Grade 7 Visual Art Unit 2: “Make your Mark”
MYP Unit Question: How can we communicate visually?
Significant Concept: Line can be used to convey shape, texture and tone.
First of all, the picture above is my line drawing art. My background has Mt. Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, and some mountains in Hakuba, at the very behind of the drawing. My midground includes Aoki-lake in Hakuba, and some reflection of the mountains in the Aoki-lake. Finally, my foreground has the beach near Aoki-lake, and two people glancing at Aoki-lake. I first separated the three grounds into three layer, and I used pencil to draw the outline of each layer. Then I traced the pencil line with Sharpie (black pen) in each of the layers. I then used a variety of line techniques from Vincent Van Gogh, each of the techniques that matches with the objects, e.g. mountains, people, and clouds. I did these techniques in all the layers. After I finished, I made some wiggly papers to make it 3D, plus realistic.
During this unit “Make your Mark”, I quite improved a lot, and made a lot of progress at using various line drawing techniques from the style that Vincent Van Gogh used. If you compare my first line drawing and my final line drawing (the picture above), I would think that I can’t believe how I became better at Van Gogh’s style of line drawing. Throughout the unit, we looked each techniques in detail, and practiced a lot of the techniques over and over, until we were confident to use them in various objects. I practiced at home whenever I had a free time, of using line techniques such as hatching, cross-hatching, scumbling, and stippling, in various objects like mountains, to make sure if the techniques is relevant to the thing. I also planned out first when creating the final drawing for the unit; I first looked at some nature pictures that I took from field studies in Hakuba, and chose some pictures that will be useful for my drawing. Then I make a rough sketch in my workbook, combing some pictures, and decide what objects should be in the background, the midground, and the foreground. Then in the actual sheet of paper (cardboard), I separated the picture into three layers, and deciding their location, and draw with a pencil first.
If I would do this drawing again, I would improve on using various line techniques in different objects. I would do that since each object would contrast each other, which will be an outstanding drawing. Also, I would improve on using more gradation in forests, and Mt. Fuji; All of my line’s spacing are like the same.
I learned a variety of Vincent Van Gogh’s style of line drawing techniques. I would improve my drawing by learning more various line techniques from other artists, and use all of the techniques in different objects, so that they contrast each other.
