PrecognitionIn-Progress PhotosSketchReflectionMy inspiration for this piece was from a dream I had in which I was in the car, stopped at an area in a city. The spot in the city that I stopped at was very intricate and there was something about the layout that I had never seen before. A few weeks after having this dream, I was driving with my dad about an hour or two from our house to pick up some ice-skates, and on the way back home we were stopped by bad traffic in a downtown area. At one of the spots where we had to stop due to the slow traffic, as I peered out the window, my view looked strikingly similar to what I had seen in my dream. A year or two have now passed from this incident, and I was reminded of this "deja vu" dream as I began brainstorming for my AP Art Portfolio. So, I knew I wanted to include this dream in my portfolio, as it was one of the only experiences in which I felt like I experienced an image I saw in my dream in a later time in reality.
I began this piece by sketching a city street on my phone, but this first sketch was very 2-D, and needed a more interesting perspective. Since I was not satisfied with this digital sketch, I decided to go to my paper and pencil and sketch a few variations of this city street. I leaned more towards a perspective that was from above (a bird's eye view), and colored one of my sketches to visualize for myself and my teacher. My teacher agreed that this compositional sketch that I chose to color was much better than my original digital sketch, so I used this newer sketch as a reference for my painting. I began painting with red to make the building on the right, then with blue on the left and black for the tar road. I realized I would need the buildings to extend down the road, so I added a third, yellow building in the background for depth. I began to illustrate the traffic lights and crosswalks, but something felt off about their placement. I noticed that I had painted the lights too far up in the sky and at a much bigger scale than they should have been for their placement. So, I decided to paint over this with black, and begin with a different detail. I decided I should first figure out the direction and placement of each lane in the road in account for the curvature of the buildings from the painting's perspective before I begin painting things like lights, signs, cars, and trees. I went in with white paint and used it to "sketch" the placement of each lane, so I had a better reference for where to place other objects. During this sketching process, I began to use other colors to designate different lanes, assuming that I would paint over them in black later on, but when I added more colors, I started to like the multi-colored road. I decided to leave the road lanes with the blue, yellow, red, and green colors, as I thought it gave this piece an unusual style. Now that the lanes were placed, I added in some trees, windows in the buildings, cars, and traffic lights. Before I began to focus on the final touches, I felt that the piece could use some clouds in the sky, as from the painting's perspective, the buildings should logically be at high altitudes, and therefore come in contact with fog/clouds. I continued painting with different pastel colors in irregular shapes, and then moved onto adding the finer details to the objects on the street. I added windows to cars and plants to the outskirts of the buildings in order to make the city feel more colorful and full of life, since I didn't want to actually illustrate any people in this piece. After finishing my painting process, I notice that I could add a few more clouds in the sky, some more fine details to the buildings (that are not irregular lines, but instead more straight), and a better perception of light coming from the outside of the city area. I plan on going back to add these details to completely feel satisfied with this piece. Although it doesn't appear super realistic, I really like the style of this piece, and how I chose to keep the colorful roads in the final version of this piece.
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AuthorHi there, I'm Ashley and I love all mediums in which I can express my fascinations and emotions. Whether it be painting, music production, apparel production, 3-D modeling, drawing, or writing, I just adore creativity's endless possibilities. I am currently taking Apparel Production II Honors and AP 3-D Art while I work with music production and 3-D modeling outside of class. ArchivesCategories |