Academy of Art Homework Day

My school week goes Tuesday to Monday so Monday's are dedicated solely to art. I always have a nice start on my projects from the week before but it takes an entire day get everything "submission worthy." I spend most of the day completing my assignments; then I edit, touch up, photograph, correct, photograph, correct again, photograph once more while whispering a prayer...then I enhance the images and post my work. I also have to participate in the discussions and take tests for both of my classes. It is a challenging, exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating detail oriented day of discovery. Most times, I love it. Once in a while, it is horrific. Today was fun...

Last week we had to create a Chinese take-out box and chop sticks holder for my Graphic Design class.


This week I had to create two gift boxes. One was from a template they provided and the other was up to us. They also encouraged us to modify the supplied template to make it "our own". I decided to do a floral motif throughout. I transformed the provided bow box into a whimsical "bloom box."

I used an adorable flower print from K & Company and converted the bow closure into a flower that matched the flowers in the paper. My other project was a petal box (in keeping with the motif) which I did with another K & Company print that reminded me of Monet's "Waterlilies."

For my Analysis of Form class, I had to start working on a structure /automobile drawing to be done in pen and ink. We are learning 2 point perspective via architecture. I did a thumbnail of a building with a tiny European car in front. I am working from a very interesting photograph I found on google images.

I will not be posting my thumbnail because it is pitiful. It was a useful exercise however, in that I was able to work out some of the angles and determine proper placement of the various details.

I love the feeling of a pen on paper when I am drawing, but it is also scary because you can't erase. This fact has caused me to learn a lot about how my hands express what I see. My default tendancy is to draw with my feelings rather than with thought. I can now see how lazy and impulsive my hand is when I am not focused on my subject. I have to laugh at those times when I was trying to hurry or I was distracted and I scratched out a crappy drawing. I would get so frustrated because I could not understand why it turned out so bad. I was holding on to some elusive fantasy that I would suddenly get struck "Di Vinci"and then masterpeices would roll out of me effortlessly. I now know that to create art, you must work. You have to throw everything into it. You have to take in that that you see and then express it with your hands. Your eyes tell one part of your brain and that part tells another part and then a message is sent to your hand to move this way and that way so that lines appear on paper and eventually, your sight is given life. One has to be aware of this process if one is going to master it. And so today I began learning.