1. First I had to think of ideas that my letter: B are associated with. For example, objects or things that starts with the letter "B" and then draw them out with the letter B in the middle. Next, I drew the associations either outside or inside of the letter.
After that, I had to pick the top 3 choices from the thumbnail sketches I drew, and then build off from it. So I asked my classmates to choose which ones they liked the best, which turns out to be:
a) Butterfly letter
b) B-heart shaped
c) Bird on tree
To determine my final sketch, I had to choose 2 of those top 3 which were the B-heart shape and the Bird on tree and made small drafts of them; then decide what concept does each of them hold and draw it based on that concept. However, the B-heart shaped one has no concept, so I had to draw a new idea.
As for my final, I choose the bird one because it has a concept and I put more effort in it than the other ones. To start my final, I first practice coloring my draft, to see which colors I would use. I had to google search what colors I should use for the bird, and choose the one that has the most color value, since I know for a fact that most of the colors I'm going to use are green and brown. Then I start my final. When I first color in the tree, I had trouble drawing the branches and the leaves, so I made some drafts to see which one technique is better.
After solving the tree problems, I colored the vines. Since the vines looked a bit plain, I added flowers to it so it can look more nature like. Then, I color the bird which was very hard because I had to go dark then light, then dark again, by using different blue. Then I drew the grass with color pencil, and added another green color to have more color value. When everything was colored, the 2 curved part had nothing in it. So I colored it in as an architecture or bricks, since they are found in nature anyways. My final step was deciding what to do for my background. First I decided to make it sunset. First I tried using color pencils and mixed orange and yellow together, then I used pastels. Color pencils were better, but I decide not to add a background since it takes away the main focus.
2. In order to draw letter B with a concept, I first had to think what are some things that are associated with it. For example, the bird one, the concept is nature (3rd photo). I had to think of things that are related to it. The first ting I thought of is bird, since it starts with letter "B" and it relates to nature. Then I thought of where do birds live, and that is where the tree came in. Then I branch off from tree to grass, and then to vines and flowers. As for the bee one (4th photo), again I first start off with the letter "B" and since "B" sounds like Bee, I started to think of ideas that are related to Bees. I then thought where do Bees live and they live in a honey comb, then where is the honey comb located at, which is on the tree. So the whole concept is Bee related.
3. The most challenging part of this project was the size. From the drafts to the final, the size of the letter is doubled. I wasn't sure if my "B" was big enough or if everything can fit in the paper. But everything was ok. Another challenge I had was making sure my colors are different. I don't want my whole letter to just have 2-3 colors. I want it to have a lot of different colors. This relates to my other challenge which was value. For example, the leaves on the tree, I don't want to have just one shade of green, I want to have variety of it. Making value with just one color is hard and takes time.
4. Overall, I am satisfied with my project. I had a lot of fun making it. Although some parts are frustrating however I had fun drawing the things I liked, like the tree, bird, and flowers. I like drawing nature related stuff, which made this very fun.
5. If I can change something about my project or do something differently, I would add a background, since the picture looks like it's in a middle of nowhere; which makes helps the viewer to focus on it, but it just looks a bit plain to me. But overall, everything is fine the way it is.
