We are nearly at the end of our second unit in Art class, Express Yourself: Portrait Painting. For this unit, we were supposed to draw an portrait painting that will show our identity, culture, or our emotion. We also learnt about the Color Wheel, and how it works. And by using our knowledge on the color wheel, we expressed ourselves with colors, and culture.

During the unit, I think I have gotten a little bit better at drawing my face from the last unit. Last unit, I wasn’t very good at shading, but in this unit, I feel a little bit more confident in the shading and the gradation. I think that I got especially better at the nose, and the eyes. I found drawing the nose hard at first, because when I first started painting the face, I painted over every thing beside the eyes, and I couldn’t find where the nose was. And I didn’t know how to paint it, or how to add the shading. But I had some help, and I think the nose looks really good right now, and I am very pleased with it. The eyes, comparing it to my last drawing, I think it improved a little bit. However I think it’s not perfect at all, so I hope I will improve. I found planning the colors a quite hard to do. At first, I thought about using cold, and cool colors, but I didn’t at the end. I didn’t use cool colors because I wanted my work to be bright, and warm. I like cool colors more than bright colors, so I always had an habit of taking cold colors instead of bright colors. But when I looked at my picture, I thought it would look better in bright colors. However, according to my friends, the color that represents me most is blue and white. And I also like blue, but it is a cool color, so I had a little trouble there. At last, I decided on a light shade of blue, and used it for the background. And as for my face, I used orange and green for my hair.

Like I said on the paragraph above, I think I improved on my shading and gradation a lot. On the picture on the right (it is from my last unit), I think I don’t have enough shading or any gradation at all. But this time, I did wet-on-wet painting, and I was think I was able to blend the darker shade and the lighter shade quite well. I am proud of the nose, which has four different tones in it. It looks really good, and the tones blends in as well. My weakness is probably the hair. I tried to make some of the parts a lighter shade then the other parts, but I couldn’t exactly see the difference very well. And it doesn’t look very good, because the paint doesn’t exactly look very smooth, or natural  on the portrait. I also think I didn’t really manage the time very well. I sometimes kept on painting on the same part over and over again, that I had to rush a little at the last week, which made my drawing a little bad.

I think I expressed myself with color and the position this time. The position of my drawing is me leaning on my hand, and it seems like if I am thinking. I chose that picture, because I usually like to think by myself, and I thought it would be a good picture to use for my drawing.

I also used blue, green, orange, and purple. I like all of these colors a lot, and I think these colors represent me a little. I used the light blue for my background, and I used blue because it is my favorite color. I also used it because I think the color of peace is blue, and it is past one year from the earthquake in Japan, and it is blue also represents peace. Blue also shows my country, as much as I think it represents me. I used the orange to show the energetic part of me. I don’t know if I am actually energetic, but people say I am loud and I have a energetic personality.  The green, is for the part of me when I am actually quiet. However, I am only quiet when I am concentrating, sleeping, and when I am reading. And the purple is for when I am in a bad mood. I can get in a bad mood really fast, and I become really annoying. These color show my feelings, and my emotion. I think the colors express me well, and I am very happy with the colors that I used.

I enjoyed creating this piece, and I had a lot of fun with it. It was challenging as the same time as it was fun, and I hope to do better in the future. I know there are many things that I could improve on, but I liked the colors I used, and I am quite proud of my work this time. I am also proud of this piece, and I think I was able to express myself.

For this unit on portrait drawing, we learned how to draw an human face. To draw an human’s face, we had to learn how to observe carefully. Our unit question was “How does observing help us learn?” This question helped me able to observe more on my drawing.

When I did my first drawing, it wasn’t good at all. My eyes were to high, I forgot to draw hair on the back, there was too much space between the nose and mouth, and I had no shading on my photo. Compared to my first drawing, my second drawing is better. I think I improved on the shading (It’s really better than my first drawing), and the lines of my face. Compared to my first drawing, I think most of my drawing improved.

I found the lips most challenging, because my lower lips is about twice the size of my upper lips, and the shading took time for me. But I think I improved because when I look at my drawing now, it looks better than when I first drew my lips. The eyes were hard too, because both my eyes are a little different, and it was really hard to do the iris. The most easiest part for me was my hair. Because my hair is completely black and there are no high lights, all I had to do was color my hair an really dark color. But it still took time because my hair is long, and I had to press hard.

Observational skills helped me during this unit a lot. It made me able to observe better, and because of observation, it made me able to see where exactly the shadows were, how my eye looked like, and lot’s of other things. I also learned that it was really important to observe as well.