Grant Smith

Rossi

Visual Arts II

27 October 2015

Artist Painting

I struggled slightly with this painting primarily because painting is not really my forte. I enjoyed doing the sky that was by far on of my most favorite parts, painting the actual surrounding stadium itself proved to be harder than I thought. Due to my inspiration picture being a panoramic it really put the perspective into a bunch of funny angles that without the actual football field present you wouldn't be able to tell what it was. This posed as a serious problem when painting as it made the perspective on the picture extremely difficult to draw out and even harder to paint. My artist was Vincent Van Gogh and I used his painting "Starry Night" for my inspiration to paint this picture of Alabama's crimson tide. I focused primarily on the sky of Van Gogh's painting which I incorporated into my painting with the long swooshes and the array of different colors that painted a unique path through the sky almost as if it were wind. I tried to capture this affect in the incorporation of yellow into my painting which began high, then swooped low, only to return back to high. I also noticed that much of the painting was drawn in a series of swooshes to make up one bigger picture. Using this realization I was able to draw the fans which make up the vast majority of the painting. I took the swooshes and made them small and used a variety of colors to wrap around the stadium and even on to small portions of the field. The figures you see on the field are band members which is why they are more organized and not drawn in a series of swoops and instead in stacked lines. I chose to represent them this way because they are the main focus point adjourned by the fans in the stadium so I felt that special attention to detail was needed to go towards the band to help distinguish the fans from the band. Overall I felt I could have improved on this project, I didn't feel as successful as I did after completing my perspective drawing but I feel that was more due to the difference in artistic styles. I was still relatively happy with the end product if I look at it from a distance without my glasses on and tilt my head a little. I feel I captured certain main focuses of my artists style while still being able to add my own unique and original style to the painting so in that aspect I do feel accomplished that I was able to take a grasp on my artists certain style and turn it into my own. 

Grant Smith

Rossi

Visual Arts II

27 October 2014

 Perspective

I enjoyed this project, perspective in some ways was easy and others was extremely hard. I personally found it a hundred times easier to do a picture in 16 point perspective than in 2 point perspective which is why I chose to do the project that I did. While I felt my project was simple it was also extremely repetitive and a lot of busy work to detail and draw all those building including unique tops to several of the building to add a little bit of creativity to the project. I was hesitant on even adding different rooftops to the picture in fear that the amount of perspective which was a key part in the originality of the drawing would also be my downfall if by adding the rooftops I would breach into the next realm of perspective and the roof would not match the building below it. Yet after I was finished adding one or two rooftops it made such an impact and such a huge difference in how the picture looked that I had to put it on as many as possible. The rooftops ended up making the picture and even though not all are the exact perspective as the building I was able to mask that by putting more and more rooftops on to strain the eyes from one or two small mistakes. Another huge difference that proved to make or break the picture was the use of retracing over the pencil in pen, this simple step made a world of difference as it left a sharp crisp look over all of the buildings and really made the picture pop. It also in a way added emphasis to the use of repetition in the picture such as the hundreds of windows that are incorporated throughout the faces and sides of the buildings. I was not able to produce a sketch copy of the painting as I could not re-do what I had already done in the time allotted to complete the picture because initially I was indecisive on how I was going to use my buildings in perspective whether it be like a hot air balloon supporting a house or the final product that you see today. Overall I am very pleased with the final product which goes into why I did not add the black to show the shadows of the buildings where they overlap each other because I did not believe I would be able to accomplish that in proper perspective and still have the same attractive looking finished product that I have today if I were to mess up in pen and over shadow or shadow the wrong side of the building. This project definitely taught me a lot that I didn't know prior to beginning the class and I am glad that we used this as our first project because I will be able to incorporate this into almost all of my upcoming projects that will give it a more intermediate look on my future projects rather than the 2-D look that was present in all my projects prior.