Birds of Paradise

Edy Wong, Birds of Paradise, watercolor and acrylics, 14.5"x11", 3/08/10, FCS art classroom

This is my fourth concentration piece. I decided to paint birds of paradise flowers because as I was deciding what to do, I looked out my window and saw these flowers outside in my backyard, and I thought it would be nice to include these bright and beautiful flowers in my concentration. I decided to use watercolor because I figured it would allow me to do it in a faster time, and I wanted to experiment with the blending of watercolors. I also suddenly liked to use watercolors. I don't know why, since I have never really liked to use watercolors in the past. I tried to incorporate as many colors as possible to make these flowers bright and special. I painted the flowers with colors that are slightly different from their natural colors (like the stems) because I thought that it would add an interesting touch to them, and I wanted to experiment with more abstract and creative elements. This piece is pretty successful in my opinion, and I got the highest score out of all my other concentration pieces so far, and it's kinda funny when you consider how late I waited to start this piece. I am definitely going to use watercolor as my medium on later pieces now that I found out I like it. I'll post the pic later since I forgot to bring my camera.

Cherry Blossoms

Edy Wong, Cherry Blossoms, 3/01/10, watercolor, acrylics, ink, and salt, 8 1/4"x12 3/4", FCS art classroom

This is my third concentration piece. As you can probably see I tried to include an abstract/surreal element with this piece by painting the background with different colors of watercolor. I decided to use watercolor for my background after being inspired by Sophia Brueckner's artwork because I thought it was pretty cool. But the watercolor didn't come out exactly as I expected to because I wanted the different colors to stand out more but they blended in more than I wanted them to. I should have dried the colors right away because the colors would look good right when wet but when they tried they just blended together. Mr. Inman suggested I use salt to give it a speckled effect and I liked what it did to the background. The flowers are cherry blossoms, painted with acrylics to make them stand out. I decided to draw piano keys on the branches because I thought it would add a nice creative touch to the piece. I decided to paint different colored cherry blossoms on each branch to make it more colorful. Overall I think it turned out good.

Piano Flowers

Edy Wong, Piano Flowers, 2/22/10, acrylics and ink, 12"x14 3/4", FCS art classroom

This is my second piece of my concentration. As you can see I added some abstract details, the piano keys, for creativity and because I thought regular flowers would look too ordinary. I wanted something imaginative because I had originally painted normal and realistic flowers and I thought that was boring. So I decided to draw piano keys in the center. I drew them partly because I liked them and partly because I play the piano.






















Close-up on one of the flowers so you can see the detail better

Purple Flowers

Edy Wong, Purple Flowers, 2/16/10, acrylics, 12"x8 3/8", FCS art classroom

So here is my first piece of my concentration. Overall I think I'm satisfied with it. I started it late so I didn't have as much time as I wanted to paint it. My goal with this piece was to create intricate flowers by using different colors. This piece is pretty basic and straightforward but I want to try something more abstract with my future pieces. Some of the difficulties I face include not having adequate time, as I mentioned before, and also having limited paint.

Concentration Storyboard

Edy Wong, Flower Concentration Storyboard, 2/06/10, ink and computer paper, 11"x8 1/2", FCS art classroom

This is my storyboard for my concentration, which is going to be on flowers. I chose this concentration because I feel that flowers are simple but it allows room for me to play it up or add some of my own touches to it. I think I'll put in an abstract element to my pieces. The medium I'm mainly going to use is acrylics. I might change some of my ideas (I usually tend to to that), but you can kinda get an general idea of my concentration. The main goal of my concentration on flowers is to depict the flowers at interesting angles/perspectives, if you know what I mean. For example, the first thumbnail that I have is a picture of tulips, but the twist is that the picture would be from an ant's point of view, so the flowers look massive and dramatic and you would feel like you're looking up at them. If you look at the second thumbnail, the picture is a closeup of a flower, so again a unique perspective. I do not just want to depict flowers entirely realistically, so I might also add some funky colors or special touches to them. I don't exactly know the sizes my pieces are going to be; I think I'll just go with the flow and hopefully gain more inspiration.

The Nature of Love

Edy Wong, The Nature of Love, 1/22/10, photograph, 3-5"x7" photos, FCS art classroom

With this assigment I wanted to experiment with a medium I have never used before: photography. I decided to try photography because I didn't have a lot of time to do this assignment and I figured acrylics (the medium I initially wanted to work with) would take too long and deprive me of too much sleep.

The theme in these three pictures is LOVE and the three pieces are connected by NATURE. For the first picture, I cut a small heart out of paper and stuck it in a flower bush; for the second I put a ring on top of a cute asparagus-y plant like thing; and for my final picture I hung pictures of wedding photos cut out from a magazine onto a branch of a tree/vine plant. The challenges I faced was trying to get pictures of the objects from nice angles and to make sure that the objects in the pictures came out focused and emphasized. I would have taken more pictures of different things but it was raining for the entire week so I couldn't do that.

The three pieces show a progression: in a couple's relationship, it starts out with an exchange of "I love you"s, next is the engagement ring, and finally they get married.

The Figures of Dance

Edy Wong, The Figures of Dance, 1/04/10, ink and poster paper, 22"x26 1/2", FCS art classroom

The assignment was to create a figure composition with an emphasis to space. I decided to use ballerinas as my figures because I have always admired ballet and I think the dancers are nothing short of beautiful and amazing. All ballet poses and movements are incredible, and I think they show excellent form, so that's why I chose to draw them. The hardest part of this assignment was getting the proportions right and getting the poses to look natural and realistic. I was planning on leaving their costume blank but then I realized it would look too plain so I added color only to their dresses and pointe shoes. I think doing this emphasizes space because the dancers themselves are drawn simply and incompletely, showing that their is space within them, and since the background is blank, it shows that there is space around them. After doing this project I found out that I love using ink as my medium.