Eye See You (2 Sketches for my Sunday Sketch #2)

September 15, 2019 Isaac Student Posts

“Creativity is in the eye of the beholder”
– Isaac Gazmararian, 2019

I had the idea for the Coca Cola one a week ago. I think I was intrigued by the concept of playing with perspective and I wanted a dynamic image with perspective of the face and the Coke flowing in mid-air. I ended up doing a “mock-up” of my idea last week which is what you see here.

When I sat down to do my “real” version of the image something just didn’t feel right. I wanted to try something different. I didn’t like how the red Coca Cola bottle popped out so much from the black and white drawing. First I grabbed for a charging cord. Then when I got my mechanical pencil out of my pencil bag I saw all of my other pencils and pens just sitting there, practically asking to be used. My natural instinct went straight to drawing an eye. I actually have a long history of drawing hundreds of eyes over the years, slowly booming more and more realistic. They are my favorite thing to draw and I love exploring different styles, so this seemed like a natural experiment for me to take. Once that idea took hold it couldn’t be stopped. I quickly walked around to my hall mates and borrowed most of the blue pens and mechanicals that you see there. I was a little rushed with putting together the whole image because I had to leave to pick my brother up from the airport, but overall I’m happy with the experiment in style.

Nap Time

September 14, 2019 Shivani Student Posts

For this week’s Sunday Sketch assignment, I drew a picture of a girl sleeping and used a real towel as her blanket. I came up with this idea because I was tired and kept thinking about taking a nap. I drew a stick figure of a girl in blue and decided to draw the bed around her in a different color so that my sketch would be more detailed. I decided to keep the edge of the towel where the fabric is flat at the top near the girls neck. This was done to resemble layers of sheets and a blanket. When I first read the description for this assignment, it seemed daunting, but once I saw the other examples on the page, I realized that this could be completed with just about any object, so I was less intimidated. This was enjoyable, because it introduced me to a new style of artistic representation.

Here is the link to the assignment page: https://eng181f19.davidmorgen.org/assignments/sketches/sketch-2-sunday-sketches/

Sunday Sketch #1

September 14, 2019 Ore Student Posts

As I pondered what to do for this assignment, I was scanning my room when I came across this wooden spoon which I had been given when I was initially moving into my dorm room. I picked it up and thought that there had to be something I could use it to create and started to constantly turn it around looking at it from different perspectives. I turned it completely upside down and that’s when it hit me that it looked similar to a boat paddle. Originally, I was going to do a simple sketch with someone holding the paddle as he/she rowed through a body of water however once I began drawing, I kept on adding more detail and shading to the point where I had only drawn the boat after a good amount of time. Due to this, I decided to abandon the idea of a person holding the paddle but rather to have the paddle become attached to the boat alongside one other drawn one. I’m quite satisfied with the finished product.

Sunday Sketch 2

September 13, 2019 Sulaiman Student Posts

The process of creating this sketch was relatively simple and straightforward. I looked around my dorm for small items that could be captured in a drawing. I eventuallty found some Hershey Kisses, and they reminded me of fat lips when you put them together. I used some Blue-Tak to stick the two kisses together to create the lips. Once I had my object, I had to figure out what sketch would surround the item. I first started with a human face but quickly found that it was too challenging to incorporate an object with different proportions.

I ended up sketching a chicken face because I found a basic tutorial on how to draw chicken faces. After following the tutorial, I added in elements of my style and ended up with “Kisses on the Cock.” Upon finishing the sketch, the name seemed to fit perfectly; it was witty, funny, and hopefully not too inappropriate for class.

But Mom … I’m Hungry!

September 13, 2019 Joyce Student Posts

What’s on their beaks? Binder Clips!

I liked to play with binder clips when I was little. I would bend them into every shape possible and imagined them as dancing octopuses (see below).

Thus, as soon as I saw this assignment, binder clip was the first thing that popped out in my mind. However, since there were so many shapes that binder clips could turn into, it took me a long time to decide how exactly to utilize them in my work.

My first idea was portraying them as handbags. Then I realized that I was not that good at drawing figures and most importantly, I wanted to add a sense of movement and interaction to the sketch.

When I was experimenting binder clips with different elements, I heard some birds singing outside my window. Watching the clips in my hand, I suddenly came up with the idea of turning them into the beaks of the birds! I first drew the big bird and it turned out very well, but it looked lonely staying on the paper by herself. Therefore, I added another little bird by her side so that the picture was more engaging.

Interestingly, the shadow of the clips is also included in the photo. It seems like the birds are talking to one another with their beaks moving. The little blue bird is sitting on the floor looking up to its mother, and it makes me think of how I used to beg my mom for snacks after meals: “But mom, I’m hungry!”

The Commander of the Sea!

September 13, 2019 Bella Student Posts

For this Sunday Sketch I sat in my dorm helplessly searching and staring at every object I own. I placed object after object onto pieces of paper trying to imagine some sort of image to implement it into. Finally, in a very college style I pulled out my pack of Command Hanging Strips and simply stared for about five minutes formulating pictures in my head of what I could turn this into. The hook of the Command Strip made me think of some kind of wave or fin so I immediately started sketching around it to see how I could possible work this out. With my first slightly terrible shark sketch I could definitely see the potential of this drawing and began creating a more detailed image that might better fit around the Command Strip.

After finishing the drawing of my sketch the next issue that I came to was utilizing color in some way. It made me extremely nervous to attempt to color in the entire Command Strip and hope that it perfectly matched the surrounding image. I tested many different color options on my first shark draft with another Command Strip and ultimately decided to color part of the object with colored pencils and form an outline with a marker to further implement it into the image. I felt pretty proud of the outcome and thought it fit in very well with the overall picture. To read more about the prompt that helped produce this image you can click here.

Writing Narrative Reflection

September 13, 2019 Teo Student Posts

What is writing? What makes one a good writer? Generaly when we talk of writing we all imagine these long essays, books and articles, but in reality every text we send, every caption we prepare, every comment we post is a piece of writing. It is a piece of writing that has potential to change someones mood, day or even life. Now not every word will move mountains, but each word has meaning. These meanings are often powered by our relationship to them that we have developed throughout our reading and writing journey. Check out my journey here.

A Reflection Upon “From ‘Creak Creak’ to ‘Swoosh’”

September 12, 2019 Joyce Student Posts

In my narrative, I explore my childhood experience of learning to read using graphic books and how this shaped me as a visual learner. I then move forward along the timeline and explain how reading and writing pure texts stressed me out as a visual learner in middle school and how I became both a better writer and reader afterward. For the high school period, I focused on portraying my experience of publishing articles online and how this experience led to my discovery of the power of combining written words and visual images.

The free writing exercise was definitely very helpful. In the beginning, I was stuck, but after I started writing I could recall more and more details and added them into my final essay. Still, the actual writing process took much longer than I thought. We are asked to reflect on our experiences that shape the way we READ and WRITE, not just either one of them. Therefore, what troubled me the most when writing this essay was how to carry out this “evolution” in a way that neither one of the two elements was missing. I can easily think of a lot of my experiences on this topic, but there are not that many of them that BOTH influence the way I read and write. In the end, I managed to select four of my experiences that touched on both aspects and structured them into three sections divided by different time periods. Instead of simply call them “childhood”, “middle school”, and “high school”, I was inspired by Stitches to incorporate the use of sounds in my essay. Therefore, I gave every period a particular sound that represents my experiences and set them as subtitles which I think will be interesting to read.

I think the most interesting part of my essay is:

“‘Tac tac’
This was the sound of me pressing my delete key.
‘Tac tac’
I was trying to write something new.
‘Tac tac’
I was deleting it again.
I can still recall those late nights when I watched the cursor blinking and ticking on my screen like the countdown of a time bomb.”

This shows my exact feeling when struggling to write an essay, and I bet many people feel the same.

When I look back at my finished essay, I am surprised by how different it is from the original outline I listed. I got this idea that writing is an “ever-changing” process through which the structure, content, wording, and even topic of the essay can be changed millions of times, and there is no perfect essay but only a better one.

https://joyfuljoyce717.wordpress.com/literacy-narrative/

A Fairy Good Sunday Sketch

September 12, 2019 Marlie Student Posts

I was walking to the library when I noticed a bunch of pink flowers surrounding a bike stand. They reminded me of the design accounts I follow on Instagram that incorporate nature with fashion. Inspiration struck, and I was off looking for fallen flowers and other pieces of nature on my way to the library. One of my many passions is fashion design. I used to fantasize about it as a career, but reality struck, and my secret desire was pushed aside to the margins of my notebooks. This sketch assignment gave me the opportunity to embrace fashion design in a creative way. The dainty flowers and earthy leaves immediately made me think of a fairy. After sketching the base, I mixed and matched until the outfit and wings resembled something of a fashionable fairy. Is it perfect? No. Did I have fun and do I want to continue making outfits out of nature? Yes. The process of making and uploading this sketch also proved much easier than the first sketch, making me feel hopeful about my technological abilites moving forward.

Literacy Narrative Reflection

September 12, 2019 Sulaiman Student Posts

Part I

Going in to this narrative I was really worried because I haven’t written anything all summer and I’m a little out of practice. Thankfully I was able to remember the writing process and started with an outline where I was able to map out the foundation of my narrative. The freewriting pre work was very beneficial to my literacy narrative because it allowed me to take a raw idea and expand upon it. Often times the hardest part in writing is getting started and the freewriting activity took care of that. I decided to make this narrative about my poetry and I never realized how big of an impact my poems had on me until I finished the narrative. Also, before writing this assignment I never considered that my brother was actually the biggest influence that sparked my interest in poetry.

This literacy narrative was the first time I’ve publicly talked about and shared my poetry. It was defintley intimidating to share something so personal with so many people but I’m happy I was able to step out of my comfort zone. I believe the most interesting sentence in my narrative is when I said “What came forth was poetry.” I think that sentence changes the dynamic of the narrative. It shifts the readers perspective about who I am as a writer and a poet.

Link to Literacy Narrative: https://sulistories.wordpress.com/literacy-narratives/