Emily+A

I chose this painting for my figure study because I was really attracted to the colors. It is bright and fun, and although I knew it would be a challenge, I thought that it would be worth it. I also chose it because I have a slight obsession with Africa, and I think this captures a bit of the African culture. When I started the piece, I did her face first which was not such a good idea. Mrs. Ruggles informed me that the lighter colors should be done first, so then I decided to start with the background. The background and the moon weren't very hard, so I was pretty optimistic in the beginning. Then, I decided to start on her dress and it got a little more challenging. I was happy with the bottom part of the dress, but when I got to the purple and red part, I didn't like it. In the actual painting there was a lot of texture on this part of the dress, and I wasn't sure how to give my piece the same affect. I decided to use a skewer to give the impression of lines, and then I liked this part of the dress a lot. I think that this work of art is a success. Although it doesn't look exactly like the original, I still think that the colors and shapes turned out well. The only part of it that I would do over again is the middle part of the dress because I'm still not one hundred percent happy with it. In the original picture there is a lot more texture, but I did do my best to give mine the same feel. Overall, I'm very happy with this piece, and I think it turned out better than I expected.

I chose to do my project about poaching mountain gorillas because it is something that I’m very interested in. Dian Fossey, who is one of my main role models, gave her life to try to protect them from poachers. Only about 790 gorillas are left, and there are none kept in captivity. I want to raise awareness about this issue because I don’t think that anyone really knows or cares about it. If we want to keep this planet healthy, we need to maintain biodiversity, starting with the mountain gorillas.

My main problem with this project was definitely my “senioritis”. I admit I was a little slow at starting the project, so I had to rush to put it all together in the end. I spent most of my time creating my clay figure that is slightly disfigured, but I’m still happy with him. I also knew that I wanted to do a window, but I had no idea what to do with it. I ended up deciding to keep it simple so that my point came across but it didn’t look too busy.

I think that my piece is successful at portraying my point of view. I think that although it is really simple, that helps it to look better. I love the background (Thanks Mrs. Ruggles) and I think it helps to tie everything together. I also love the quote that I found from Dian Fossey, and I think that it is a very powerful statement. If I could change anything about this project, I would probably put my pictures behind the glass along with the background. I think it looks a little weird with the background behind with space, and then my pictures on the front.

The social issue being portrayed in this piece is smoking. The artist definitely views smoking as a negative thing, and it is really obvious. The colors of the piece are really dark and blurred, which adds to the effect. Also, the person looks slightly distorted and is turning into a skeleton. I think that the artist did a really good job of portraying smoking as being a negative habit.