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        Now, that's it is coming around to the end of the school year, I'm looking at all of my sketches and ideas I had over the course of this class. I'll explain each of them in detail.

        This first painting was an idea I had for the second project. My inspiration was a picture of a mountain in the Himalayas I saw on Instagram. I was in the middle of a DND campaign to I had a lot of fantasy vibes. The picture depicts a red dragon coming down from a mountain, and a person on a horse carrying a flag. 

       

        The next is a sketch of an idea in which I had a dream. I wrote down my dream from my perspective which you will read now. 

I’m running. My bare feet hit the stiff grass, stray rocks pricking the bottom of my heels and arches. I need to hurry. I just got a warning.

I look to the left. The clouds stopped not even a half mile away, and the sun shines down on the land below. I look up and there is a storm over head. Dark clouds that make you think it’s night time when it’s midday. No rain. Rough wind blows through me, pushing me from the way I want to go.

I’m running. I need to get to someone. Am I hurt? I feel hurt. I run into the forest, glancing at the sunlight that was so close, but too far away. I shake my head. Something will get me if I’m not quick. My breath comes out ragged and wet. I don’t know how far behind me they are. A few feet, a mile. Makes no difference, they are still behind me. Still after me. They? It? What is it?

I follow the trail I’ve run down a hundred times. I’ve picked raspberries on this trail. I’ve biked down this trail. Each step felt like a mile.

Trees eventually envelop me, and I suddenly feel protected. I feel as if I’ve entered a safe haven. This small section of land and green. Someone’s domain? His domain? Maybe it’s his, maybe it’s not. All I know is that I’m safe for now. But I can’t stay here for long.

There he is. He’s running towards me, his mane flying behind him. Hooves pounding into the ground. Though dirty, his white hair shines like a beacon in the darkness cast by the clouds. Large ribs poking out through his white coat. Too thin skin covering what muscles he has left. Running to me, he asks,

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

I run to him and collide with his torso into a hug.

“I’m fine,” I gasp out, out of breath. I’m just relieved that he’s here.

We breathe for a moment.

I feel his muscles shift as he looks up to the darkened sky and cries out, “Is this it? Is this all there is?!”

He waits.

I know he isn’t angry. He is scared. He yells out these words with disbelief and hopelessness. He was once a mighty beast. He raced through the forest and fields. Magic and power with every beat of his hoof. He has been there for me and I loved him like a dear friend. He was not perfect, but he had influence and was generous with it.

Now he is starving. Ribs poke out, stretching his skin. The hair in his mane once luxurious, hangs limp and unkempt. Dirt covers his white coat in patches. His legs now kobby and awkward. Still strong, but growing weaker every day.

I know he does not call out to mourn his lost power. He yells for a sign of hope for us, for others. I would have mourned if I lost that much. I would’ve been angry. I would have shook my fist and howled at the sky. I think I would.

The wind whips at us, making leafs clatter around our bodies and rake up my arms. They are indifferent to our distress, but they weren't before.

Branches creek, and the clouds above shift above us, creating different shades of darkness.

“Just endless violence?!”

Hopelessness, fear, and anger swirl within me as I hear this once powerful beast, my friend, beg the sky for answers.

My emotions fight each other battling for a place in my heart.

Anger wins.

         The next is a digital recreation of my watercolor painting, which I realize I haven't posted here. 

       

    This next one was an idea I had for an oil Painting. Growing up I always saw paintings and sculptures of men abducting women. Hades and Persephone, Zeus and Europa, Helen and Troy.

Always the women in the fetal position, in a position of submission, and the man standing tall and dominant. I wanted to recreate that, but the "roles" are switched.

           The sketch itself is not done but the movement line is there and the women is in the position of lifting.

          This next is the digital recreation of my painting Ophelia. The face could be better, but the hair is awesome!!

Painting Faces

        I have found that I have a lot of fun using a technique that I'm not really sure what it is called. You can see below, I paint the faces in little increments with different colors. The first one is the beginning of the first face painting. (With a little Wimpy in the background) 

The next painting was based on Sufa's face. I just saw her sitting there and I was like I'm Gonna Paint Her!!

Here are theses two together. I want to make a contrasting light and dark set. Like Yin and yang. If you can tell, I made their expressions different. The one with the dark background is stern and the other worried. Planning to add more to the light one yet.

Continuing Painting

          This first oil painting I've made was originally was going to be nice and clean, and eventually I gave in to my fear of messing up and messed up all over it. I just barfed my creative process over the canvas. Whenever I worried about if I'd mess something up, I'd do that exact save things that I was worried about. I am also painting over some parts of my painting Ophelia. I am not satisfied with my lily pads and there was too much empty space so I started painting more hair. Going to put more detail with the flowers. Also, made the eyes and eyelashes more realistic. I have to figure out how to make the depth perception better.

Planning Second and Third Paintings

        Here are a few sketches of what I am planning on doing. The first sketch is going to be my third painting. It will be based off of a combination of the two themes Identity and Surrealism. The painting will be a human body with no connected head. And where the head would be will be a galaxy. The galaxy symbolizing that we are all as complicated as the things that make up our universe. I plan on using acrylic with this one. 

        

        This second sketch will be based on journey. A lot of people help you through your journey through life. Friends, and family, etc. The symbolism is simple and overused, but I feel like I need to make something like this. Something that bring my appreciation of my friends and family to light. This is also the painting that I plan on using watercolor with. I'm thinking that I will not be able to make the hands as detailed as I would like, but enough that it helped the viewer get the point. 

        Maybe I should switch the mediums of the paintings. I'm not entirely sure which medium I should use for which. The watercolor would help with the flow of making a galaxy, but I feel like ........... again, like I said in my last post, I should just dive into the deep end. I don't know what I'm doing and that's okay. Just go with my gut.

Finishing Ophelia

This is the final painting for Ophelia. It was difficult trying to figure out how to make the hair look like it was floating in water, and making the water was much harder. I first attempted to create the illusion of the hair floating in the water by making the background, the dark water, first and then painted the hair on top of it. I did leave white space for the hair so it wouldn't be so dark. The NOSE was incredibly difficult, but fun to make. It was satisfying to realize when I had finished making it that it looked better than I had originally planned. The running mascara was not planned but welcome nonetheless. I suppose that is a example of the paint will do what it wants to do, regardless of what the artist wants. Paint has a mind of its own. 

        I suppose that it why I'm sort of cautious going into painting. I'm used to having a certain amount of control when making art. I guess I just need to dive feet first into it. Plus, my next painting is going to be watercolor. So, I'm going to have to give up a lot of control whether I like it or not. I'm going to continue bettering this painting through making the lily pads more realistic and making the water look more realistic as well. Maybe I'll add in water droplets on her face and more of a remnant of a body under the water. Make her lips more realistic too.

Ophelia

        I am beginning my fist free painting, based on the theme of Humans and The Environment. I at first wanted to based the base the painting off of the tale of Icarus, but I decided against it because my idea was basically throwing myself in the deep end. So I decided on painting Ophelia from Macbeth. She is an example of how her environment effected and killed her. You could also see it as herself drowning in a pond and seeing the environment in the way of nature. I've made a "sketch" of what I want it to look like. I put quotations around sketch because its more of a full fledged illustration. I have begun painting a color study of how I want the colors to look. Of which I have included below.

        

        Since I have gotten a computer that I can draw on, I have been doing traditional art much less. I need to get back into that mindset of holding an actual pencil. I don't have much experience in painting so I hope this class will help with that. I'm excited to eventually try out oils. Acrylic drys out very quickly, and watercolor is unpredictable (though I am excited to start water color as soon as possible). I've been watching a lot of oil painting videos, and I'm excited to start. I'll include my "sketch" that I've made on my tablet. 

Starting To Paint

      I have started a new class. Its painting!! I'm excited for this  new class because I get to use a lot of colors. I do not have much experience with colors so I am ready to learn as much as I can. I have already made some abstract paintings based on the seasons. I personally had fun making summer and winter. The colors I put into summer were the colors of the sea and the color of my sunburned skin. We put those in mattes and they out on display. I read chapter two and three in the book Colors and made some color wheels. These color wheels I will use for future reference when painting. After I finished the wheels, I continued on to a project in chapter nine. The pattern I am going to use is the paper in the picture with mushrooms. You cut a chunk of the paper put then glue it on to an illustration board. Then you match the colors with paint. And then you paint the opposite intensity, color and tone, which is interesting to me. Like I said before, I do not have much experience with co,or so I am excited to continue to learn more about it!