Zack Hetlage's SCAD Art Blog

I had missed the day that we talked about this project, but I still feel like I got a good grasp on the idea. I made my design after watching a Jolly Rancher commercial and decided to work with a water theme. The only regret I have with this project, is that I didn’t incorporate my anomaly well through out the whole piece. It sat in one area the had a lot of contrast with the original blue.

From all my reading, I learned that the human eye works in a way that is similar to a camera. First, the light passes through your cornea, which acts kind of like a wide angle lens. It collects light from all around us, it it directs it at our pupils. Not all of the light makes it to the pupil though. The iris around the pupil act as an aperture and contracts and expands to allow more or less light in. In low light situations, the iris will expand to allow for more light to hit the pupil so everything isn’t to dark, and the opposite happens when in bright environments. Within the pupil, there are a series on lenses that spread out the light so it hit all parts of the retina, which is located on the inner lining of the eye. The retina acts as a sensor, where the light hits its surface and it determines the colors of the image. It completes this task with the help of cones and rods. These determine the color, based on the wavelength of the light, of a specific part of the image, almost like a pixel. From there, all of the information os sent to the brain, where it is processed and formed in to the image that we see.

Sources: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/color-perception.htm
http://www.firelily.com/opinions/color.html

The critique of my piece was not very effective. The person who had taken notes on my artwork was not present and his fellow group members had to make decisions on the spot. They were correct most of the time, but I feel like they didn’t cover a lot of the fine aspects of my work. All in all, I wish  had more closely followed the rules for value and I wish I would have mounted it better. As I mentioned in my last post, I had some difficulties with the paint, but I don’t believe that it reflected any negatives on my craftsmanship. I consider this project a success and I believe I executed most tasks correctly and I hope that my grade reflects it

The use of this paint kind of aggravated me. With to much water, it became to runny and would show the white of the paper. If not enough water was added, it was very rough on the paper and would drag my brush as opposed to letting it glide. Also the price of the paint was a factor on my work. I was afraid to use to much paint because I knew I would have to pay $75 to refill the already miniscule pack of paint. Other than the paint, the rest of the project came easy to me. Even though I messed up a few times when selecting colors, the ideas for the pieces came to me very fast, and I did not hesitate putting them down on paper. Over all, the project was time consuming but worth it. I learned how to make color combinations to make a successful piece.

My name is Zachary Hetlage. I usually go by Zack. I am from Atlanta, Georgia, and I am attending Scad to study Animation and Visual Effects. I chose SCAD after going across the country looking at colleges and finally deciding that SCAD was my favorite. My dream is to work for Pixar one day (like most animation students) and I believe that I am on the right path to achieve that goal. Back home, I played mostly tennis and spent my nights learn my way around Adobe Creative Suite programs and the occasional Autodesk software. I hope to have a fun time this quarter and hopefully it gets warmer, because 20 degrees is too cold!