AP3D

femme fatale

this is a print that i made last year. i started the project by sorting through french magazines to find contrasting background and foreground images. after tracing both images on onion skin paper, i took a piece of rectangular plastic and copied the picture on to the plastic. i used a screw to carve out first the woman, and then the sixties swirls behind her. finally, i covered the finished engraving with a thick layer of black paint. with a paper towel, i wiped clean the plastic; removing all the paint except in the carved out sections. taking a piece of wet paper, i ran the paint-stained engraving through a printing press. after the first print was made, i could re-apply the paint and make prints on different types of paper (newspaper, a green onion skin paper, the transparent fabric like paper pictured above...)

concentration explanation

for the concentration that is the required second half of the year project in AP drawing, i chose to study bottles. initially, i wanted to draw all different types and forms of bottles; however, as the project progressed, i became interested in the relationship humans share with bottles (and more often, their contents).
the drawings are presented in the same order as they were presented to the AP board; the order shows my thought and technique progression throughout the concentration.

concentration: bottles

to start the concentration, i chose a simple "old fashioned" coke bottle. it was drawn with charcoal.

a jam jar was my second focus. the squareness of the bottle made it a bit more difficult to draw than the coke bottle. for the jar, i used soft charcoal and charcoal pencil.

i explored different bottle shapes in the third drawing. it was also a chance to experiment with the way light hits (and goes through) bottles. the handle on the fat jug reminds me a bit of a potions bottle (in reality, they could be potions bottles, although i suspect they were simply old wine bottles).

the labels on this olive oil bottle furthered by studies by permitting me to play with the dimensions inside the bottle and the label that is seen on the other side.

inspired by the excessive consumption of Poland Springs water bottles at St. George's. i re-created a scene seen in any SG dorm room using soft charcoal and white charcoal pencil.

a close-up of the stamp like print on a wine bottle. drawn in charcoal and highlighted with a white pencil.
this is my personal favorite. the crushed bottle was a very quick drawing and was both conceived and completed under what felt like a spell when i could draw anything. however, i also love this drawing because the contrast that the white pencil creates against the midnight black paper. i also absolutely loved using line weight to emphasize certain parts of the bottle.

this is a patchwork of drawings that were pasted together to create one giant bottle top. i liked drawing this piece because of the small details (such as water droplets) that the sharpie allowed me to capture. this drawing was also the first one that i incorporated people into. around the lip of the bottle, a long and skinny man swims.

in this drawing, the people are much more evident. the idea behind this drawing is that people are trapped by the contents of bottles. i wanted to show the desperation and danger of those that depend on substances. i used a "Clorox" bottle to illustrate how brand-obsessed our society has become (often, people have an idea about one brand's product because they have never tried anything else. they seem to think less of the same product made by another brand. in this sense, i explored the danger of consumerism.)

i enjoy this drawing for the controversy it sparked. inside a baby's milk bottle, a small fetus is trapped, drowning in its own milk. this was the first drawing where i created an affiliation between the person and the bottle. the baby, like so many, is fed from a bottle from an early age (rather than breast fed). personally, i think this is dangerous because the baby forms less of a connection with its mother, and more of a connection with a piece of rubber. this drawing emphasizes the importance of family relationships, and once again, the danger of relying on a machine made product to do a humans work.

i love this picture because of the man within the glass. i enjoyed changing the perspective of him, making his hands (which are touching the glass) bigger, and his knees (which are more towards the middle of the glass, away from the edge) much smaller. i also love this drawing because of the detail of the bottom of the glass. the man, in this case, is trapped by an everyday object. it is up to the viewers to decide if he is trapped by the object itself, or what it represents. either way, he is helpless, encaged by a wine glass.

my other favorite of the series. like the crushed bottle, i loved the challenge that using new materials presented (pastels). there are four people in the pouring liquid: one screaming face, one smiling face, one helpless person with a downcast look, and one person drowning (or bathing, you decide) in the bottom of the cup. the idea behind this drawing is pretty straightforward: the dangers of alcoholism. however, the picture speaks to a wider array of people in the sense that it is not only an addiction to alcohol that is risky, it is an addiction to anything that is dangerous. the challenge behind this piece was in blending the colors to resemble the changing colors of liquid as light touches some parts, and leaves others in the dark.

breadth section

this was the first piece that i did in AP drawing. it is a study of light on different shapes, drawn in pencil.

another early drawing, this one was a still life of fruit. for this drawing, i used color pencils

the objective of this project was to zoom in on a mechanical object. it also involved studying the way light hits and reflects off of an object (in this case, a shiny surface).

a still life of a pepper plant. similar to the mechanical piece where i did a close-up of part of the bigger object. this piece was done by layering the paper in charcoal and then erasing away the lighter parts.

for this one, i used a plaster block with an eye carved into it for my model. a quick drawing, the idea was to capture the smooth surface and shadows that creases on the face create. the line through the middle was a crack in the plaster, and in my efforts to capture the spirit of the original, i decided to include it in my drawing. this work was done in charcoal.

a lengthier project, our assignment was to crumple a bag however we liked, and then re-create the image on paper. charcoal pencils were the materials used.

the "spooky halloween" self-portrait was lit from lamps underneath my chin and drawn using white and black charcoal pencils.

in this project, i explored the effects of natural light on wood surfaces. this was done using a thing sharpie pen.

this is a piece from freshman year that i completed in "visual foundations". even more so than the mechanical and pepper drawings, the objective was to draw an object at such a close range that for the viewer, it is difficult to distinguish what the object is. the charcoal drawing is a close-up of an energy efficient light-bulb.

this cityscape is reflected on a brick factory window. to create it, i combined two different pictures; one of a factory window, the other of a city. i then altered the factory window to make one part open. the drawing was done in charcoal and colored pastel.

the last drawing in the breadth section that i chose to present to the AP board is the most diverse in terms of its process. the background is painted paper; however, instead of using regular paint, i first soaked it in water and the proceeded to rub salt, bleach, charcoal, a bit of green paint, and vinegar over the surface. after it dried, i rubbed it down with a brush, removing clumps of salt and bleach, to create a smoother surface on which to draw. since the paper feels like a stone wall to the human touch, i decided to create a series of cave people, in a cave drawing style. initially, the people were drawn in white, however to make them pop off the paper, i added black shadows around them with a black charcoal pencil. this last edition gave the impression that the figures were carved rather than drawn.

'emerging artists'

two years ago, my art was selected for the Portsmouth Art Show. to my surprise, a few days after the show opened, my art appeared in the Newport Daily News.
voilà, my first published work! this was a self-portrait that i did in the fall of 2007. the theme of the charcoal drawing was "halloween", with the light source coming from around my chin (thus creating the creepy ghost story face that we associate with halloween). you can see the piece best in the second image, although i'll publish the original a bit later..