Forever Missed

People who knew him would probably mourning right now that a father, husband, and adventurous artist has left us... I've only met him for months in my Intro to Painting Class but seems like I've known him for quite a long time. It seems that it was only yesterday (actually a few weeks ago) that I've been sitting in his class as he praised my final studio project. It seemed like only hours ago I have been wishing him a happy holidays before I left with all my art work to welcome the winter break. He has inspired many people, especially me who never believed in my ability to produce any fine work of art. I remembered him stopping by my desk in class praising or offering me suggestions. I always looked forward to his critique (and that says something because I usually hate criticism) when I knew that my family would never care about the pieces of art that I've created. He was always so happy go lucky, so sweet and jolly. He would always play music you'd probably listen to to get into the mood of painting and told us many art related stories. Before we ended that semester, on the last day of class he gave a great speech... who would have known that it would be the last one i'd ever hear. It still hasn't sunk into me that he is now gone, and although I've never had any relatives that passed, he is one who just a thought of leaving us, moves me to tears. He was such a ball of sunshine that deserved many more years to lighten up the lives of the youngsters today. I know however that he is in God's hands right now, praising him with his gifted hands watching over all of us. I also know that he wouldn't like us being sad. My condolences goes out to his family and those who closely knew him. You will forever be missed and my respect goes out to you, always, Mr. Barry Wonenberg.

12.22.16

Origami Crafts #1 Kusudama Flower (easy)

So I heard a Kusudama Flower is also called a medicine ball flower. Hopefully we get some of that medicinal benefits making a paper version ;)

Materials needed: glue and origami paper
difficulty: easy

step by step instructions found here

Materials:

Steps:

Origami

Hi Hi~ Aside from painting and writing another hobby of mine is photography and making origami. The following posts would be some origami crafts I got from origami instructions. I wont be going on step by step on how to make it because that would be plagiarism so I will just provide you guys the pictures and the original link where I found them.

 

  

Welcome ~

Hello my name is Janine and this is my E-Portfolio for Painting Class SY 2016-2017 under the instruction of Mr. Barry Wonenberg (you can also check him out here: http://saipanartist.blogspot.com/) of Northern Marianas College, Saipan. First and foremost I would like to thank him for being a great teacher. I've always hated drawing because I've always underestimated myself but for some reason I've improved throughout the semester and I'm glad to say that I love painting now. I've learned so many things in the little time we had and I've come to appreciate art more and more, it was a great experience and thank you for taking part in my journey!

These are my works and progress throughout the class, I've capture each step in the process and reflected on each work. I always felt that I've had to get better and the positive feedback on them are proof of the fruits of my labor. Once again thank you and enjoy! ~

(above) when I posted my works on Facebook friends and mentors have given me encouraging words and positive feedback.

Studio #4: Personal Choice

Our final studio is more free as it is our personal choice. I had a hard time choosing my model because I have a lot of ideas and images that I would like to paint. This project is a little light and I would be applying the pointillism style we learned in the beginning of this course. My media was acrylic paint and the same canvas as usual. I used a flat brush for the dots.

Ideas hard to choose from:

Original image

I chose to settle with the above image because keeping in mind that I had a large canvas, painting a portrait of any of the floral would be not be convenient for a large painting even if they did look good. I also intended to display this landscape at home. Another reason I also chose it is because I love Asia especially cherry blossom trees and I could use the pointilism style here.

Progress

So far so good. Actually I had thoughts of keeping this as is as it looks like a scene in the winter. But anyway I started by sketching the trees. Do note that the trees are curving a little into a path way and the trees get smaller as they go farther away. Though the smaller trees looks so wrong. I used brown and black to paint the trees and instead of stroking them I dotted them for the pointillism - and it does give out a fuzzy wintry feel. I then started to lay down my blue paint, once again using a round brush - however I used a thicker one.

An idea struck me when I saw the afternoon sunlight spilling off behind the canvas. Do note that I didn't overlap the colors especially near the branches, leaving some white outlines intentionally. This is because once I've place it by the window at the right timing (when the sun is close to setting, the orange will go through the canvas to make that same effect.

Here (above) you are able to see that I've added color to the ground

 Note that I've made the side path a little darker and used green.

 I did several things here. I've made the sky darker by dotting it a darker shade of blue and adding them in some of the gaps on the cherry blossom tree. I've also added yellow on the initially green path way.

 Here I've added yellow at the side of the path way and spilled off cherry blossoms on the trail as it would give the effect of spring slowly turning into fall.

 Do note that on the above and below pictures the pointilism effect coming to play. As you go farther away, you can start to see them blending together. I would then move to patching up the white spots that remain and dab more pink for the cherry blossoms on the tree.

Final product.

On the last day of class when I showed this to Mr. Wonenberg, he commended me on how this piece turned out. He also commented that he liked how I added some colors (such as a dark shade of pink) on the sky and commented that I could also spread some it on the ground and around the leaves and the sky and so I did the adjustment for this final piece. The light spilling off behind the branches is made possible by the light radiating from the window.

Cheers! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays :)

Studio #3: Chuck Close or Master Artist

For this studio project we have the option to copy a work of a master artist or challenge ourselves by doing a chuck close style self portrait. This was probably one of the challenging works I've done and I'm probably going to get deducted points because it isn't really a chuck close style painting as you will later see. The media I used is acrylic paint, Q-Tips, a flat and round brush and the same sized canvas as my previous studios.

Original design or model:

The model I used for my chuck close style painting is Kim Yugyeom from my favorite Korean Boyband GOT7. The image on the right is a chuck close style (mosaic) generated by a phone application called 'Paper Artist'.

My sketch:

Once again I would like to clarify that I am not artistically inclined, however I do find gridlines helpful in making sketches, persistence and dedication is also a must and are some qualities that I had to commit to in order to sketch this 'passing' sketch. 

Progress:

I first started by painting the grid lines using a Q-Tip. After letting them dry I laid down green paint for the background. I was initially going to use back as the outline for the gridlines but I realized that the shirt of my subject was black and if I used black it won't work. It took me a while to painstackingly paint these squares and my mother also scolded me for getting paint on my clothes and the bed (and yes I like to paint on my bed).

 After laying down my green paint I started to work on the black part of the shirt before I went to the details of his face. I usually start painting with the colors that I have in abundance before using my limited resource and also mainly because I was still thinking of the colors I would blend to make his skin tone.

My progress as I painted it all completely. Note that some of the squares were broken down or merged as suggested by Mr. Wonenberg, which gave me an idea of making it look like a stained glass window or a painting on a brick wall.

 Above you can see it following through. It still looks messy but you already have a gist of what is happening. Also note that his skin color was shaded darker than the previous because I couldn't achieve the initial color I mixed and I was limited in resource (white acrylic paint). This was actually a great idea because the lighter edges in his face gave me the idea of maintaining the chuck close style (distorted-ish) or like a puzzle piece.

This is my final product without my signature. I repainted everything so that it looked cleaner and painted some areas darker or lighter to make it a stain glass feel (not really noticable). You probably notice that this shot is better than my previous shots too. I realized that if you used the selfie cam (front camera) the image looks a lot better than when you use your back camera of your phone (which is probably why selfies looks better lol).

Final Product:

This is my final product with my signature. Its not my favorite signatures because the spacing was limited and I didn't have a good brush or have a steady hand to do my signature strokes. Some parts of the signature was also lighter because I used a Q-Tip rather than my smaller paint brushes.

Reflection:
This was probably one of my favorite studio projects because I was painting my idol <3 and I was actually proud of the results. I learned that there are more ways to do things and you don't have to restrict yourself from staying into the criteria. I also learned that you can merge these squares to make different patterns as well! I also took a while painting this because I had to paint and repaint and just letting it dry was time consuming. I also had to set it aside because it was getting closer to finals week and I had back to back presentations and essays due regardless of the long breaks we had for painting class.