Frog tongue

Frog tongue
1/24/14

Portraits

For this project, I decided to make a portrait of Ariel from The Little Mermaid out of yarn. I like Disney a lot so I thought it would be fun to make a portrait of her. I found a great portrait of Ariel online that I thought would be good to attempt to recreate:

First, I started by getting a giant cardboard and getting different colored balls of yarn: red, blue, white, black, and light tan. It took me a while to think of what materials could be used; I eventually decided on yarn because it comes in so many colors and I could use whatever size/color I want and place it wherever I needed. I could be pretty precise with the placement.
I sketched the outline of Ariel with pencil onto the posterboard using the picture online as reference. I made sure to include the fine details, such as the white highlights in her eyes and the lines in her hair so that later I could add them and see where exactly they go, so I don't have to guess. I outlined her hair first, then started to fill in her lower body. The last thing I did was filling in her face, after the eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth. I used scissors to cut the yarn, Elmer's glue to keep them in place, and a dull edge to push the yarn into an exact placement.
A risk I took with this project is adding the contour lines to her face. Since Ariel is 2D, she does not have any contour lines. It would look strange if I had all the yarn in her face running in one direction, so I added contour lines where they would naturally be. I also took a risk by adding a bright blue background, because Mr. Sands told me I could not use a white background. I thought it might take away from Ariel but I did continuous loops of blue and added in blue and white swirlies. 
I think the materials add to the look of the project because you can really tell who it is by looking at it, if you've seen the movie. Maybe even if you haven't. Since the yarn was overall pretty easy to work with, it took a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery long time to do. Some of the yarn, mainly on the smaller parts of the face, took a while to try, and if I tried to work around it while it was still not dry, it would move, so I would have to wait until it dried. The materials did not really relate to Ariel in any way.

What's the Point?

1) I had other solutions for What's the Point besides a lion. I thought of drawing things such as a rose with thorns, a treasure map with an X, a pineapple, and more. I was literal with the concept.
2) The solution I chose was a lion bearing his teeth which was the idea behind the What's the Point theme - since the teeth are sharp and pointy, it works as a solution.
3) I showed contrast in my work by being extremely dark in some places (like the mouth and nose) and light in some areas (middle of the face, teeth, etc.) I also had different shading with the mane - it isn't all just one shade.
4) The medium I chose was charcoal; it is easier than other mediums to shade and create contrast.
5) The techniques I used were shading with different charcoal pencils; medium, soft, and extra soft. Once I had a basic shape drawn, I shaded and blended out a lot. Blending was the main technique used.
6) The risk I took with this was making the mouth almost completely black; I could have shaded it lighter, but I thought doing it all black would add better contrast.
7) The message I am conveying with this picture is being literal with the concept.