Concentration #10: "Pensive"

This piece is, sadly, the last of my "freebies." I feel like I transformed this one the most from what it was before compared to the two other freebies. This emotion is "pensive," or thoughtful/confused/ruminating. The jagged design structure is supposed to represent the portrait's jumbled thoughts, with the glued-on scrabble board pieces the actual jumbled-up thoughts and words. Changes I made to the piece before and after the critique include altering the expression of the face slightly (lowering the eyebrows and adding values around the temple) to make the expression more "pensive" and less "vacant." :) I also cleaned up some of the scribbles I had made with charcoal previously and added more newspaper in some areas. As for the design structure, which used to be an irrelevant "D to S" gradation from another project I had done, I colored everything black to make it less busy, and added another concentration structure of scrabble pieces on top of it. I feel like this piece is strong because it has many layers and high contrast.

Concentration #9: "Elated"

I found it a bit hard to follow my last concentration...it was hard coming up with this one, because I wanted it to be conceptually equal to my last one. So I settled on showing somebody who is imagining winning a soccer game/scoring a goal, and all the glory with it: the portrait (great job Philip) has a very happy expression and the body language of his arms raised helps heighten the emotion. The design structure is an overriding radial/concentric structure which is also the soccer net. The portrait is interacting with the structure because he is "caught" in the net. After the critique, I added more contrast to the portrait, added different watercolor colors in the background, and included faint watercolor paintings of an imagined crowd on the right-hand side. I'm pretty happy with this one, but I think I want to turn away from really detailed, methodical stuff and try oil painting again!

Concentration #8: "Disgusted"

I feel like this one may be my most "advanced" work yet, conceptually and technically. I thought of how I could use an intermediary subject to help bring forth an emotion. Since my emotion this week was "disgusted", I settled on drawing a fly close-up with all its weird, gross appendages. I changed my usual medium this time by using watercolor crayons/watercolor for the first time. The fly's eyes are the design structure (repetition/gradation), and the portrait is reflected in one of the fly's eyes (AND MY SUBJECT WAS MARY NOVAK! haha), so you really get the feeling of someone being disgusted because they are looking at a gross fly. After the critique, I added color to the eyes to help it blend into the piece better, brought some circles more into the other eye to integrate them, and cleaned up the background to define the rest of the fly's body, etc. I personally am really proud of this one...:)

Concentration #7: "Angry"

Ok...so I'm finally getting up my next three (!) concentrations. This one is called "Angry," and is another work I added onto from last year (another freebie, you could say). To bring across the emotion of Angry, I used bright, warm, intense colors; an overriding concentric radial/gradation structure, and a subject of a very beside-himself old man. At the critique, I thought about how I could improve this piece and have it suit my new ideas for my concentration. In order to incorporate the portrait into the structure, I drew lines from his head into the wheel-like structure, to make it seem as if he is being pulled into the structure. I also blurred the lines of his face and made parts of the structure actually cut into his face. My whole idea for this is that anger is an unbalanced and "enveloping" emotion that's hard to control, thus the man being drawn into this endless cycle of anger. In addition, I added contrast/value to some parts and cleaned some things up. I think this one turned out well.

Concentration #6: "Excited"

This week I decided to use the first of my three "free-bees" (aka pieces I did at the end of junior year). I chose "Excited" because it was the least developed of the three and I thought I could add the most changes to it. The face reflects the emotion of excited through the raised eyebrows, face partly off the page, and newspaper springing from his head. The design structure is a repetition/gradation structure with bright colors and busy lines to heighten the excited feeling. After the critique, I developed the face more (added more value), sharpened/cleaned up the structure, and extended the newspaper out further to balance the work. In order to match my previous concentration pieces, I tried to integrate the portrait and the structure by adding a hand poking out and the illusion of torn paper, to make it seem like the figure is breaking out of the structure. I do feel like this is less strong than my others....

Concentration #5: Terrified

I decided to branch out a little bit for this piece. After our first 4 pieces we had a cumulative critique of sorts, and I was told to experiment with including more of the body of my portraits and integrating the portrait with the design structure more. I thought about this while creating this concentration. The overriding theme of this piece is the style reminiscent of a comic book. I researched Roy Liechtenstein to get an idea of how to draw comic-book-style--sharp edges, high contrast, no subtleties in value, text (which I made a parody of by saying things like "Design!" and "Unity!" and "Contrast!"), and simplistic figures. The girl on the right is a full-body "portrait," showing the emotion of "terrified" through expression and body language. The explosions and whatnot form the "design" portion...yet the whole work is unified through the style. After the critique, I tried to keep the contrast yet minimize white space by coloring the background in very light gray and blue watercolor. I also cleaned up edges and added flames and things to balance the work. I feel like this is the concentration piece that shows the most risk-taking so far.

Concentration #4: "Smug"

In this concentration I focused largely on design to bring across the emotion of "smug." First of all, I tried a new approach by dividing the piece into 4 squares. I incorporated a gradation structure with black-and-white triangles in two of them. With this structure I also thought about manipulating space in two ways: 1) using gradation to make it seem like the structure is receding into space, and 2) creating different-sized triangles to give the illusion of curved lines. In the other two squares I did two different portraits of the subject (good job Brett) in different "smug" positions, with high (and scary-looking) contrast. The structures are supposed to reflect "smug" by the high "lofty" effect of them receding into space. After the critique I corrected issues in both faces (value, making the expression look more smug) and incorporated lines extending out from the structure to make it mesh with the rest of the work. I feel like the faces still need some work to make the whole effect more "loose" (with brushstrokes, etc.) to emphasize the carefree, indifferent aspect of being smug.