Acrylic Painting

                                                               Eduardo Kobra

 

Watercolor Project

Zentangle Drawing

• 1 large or 2 small ink drawing with a minimum of one magazine image used. 

• Use of line weighted, broken, thick, thin, noodling, clustered) and shape variation (geometric, organic, outlined, solid, overlapping, positive/negative) created using a range of different sized pens (.005,.01,.02,.05) and markers (zebra, sharpie). 

• The use of the lines and shapes drawn incorporate the magazine photo(s) to create movement in drawing attention throughout the work. Areas of negative space are used to assist in movement in the eye and to feature the use of lines and shapes in the work.

• Blog post includes images that are cropped, sized to fit the web page, tonal adjustment, is displayed with the correct orientation, and a summary of project from start to finish

• A detailed explanation of the concept to the ‘story’ created from the drawing, explanation to the steps taken to create the work including the compositional devices considered, and challenges and successes of exercise are also provided 

ZENTANGLE LINE DRAWING DESIGN:

1 large or 2 small ink drawing with a minimum of one magazine image used.

Use of line weighted, broken, thick, thin, noodling, clustered) and shape variation (geometric, organic, outlined, solid, overlapping, positive/negative) created using a range of different sized pens (.005,.01,.02,.05) and markers (zebra, sharpie).

The use of the lines and shapes drawn incorporate the magazine photo(s) to create movement in drawing attention throughout the work. Areas of negative space are used to assist in movement in the eye and to feature the use of lines and shapes in the work.

Blog post includes images that are cropped, sized to fit the web page, tonal adjustment, is displayed with the correct orientation, and a summary of project from start to finish

A detailed explanation of the concept to the ‘story’ created from the drawing, explanation to the steps taken to create the work including the compositional devices considered, and challenges and successes of exercise are also provided

Still life

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Zentangle Drawing

 

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Sculpture idea student example

Sculpture Idea Post

For this project, we had to generate an idea for a sculpture through the course of five classes. We had to go through 4 different 'sections' of the idea generation process: 

- Cultural connection

- Mass

- Volume

- Surface treatment

These would help us come up with our final sculpture idea in a neat, organized manner. 

• Day 1: Cultural Connections

• For cultural connections, we had to go onto the Internet, or onto links that we had been given to find and to choose symbols that we liked, and/or that had a personal connection to us in some form or way. These are the symbols that I chose:
• Celtic Cross: a form of the Christian cross that emerged in the Middle Ages
• Maori Hei-Matau: a highly stylised fish hook that represents good luck and safe travel across water
• Assyrian God Shamash: symbol of the Mesopotamian God of the Sun
• Egyptian Lotus:  The lotus is a symbol of the sun, of creation and rebirth because at night the flower closes and sinks underwater, at dawn it rises and opens again
• We had to draw out these symbols and then 'tinker' with them or modify them. Essentially, we had to add our own 'twist' to these symbols and make varying designs in some way, by altering the overall shape, or the details inside, we could choose. We had to do three to four of these designs and variations. Once this was done, in class we had to paste a picture of our work onto a document, write something about the symbols or about our drawings and then we received feedback from our peers, and also had to give at least three other people feedback, which meant that we would have at least three people's feedback on each of our documents, which was constructive and useful for any future progress that we made. For my drawings, I tried to keep my modifications similar in spirit and other essential and identifiable components to the original symbols, but also change them enough so they don't look exactly like the original thing and have their own unique components. For my cultural connections, here is some of the feedback that I received:
• I really like the unique tinkering you did with each symbol! I especially like the Celtic cross tinkering and the Egyptian Lotus symbol. I like that in the Egyptian Lotus symbol, you decided to open up the flower.
• I really like the tinkering in the Hei-Matau and the lotus because they are still similar to the original one but still very unique.
• All of the ways you changed them are so creative. I especially like the lotus and the hei-matau and the way you made them so similar and yet so different. i think the celtic cross is also cool, it looks a bit like a compass. i can't think of another way to change the third one, so i'm not sure if that would be a good one to pick, but if you have an idea go for it!

• Day 2: Mass

• For the mass, we had to preferably take some of the symbols we had modified and tinkered with for the previous class (cultural connections) since it would be much simpler and easier to progress from those rather than choosing new symbols and then modifying those. I was a bit confused about what the mass was actually supposed to be, because it seemed a bit vague on the document we had been given. But I figured out after some time that it was essentially meant to be the basic shape of the symbols, the outer shape. We had to tinker with these and modify them like how we had done for the cultural connections; it was good to have a range of shapes and symbols to choose from. For the mass, just like with the cultural connections, we had to paste it on the same document from the previous class and then prepare to receive feedback from our peers, and also give feedback to at least three other students. Once again, we should have had at least three pieces of feedback from other students on our documents. Here is some of the feedback I received for my mass:
• I really like how detailed you drew and modified each of the symbols. The way you changed the tail in #1 is very creative.
• I like the layering you are trying to show on sculpture #3. It brings the 3 dimension nature of sculpture into consideration. I also like your attention to detail in sculpture #2. It interested me how a minor change of the head and tail changes the sculpture from an aggressive kind of attitude to a passive one.
• Sculpture 4 has some very interesting lines that add depth to the piece and make it pop a bit more. It definitely caught my eye right away.

• Day 3: Volume

• By this stage, we definitely had to be getting more specific. Whereas for cultural connectons and mass, we could have done two, three or four completely different types of symbol variations, here we had to start focusing in more on one sort of shape. We could modify it a bit here and there, but that was about it. I was choosing to move on with my variations of the Maori Hei-Matau, the fish-hook sculpture. Essentially, volume is where the air penetrates the sculpture. It is where we place the holes in the sculpture. I definitely had more clarity on the volume than I had had for the previous class, the mass. Once again, we had to segregate the designs and examples, but this time based on how many holes the sculpture had. For example, if the design had one hole, the variation/modification would also have one hole, though the placement and shape could be different, and so on for any different number of holes. So we had to paste this on the blog for the first time, our whole progress, and we did not receive any peer feedback during this particular class period, but by this time I think everyone was more comfortable with what they were pursuing. For my volume, I had variations with one, two, three and four holes, to have a range of designs of sculptures later on in the future. 

• Day 4: Surface Treatment

• For surface treatment, once again, we had to get even more specific, like the previous class, volume. We essentially had to be arriving at one shape, with very, very minor modifications. Essentially, surface treatment was the outer surface of the sculpture, and what that would look like. We had to come up with around four designs, two for outer patterns on the sculpture, without color, and two with patterns and color combinations both. This meant we should have two different color combinations and at least two different patterns, to have a range to choose from. For my volume drawings, I created four different patterns, and two different color combinations. 
• My first color combination in design #1 is comprised of cool colors: green, blue and violet. I created a variation of this design; the design has vertical-like, short stripes, while the variation has three lines running the whole length of the sculpture. For my second color combination, I went with a split-complementary color scheme (a color, and the two colors that are right beside it's complementary color). For this color scheme, I used blue, red-orange and yellow-orange. 
• I feel like for design #2, it has become too cluttered and I can't even tell what the pattern is anymore. I do like design #4, but I feel like it might be a bit too simple. I think for my final sculpture, I will go with the color combination of cool colors, and the pattern of design #3. I also liked design #3, since it reminds me of a mermaid's or a fish's tail, and my sculpture is essentially inspired from a Hei-Matau, or a stylized fish hook in Maori culture, so I feel like this pattern would be fitting. I also liked the cool colors for this sculpture since they symbolize greenery and water, which is fitting for something related to a fish. 

• Final sculpture design idea:

• This is my final sculpture design idea! I incorporated bits of pieces of elements that I had formed across the whole project to make this. I used the normal head shape with the tail like a fish's. I have four holes, two in the tail, and two in the head. I used a cool color combination: blue, green and violet. I used the mermaid-tail/fish-tail pattern that I had done for the previous class, during surface treatment. I am really quite happy with how this sculpture idea turned out!

Hundertwasser Line drawing Student Examples

Line Drawing Exercise

Because of the circumstances of being at home, we decided to go back to the drawing unit and create a line drawing. We were given any drawings created by Hunterwasser, an artist, and print a drawing that we liked. We then had to cut out a portion of the drawing that we felt most inspired by to continue the drawing, but with our own twist to it. Similar to the Zentangle Drawing, I used many pencil and pen techniques to create lines with different depths and thicknesses.

Original Drawing:

This is the drawing by Hunterwasser that I felt the most inspired by. I decided to cut out the square that is framed at the top of the drawing because I instantly came up with multiple ideas on how I could continue the lines and shapes to create my own drawing.

Day 1

As you can see, I decided to place the cut out at the bottom right corner. I began to draw with a pencil that I wanted my drawing to look like. I really wanted to continue the lines and the swirls that are seen in the original drawing in my own drawing. At this point, I was not sure what I wanted the center of attention to be, but I was gravitating for it to be the bottom portion of the drawing. I began to fill in the lines with a black marker to continue the lines. For more variation, I will need to add a more grayscale with a pencil and shading.

Day 2

You can see that now my drawing has more contrast between the black and the white. And I have also added a more grayscale with a pencil in some parts of the drawing. I really like how I was able to use black, gray, and white to create a design which you can see in the center bottom part of the drawing. I think the drawing looks very cohesive except for the bottom left corner. I wanted to add a very creative element to my drawing like Hunterwasser does in his own drawings, which is something that my feedback said.

Day 3

I decided to continue the same thing I was doing on Day 2 to have a very cohesive drawing. I continued to add more black and gray elements to create a nice contrast. So far, I really like how it is turning out and I think I am almost done! My next step is to add a color element to the drawing, but I don't want the color to overpower the rest of the drawing.

Day 4

The feedback for this day was very helpful. Mr.Laurence told me that one of the line designs in the middle of my drawing needed to have more resolution, because it was being lost by the rest of the designs. Before, I had just traced it with a thin black pen but then I went over it with a black marker which not only made the lines thicker, but it also brought out that design in the middle. On this day, I also added a pop of color using a blue color pencil to some areas of the drawing.

Final

After adding the blue, I realized that it was missing another color so I looked at the color wheel and noticed that orange and blue are complimentary colors. So for the second color, I used orange to fill in some shapes to give the blue a nice contrast. Overall, I am very happy with my final line drawing exercise! A challenge that I encountered was figuring out which areas I should fill in with black and marker and which areas to leave white. I wanted to make sure the eye could rest by leaving enough negative space. In the end, I think I was able to balance out the negative and positive space nicely. A success that I had was knowing what design of lines I wanted to do and just went with it. When I first saw the original drawing, I knew exactly how I wanted to carry out the rest of the project. It really turned how I wanted it too from the beginning!

Line drawing exercise

Day 1

I placed the cutout design just off the center of the page and created three types of patterns of triangles, wavy lines, and circles. I want to leave blank areas in the upper right and left sides of the work.

Day 2

I like the areas of black in the design to keep the eye moving. I would also like to make the round image areas to pop out more as a major feature to this design. I would be sure to keep the areas to the left of the large circle blank to bring the eye to that area.

Feedback given:

I really like how the dark areas of black are repeated at the top as it draws my attention to that section. I would say to maybe add more smaller circles to the wavy lines at the bottom left of the design or even more of the triangle shapes that you have on the bottom. Mr. Laurence

Day 3

This is my current state of the work. I have added further designs to the right of the picture. I added thick black lines next to the empty white spaces at the top, and will be sure to add more empty spaces to the remaining areas as it seems to start to look too busy for my taste.

This is the finished design. I find that the amount of empty space and filled space with pencil and pen is at a good balance. I think I would like to add ore black to the edges of the cutout to make it more seamless in the future.

This is the finished design with a triad color scheme of red, yellow, and blue. I wanted to add a little bit of each of the three colors throughout the work to keep the eye moving, but not too much color to detract from the design. I think if I had a chance to do it over again, I would use only one or two colors.

Zentangle Drawing Demo

Final Exam Presentation: Haw Par Villa Photo Walk

High School Visual Arts PTA Sponsored Academic Visitors in Residence Program 2018/19

Throughout the school year Singapore American School had the pleasure to host a number of visiting artists within the high school visual art suite. Over one hundred students from digital photography, advanced digital photography, photography service club, and the islander yearbook had the special opportunity to learn from these professionals to gain authentic photography experiences.

SGPassionate Images instructors Lawrence Ang and Larry Haydn provided the high school service photo club, islander yearbook students, the digital and advanced digital photography classes workshops in sports photography, macro photography, and special lighting effects throughout the first and second semester of the school year. 

Lawrence Ang supporting a student during one of the macro workshops
Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Larry Haydn providing lighting support to a student
Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Macro photography workshop

Here are a few excerpts from student blog posts from the conclusion of the workshops:

Alexus Buechel

This Image was of a red scrubby brush. I love how cool the bristles look up close.

This image was of a sponge up really close. I thought that the color and sponge texture was really fun.

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most challenging or difficult?

For me, the most challenging aspect of taking macro shots was getting the photo to focus. I had a really hard time getting the objects into the place where they were clear in the image. It took a lot of time and so many shots to get pictures that weren't completely blurred out. This problem started to go away as I became more acquainted with using the new lens. The more photos I took the better the clarity got. Yay!

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most enjoyable or fulfilling?

The most enjoyable aspect was seeing the different textures and small bits of color in the things I took pictures of that you can't really see with the naked eye. The sponge, for example, had awesome bits of color on the surface, and the surface of the sponge looked totally different and cool up close.

Archit Srivastava

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most enjoyable or fulfilling?

On the second day of this workshop, we got to use large macro lenses. In using these lenses we were getting a picture that shows more texture in the image; it also helps focus on the subject by blurring the background - kind of like having a larger aperture (like f4) but instead, you put the aperture on a setting like f12 and let the lens do the work. I also worked on lighting and trying out different angles of light.

Peer feedback from Keya Agrawal:

I think you did a really good job capturing photos bigger than life size for macro photography. I love the third photo of day 2 because of how it fills the frame completely. I also really liked how sharp and clear your images were, and that you had no camera shake. I also think you did a good job eliminating possible faults when it comes to taking macro photos. One suggestion I have is to try the stacking technique for photos like the last two ones for day 2. With this, you can ensure that everything is in focus and that you have greater detail. Overall, I think you did a really good job capturing macro photography as a whole and I love your photos!

Special lighting effects workshop

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Here are a few excerpts from student blog posts from the conclusion of the workshops:

Ashwin Gopalan

"In this picture, I used the glass ball to distort the building in the background, and I think it added a really interesting and unique element to the otherwise simple image. The fish eye effect makes the image seem almost 'trippy' and abstract for the viewer, as when the look at the orb, the building seems to be bulging out towards them, yet when they look at the background, it's simply a normal building. I like how although the ball distorts the subject, it still maintains the symmetry of the building within its distorted image. If there's one thing I would change, however, it would be the presence of my hand as I think it takes up a little too much of the image."

Benjamin Carrillo

"This photo is by far one of my favorites, I managed to get a great quality photo by slowing down the shutter while using the flash to get a clear image with motion blur. It is very interesting with the lights creating a unique squiggle and the blur coming from the movement of him. All these blurs and he is still crisp and clear."

Jay Sain

"The image is from the first day of the workshop and implements shadows from a point light. The lighting remains constant using the hard lighting to produce such shadows, however it is the approach to the image that adds complexity. I felt that the image was actually complex to begin with; the framing of the photo incorporated the rule of thirds which brought the shape of the figure and hard shadows to life. Despite this, I still believed that color was crucial and another level of variation would help better the photo as the color was uniform throughout. So I decided to add an RGB split (or rather red and cyan split) on a black and white layer in Photoshop. This not only introduced new colors but also added a sense of abstraction, which brought out the shadows of the image."

Studio portrait lighting workshop

Leonard Goh of Srishti Digilife and commercial photographer, Alex Ow, provided the digital photography students a three day studio portrait lighting workshop during the first semester. Leonard and Alex supported the students in providing technical support in studio lighting equipment and tips in working with subjects on a photoshoot.

Leonard Goh providing a demonstration using editing and studio lighting techniques in portrait photography.
Image courtesy of Zul Monsor 

Alex Ow explaining various studio lighting situations in a studio portrait shoot
Image courtesy of Zul Monsor 

Hands on practice in a studio portrait shoot

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Image courtesy of Zul Monsor

Here are a few excerpts from student blog posts from the conclusion of the workshops:

Shreyas Shukla

There's darkness hidden in everyone, but also light.

"I really liked how this picture turned out because I was experimenting with the lights not knowing it would produce good quality photos. I specifically liked this picture because of the light highlights one side and my friend Grey said: "It looks like I'm in a Nike ad". And adding the black and white filter made the picture have a deeper meaning. I didn't do much editing because I like the picture of how it was. However, I did increase the brightness so the left side would be more clear but that's it."

Nyah Tewani

"While there were a lot of challenges in this project, I also believe that there were a lot of successes. Moving onto the studio portraits, I would have to say that my biggest success was my friends allowing me to put glitter all over their faces (seriously). I think that I achieved the exact effect I wanted to the tee. The glitter added a whole new element to the portrait which I was extremely happy about. I also loved the way that I placed the light, that allowed me to capture the right side of their faces being dark and the more glittery side being illuminated. I am extremely proud of these photos. Within the editing process for these photos, the most major edit I really had to do was darken the background. The fabric created creases, which I was able to take out and that really helped with the overall effect of the photo."

Macro Image Workshop

Macro image Workshop 

Final 6 images over the workshop with Mr. Haydn:

I went out to the bicycle stands to capture this image of the gears on one bike.
It was a challenge to keep my hand steady to get this shot.

This is a picture of a sponge captured in the classroom.
It looks so abstract and detailed up close.

This is a paint brush taken in the classroom.
I used a similar paper color to lay the brush on to bring out the highlights of white in the object.

This is a small ornament that I was able to fill the frame with in the classroom. 

Another small key captured in the classroom that the blue paper was the final choice.
The focal area was placed on the middle of the key.

This is a detailed image of a flower in the science block. I really like the details captured of the little bugs.

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most challenging or difficult? Explain why.
I found getting the right point in focus the most challenging since everything was so small and closeby and we were also on manual focus (which I was not used to). In the end, a lot of trial and error and precise camera movements did get me the right focus point in one of the ten or so images I would shoot from a single angle. However, I don't think it is a difficult skill to master--I just didn't have enough practice, so I got a lot better at finding the right focus point over the course of the workshop.

Also, using the Helicon Focus software for stacking was very tedious and took me a while to figure out...but I eventually did find the perfect setting by trial and error.

What aspect of taking Macro shots did you find to be the most enjoyable or fulfilling? Explain why.
By far, the most enjoyable/fulfilling part of this project was to be able to finally stack photos taken at different focus points, Firstly, it was extremely difficult and tedious to take around 30-40 photos at one angle at by slightly changing the focus point every time. Next, the Mac Photoshop would always seem to lag/crash whenever I tried to stack photos, so I was really bummed that it didn't work out. However, I actually used this software called Helicon Focus on my own computer which was able to stack the images--this also took a while as I had to experiment with a bunch of settings, do a lot waiting, and install a couple drivers to get the perfect stacked image. Even then, my images weren't very good for stacking, but I thought it was a great first attempt and that I will only get better. I quite liked them.

I also honestly found one of the most enjoyable/fulfilling part of the project to actually just look at the photos themselves. Usually, when I take photos close-up all the details are blurred out and it's not very nice, but I love how these Macro lenses allow me to see the smallest details from such a close distance. It gave me a nice change of lens and a different way to look at taking photos and photography.

Feedback:

Feedback from Saachi: I really the composition of each image. For example the first day of the close up workshop, the angle of the gears are really interesting. I love how you can see the different layers of the gears from big to small. I think something that you could think about is maybe the sharpness of the image or reducing the ISO. For example the first picture of the macro photography, the background is a little noisy but it's not necessary.

Feedback from Lydia: The one photo of macro photography I like the most is the sponge, you really went deep into the sponge and captured the individual lines that make up the sponge, as well as some colours that got stuck, it provided some really good contrast and spiced up the image a bit. Something you can maybe work on is putting the subject a little closer to the camera, such as the picture of the paintbrush, I feel like you could be able to capture the essence of the bristles more, even if it loses focus on some parts, I think it will still look really cool. Overall, I love your use of angles in your photos and even without editing, your colours are pretty outstanding.


Feedback from Pronoy : I like the aesthetic of all of your images but my favourite photo of all is the honeycomb. It truly shows the essence of macro photography because you made the honey comb seem almost life like. I liked the details in this image and also the colours in the photo which made it pop. Overall, I feel that all of your images are outstanding.


Feedback Reflection: I agree with a lot of the constructive criticism that I got through my feedback process. I think that something I need to work on on a large scale is making my images less noisy and more sharp. I think that the reason that this was the case in this project was that I did not get the chance to try and edit out the images through photoshop, so they are all still RAW files. I also think that Lydia was right in saying that I could have gotten a little bit closer to my subject. I was scared to get way too close to my subject because I wanted to get as much of it in focus as I could, but I think that if I would have gotten a little bit closer, it would have been both sharper and provided a lot more detail. I think Pronoy was right in saying that my photo of the sponge was the one that was taken the best. It was taken from such a short distance that it does not even look like a sponge and resembles honeycomb.


Final Reflection: Over the past couple of days we have been working with Larry to learn about close up and macro photography. On the first day, I struggled with catching close up photos because I wanted to go much closer than my lens allowed me. My strengths usually lie in nature photography but I only managed to take a nice photo of something mechanical. One the second day we worked with macro photography. Compared to close up, I definitely think that I did I lot better. I do, however, need to work on shooting without grain. I think that this problem could have been fixed if I edited the photos, however the photos above are all unedited. I particularly enjoyed the third day of the workshop where we worked with stacking photos to make one very clear photo. I took the risk of shooting outside in nature which I knew was going to be difficult because the plant would move. That being said, I am very happy with the way the image turned out after putting it through Helicon focus. I was originally going to attach other stacked image, but when I rendered it, it came out more blurry than I would have liked and therefore not included it into the presentation.