This piece, out of all the other pieces I have created, I felt had a great composition and was one of the two closest I had come to relaying what I had drawn up in my head. For most of these projects They were keen on details but lacked the contrast of the bigger picture. I feel that backgrounds can sometimes take away from the subject on display. There are sometimes when it is purposely done to pull viewers towards the background for the purposes of symbolism, meaning, or a satirical message within. For this I had no interest in an underlying meaning. The piece was simple enough but just quite as impressive as this was the first piece I have felt was successful in awhile. I invested a good amount of pre-planning, using colored pencils to attain a composition for each stuffed animal. This was even done with the pole they hang on, mixing silvers, whites, and dark browns instead of white to distinguish value on the metal. The fur was a new technique I had overlooked or simply hadn't considered in previous works of art. I'm glad I did though as the fur turned out quite lovely. I was worried that if I was too dark or too light that it would lack transition and a middle area of value. I actually turned out better than I imagined. I had finally understood the concept of layer, a sort of revelation. I felt I could push further, push for more until the time for this project came to an end and, being so enamored in the details of stuffed animals, I forgot about the rest of the picture. Blue sky was the first thing that popped into my head. Had I managed my time better the background could have turned out different. Maybe it could have been a Ferris wheel or prize game stand. However, that was what could've been and I am still proud of what has been one of my most accomplished pieces of progress in my artistic skills.
The scratch board artwork was the second piece mentioned above that I thought was a great success. This piece was exactly what I had planned on paper though out the whole project plus a few minor alterations. This piece required my recollection of pen and ink techniques from previous artworks. One effective form of pen and ink I found capable with a Xacto blade was cross hatching. This involves the lines in an artwork intersecting in a patchwork texture, implying shadows and revealing lights where it was needed. I also succeeded in stopping the muddying of textures within the piece. Each ribbon, prop, costuming, and patterns are clearly defined within the simple contrasts of black and white. It is with this limitation that I have reason to be proud of an artwork of only three shades. Those would be light, dark, and the middle area. An area that I have felt grow in each composition and final piece before and during the creation of this piece.
The scratch board and the room drawing below I felt showed the most progressive in terms of an artist. To start off, the scratch board has an interesting texture that is hard to define besides the simple term of rough. It was an interesting idea of creating the optical illusion of texture by using the texture of the base material. As for the room drawing, it shows what I can do with backgrounds. Over the course of all my work this year I have clearly lacked backgrounds in many of my works. This piece not only serves to show I am not lacking in background knowledge (no pun intended) for the technique, I simply have not put in enough effort to it and any major amount of forethought into my backgrounds. In this piece we were meant to do the backgrounds as it was a central part of the piece. Even though it was still life I felt that some details, like memorable pictures, required a bit of creativity to recreate that go beyond just looking with your eyes. It is for this reason this piece shows my ability to create backgrounds, given the right amount of effort, and my attention to minor details. As an artist I feel the little things are what can bring a piece to life.