Self Portrait- Yasmine Beydoun

For my self portrait I decided to draw my siblings since they've affected me soooo soo much in life. when i look at them i really do see myself, it's weird. Also, the picture of my sister looks kind of like an old woman but i think it captures her spirit nonetheless :)

Maria- Final Project

For the final project, I am going to create a short graphic novel using charcoal, pen, and crayon. I have been writing short autobiographical stories for the self portrait project with the graphic novel in mind. It will consist of larger drawings worked in with smaller ones, and I think the combination of charcoal and crayon will create an interesting effect. I’ll work with Illustrator, and then use blurb.com, a website that prints custom books, to create the final product. I enjoyed the drawing portion of the semester a lot, and wanted to return to that.

Warren Jin - Portraits and Projects

This is my self portrait. I drew it using a mirror and my very own face as reference. I think it exemplifies how I've been feeling lately, namely exhausted and unbalanced. (I actually rather like the asymmetry -- it makes me look confused). I am particularly proud of the ears -- those are some damn fine ears.

 On the side of the portrait (2nd picture down), I also drew some quick caricatures of myself. I am actually particularly interested in how caricature artists can capture the essential features of a person with just a cartoon, so I've been playing around with that in my sketchbook as well.

Last of all, I attached a 'practice' self portrait I drew in my sketchbook. Sadly, I don't really think it looks all that much like me, although that may be because I was drawing from a weird picture as reference and I got lazy with the hair.

I've got big plans for the final project. Well, maybe not that big. I plan on combining the color and light assignment with the final project.

Since I really enjoy drawing myself (so narcissistic of me), I'm looking to get a set of pastels from Utrecht to do more self portraits, experimenting with the different effects I can achieve using the techniques we discussed in class. I think I may also branch out to other subjects, but I will likely stick to portraying human and animal forms.

Katharine Mead - Self Portrait, Final Project, and Material Alchemy

For my self portrait, I wanted to keep working with paper and do something 3D.  I like making mobiles, and it was a good challenge to make a face balance.  I also used watercolors, which was a nice change of pace.

For my final project, I'd like to combine the color and light assignment by working with light and shadow in a kind of box diorama, creating an intricate contained world with layers of paper cutouts that you experience through a small hole in the box.  I'm interested in playing with ideas of scale, viewpoint, and light (of course).  We'll see how it goes!

And finally, I realized that my blog post for material alchemy didn't end up posted, so here's what I ended up with for that project!  The entire thing is made of old envelopes (the security patterns are so different and interesting!).  It's also interesting how putting the cutouts on a black or white background changes the feel of the piece.  Almost like day and night in the city? 

Fruit Adventure

A story about fruit going where... some other fruit have gone before.
- Daniella, Maria, Austin, Cole

Leigh Holmes Final project and self portrait

Final Project: For my final project, I am thinking about doing a reproduction of a painting, of what I'm not sure yet. I think landscapes, but i think painting a person would be a challenge that i may try and see if it works out. I also like to work with chalk pastels, so I may reproduce a landscape using those as well.

Self Portrait: I was trying to be creative with my self portrait and not have it be of myself, but of something that represents me. I am a swimmer as well as a student, and swimming the butterfly is something that I truly love doing. So I drew a butterfly to represent swimming, but also to represent that I like to just do my own thing, so I'm just flying with the wind. My eyes are my favorite feature on my face, so i decided to incorporate eyes into my picture. Some butterflies have markings on their wings that resemble eyes, so that is why the wings are all about the eyes. Big eyes, eyelashes, and my own eyes on the bottom wings. The butterfly is also purple cause that is my favorite color. I didn't have an exact purple in my chalk pastel collection, so i tried mixing the colors and still just had a blue/purple color. the butterfly didn't come out as realistic as i would have like as well as how my eyes look. Its too cartoony.

I have my artwork from high school hanging about my room. Since my current self portrait doesn't have my actual face in it, i thought i would share two pieces that did. Both pictures are done with colored pencils.  One was to put yourself in a movie poster... I put myself in Gone with the Wind- best movie of all time(camera reflection from the glass of the frame that it is in) , and then from my freshmen year i did a grid drawing of my sister and me. Enjoy

Megan Nolet- Self Portrait & Final Project Idea

Here is my self portrait (or portraits rather). I took an image of myself and made 9 different prints that faded from bright colors to black and white. I was then inspired to draw things on my face that communicated a sense of myself and who I am, or simply designs that I thought looked cool. As the photos fade to black and white, the designs on my face get more and more colorful. I decided to leave the middle photo blank, just as a reminder to the viewers that I do not actually have drawings on my face :)

For my final project, I am planning on doing (if not a few) a watercolor painting. I have yet to explore the water color medium of paint and look forward to doing so. I do not know what I want to paint yet but it will most likely be of a photo, probably a landscape, but we shall see!

"self" portrait & final project - Jocelyn W

I wanted my self portrait to be a piece that captured some key aspect of my "self".  The subject of my charcoal drawing is, in fact, my mother.  She has been very influential throughout my entire life, and when I see an image of her, I really do see the ways she has helped shape who I've become.  Now all I wish I could say is that my drawing does her justice (which I don't believe it ever could).  

As for my final project, I would really like to be able to return to the studio and expand upon the experimentations with wood that I began for material alchemy.  I am really fond of the idea of producing a functional object that I can keep and use well into the future.  For now I'm still thinking furniture, but I'm hoping to incorporate a few other elements from previous projects this semester.

Brook A. Portrait and Final

For my self portrait I wanted to represent how chaotic my life can be sometimes using my hair, but also show that I wouldn't want it any other way by having a happy expression on my face.  I didn't have time to finish the second version, and I want to explore a more abstract version for the color and light assignment.  

For my final project I'm planning on doing a stop-motion animation short.  It's going to start with tap shoes just tapping, and then color is going to appear with the taps and spread from under the shoes onto the floor, the tap shoes, and up the legs of the tapper.  I'm obsessed with tap dancing and really want to use lots of color and images to demonstrate what I feel when I tap dance. 

Final Project- Paige

My original idea got scratched when my camera unexpectedly broke last week :(
 Now I think I want to explore acrylic paint instead. I'm heading home this weekend and hoping to find some inspiration for this painting but I think I want to create a reproduction of something and combine the light and color assignment with my final project.

Self Portrait- Paige Gilley

Below is my self portrait. I decided to challenge myself in photoshop a bit and to create a vector image of  a photo of myself. It took a lot of work and at least 100 different layers in photoshop to create this thing but I like how it turned out. I think creating a vector of the image changed the photo into something new and interesting. Yay photoshop!

Jocelyn, Katharine, Molly, and Warren - Stop Motion

Hi class,

Here is our stop motion:



We had some trouble with video editing, so we didn't really get to do sound effects, but the main idea communicates.  Yay stop motion!

Jocelyn, Katharine, Molly, and Warren

Austin - Self Portrait + 2 Older Portraits

Okay I'll try this again:

So here is my self portrait, I decided to just go with a classical take and draw myself with charcoals. I wanted to keep exploring the dramatic style of baroque painting, such as with Rembrandt, because these sorts of paintings are among my favorite. I wanted to try to elicit the same effect with charcoal.

I had originally planned to make the drawing larger, and to develop the background and incorporate some objects and themes into it, do some interesting things with the composition, objects and underlying concept. However, due to lack of time (only starting it this weekend), I had to shrink down the drawing a little bit and go with a simple background, cutting off the surrounding paper.

Also attached, just for fun, are two older portraits I did in high school. The first one is in charcoal, the second one is in oil pastel.

Stop Motion: Paige, Megan, and Leigh

Megan, Leigh and I decided to go with our idea of a mini music video to "Breathe Me" by Sia for the stop motion project. We had a lot of fun working on this together and shooting the underwater scenes was our favorite part. 

Molly Junck - Final Project

For my final project, I will be exploring the medium of oil paint.  I have worked in acrylic before, and I have always wanted to try oil, and now is the time.  I don't have a specific idea for a painting nailed down yet, and I hope to do a couple smaller paintings first to get a better feel for how it layers, etc..

09 - Alli Schaaff: Self-Portrait and Final Project

I wanted this self-portrait to represent visually how I feel right now about where I am and where I'm going. I'm looking forward, toward my future. I have so many crazy dreams and ideas about where I'd like to go, but in truth, I can't see very far. With so many interests and opportunities here at Brown, I feel like I'm looking toward the future through a veil. I'm optimistic about it all, but I'm also eager to see what lies ahead.

For my final project, I want to do an oil painting. I've never oil painted in my life, but even before coming to Brown I decided my time here was my best opportunity to learn. I'm so excited to get started - staring at the brand new tubes of paint on my desk is killing me! I'm so excited and looking forward to tomorrow.

Maybe my final project can be sort of combined with the color and light assignment. For color and light, I'd like to reproduce this photograph from my portfolio in oils:

Katie, Alli, Brook - Animation

Katie - Final Project

For my final project, I want to combine the color and light assignment with some of the 3D aspects of the material alchemy. I want to take a blank canvas and somehow attach three 3D objects (rectangles of wood is my current thought) to the top. Then using the idea of shadow, paint the shadows that would be created if a light were directly above the three objects. Where the shadows overlap, I want to bring back the idea that this is paint and maybe have it drip. I also am toying with the idea of thinking of each light as a different color, so that the shadows will be in that color. Then, where they overlap, not only have it be dripping but also a combination of those colors. Ultimately I want to create the illusion that there is colored light shining down and confuse the viewer as to what is shadow and what is paint. Yay.

Self Portrait + 2 Older Portraits

Final Project - Austin

I'm more or less debating between two things for my final project right now--either an oil painting or continuing to explore wood carving.

With the oil painting, I have only done two oil paintings before, and I want a chance to continue developing my ability with it, because it might be the medium I love the most. As far as the concept, I am playing with a few different ideas, but I'm pretty sure it would involve a face, or possibly even several figures, probably painted in the tenebrous style of Caravaggio or Rembrandt.

For the wood carving, I'm not really sure what I would do. Maybe still try to carve a face or a head, but this time take a new sort of approach to it, maybe try to use a different sort of wood or tools. I could also try to do a small scale figure of sorts.

Final Project - Sophia

This isn't set in stone (because I feel that it may be a bit ambitious and time consuming...) but the plan is to combine different elements of what we learned from material alchemy, drawing and stop motion (not stop motion exactly, but stop motion in  that there's a sense of time and narrative and my piece will literally be telling a story).

I got inspired by Arthur Gansen, and although I may not make a mechanism like his (because I feel like that would require much more time and resources than I'll have in the remainder of this semester, unfortunately), I want to make a conveyor belt-ish system made from cardboard, wires, and water bottles. Around the conveyer belt will be a long paper belt (sort of in the style of/decorated like a large film strip) and you will be able to manually move the conveyor belt with a handle. On the paper will be a series of 3" x 5" frames, comic book-style (drawn completely in monochromatic pen), and it will tell the narrative of my first semester at Brown, in ten frames. It will be illustration and brief dialogue/narration written in the frames (think "Archie and Jughead"). I'm debating whether I want to add a lamp into the mix or not to shed light on the frame of interest while the viewer is moving the handle. I'm also debating whether or not I want to use aluminum foil somehow and cutting a 3"x 5" rectangle in the aluminum so you are only able to view one frame at a time rather than all of them being visible (this part may not be clear...maybe I can explain this better in person). I want my piece to be a self-portrait in a sense, in that I want it to be interactive/want people to partake and contribute to my experiences. And I also want to tell a personal story utilizing the different mediums we've explored this semester. I think it'll be pretty versatile and fun (hopefully) for both myself and the viewer/participator.

P.S. I will be combining my self-portrait with the color and line project, and it is incorporating paint.

--sophi diaz

Final Project- Claudine

For my final project I was thinking of fusing two things I love: drawing and color. I am planning on drawing 3 portraits (Olivia, Yasmine, and Sophia) with stark contrasts and then fuse the drawings with the paper art assignment I explored with in the Material Alchemy portion of our class. It will be similar in style to what Jen Stark does (it will be an explosion of colors cut out slowly to look like topography maps). I might go with different color schemes corresponding to each portrait. I want to convey a sense of youth like Jen Stark does with her work by also including portraiture, one of my favorite things to do. By drawing people, especially friends, I feel like you get to know them in a way you might never have been able to had you not stared at their face and picked out their quirks and features which make them so unique.

Material Alchemy-Maria

So these are some of the things I worked on for material alchemy. I had trouble because I had so many projects that I wanted to do, and ended up jumping around a lot before settling on a few things. I decided to do some things around my apartment to make it look nicer.

 This was a full length mirror that I smashed. I used a hot glue gun to attach the pieces to the wall.  When people sit under it, it sort of resembles a thought bubble.

I had a ton of feathers that I've collected or people have given me, and I attached those onto the wall with hot glue as well. The purse is made from antelope skin, feathers, and hemp fiber.

I also thought that this link was interesting. It made me think about just how much color can transform the atmosphere of a space. 

Charlie--Final Project

For my final project, I will be doing a series of night photographs. Starting my sophomore year of high school, I began to like to shoot in the dark. Night photography has an interesting aesthetic because the actual light that is around (all artificial) renders everything in a totally different manner from how it looks during the day while illuminated by the sun. Objects and buildings take on strange color casts, and moving lights such as the headlights of cars making for an interesting graphic experience. For this project, I will combine both photographs taken here in Providence, as well as some I plan to take over break in DC. I plan to do much of the work using a tripod. This with ultimately give the photos a more pre-meditated look--making them more about visual impact than concerned with spontaneity or capturing the "decisive moment."

Make Down

Material Alchemy with pencils

Just some more material alchemy stuff that is really cool. This lady makes sculptures out of colored pencils.

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Family-Lifestyle/12-Cool-Colored-Pencil-Sculptures.html

Chalk Guy is back!

I'm sure you've all seen this guy, he is amazing!

for more: http://www.funenclave.com/snapshots/the-chalk-guy-is-back-29937.html


-Katie

Dérive

I found our dérive to be both an interesting and enjoyable experience. Like many other people have said, it was wonderful to get off campus for a while, break free of the "Brown bubble" (as Yasmine put it) and to get out and explore the neighborhood. I left my phone (and, it turned out, my keys! Whoops) at home in an effort to entirely distance myself from all of the silly, small things that we can find ourselves caught up in everyday. I honestly think this helped me focus more on letting go and just... dériving.

Our group started off by Wayland Arch and then drifted down to the India Point/Wickenden Street area. It was a grey, but pleasant day... It might sound strange, but I'm definitely a fan of the bleaker side of autumnal weather. As we strolled, we found lots of adorable, older homes and little shops... The Fox Point neighborhood reminds me a little bit of where I used to live when I was younger.

*

Overall, I thought our dérive was a success. It was short and sweet, but we learned a lot about the surrounding neighborhood, and discovered all kinds of interesting places that I would love to go back to and explore further. Personally, I would repeat this exercise in a heartbeat.

- Olivia