an eraser if you make a mistake or want to do something over. With paint its not that easy, at least not for me. Especially with watercolour, the end result will rarely be as you expected. Its also a lot harder to control and you can't exactly use an eraser! :)

So I will soon be starting on some paintings for this portion of my blog, and I hope that they will turn out how I would like them to. But even if they don't, I suppose that I will learn from my mistakes and improve all the same!

Progress!

Here is another one of my completed portraits. This one is of my lovely sister Nicole, from a picture that I took  of her when she was 11. I am quite happy with the way that this picture turned out, and I was super exited to try out my new sketching pencils!

I have actually drawn this picture twice, the one above is the latest one that I have just finished. The first one that I did I drew almost 2 years ago. I sketched this picture again mainly because I wanted to see how I have improved in my sketching, and how much progress I have made. A big part of a passion project is measuring your progress, and sometimes this can be a little difficult with art, so I thought that this would be a great opportunity to see how far I have come.

Here are the two sketches. The one on the left is the one that I drew almost 2 years ago, and the drawing on the right is the most recent one. Its safe to say that I was pretty pleased with myself and pleasantly surprised when I first compared them. The second picture is noticeably better than the first, and I have gotten more comfortable with shading and adding darkness and shadows to my sketches. The second one is also a much more recognisable picture of Nicole, and I can see that my techniques have also improved!

Another portrait

This is another one of the portraits that I have been drawing, and it is the first sketch of someone that I, and possibly some of you reading this, know. It is a sketch of my lovely sister Kyra.

I was pretty happy with the way that this sketch turned out, although there are definitely some things that I have to work on with my future sketches. I used a normal "school pencil" and as you can see, the pencil strokes are very noticeable. I was having a hard time making them even, but hopefully with practise I will be able to eventually improve and make the strokes less noticeable. I am still trying to stay away from smudging my drawings ( though in this one I was very tempted!) :)
I also had a little trouble drawing the mouth, and those of you who know Kyra might notice that that part of the drawing may be a little off. And as for drawing the hair, I have decided that I might need a little more practise with that.
I recently got a pack of sketching pencils which include both light and dark pencils, so I am planning to play around with those and hopefully they might be easier to use for shading and such.

Sketching faces

These are the sketches that I started with, and I am pretty happy with the way that they turned out. I got the origional sketches off of Pinterest, so I don't actually know the people in the pictures.

I did these first drawings off of sketches already done by other people, because I figured that it would be easier to learn that way. By doing this, I could see the pencil strokes and the techniques of others and learn from them, so I could later use those techniques for my own pictures! Also, if I start by drawing pictures of people that I don't know, then if I make a mistake or change their appearances accidentally, then no one will notice. Since I am just starting, this way I will not be pressured to make the sketches look perfect and I can just use them for practise. Hopefully that makes sense!
I have already started on some sketches of people that I know, and I have finished one of my sister, Kyra, that I will be posting soon!