Writeup unit 2 (Cubism)

Investigation:
In the first and part of the second lesson we sketched still life in various ways, dividing the sketching paper into pieces using a ruler and pencil. We then sketched the still life - A guitar, two flowers, a small vase, a box, and a spray bottle, all set up in front of a cork board. The first times we practiced without dividing the paper, including trying without looking at the paper, before we divided it.
We also watched a slideshow about cubism, as well as part of a movie/video about Pablo Picasso, which explained cubism further.

Creation:
I started out by sketching how many pieces there should be, trying to make it look like broken glass or glass shards. I then started drawing inside one of the shards, moving about each time I started on a new shard, thus making the picture very fractured, as if something or someone had broken it.
After that I started coloring and shading it, making most of the items within the shards start out black on the edges, lightening towards the center. An exception to this was the flower on the guitar, the flower being colored completely white against the much darker guitar, to show its "purity".
On the second pie, which I lost halfway through, meaning I had to start afresh, I tried to show contrast. The piece wasn't a pure cubist painting, and the current result was far narrower than I would have liked. It showed six different weapons of three different types (Daggers, arrows, and axes), all of it being depicted on a piece of armor.
I tried to make them "clash" in a way. The top plate shows the very angular, very controlled, golden Dwemer dagger to the right, as compared to the more "fluid" and avian style silvery Elf dagger to the left. In the middle plate there are the very basic, crude, cruel, and rough Falmer arrow, with its tousled flight feathers and spiky, choppy head on the right side, next to the very fine glass arrow, with its smooth feathers and design, and the head being made of glass and gold, instead of the black chitin from the Chaurus, a creature held by the Falmer. On the bottom plate there is the black, spiky war axe of the Daedra, with the red veins spreading out on the handle and blade, as well as being a single piece instead of two, the way the steel war axe to the left is, made very obviously human, from the simple wooden handle to the fine, engraved side of the blade, to the sharp, fine edge, slightly differently colored from the rest of the blade, all of it, in the end, standing against the very tribal, green armor of the orcs.

Evaluation:
I think the second piece could have ended up much better than it did if I had a) Not lost the first version or b) made the plates broader, as well as having a reference somewhere I could see it.
Overall, the pieces ended up fairly well, especially the first one, which I managed to make look pretty much how I wanted it to.

I think this was a very fun unit, and I found the art form both very limiting and very freeing at the same time. It was limiting because I need to keep within the "shards", but very freeing because I need to worry less about perspective than in other art forms, which allows me to focus on other aspects of the drawing.