Looking at your portfolio as a whole I feel that you have a good sense of aesthetic composition. Particularly with the perspectives piece, the seated figure drawing, and the nature inspired piece. Also, I really enjoyed your work using ink and wax. The texture created using this technique is really interesting. The red matting was a great choice. It really accentuated the black and white contrasts of your pieces. With the charcoal figure drawings it might help with proportions if you use the head as the main measuring unit for the rest of the body. If you want to capture the figures with more attention to shading, especially when using ink, I would suggest start your sketching using the mid-tones, rather than staring out with the darkest shade. Then you can build up to the darkest, which should allow you more leeway to later determine where the definite points of your darkest darks should be.
I think your portfolio is very unique from everyone else's for a number of reasons. I think the red paper give it an element of shock that draws the audience's eyes right to your work, while enhancing your work rather than taking away from it. Also, the way you matted your material with different shapes rather than just squares and rectangles adds a lot of character to the work itself and gives shows your personal style better. I am also impressed with the variety of medias you used. You did a great job using pencil, charcoal, and ink somewhat equally. something you might want to work on is shading. i would maybe shade darker in some works to create more of a three dimensional piece, for example your human body drawing and you're building drawing. Also, you might add more abstract to your work, since the majority of it is still life. Lastly, you might be more cautious in the future about proportions on the human body. In some portraits her torso appears to be too long or her legs are too long. Great job though!! -Ashley
Firstly I’d like to say that I just love the red frames. They add so much to your portfolio. I really like how varied all of your work is and how you tried different things and techniques. I think the drawing of the bookstore is fantastic. When I saw it, immediately knew where it was and where you were sitting. I also enjoy the composition and angles of this piece. The bookstore almost seems suspended in air. I am also very drawn to your branches piece. I think the presentation of the piece is superb and it really makes it stand out from all your other pieces in the portfolio. I also enjoyed your still life, the lines were a bit harsh I think, but they work really well with the piece and with your style. My main criticism for you would be to try to use softer lines. I also think some of your pieces could use some more detailed shading. I feel like mos of your shading comes in the form of very dark lines made with different materials (white charcoal, eraser) I think they just need to be blended some more. Particularly when you want to be more realistic, like with the figure drawing. Keep up the good work!
I like the way you chose to present some of the work with the over mat windows. I especially like the asymmetrical one with the figure. A little unsure about the red because it is so striking that I think it detracts from your drawing, but I don't believe it's entirely a deal breaker. I am drawn to the drip drawing. It's so simple yet so complex at the same time. I keep trying to find something in it. It's very fun. I also really enjoyed two drawing that aren't shown on the blog. They were the other two ink drawings in which you used the wax to render an image then put ink on top of the paper to reveal the image. They were really fun to look at and very different from anything else put up by everyone else. I am struggling to really find a criticism. I guess I would say to just be careful when choosing the color of your mat board. Try to make sure that the way you present the work meshes with the content you want to display instead of becoming the content itself. Good work this term.
You did every well exploring varying mediums and varying contexts. Your work displays many different subject manners, which are all treated with a particular approach and delicacy.
I truly enjoy your architectural reiteration of the Duck Store. This image is very clean and accurate. I love the lack there of people and the solitude feel of the image, because this only happens on rare occasion, even during breaks people are around.
Equally, i really enjoyed the manner in which you worked with the model. your images have a style to them that express simplicity but also delicacy. i love the way you utilized the white chalk with the charcoal and create depth and space in this manner.
Furthermore, I do enjoy the bright red matting, but i feel like it might be too much. I think maybe a softer red that plays with the other colors of you images may be more beneficial or even if you made them all red there would be a unification of the whole.
In addition to that I think you did really well with utilizing detail and the lack of it in varying ways, but i would love to see some more variation in framing and cropping. i think that the images of the figure that were quick sketches could be even more interesting if separated and or cropped at varying angles.
All in all your work was very interesting and intriguing this term!
Rafael, Good use of variety! It's obvious that you really experimented with all of the mediums this term and really dove head first into this class. I really like the detail of your buildings, but I also like the very simple, gestural nature of some of your figure drawings. I also really like the composition and presentation of the pieces. The red is super different than anyone else's matting and it adds to the memorableness (that's not a word...but that's okay) of your portfolio. Some critiques would be to use more darks and lights in your work. I think that paying attention to the subtleties of light and dark would add a lot. Also pay attention to the thickness of lines and the contours of the shapes that your making when you draw. This would bring things like the figures out into the space of where you are placing them. Overall I really have enjoyed your work!
I love your perspective of the Duck Store. It is my favorite architecture drawing from this class. It is very realistic and accurate- yet slightly cartooning, making it extremely interesting. Great job. Your earlier pieces could use more detail and variation. You began incorporating more of your individual style as the class progressed-- it seems that you became more confident in your work. You are great with ink. You should try out acrylics, I think you could do some lovely work with paints. I think your biggest struggle is in figure drawing. You could benefit from a few more life-like figure drawing sessions to work on accuracy. The drawings themselves are great, but I would like to see you focus on detail of the human body.
One thing that really stands out to me in most of your work is highlighting. I think you worked with this very well. I really like your nature piece as well as the laying figure and the robot story for this reason. You created a lot of depth in you nature piece with different tones and mediums. I like you use of the different media in the different figure drawings. I think the charcoal worked really well for the movement piece. The composition turned out really interesting and I like the way you followed the lines. It's very flowy and energetic. I would suggest in the longer poses trying to capture the shape of the body and musculature more with subtle shading rather than line. You use dark, thick lines which I think you could try smudging more with the curves of the body. You could try an experiment: almost "feeling" it by not looking at your paper and just following along the body with your eyes, really noting all the highlights and shadows and shapes of muscles and bones, and see what happens! I really like your ink figure drawing, you make good use of the medium to create depth. I like the light, subtle shapes in the background. It really reminds me of some artist, the way you shape the body and capture the pattern of the dress, but I can't seem to think of the name. I would suggest bringing the background ideas you have in this piece into some of your other pieces, like the robot story. It could add a lot of depth. I don't see a lot of pencil in your portfolio, is it not your favorite? I like the composition of the still life; the angle and perspective is really interesting. I think you could work more with the different values of pencils to create more depth, interest and focus without much more work. I really love the shadows you have going on and I think you could emphasize that even more. Overall, REALLY creative! You have a lot of unique ideas that are different from anything anyone else did. I really love the red window mats and their different sizes and shapes. I think the matting you used for the nature piece is really good, too. It matches the piece well and makes it look professional. Very good and very creative!
It seems like you experimented more than other people, with different medias and paper. The ink drawings on the more laminated paper are very original. They almost seem like drawings on a white board, but they are much more detailed. I also think it is cool how you managed to find and form different shades of ink of such a difficult paper. One of the pieces that confused me a little was your series drawings. Though I like the figures, I am confused as to what they are and what they are doing. The two separate figures confuse me as to whether they are the same being or different figures interacting with one another. The drawing on the bottom left makes me believe that the two figures are observing each other from windows or frames of some sort. I do really like the movements of the figures; the stick figure looks care free and loose, while the other figure looks stronger and more mechanical. I like the use of two different medias in the branch drawing. The pencil makes the branches look soft, and the ink adds a little intensity over it. I just think that if the pencil was more shaded in, the ink wouldn’t stand out quite as much. Nicky
Rafael I really enjoy the presentation of you work. The red backing is eye catching and cool. I also really enjoy the branch drawing’s presentation I think that it is very creative and fun, it also goes very well with the picture its self. I also really like the drawing of the duck store. It seems very professional. I really like that you showed many sides to your art, and not many of your pieces are the same. You also show that you can use all mediums we worked with in class. Some things that I see in your drawings are that, specifically in the figure drawings, some of your proportions are off. Also I feel that some of your lines are a bit messy. I feel as though I can see which drawings you really took your time on and which ones you may have possibly rushed a bit on. Other then these small things great gob!
I enjoy that you went to the point of adding color to your matting as a way to really grab the attention of a the viewer and force one to look in at the piece. Many may say that it is distracting but I find it to help my focus. Overall very rounded in every medium used, you figured out a way to use each one to your advantage and make different works with different. For example the ink with the robot scratched out as the subject was grand and I would never have thought to do that with the ink. If you used ink and charcoal for the tree branches then that is amazing compositionaly, and if it is all charcoal then I take my hat off to you. I would work more on the figure drawing aspect and making heads fit the bodies of the subject much more proportionately. I also want to see more figure drawing as well, but it seems as if you just hung up interesting quick sketches, and sold yourself short on your final works by not displaying them. I really enjoyed the perspective of the Duck Store but want it to stand out more, so I would suggest using a much darker outlining.
I really enjoyed looking at your work throughout the term. Your style is very unique and I like it a lot. It’s almost a playful style and you make strokes without really thinking about it and it works out perfectly. Your red matting used really drew my attention to it because nobody else in the class did anything like that. I really enjoyed your drawing of the tree and the different shading that you used throughout it. Also there is a lot of detail within the different branches, which attracted me to the picture initially. I also really enjoyed your storyboard because it showed your skill and consistency with charcoal. Overall throughout the term your work has been very impressive and it was a pleasure looking at your drawings throughout the term. Good work.
I liked all of your work but I think my favorite was either your picture of the Duck Store or the one where you just splattered ink. It is pretty unique. Your tree or branch is really nice too. I like how it’s not too dark and not too light. You shaded really well. It looks like there is snow on the branches. That actually might be my favorite. Your comic drawings with the charcoal was good too because it is easy to follow. It is pretty simple and that makes the person look at it imagine what else might be there in there in the scene. I think if you had used darker shades though, it would have looked even better. The Duck Store was good because it looks so realistic. The choice of not drawing the surroundings was a good choice I think because it didn’t take away from your main focus which was the store.
What I can tell you struggled most on is the human drawings. I think if you just practice more of getting the proportions down it will look much better. I liked the one on the tan paper with the white though. The girl might not look that realistic but the white was a good touch. Colby
First of all, I really like how you presented your work. You added a lot of color to drawings that were only black and white and I thought that was a great idea. Especially with the figure drawing with the red trimming made it pop out more.
One of my favorite drawings of yours is the branch with the dark background. I like your use of shading as well as how you integrated Black India Ink in it. I also really like how you matted this one as well. Great idea.
About your figure drawings, I really like how I can see how your hand flowed and was not worried about making mistakes. I can really tell that with your quick sketches. With my quick sketches you could not tell what they were, but with yours that you presented they are kind of ghost like. They are not fully there but there is still life there.
My favorite piece of yours is of the one of the Duck Store on 13th. It is so crisp and clean and I like it because it stands out from all of your other work. I can tell that you spent time on this one and were careful not to make mistakes. Seems like you really stepped out of your comfort zone for this one. Awesome job, Rafael.
What catches my attention the most out of these works is your experimentation with figure drawing. I salute you for using ink for clothed figure piece because it allows little to no room for error. But you pulled it off very well using different shades and line values making the piece stand out. The vertical figure outline uses few lines but still manages to come across strong and whole. Your use of matting and presentation also adds to these pieces. My favorite in this collection is the figure drawing of the model laying on her side where you incorporated the chalk. I love how the lines effortlessly flow to create her body and the chalk perfectly balances everything, its beautiful. I must also note how impressed i am with the way your figure in motion sketches turned out, very cool.
What i would like to see in your pieces is more extreme shading and contrast. As well as maybe some pieces purely from your imagination to contrast the realism you are already good at.
I’m really drawn to your figure drawings. Although they are not detailed, and are very quick in nature you capture the movement very well. They may be rough but you can clearly see the intent behind them. I enjoy the mirroring of the smaller figure laying down and its reflection of the larger size that is outlined in white. You took a simply figure and enhanced it very easily into a more complete and telling composition. The series of moving figures is beautiful, the lines and flow and the way they mold into one another is delightful. Your ability to create that, and then the perspective of the Duck Store is a great variety. The ink splatter piece is a nice addition, I’m not sure how but it manages to tie the abstract to the more realist works. I also really appreciate the angled framing of the braches and how it ties to the composition. It creates a very professional finished work. I love red but I have to say that I found it distracting. Compared to the other pieces you display, it stands out too much for me. It takes away from the content of the other works, my eye is just so distracted by the boldness of the color. I love your creativity and freedom of line. Nice job!
Rafael- Throughout your portfolio you have good presentation and chose interesting compositions. The patter drawing has great interaction with the border and a clean quality that makes for a finished, professional appearance. Using the same texture in the background as the shifted layer of the border really unifies the drawing with its border. I also really enjoyed the composition of your duck store drawing. It captures the essence of the landscape quite well and has a great sense of perspective. The one thing I would suggest would be to continue the drawing all the way to the edges. It looks a bit odd how to the right of the tree is completely blank; maybe fading some lines to the edge would help to finish the composition. Another one I really liked was the model pose where you used white conte on top of the black charcoal; it really helps to accent the shading and value contrast of the drawing. I would like to have seen this one cropped and mounted on a border, to make it look more like a finished drawing than just a sketch. Otherwise, you really experimented with the materials and different methods of displaying your work, which adds diversity to your portfolio.
First, I want to comment on how I love that you used red matting! This really stood out to me during critique and I think it works really well contrasted to the black white and mid-tones and made those images pop out to me. I really like your perspective and the angles you used in the drawing of the duck store. You did a really good job with creating accurate angles and I also like how you shaded this piece. I like how it’s not all blended, I think that added some texture and character to the piece. I really like that you used wax and your eraser to create s sort of “negative” look in your drawing of the trees and the abstract black with white overtone piece. Also, I really like how you framed the trees piece. Its’ very creative and compliments the piece very well! For a critique I think you would benefit from working to create more accurate proportions in the figure drawings. While I think you capture shape very well in your figure drawings I appears that some of the proportions look off, this may have been done on purpose because in some of them you seem to get it right but in others I think you could have gotten better proportions which would add to the effect of your drawings. Also I think in your storyboard piece you would have benefited by having more contrast with darks and lights. By doing this I think the figure would stand out more rather than kind of blend in with the background. Overall I love your use of framing, the shapes and curves of your lines, the use of multiple mediums in your pieces (I especially like how you highlighted one of your figure drawings with white, it looks awesome!) and how you created both abstract pieces and realistic/accurate pieces. I really enjoy your work and I think it really stands out because of the way you presented your pieces and made them a little different from the norm. Good job, very creative!
Looking at your portfolio as a whole I feel that you have a good sense of aesthetic composition. Particularly with the perspectives piece, the seated figure drawing, and the nature inspired piece. Also, I really enjoyed your work using ink and wax. The texture created using this technique is really interesting. The red matting was a great choice. It really accentuated the black and white contrasts of your pieces. With the charcoal figure drawings it might help with proportions if you use the head as the main measuring unit for the rest of the body. If you want to capture the figures with more attention to shading, especially when using ink, I would suggest start your sketching using the mid-tones, rather than staring out with the darkest shade. Then you can build up to the darkest, which should allow you more leeway to later determine where the definite points of your darkest darks should be.
ReplyDeleteI think your portfolio is very unique from everyone else's for a number of reasons. I think the red paper give it an element of shock that draws the audience's eyes right to your work, while enhancing your work rather than taking away from it. Also, the way you matted your material with different shapes rather than just squares and rectangles adds a lot of character to the work itself and gives shows your personal style better. I am also impressed with the variety of medias you used. You did a great job using pencil, charcoal, and ink somewhat equally. something you might want to work on is shading. i would maybe shade darker in some works to create more of a three dimensional piece, for example your human body drawing and you're building drawing. Also, you might add more abstract to your work, since the majority of it is still life. Lastly, you might be more cautious in the future about proportions on the human body. In some portraits her torso appears to be too long or her legs are too long. Great job though!!
ReplyDelete-Ashley
Firstly I’d like to say that I just love the red frames. They add so much to your portfolio. I really like how varied all of your work is and how you tried different things and techniques. I think the drawing of the bookstore is fantastic. When I saw it, immediately knew where it was and where you were sitting. I also enjoy the composition and angles of this piece. The bookstore almost seems suspended in air. I am also very drawn to your branches piece. I think the presentation of the piece is superb and it really makes it stand out from all your other pieces in the portfolio. I also enjoyed your still life, the lines were a bit harsh I think, but they work really well with the piece and with your style. My main criticism for you would be to try to use softer lines. I also think some of your pieces could use some more detailed shading. I feel like mos of your shading comes in the form of very dark lines made with different materials (white charcoal, eraser) I think they just need to be blended some more. Particularly when you want to be more realistic, like with the figure drawing. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDelete-Valeria
I like the way you chose to present some of the work with the over mat windows. I especially like the asymmetrical one with the figure. A little unsure about the red because it is so striking that I think it detracts from your drawing, but I don't believe it's entirely a deal breaker. I am drawn to the drip drawing. It's so simple yet so complex at the same time. I keep trying to find something in it. It's very fun. I also really enjoyed two drawing that aren't shown on the blog. They were the other two ink drawings in which you used the wax to render an image then put ink on top of the paper to reveal the image. They were really fun to look at and very different from anything else put up by everyone else. I am struggling to really find a criticism. I guess I would say to just be careful when choosing the color of your mat board. Try to make sure that the way you present the work meshes with the content you want to display instead of becoming the content itself. Good work this term.
ReplyDeleteRafael,
ReplyDeleteYou did every well exploring varying mediums and varying contexts. Your work displays many different subject manners, which are all treated with a particular approach and delicacy.
I truly enjoy your architectural reiteration of the Duck Store. This image is very clean and accurate. I love the lack there of people and the solitude feel of the image, because this only happens on rare occasion, even during breaks people are around.
Equally, i really enjoyed the manner in which you worked with the model. your images have a style to them that express simplicity but also delicacy. i love the way you utilized the white chalk with the charcoal and create depth and space in this manner.
Furthermore, I do enjoy the bright red matting, but i feel like it might be too much. I think maybe a softer red that plays with the other colors of you images may be more beneficial or even if you made them all red there would be a unification of the whole.
In addition to that I think you did really well with utilizing detail and the lack of it in varying ways, but i would love to see some more variation in framing and cropping. i think that the images of the figure that were quick sketches could be even more interesting if separated and or cropped at varying angles.
All in all your work was very interesting and intriguing this term!
Jasmine
Rafael,
ReplyDeleteGood use of variety! It's obvious that you really experimented with all of the mediums this term and really dove head first into this class. I really like the detail of your buildings, but I also like the very simple, gestural nature of some of your figure drawings. I also really like the composition and presentation of the pieces. The red is super different than anyone else's matting and it adds to the memorableness (that's not a word...but that's okay) of your portfolio.
Some critiques would be to use more darks and lights in your work. I think that paying attention to the subtleties of light and dark would add a lot. Also pay attention to the thickness of lines and the contours of the shapes that your making when you draw. This would bring things like the figures out into the space of where you are placing them.
Overall I really have enjoyed your work!
-Joanna Dahl
Rafael,
ReplyDeleteI love your perspective of the Duck Store. It is my favorite architecture drawing from this class. It is very realistic and accurate- yet slightly cartooning, making it extremely interesting. Great job. Your earlier pieces could use more detail and variation. You began incorporating more of your individual style as the class progressed-- it seems that you became more confident in your work. You are great with ink. You should try out acrylics, I think you could do some lovely work with paints. I think your biggest struggle is in figure drawing. You could benefit from a few more life-like figure drawing sessions to work on accuracy. The drawings themselves are great, but I would like to see you focus on detail of the human body.
Great work man.
-Becca
One thing that really stands out to me in most of your work is highlighting. I think you worked with this very well. I really like your nature piece as well as the laying figure and the robot story for this reason. You created a lot of depth in you nature piece with different tones and mediums.
ReplyDeleteI like you use of the different media in the different figure drawings. I think the charcoal worked really well for the movement piece. The composition turned out really interesting and I like the way you followed the lines. It's very flowy and energetic. I would suggest in the longer poses trying to capture the shape of the body and musculature more with subtle shading rather than line. You use dark, thick lines which I think you could try smudging more with the curves of the body. You could try an experiment: almost "feeling" it by not looking at your paper and just following along the body with your eyes, really noting all the highlights and shadows and shapes of muscles and bones, and see what happens!
I really like your ink figure drawing, you make good use of the medium to create depth. I like the light, subtle shapes in the background. It really reminds me of some artist, the way you shape the body and capture the pattern of the dress, but I can't seem to think of the name. I would suggest bringing the background ideas you have in this piece into some of your other pieces, like the robot story. It could add a lot of depth.
I don't see a lot of pencil in your portfolio, is it not your favorite? I like the composition of the still life; the angle and perspective is really interesting. I think you could work more with the different values of pencils to create more depth, interest and focus without much more work. I really love the shadows you have going on and I think you could emphasize that even more.
Overall, REALLY creative! You have a lot of unique ideas that are different from anything anyone else did. I really love the red window mats and their different sizes and shapes. I think the matting you used for the nature piece is really good, too. It matches the piece well and makes it look professional. Very good and very creative!
It seems like you experimented more than other people, with different medias and paper. The ink drawings on the more laminated paper are very original. They almost seem like drawings on a white board, but they are much more detailed. I also think it is cool how you managed to find and form different shades of ink of such a difficult paper. One of the pieces that confused me a little was your series drawings. Though I like the figures, I am confused as to what they are and what they are doing. The two separate figures confuse me as to whether they are the same being or different figures interacting with one another. The drawing on the bottom left makes me believe that the two figures are observing each other from windows or frames of some sort. I do really like the movements of the figures; the stick figure looks care free and loose, while the other figure looks stronger and more mechanical. I like the use of two different medias in the branch drawing. The pencil makes the branches look soft, and the ink adds a little intensity over it. I just think that if the pencil was more shaded in, the ink wouldn’t stand out quite as much.
ReplyDeleteNicky
Rafael
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the presentation of you work. The red backing is eye catching and cool. I also really enjoy the branch drawing’s presentation I think that it is very creative and fun, it also goes very well with the picture its self. I also really like the drawing of the duck store. It seems very professional. I really like that you showed many sides to your art, and not many of your pieces are the same. You also show that you can use all mediums we worked with in class. Some things that I see in your drawings are that, specifically in the figure drawings, some of your proportions are off. Also I feel that some of your lines are a bit messy. I feel as though I can see which drawings you really took your time on and which ones you may have possibly rushed a bit on. Other then these small things great gob!
I enjoy that you went to the point of adding color to your matting as a way to really grab the attention of a the viewer and force one to look in at the piece. Many may say that it is distracting but I find it to help my focus. Overall very rounded in every medium used, you figured out a way to use each one to your advantage and make different works with different. For example the ink with the robot scratched out as the subject was grand and I would never have thought to do that with the ink. If you used ink and charcoal for the tree branches then that is amazing compositionaly, and if it is all charcoal then I take my hat off to you.
ReplyDeleteI would work more on the figure drawing aspect and making heads fit the bodies of the subject much more proportionately. I also want to see more figure drawing as well, but it seems as if you just hung up interesting quick sketches, and sold yourself short on your final works by not displaying them. I really enjoyed the perspective of the Duck Store but want it to stand out more, so I would suggest using a much darker outlining.
I really enjoyed looking at your work throughout the term. Your style is very unique and I like it a lot. It’s almost a playful style and you make strokes without really thinking about it and it works out perfectly. Your red matting used really drew my attention to it because nobody else in the class did anything like that. I really enjoyed your drawing of the tree and the different shading that you used throughout it. Also there is a lot of detail within the different branches, which attracted me to the picture initially. I also really enjoyed your storyboard because it showed your skill and consistency with charcoal. Overall throughout the term your work has been very impressive and it was a pleasure looking at your drawings throughout the term. Good work.
ReplyDeleteI liked all of your work but I think my favorite was either your picture of the Duck Store or the one where you just splattered ink. It is pretty unique. Your tree or branch is really nice too. I like how it’s not too dark and not too light. You shaded really well. It looks like there is snow on the branches. That actually might be my favorite. Your comic drawings with the charcoal was good too because it is easy to follow. It is pretty simple and that makes the person look at it imagine what else might be there in there in the scene. I think if you had used darker shades though, it would have looked even better. The Duck Store was good because it looks so realistic. The choice of not drawing the surroundings was a good choice I think because it didn’t take away from your main focus which was the store.
ReplyDeleteWhat I can tell you struggled most on is the human drawings. I think if you just practice more of getting the proportions down it will look much better. I liked the one on the tan paper with the white though. The girl might not look that realistic but the white was a good touch.
Colby
First of all, I really like how you presented your work. You added a lot of color to drawings that were only black and white and I thought that was a great idea. Especially with the figure drawing with the red trimming made it pop out more.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite drawings of yours is the branch with the dark background. I like your use of shading as well as how you integrated Black India Ink in it. I also really like how you matted this one as well. Great idea.
About your figure drawings, I really like how I can see how your hand flowed and was not worried about making mistakes. I can really tell that with your quick sketches. With my quick sketches you could not tell what they were, but with yours that you presented they are kind of ghost like. They are not fully there but there is still life there.
My favorite piece of yours is of the one of the Duck Store on 13th. It is so crisp and clean and I like it because it stands out from all of your other work. I can tell that you spent time on this one and were careful not to make mistakes. Seems like you really stepped out of your comfort zone for this one. Awesome job, Rafael.
What catches my attention the most out of these works is your experimentation with figure drawing. I salute you for using ink for clothed figure piece because it allows little to no room for error. But you pulled it off very well using different shades and line values making the piece stand out. The vertical figure outline uses few lines but still manages to come across strong and whole. Your use of matting and presentation also adds to these pieces. My favorite in this collection is the figure drawing of the model laying on her side where you incorporated the chalk. I love how the lines effortlessly flow to create her body and the chalk perfectly balances everything, its beautiful. I must also note how impressed i am with the way your figure in motion sketches turned out, very cool.
ReplyDeleteWhat i would like to see in your pieces is more extreme shading and contrast. As well as maybe some pieces purely from your imagination to contrast the realism you are already good at.
I’m really drawn to your figure drawings. Although they are not detailed, and are very quick in nature you capture the movement very well. They may be rough but you can clearly see the intent behind them. I enjoy the mirroring of the smaller figure laying down and its reflection of the larger size that is outlined in white. You took a simply figure and enhanced it very easily into a more complete and telling composition. The series of moving figures is beautiful, the lines and flow and the way they mold into one another is delightful. Your ability to create that, and then the perspective of the Duck Store is a great variety. The ink splatter piece is a nice addition, I’m not sure how but it manages to tie the abstract to the more realist works. I also really appreciate the angled framing of the braches and how it ties to the composition. It creates a very professional finished work. I love red but I have to say that I found it distracting. Compared to the other pieces you display, it stands out too much for me. It takes away from the content of the other works, my eye is just so distracted by the boldness of the color. I love your creativity and freedom of line. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteRafael- Throughout your portfolio you have good presentation and chose interesting compositions. The patter drawing has great interaction with the border and a clean quality that makes for a finished, professional appearance. Using the same texture in the background as the shifted layer of the border really unifies the drawing with its border. I also really enjoyed the composition of your duck store drawing. It captures the essence of the landscape quite well and has a great sense of perspective. The one thing I would suggest would be to continue the drawing all the way to the edges. It looks a bit odd how to the right of the tree is completely blank; maybe fading some lines to the edge would help to finish the composition. Another one I really liked was the model pose where you used white conte on top of the black charcoal; it really helps to accent the shading and value contrast of the drawing. I would like to have seen this one cropped and mounted on a border, to make it look more like a finished drawing than just a sketch. Otherwise, you really experimented with the materials and different methods of displaying your work, which adds diversity to your portfolio.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I want to comment on how I love that you used red matting! This really stood out to me during critique and I think it works really well contrasted to the black white and mid-tones and made those images pop out to me. I really like your perspective and the angles you used in the drawing of the duck store. You did a really good job with creating accurate angles and I also like how you shaded this piece. I like how it’s not all blended, I think that added some texture and character to the piece. I really like that you used wax and your eraser to create s sort of “negative” look in your drawing of the trees and the abstract black with white overtone piece. Also, I really like how you framed the trees piece. Its’ very creative and compliments the piece very well! For a critique I think you would benefit from working to create more accurate proportions in the figure drawings. While I think you capture shape very well in your figure drawings I appears that some of the proportions look off, this may have been done on purpose because in some of them you seem to get it right but in others I think you could have gotten better proportions which would add to the effect of your drawings. Also I think in your storyboard piece you would have benefited by having more contrast with darks and lights. By doing this I think the figure would stand out more rather than kind of blend in with the background. Overall I love your use of framing, the shapes and curves of your lines, the use of multiple mediums in your pieces (I especially like how you highlighted one of your figure drawings with white, it looks awesome!) and how you created both abstract pieces and realistic/accurate pieces. I really enjoy your work and I think it really stands out because of the way you presented your pieces and made them a little different from the norm. Good job, very creative!
ReplyDeleteClaire