#elective course

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Memento mori

Now we are in the last days of spooky month, and here in Mexico we are getting ready for Dia de Muertos, a time for remembrance for our ancestors that have left this world; but also a time for reflection about our own mortality and our conceptions about death.

We believe that during November 1st and 2nd the souls of the deceased return to our physical world and came to visit. So we make "altares" for them with flowers of Cempasúchil and candles to light and guide them, salt and incense to keep away the evil, their favorite foods and beverages to relieve them from their journey, skulls made from sugar, chocolate of amaranto as a memento mori, and the Pan de Muerto, a sweet bread with orange flavor, as a christian element of remembrance of Eucharist.

Although it's widely believed that Dia de Muertos has prehispanic roots, it's probably that the modern celebration was created recently, integrating elements from christianity and prehispanic cosmology.

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Sixth Assignment: Plants/Leaves

My first painting! All the previous exercises were just to learn the basic of watercolor. Now we made our very first painting: plants. I decided to paint maple leaves because fall just started two weeks ago. In Mexico City the change between seasons isn't that noticeable: we basically have a dry season and a rainy season. Now we are moving to a dry season, the temperature starts to drop tho.

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Fifth assignment: basic technique and textures

As you can see: I failed a little bit. First image is basic techniques: First a solid wash of color, then we learn about transparency and what happens when you paint over another color, then we made a transition between two different colors, a gradient, wet on wet and wet on dry sprayed with water.

Second image is textures: first with salt, with alcohol, with a dry brush, with a sea sponge, with plastic film and with bubble wrap.

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Forth assignment: Colorful Roosters!

Once again, we tested how the pigments on our paints interact with each other. It was also a exercise to gave us confidence with the brush, but I still failed. Some of them doesn't look like roosters

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Third assignment: color wheel

A basic exercise to understand the basics of color theory. I used Phthalo Blue, Crimson Red and Medium Yellow as my primary colors. As you know mixing this colors you can get almost every color.

Below the wheel we mixed complementary colors to get unsaturated shades that can make our paintings more interesting

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Second assignment: washes

The purpose of this exercise was to test our paints and know what colors we have. I struggled a lot to get a decent graded wash, and with some colors I failed miserably.

I use a cheap tube watercolor set and it seems that they are not very pigmented, and I found they are a bit chalky. They're still fine if you are just starting, I guess, but I'm thinking about buying a better set.

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

First assignment

Again, we were asked to draw a still life, this time with a real life reference: a bunch of pears. And now I made a more traditional thing. The professor was really kind and helped me during the process.

The main reason we did this exercise for a watercolor course was because the have similarities: we build volume starting from light to dark.

[a-pup-pretending-to-be-an-artist]

Diagnostic assessment.

The very first day of my elective course I arrived almost an hour late, so I miss the professor's presentation and the talk about the materials we were going to use during the semester.

We were asked to take a diagnostic assessment to check our skills: a still life using a photo as reference. For some reason I can explain, I decide to take a different approach to grayscale using cross hatch. The result was... interesting. I'm satisfied with how I drew the fruits, but the leaves doesn't make any sense.