Quinceañera
1. Define which techniques you tried and mastered? Struggled?
I definitely struggled with using prismacolor pencils, I struggled the most with coloring in the skin. I heavily sketched my picture and because of that it left marks behind that the prisma picked up when I colored it in creating this weird shadow in the arms and somewhat in the face. I also struggled a tad bit with the dress since it was primarily white meaning I had to make sure it stayed white which was difficult because of the soft pastel background.
2. How did you draw inspiration from other artists techniques or aesthetics in your work? In what ways did you derive meaning or gain historical perspectives from their work? Why these artists?
I didn’t really derive any inspiration from other artists when I created this piece. Just like with my other pieces I just go in without really looking at other artists.
3. Describe the evolution of your piece. Decisions made. Compositional elements.
When I first began with my sketch I decided to split the paper and the picture into fourths to make it easier on me. The fourths helped out a lot because I felt like my sketch was really coming together well and looking almost like the picture until I realized that the sizing of my boxes weren’t the same, from the picture to my grid the sizing was different and it made parts of my sketch look wider than supposed to. After that realization I quit using the grid and free-handed the rest of the sketch which to my surprise came out decent. After finishing the sketch I began to color the sketch in, like i previously stated I struggled quite a bit with the skin tone simply because when I sketched out my picture I went somewhat heavy handed with it making it harder to erase the left over marks but nevertheless I continued through it and when I moved on to the hair I made sure my strokes were going vertical all the way through but also adding darker strokes into to make the hair look more realistic and make it seem like there were different strands. In addition I used red and black for the hair, I used red because in the picture my hair was red but because of the lighting it looked black so I went in with black to give it depth and created some of the shadows the hair gave. I then moved on to the back ground and with the background I used different shades of green, I used a darker green for the parts that weren’t being touched by light and with the lighter parts I went with a lighter green and yellow to give it a highlighted effect. In addition I went in horizontal strokes to make it look again realistic and more like grass. Overall the process went good even with a few bumps along the way.
4. If you could consider doing something over, explain why you would do this and what you would do next time?
If I could do something over I would most definitely go lighter when sketching the picture because the marks the eraser left after trying to erase parts of it were hard to cover and were giving the piece odd colors. I would also get a different medium for the dress because I didn’t like what I used for the dress. Lastly I would focus more on drawing the facial features more carefully.
5. Elaborate on how this piece links with your other pieces? What is the common thread?
This piece links to my other pieces because of my common thread of identity within culture. From an identity aspect my quinceañera was something that really helped mold me into the person I am because I had to go through different processes in order to be able to earn it and because of those things I developed my identity more and learn more about my culture and what it means to have a quinceañera. From a cultural aspect my quinceañera was a really important thing to my family and I because with Quinceañeras, one of the main purposes of it is to show everyone the transition a Latina goes from “childhood” to “woman hood”.
I definitely struggled with using prismacolor pencils, I struggled the most with coloring in the skin. I heavily sketched my picture and because of that it left marks behind that the prisma picked up when I colored it in creating this weird shadow in the arms and somewhat in the face. I also struggled a tad bit with the dress since it was primarily white meaning I had to make sure it stayed white which was difficult because of the soft pastel background.
2. How did you draw inspiration from other artists techniques or aesthetics in your work? In what ways did you derive meaning or gain historical perspectives from their work? Why these artists?
I didn’t really derive any inspiration from other artists when I created this piece. Just like with my other pieces I just go in without really looking at other artists.
3. Describe the evolution of your piece. Decisions made. Compositional elements.
When I first began with my sketch I decided to split the paper and the picture into fourths to make it easier on me. The fourths helped out a lot because I felt like my sketch was really coming together well and looking almost like the picture until I realized that the sizing of my boxes weren’t the same, from the picture to my grid the sizing was different and it made parts of my sketch look wider than supposed to. After that realization I quit using the grid and free-handed the rest of the sketch which to my surprise came out decent. After finishing the sketch I began to color the sketch in, like i previously stated I struggled quite a bit with the skin tone simply because when I sketched out my picture I went somewhat heavy handed with it making it harder to erase the left over marks but nevertheless I continued through it and when I moved on to the hair I made sure my strokes were going vertical all the way through but also adding darker strokes into to make the hair look more realistic and make it seem like there were different strands. In addition I used red and black for the hair, I used red because in the picture my hair was red but because of the lighting it looked black so I went in with black to give it depth and created some of the shadows the hair gave. I then moved on to the back ground and with the background I used different shades of green, I used a darker green for the parts that weren’t being touched by light and with the lighter parts I went with a lighter green and yellow to give it a highlighted effect. In addition I went in horizontal strokes to make it look again realistic and more like grass. Overall the process went good even with a few bumps along the way.
4. If you could consider doing something over, explain why you would do this and what you would do next time?
If I could do something over I would most definitely go lighter when sketching the picture because the marks the eraser left after trying to erase parts of it were hard to cover and were giving the piece odd colors. I would also get a different medium for the dress because I didn’t like what I used for the dress. Lastly I would focus more on drawing the facial features more carefully.
5. Elaborate on how this piece links with your other pieces? What is the common thread?
This piece links to my other pieces because of my common thread of identity within culture. From an identity aspect my quinceañera was something that really helped mold me into the person I am because I had to go through different processes in order to be able to earn it and because of those things I developed my identity more and learn more about my culture and what it means to have a quinceañera. From a cultural aspect my quinceañera was a really important thing to my family and I because with Quinceañeras, one of the main purposes of it is to show everyone the transition a Latina goes from “childhood” to “woman hood”.