My still life in color pencil

I think this still life came out pretty good, the statue is my favorite, however now looking at it overall, my whole entire drawing seems flat... I don't know what else to do to make my art have more depth to it, I can never get that extra mile.

Colston pgs. 22-23, 62-74

Creating textures
  water: use smudgy marks and areas of tone in soft pencil or charcoal, then repeat the exercise using defined liniar marks, or combine the two to describe the natural textural differences between foliage and water-- water I definately need to get better at and with this tip hopefully I can.
Reading pages 22-23, i found that in order to immitate nature, I must immitate nature's symmetry. since "symmetry is nature's fundamental principle of organization".
I LOOOOVVEEE pages 62-74, it gives you easy ways to immitate patters on paper, by just transfering it or drawing over it, never thought of doing that, but now I am definately gonna try.

Reading: DCA chapter 6

Textures:

refers strictly to the sense of touch

You can never go wrong with textures, especially since textures give your artwork a true touch of artistry. It makes you art more vivid, more intense in detail, and depth on most matters-if you use it correctly. This is were I struggle and I know it. I just need to spend more time understanding light or using reflection more carefully, plus I need to be patient since I do tend to rush on my textures at the end.
Categories of texture:

Actual texture: "the tactile quality of a surface, including the mark made by a tool, the surface on which it is made, and any foreign material added to the surface" (148)
Simulated texture: is the imitation of the tactile quality of a surface: can range from a suggested imitation to a highly illusionistic duplication of the subject's texture
Invented, conventional, or symbolic texture: do not imitate textures in real life, rather they are invented textual patterns

Colston pp. 32-35

A balancing act
There are many ways to balance an art piece. Through rule of thirds, in color, movement composition and value. Everything always needs to be balanced in the world of art, personally I have no idea why this is such a rule, but I feel obligated to balance every art piece I do.
We can also use a view finder in order to balance out the amount of sky or ocean or precentage of an area that is show with the use of cropping.

*hint: you can use a pencil to pinpoint the height of a object in your artwork.

hold the pencil out at arm's length, closing one eye, and lining it up with whatever you want to measure.

DCA Chapter 4

Value: describes achromatic color; a color devoid of hue or just basically the gradation from light to dark across a form. *too many definitions
What I found out is that, like color, value can be used for an emotional or expressive purpose. It can also give great depth and sense of texture to an object. And of course it gives a realistic feel to it when light and reflective light has been shown. So basically value is the center of creating a in-depth overall drawing.

Sketchbook drawing: reacreation of a childhood photo

Now this project is kind of odd for me. I don't know what exactly to do and to be honest I'm not sure how to create JUST a line drawing... I wish I was an art geek or even an art nerd, but lets face it... I don't know what I'm doing sometimes. I'm not very educated in the art world like others are, even though I am going in the field. I know some basics, but besides that I'm flying blind.
However, back to my point, I'm not sure what I'm going to do for this project, if this is a collage of my childhood aspirations with a picture of me on the work or I'm just drawing myself..like a self portrait of me as a kid. Not so sure... but I made a sketch of me as a kid at least.

My first drawing

It took me forever to find this drawing of mine, it was in my elementary bucket in my basement. But i think that search payed off since I found this horse drawing of mine from when I was in kindergarten-i think-This was my first attempt at an actual drawing, and I think for being such a youngster I got contour lines down pretty good. I even seem to have some shading going on-i don't know if that was intentional or it was meant to color the horse, but I kind of like the drawing itself, in it's own kind of way.

Don't ask me where I got the horse from, but i think it was from a book.. or a picture... or maybe it was one of those coloring books.

Reading: Colston (pgs 102-103)

Monochrome media: which basically means, a painting or drawing done in different shades of a single color.
"With pencils alone, you can achieve a huge variety of effects. If you add charcoal and conte crayon, you have a full repertoire to suit all subjects"

So in other words, pencils and graphite are an artist's essential tool, which can create a range of desired affects with just the holding positions of the pencils. Yet, charcoal and conte crayon allows a more emphasized work of art, for a broader range of audience.
This, however, is going to be especially difficult for me to take to heart since graphite was my choice of media, however, I need to broaden my horizons and accept that pencils drawings are acceptable and wonderful works of art, but other media can bring more to the table sometimes,.. well most of the time.NOT saying pencil drawings are inferior in any way. 

Reading: DCA, Chapter 5 (pgs 115-141)

Line, is art terms, is the most direct means of establishing style. So, for me is how I express the feeling in a drawing. Say i try to convey elegance or raw energy, outrage or wit ( not sure how to express the last one, but I think I could come up with something); but such gestures can be included in contour drawings, charcoal and automatic drawings and even self portraits like Philip Guston. But keeping in mind that a line drawing has no shading throughout the whole work of art, it's just the combination of lines and the variety of lines that give it its apeal.
While reading about line, something caught my intrest. Under "using implied line" on page 136, the drawing Henry in Candlelight by David Hockney was very intresting. It was in the section called "Blurred line" which apparently are smudged lines by rubbing, which kinda confused me on the no shadding part that contributes to line, however the drawing can still be construde as a line drawing. A blurred and smudged lines create an "indefinate edge thereby resulting in an ambiguous space".

"I discovered that sometimes the in-between lines is as important as the line itself"- Gego





Reading: DCA pg 52-66

Spatial Relationships of the Art Elements:
Our senses are "capable of extending throughout the entire universe and touching it. Not seeing with one's hands but touching with one's eyes"- Octavio Paz.

 A unique way of thinking for me. For artists allow others to see and absorb a concept through an their work. "To see with our hands and touch with our eyes" allows us to see how important space is to artists which in the end helps me to see how space is important in my own work. Artists like M.C. Escher and Oscar Dominguez use the space concept to portray ideas as well.
Space can either add dimension or deplete it, but depending on the artists, space can actually tell a story.
Different space concepts: flat, shallow, illusionistic, actual, and ambiguous space.

200 Projets to Strengthen Your Art Skills (p.36-37)

Overall, I never really had a personal sketchbook-just a few actual pieces of art pasted into a book-like binder. However, understanding that applying for an art school a sketchbook is a vital tool for showcasing my skills and process-I'm going to have to work on one, incorporating my process and how I got used to a media. Basically my whole art world in one book, not sure how it'll end up, but I really want to try.

Drawing a Contemporary Approach (p.40-41)

Understanding continuous- line drawings is like reading about gesture drawings, which I think are pretty much the same. Although they are really an exercise designed to improve observational skills they sometimes become an interesting form of art (which is not a drawing that I'm use to doing, however, it would be a terrific way for me to get loose in drawing and get out of my comfort zone). Then, adding details or colour afterwards can make a drawing a work of art.
be interesting to try it out....

LAST ONE!!

I'm kinda thinking I'm over my head now, with my last drawing. I dont know exactly how its gonna end up like or...not end up. *** I decided for my last drawing to do a  perspective on the future  and the massive detail in this picture is overwhealming me right now. I don't know if I'll finish in time. -But I'm going blind here, I'm drawing from my imagination, soooo....I'm not looking at a still life or anything real...thus making me on my own. But I will continue to right up the dead line...and hopefully it'll turn out how I planned....hopefully. heh ^_^"

My Pastel work-ish

Art gallery/shows

This summer was full of art for me. Every where my family and I went there was some kind of art incorporated into it. I visited the art galleries in Estes Park about 3 times, as well as some sketchbook stores there. Plus I was able to take my family to the Denver Art Museum this summer- my 2nd time going there. However, I was unable to go to the art galleries in New Mexico this summer- a little disappointing, but I'm counting on going soon.

Cherry Blossom Scenery

My Self Portrait

My Still LIfe

Soo frustrating

I'm having a hard time uploading my pictures that I made. Why does things have to be sooooo complicated... -_-

ReLearning my simple techniques

Right now I'm hoping to improve my simple skills and techniques: reflections, shadows, textures, and highlights. Not only that, but I'm learning how to paint, use pastel, and create people with charcoal. Especially since I just started using paint, never really used pastel, and have a hard time recreating people on paper.