ART- Drawing, Painting, and Photography - The Artist's Handbook

For my final post I wanted to focus on lighting. Lighting is very important for a picture as it gives the photo certain emotion and feeling towards it, and besides what is a picture if you cant even see what the photo is of.

IOS 800

For a Canon EOS Rebel T5 I found that when working with lighting the aperture comes in to play (in which was discussed in my last post). Although this does affect the picture  the IOS of your manual setting does as well. Your camera's IOS scale goes from auto to 6400. As you go higher up the scale the pictures become a lot brighter so when in certain situations, adjusting this to your setting is fairly helpful. Especially when you have a specific layout for what you what that photo to look like. Like Smith says "the type of lighting in which a photo is viewed has a great influence on its appearance."



IOS 1600



For this photo taken I had used it for my last post to show how aperture can effect physical appearance of the photo. With this post I hope to show the IOS and lighting of a camera, with an everyday object because "all good art prompts the viewers to look again at everyday objects and event with a new focus and a new perception" (Smith 322)

To me having the ability to control the way your viewers see things is a game changer. To be able to tell a story with a single picture or even artwork coming from your own perspective. Not only does this help me grow as an artist but as a person when learning new skills that can later benefit me. 

What has helped you grow with new skills and knowledge?

In what ways do you think lighting can affect the "backstory/deeper meaning" of the picture?

 

ART- Drawing, Painting, and Photography - The Artist's Handbook

On my last few post I wanted to focus more on photography as there are tips and how to functions within Smith's text "The Artist Handbook." While reading the book I noticed that there were very specific details that helped me understand the setting of the camera and how certain things can change the outcome.

 I first read about the aperture and lighting of a camera, that as the aperture on the setting got higher the picture becomes darker depending on your setting. Aperture is basically the hole and how small it gets, the smaller the hole the less light that's able to go through, making a dimmer picture. I found that certain apertures fit towards the type of setting and environment you're in.

What I liked most about the digital cameras were that as you changed the lenses it gave certain aspects towards it. "A 35mm single lens reflex. This is extremely versatile and can be used for original work...the film size is large enough to be able to produce images on fine-grain film which, when greatly enlarged, retain a reasonable crispness" (Smith 325). The crispness of picture definitely made a visual difference as well as making it look more professional.  

How else do you think I can use the aperture to my advantage?

If you were to have a camera, what'd be the first thing you photographed?

ART- Drawing, Painting, and Photography. - The Artist's Handbook

For my third post I wanted to explore more with painting techniques, specifically with oil painting/pastels. Through as early as I can remember the mention of tigers has always been in my life, from toys, to movies, to stories, etc. So while I was creating this piece I decided to make it a close up of a tiger with ocean blue eyes. Smith's Artist Handbook came in very handy as it had useful tips about blending colors, color choices and again the types of paper that would help create more  texture and depth.

When first starting with a completely blank sheet the best decision is to start with a rough sketch on where the basic things are, in this case it was just the eyes, nose, and spots. Afterwards you go in with a base coat, and since the tigers main color is orange I went in with a light yellow/orange. The best way to create depth most of the time is to take the time to layer color after color, creating one smooth gradient. Because the tigers fur has a somewhat glare to it, in real life there would be some type of highlights in certain places, so with the help of the Artist Handbook I found the saying "a white

ground shows the purity of individual touches of color, especially if they're applied thinly." (Smith 191) to be the most helpful in this situation. I darkened the places were I thought there'd be more shadows, and lightly went over the places where there'd be highlights. Last but definitely not least, the back outlines of the tigers eyes, nose and spots. This final step ties together the whole entire picture as it makes certain things look a bit more bolder.

After creating the tiger I noticed some lines that could've been sharper and places that could've been smoother, besides using my fingers what could be some other techniques that could help accomplish a smoother gradient?

Drawing, Painting, and Photography - The Artist's Handbook

Through random times of the day i'll find myself holding a pencil sketching whatever comes to mind, on whatever paper that's in front of me. Never did I take the quality of paper into much consideration. 
While reading The Artist's Handbook By Ray Smith I found that the quality of paper can impact the piece of art and the texture of the drawing or even painting.

For my second post I decided to do a watercoloring of an apple. By using rough paper with small little indents "the pigment had settled in the hollows of the paper" making it more vibrant (Smith) Another plus side to using rough paper was that when the painting had dried it wouldn't fold over on itself making a clearer look. Deciding on what to watercolor was fairly easy as an apple was a classic and could come in different looks depending on the artist creating it. The apple first had to "been painted using just overall washes" to set the undertone, later on you'd continue layering the different shades including the shadow (Smith). After finishing up painting you could go over with a dry paint brush to soak up some pigment, leaving a type of highlight for the apple. 

Thinking back about the process of making the painting i noticed that the variation of colors used for the apple wasn't very wide. Is there any other color that i'd be able to add that'd make it pop? 

Using the the quality of paper to my advantage, what're some objects that i can paint that would benefit from this technique? 

ART- Drawing, Painting, and Photography. - The Artist's Handbook

As a young child I remember make small storybook, and drawings during class. At the time those pieces of art seemed like masterpieces, as if Van Gogh himself had created them. Looking back from present time I realized first of all how many things I was missing, how much I’ve improved, how much creativity that was put into those drawings, and lastly how as I grew art became my outlet. My relations with art had always been a hate love relationship because the amount of patients it took for it to look presentable, and the amount of patients I actually had, in which was little. It was through art that I had gained and done so many things.

For my IRP I chose “The Artist Handbook.” By Ray Smith, know that I had and objective and something that I wanted to improve on. The book gives off multiple methods and tricks for things like pencil drawings, water coloring, acrylics, and even photography. This book specifically could help improve as an artist, by learning not only methods but the history behind the art. For the first month I started with a basic pencil drawing, using cross hatching “which involves using intact pencil lines running in two or more different directions,” and also working with a hard led pencil to give of a feathery look to the drawing (Smith 72).  As I was creating the base of the face I figured using guideline was the easiest method to get the right proportions to the face, and while adding the details such as the eyes I followed some of the tips given by the book, and some things said by an artist I was talking to a day before. Simple guidelines such as a circle and a few boxes to help get the base turnout to be fairly helpful when creating a piece of art. What I struggled with most when drawing was making the eyes look not symmetrical but also proportional, for them to look the way they should at certain angles. 

-I myself struggle with what to make on a piece of paper or a canvas, so is there any suggestions what you can give me? Or any inspirations? 
-How does the different tones of cross hatching give a drawing depth or form?