Week 4 - Shapes

Craft: The tools that I used for making the five compositions above were black, red, white, and burgundy paper. The purpose of this assignment was to create five compositions using 3 white shapes, 3 red shapes, and 1 burgundy square. the white shapes were meant to be organic shapes and the red shapes were meant to be mechanical shapes. Each composition utilized many different shapes made by my classmates, so all that I had to do was arrange them.

Concept: One of the hardest things to do for this assignment was to decide how I was going to arrange the shapes. Its deciding how well each shape works with other shapes. Two of the five compositions were made strategically, in a way that creates a scenario or forms recognizable shapes, such as the one that appears as though there is a flying horse or the leaning square on a thin tower. The other three compositions were merely done by throwing the shapes onto the paper and slightly adjusting them. I did it this way because I wanted to compare the difference in composition making when its organic making vs mechanical making. (unintentional vs intentional)

Composition: Each composition has at least one element that makes them different from one another but one thing they all have in common is that they overlap somehow in every composition. For some it was intentional , as for the others it was just coincidence. After carefully reviewing each composition side by side, I've realized that red is the most dominant and in a way, it takes away the effect of every other shape just because it draws the most attention.

Week 3 - Line Photos

Craft: The tool that I used for taking these photos was a canon digital camera. The purpose of this assignment was to capture many ways lines were used in everyday objects. Many things had to have been taken into consideration in order to capture the essence of lines. How the lines worked with others lines, how impactful those lines were within the object, how the angle of the photo affected the flow of the lines.

Concept: I decided to take these photos of lines because they are common objects of lines that we come across everyday but we never seem to be conscious of their existence since we have categorized that sort of information as unnecessary, but little do we know they play a huge role in almost everything. The spectrum of lines can range from giving objects texture to telling a narrative. These photos are meant to show others the value lines can have and how they play crucial roles in our lives. Take the photo that is all the way at the bottom. That gated structure is formed by horizontal and vertical lines but without that sort of assortment of lines, such a thing as a gate wouldn't exist. Putting lines into context emphasizes its value.

Composition: The photos that I took feature primarily straight lines or lines that follow a linear pattern. Those are there to emphasized the importance of lines. The other photos have more of a zig zag pattern to them, showing the relationship between lines and how there functions can play a crucial role when they can easily range in form and how well they work together.

Week 2 - Line Drawings

Craft: The tools that I used to create these pieces were a large white paper, small white paper, and a variety of pens. Part of the assignment was to use different lines to create various dynamics and impacts based on the lines that we used. Instead of using twenty different tools, I decided to primarily use ink pens. For each individual square, I decided to draw the shell of the sun, refraining from adding any detail. I drew each sun differently to be able to utilize different ways lines could be used. The kind of lines that I used were squiggly lines, lines going in a circular motion, straight lines, zig zag lines, and some sporadic lines. One of the things that I had to determine was whether to fill the sun entirely of lines or leave some spaces empty. I decided to do both and reflect upon how space plays an important role with lines and its impact.

Concept: Of all the things I could have used to demonstrate the usage of lines, I decided to draw a sun because the impact of something is much more powerful when we see that its recognizable. We know that the sun is hot, and so we associate heat, in regards to lines, as waves. I wanted to challenge that idea by using different line forms and seeing whether or not those variants of lines can give off the sensation of heat as well as waves can. It puts us in a place where something is different and now we have to deduce how we feel about it and what about it makes us feel that way being that its out of its stereotypical elements.

Composition: I used primarily black ink pens because I wanted to avoid the influence of color. Color can be impactful in ways that evoke a specific emotion, such as red meaning anger and yellow meaning happiness. I want people to view all of the drawings as black and white and when they glance over the sun with color, they feel something different. I want to gauge how they feel when drawings are mostly in black and very little is in color, as oppose to using all color for all drawings.

Week 1 - Intro

Hello. My name is Francisco Alvarado. I am a Junior in college and I am an art major, particularly studio art. I attend Saint Xavier University. I chose to attend Saint Xavier because it was the school that offered the most scholarship money and it was within reasonable proximity from home. I'm currently working on my bachelor's degree for art. Growing up, art was never really something I've considered deeply and it wasn't something I was too fond of, but now I seem to love it more than ever. I didn't realize my love for art until I was a freshmen in college. I just happen to draw a cartoon character and got so much positive comments on it. So many people have seen me draw or have seen my art and they have convinced me to do something with my skill. I have been drawing for two years and drawing for me has become second nature so I wanted to put it to good use. I started off wanting to be a high school chemistry teacher, then a math teacher, and finally I decided that I wanted to do something with art. I still have time to learn what I need to and use what I have learned to make careful decisions that will affect the outcome of my future. I love working within the art field and hope to become a university professor one day.