♦ My Circus & other artwork ♢
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♦ My Circus & other artwork ♢
by Guest Mon Jun 28, 2010 12:51 pm
My last two years of highschool I took an AP art class. My concentration was the circus and I'd like to share my portfolio with you all. I will try to keep my explanations brief and will mostly talk about how the work was made rather than explain the meaning in too much detail. I'll leave it up to you guys to interpret them as you will.
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- Spoiler:
- This first is a large piece 36x24 and was made with different layers and media. The elephant was drawn and colored with oil pastels. The grass was made with regular, crayola wax crayons. The jester girl was drawn with colored pencils. And the sky and water was done in watercolors. I'm not sure if you can tell, but the sky is separate from the field and the girl. I cut out the field and the girl where she sticks up above the ground. Then on a separate piece of paper, I made the sky and then glued them both together so they overlapped.
larger piece
detail 1
detail 2
- Spoiler:
- These next two are a pair, fairly simple. They are drawn predominantly with permanent marker, but the faces are colored pencil and half of the girl's costume in shaded with colored pencil over the marker. The girl's name is Isadora and the monster's name is Vom Spiegel, which in German means, "From the mirror." The image I was trying to portray was an ethereal beauty, smiling serenely, then slowly the smile spreads and stretches across her face, pulling the features back to reveal a monster underneath. I used actress and model Milla Jovovich as a reference for the girl and the eyes of a lion for Vom Spiegel's eyes.
Isadora larger
detail Isadora
Vom Spiegel larger
detail Vom Spiegel
- Spoiler:
- This is done completely in oil pastels. I used a picture from a Cirque du Soleil ad as a reference.
larger piece
detal 1
detail 2
- Spoiler:
- Another of my layered pieces. The background with the floor and wall was done in oil pastels. Then, the pieces of mirror were done on a separate sheet of paper and pasted over. The hedgerow maze inside the mirror was done in oil pastels as well and the jester girl was done in crayola wax crayons. The top part of the mirror is tin foil glued on, to indicate the reflective surface. Then on a piece of fiber board, the girl was done in oil pastels and she was glued on over top so she over lapped. The piece of board I did her on was not big enough, so I did her shoe/foot separate from the rest of her. It wasn't glued on as well as the rest of her and got knocked off and lost. I think it's pretty self-explanatory.
larger piece
detail 1
- Spoiler:
- This is another one of my layered, multi-media pieces. The background with the line of animals starting with the zebra and back, including the crowd of people, was done in colored pencils. Then, the striped fabric was used to represent the tent curtain and was inserted behind the people in the background and placed over-top of half the picture to indicate a "backstage". Then, the bear and the elephant were drawn in oil pastels on pieces of fiber board and glued on top so they overlapped the background. This piece was a kind of experiment with an idea I had about circus animals. There are so many costumes in the circus and dressing up, that I thought the idea was neat that what if the lion with the lion tamer, as real as it is, roaring and swiping at him; or the horse rider doing vaults upon a galloping horse around the ring, muscles rippling in the animal's chest and legs. What if, once the act was over and they went backstage, they were really costumes and there were people inside? So, I tried to portray that with the elephant and the bear in the foreground; the people are lifting the skin of the elephant like a curtain and coming out, now that their part in the show is over.
larger piece
detail 1
- Spoiler:
- Another two Cirque du Soleil pieces. They don't go together other than the fact that I used Cirque du Soleil pictures as references.
This first is a layered and multi-media piece. The top half of the background is separate from the man and the ground and is done in chalk and charcoal. The ground and the man are one piece and were pasted on so they overlapped the back. His legs and the ground were done in oil pastels. His upper body, face and the bag sitting beside him were all done in colored pencils. This piece was to kind of show a realistic side to the circus performer. His mask is off and he's backstage messing with his video camera and listening to music on headphones. Backstage, he's become a real person again.
larger piece
This next one is also layered, but is done mostly in oil pastels. Each girl is cut out and separate from the background, and was pasted on to overlap a string and cardboard pieces to represent the trapeze they're hanging on.
larger piece
- Spoiler:
- Another layered, multi-media piece. Each of the three figures in this picture were done on separate pieces of paper, colored in colored pencils and then glued together so that they over-lapped. The foremost of them with the blue and purple costume is raised up higher than the others with pieces of cardboard on his back. The background was made by making stencils of each of the figures and using chalk to make outlines around them to mimic shadow and lights coming from different directions and shining on them.
larger piece
- Spoiler:
- This next one is another layered piece and was predominantly done in markers, with some colored pencils to shade their faces. The mother and the kitchen are all one piece. The father and the door are separate, glued on to over-lap. And the boy is done on fiber board. When I was younger, I use to think that when the circus show was over, the performers stayed in their costumes. It didn't occur to me until I was a bit older that they were real people underneath the grease make-up and sequins.
larger piece
- Spoiler:
- This next one is pretty simple. Just colored pencils. The words say, "I am without head." Some people said I should have made him juggle his head, but I thought that was really corny and cliche'. I wanted the head to be GONE. No trace of it and for him to be unconcerned about it as ever.
larger piece
- Spoiler:
- Here is the last piece of my portfolio and was the end of my concentration. Just a simple sketch done in regular No. 2 pencil. It's unfinished but does well enough on it's own. The original plan was I was going to cut him out and put a burning circus tent behind him. It seemed a fitting end to the whole thing, since in a lot of other media and stories I've read, fire seems to be a popular way for a circus tent to meet it's doom. In case you cannot tell, his face is mutilated with a Glasgow smile and he is a dwarf. It stems from something I read once that said in Medieval times, court jesters were often dwarves or people with deformities and mental disabilities and that the royalty who hired them would cut into their faces to give them permanent smiles. I'm not sure how true it is, but I was inspired.
larger piece
Last edited by TimeOfTheEye on Tue Jun 29, 2010 10:56 am; edited 1 time in total
Guest- Guest
Re: ♦ My Circus & other artwork ♢
by xraineyesx Tue Jun 29, 2010 8:27 am
You have a very interesting style. I've never seen anyone make art exactly the same way, and I think that's one of the most important aspects of artwork.
I like your portfolio. Do you do any other art?
I like your portfolio. Do you do any other art?
xraineyesx- Ghost
- Join date : 2010-06-12
Posts : 1633
Age : 33
Location : West Virginia
Re: ♦ My Circus & other artwork ♢
by Guest Tue Jun 29, 2010 10:47 am
Thank you so much! Yes, I do.
And finally, some miscellaneous pictures.
I also have some old pen and pencil doodles that I might upload later, but they're not as good and completed as the pieces I've posted already.
- Spoiler:
- My Junior year, I took Oceanography and often for projects and reports if we needed a visual aid of some kind, I'd often make my own. For these two pieces, we had to do two reports during the year on ANY sea animal that we wanted. Manatees seemed easy to do for the first and I had become fascinated with Cephalopods while watching a video about Octopuses in class.
This manatee is done in watercolor and is a small piece. About 16x10.
This next is a cuttlefish and the piece is the same size as the manatee. I learned a valuable lesson when making this: permanent markers and colored pencils do NOT mix well. I drew the whole creature in permanent marker and then wanted to add some highlights and shading to the rest of the picture. Well, as I started to color it with colored pencils, I realized it started to look weird; the marker popped out and seemed separate from the rest of it. I ended up going back over EVERY line of marker with the colored pencils to make it all work right.
- Spoiler:
- This piece was another from my regular portfolio for the same class. It is the very first picture I ever used the layering technique on and is also a mixture of different media in one piece. The background with the rolling hills and trees(and also the grass in the foreground) is one piece and it was colored with Crayola crayons. Then, I took a separate piece of paper and colored the sky in chalk. Cutting it down the middle in the bottom half, I then folded it like a curtain and glued it so it overlapped the first part. Then, finally, using a piece of cardboard and colored pencils, I made the man. Cutting into the grass of the foreground, I inserted his legs into the background piece while at the same time gluing him over top to overlap. I always imagined that this was something like the ending for the film, The Truman show(image link).
larger piece
detail 1
- Spoiler:
- And then I have some Teen Titans fan art. I use to be a really big fan of the cartoon show. XP
This first one is a layered piece. The background is two pieces put together; the top half was done in watercolors and the bottom was done in colored pencils. Then Slade and the couch are one piece and were placed overtop; done in markers. Robin is a separate piece, drawn in markers, and was placed overtop of the couch. And then finally, the panel on the left and the voice bubbles from the TV are separate and were glued on overtop as well.
This next is of one of my favorite characters, Jinx, using her powers. The original sketch I drew while in highschool and came back to it later when I was still really into the show. But it looked so much unlike her and I'd messed up the coloring the first time around, by hand, that I went back in the computer and redid the image almost completely. This was also colored completely with the computer.
And finally, a Robin and Raven kiss. Yes, I use to be a shipper.
This piece had suffered some damage due to a mold problem in storage, so it too was colored and half-redone in the computer.
And finally, some miscellaneous pictures.
- Spoiler:
- These two were requests by my husband for his DnD games. One is an NPC and the bottom one is his character.
This was drawn by hand and then colored with the computer. She is holding a rifle.
larger piece
And this was colored with markers.
larger piece
- spoiler: Mature: yaoi kiss:
- This was a request by a friend of my husband. Drawn by hand and then colored in the computer. Please, look at the larger piece to see the detail. I'm very proud of this piece.
larger piece
I also have some old pen and pencil doodles that I might upload later, but they're not as good and completed as the pieces I've posted already.
Guest- Guest
Re: ♦ My Circus & other artwork ♢
by xraineyesx Tue Jun 29, 2010 12:21 pm
I don't quite identify with all of it, but I can appreciate it as art. I am particularly impressed with the fox drawings, mostly because I have never colored anything in with markers and made it look that good.
These are very good. I'd love to see some more.
And doodles can be just as interesting, even if they aren't as intensely detailed and completed.
These are very good. I'd love to see some more.
And doodles can be just as interesting, even if they aren't as intensely detailed and completed.
xraineyesx- Ghost
- Join date : 2010-06-12
Posts : 1633
Age : 33
Location : West Virginia
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