1. How do you describe your artistic style/perspective? How do you define success as an artist? What do you find most rewarding about being an artist? What are some of the most important skills you draw upon to create your work? What are some of the most significant things you've learned through art-making? DON'T FORGET TO ADD PHOTOS
I would describe my artistic style more as photorealism or realism. In the practice acrylic painting I did, I looked at a picture online of a pear and painted what I saw, and I think that was my best piece of art from this semester. Not only that, it was what I most enjoyed painting this year and something I would like to pursue. As an artist, I define success as painting to my fullest ability and enjoying the piece I created, which I think I accomplished during this assignment. In this painting, I think I demonstrated persistence and patience. I had to repaint my pear multiple times as I was trying to find the suitable composition and positioning of shading and highlighting on my pear to create a realistic image. Furthermore, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me is just seeing personal growth throughout my pieces of art. Before I painted that pear, I would never have known how to blend paints evenly to create a nice gradient or know to use warm and cool colors to create a nice contrast in my piece at the beginning of the semester. Some of the most important skills to draw upon when creating art, such as my pear, is to have a sense of creativity that interacts not just with the outer edges of your brain but deep within. I think it's a beneficial skill to have the ability to visualize exactly what you want your painting to look like. For example, with the pear, I think it was extremely useful to be able to imagine what colors I already wanted to use, where I wanted my light source to be coming in from, and even where I wanted my pear to be positioned on the canvas sheet. Another important skill I believe every artist needs is the ability to know the materials you are working with, whether that be acrylic paint or Prisma colors, etc. In this instance, I think it's vital to understand that acrylic paint drys fast, so when your blending colors, like I did with the various shades of green, you need to do it almost instantaneously. It was also crucial to know that acrylic paint is easy to paint over, so I had no reason to get upset and throw away my piece if I accidentally got dark brown on my light pink background. The most significant thing I've learned through art-making is that making comparisons, whether that be to a famous artist's work or a classmate's work, is never going to help. I've learned that I may not excel at every medium I use, and that's ok. If I compare my work, such as my pear, to other pears painted by other artists, it stunts my growth as an emerging artist who is still searching for an art style and medium that I succeed in. Another significant thing I've learned is that even though sometimes I don't want to hear it, constructive criticism can be helpful. Having fresh eyes look at one of my pieces helps me understand how my work may look in your eyes and what I can do to enhance my work.
I would describe my artistic style more as photorealism or realism. In the practice acrylic painting I did, I looked at a picture online of a pear and painted what I saw, and I think that was my best piece of art from this semester. Not only that, it was what I most enjoyed painting this year and something I would like to pursue. As an artist, I define success as painting to my fullest ability and enjoying the piece I created, which I think I accomplished during this assignment. In this painting, I think I demonstrated persistence and patience. I had to repaint my pear multiple times as I was trying to find the suitable composition and positioning of shading and highlighting on my pear to create a realistic image. Furthermore, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist for me is just seeing personal growth throughout my pieces of art. Before I painted that pear, I would never have known how to blend paints evenly to create a nice gradient or know to use warm and cool colors to create a nice contrast in my piece at the beginning of the semester. Some of the most important skills to draw upon when creating art, such as my pear, is to have a sense of creativity that interacts not just with the outer edges of your brain but deep within. I think it's a beneficial skill to have the ability to visualize exactly what you want your painting to look like. For example, with the pear, I think it was extremely useful to be able to imagine what colors I already wanted to use, where I wanted my light source to be coming in from, and even where I wanted my pear to be positioned on the canvas sheet. Another important skill I believe every artist needs is the ability to know the materials you are working with, whether that be acrylic paint or Prisma colors, etc. In this instance, I think it's vital to understand that acrylic paint drys fast, so when your blending colors, like I did with the various shades of green, you need to do it almost instantaneously. It was also crucial to know that acrylic paint is easy to paint over, so I had no reason to get upset and throw away my piece if I accidentally got dark brown on my light pink background. The most significant thing I've learned through art-making is that making comparisons, whether that be to a famous artist's work or a classmate's work, is never going to help. I've learned that I may not excel at every medium I use, and that's ok. If I compare my work, such as my pear, to other pears painted by other artists, it stunts my growth as an emerging artist who is still searching for an art style and medium that I succeed in. Another significant thing I've learned is that even though sometimes I don't want to hear it, constructive criticism can be helpful. Having fresh eyes look at one of my pieces helps me understand how my work may look in your eyes and what I can do to enhance my work.
2. Choose 2 mini lessons that you felt were the most beneficial in your learning for that particular project. Include photos of these and explain thoroughly. Do you feel you needed more instruction for success? Explain or did you feel that the instruction given was enough to ensure success? Explain. DON'T FORGET TO ADD PHOTOS
Two mini-lessons that I felt were the most beneficial in my learning for specific projects were the most helpful for particular projects were the color wheel assignment and drawing the room in 1 pt. perspective. The color wheel assignment helped me understand relationships between colors, specifically primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Understanding that mixing two primary colors, such as blue and yellow, creates green or that mixing two complementary colors creates brown is extremely important in general and for my landscape painting from a famous artists style project. In my project, I needed lots of earthy, brown tones and greens, so knowing that from the color wheel helped me create the landscape I pictured from the two sets of primary colors that we were given in class. For this landscape and acrylic project, I felt I was given enough instruction to succeed. The assignment was straightforward, and even if, during the project or mini-project, I was unsure of how to make a certain color I needed, I could just look around the room at all the color wheels and see what secondary colors were created from the primary's and also what tertiary colors are created from mixing a certain primary and secondary. It was also well explained at the beginning of the unit that if I needed a darker or lighter color, all I had to do was add white or black. I feel that the 1 pt. perspective assignment, along with the 2 and 3 pt., helped me understand how objects get farther away as they converge towards a vanishing point to create realistic proportions and a 3D effect. This knowledge really helped me to include perspective in my pen fairytale project. Without knowing about perspective and how to have it in my image, especially the beanstalk I included, it would look distorted and not as realistic. The sole purpose of drawing that image for my pen project was to create that hopeless and woozy effect by looking down through the hole in the sky and seeing the beanstalk extend for miles. I do not think I needed any more instruction; I think we did enough practice with all the different perspectives that I understood the concept pretty well. It would have been nice to do different objects from different perspectives in class instead of just watching videos. For example, the clouds in the sky on my pen project I feel weren't drawn in 1 pt. perspective like I was aiming for, and it was partly my fault for not paying too much attention to the video. But it still would have been nice to go over different, oddly shaped objects as a class to incorporate that into the pen project fully.
Two mini-lessons that I felt were the most beneficial in my learning for specific projects were the most helpful for particular projects were the color wheel assignment and drawing the room in 1 pt. perspective. The color wheel assignment helped me understand relationships between colors, specifically primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Understanding that mixing two primary colors, such as blue and yellow, creates green or that mixing two complementary colors creates brown is extremely important in general and for my landscape painting from a famous artists style project. In my project, I needed lots of earthy, brown tones and greens, so knowing that from the color wheel helped me create the landscape I pictured from the two sets of primary colors that we were given in class. For this landscape and acrylic project, I felt I was given enough instruction to succeed. The assignment was straightforward, and even if, during the project or mini-project, I was unsure of how to make a certain color I needed, I could just look around the room at all the color wheels and see what secondary colors were created from the primary's and also what tertiary colors are created from mixing a certain primary and secondary. It was also well explained at the beginning of the unit that if I needed a darker or lighter color, all I had to do was add white or black. I feel that the 1 pt. perspective assignment, along with the 2 and 3 pt., helped me understand how objects get farther away as they converge towards a vanishing point to create realistic proportions and a 3D effect. This knowledge really helped me to include perspective in my pen fairytale project. Without knowing about perspective and how to have it in my image, especially the beanstalk I included, it would look distorted and not as realistic. The sole purpose of drawing that image for my pen project was to create that hopeless and woozy effect by looking down through the hole in the sky and seeing the beanstalk extend for miles. I do not think I needed any more instruction; I think we did enough practice with all the different perspectives that I understood the concept pretty well. It would have been nice to do different objects from different perspectives in class instead of just watching videos. For example, the clouds in the sky on my pen project I feel weren't drawn in 1 pt. perspective like I was aiming for, and it was partly my fault for not paying too much attention to the video. But it still would have been nice to go over different, oddly shaped objects as a class to incorporate that into the pen project fully.
3. What medium was your favorite to work with? Explain why and how you were able to master the techniques associated with this medium. DON'T FORGET TO ADD PHOTOS
I would have to say that clay was probably my favorite medium to work with. I just think that clay made me the most comfortable, and I think it helped spark more creativity within me, like the idea of an ice cream bar. I think clay is so easy to create something out of nothing because it is so painless to shape, mold, and change texture. If you mess up with clay, all you have to do is smoosh the clay back down, and then you can already start to rework it without feeling discouraged. On my clay project, the only annoying thing was that every time I flipped my ice cream bar over, the sprinkles on my clay piece that slipped and scored would get squished. Trying to add small details, such as the sprinkles, is tedious when working with clay because the surface and structure are so malleable. However, I still think using clay is very fun, and I think painting clay is even more fun. This is because I enjoy getting to paint on something that I shaped myself rather than a canvas or any flat surface. I think I was able to master the techniques associated with clay quicker than others because, essentially, the logic behind sculpture is to create shapes, which is something I don't find challenging to do. The only challenging thing was to create a shape that wasn't too thick, or else it would blow up in the kiln. I thought I prevented this by making the thickness reasonable in my piece and also stuffing the body with paper towels so it would stay hollow. However, it still blew up, so if I were to redo my piece, I think I would have put extra attention to how thick my work was and carefully shaped it so I wouldn't have to worry about anything later on. Using the techniques, I also remember how to create pinch pots and use the coil and slab method from Art 1 more than I remember anything else from that class freshman year. In my piece, the shape wasn't tricky to craft at all. It was just two pinch pots that you create by pressing your thumb into the center of a clay ball, and the midsection of my bar was created using the coil method. I can never forget the coil method because all you have to do is make little clay snakes by rolling out the medium. The stick of my bar was created using the slab technique by just rolling out the clay, which doesn't even require much thought or effort on my end. And once again, if you mess up with clay, all I literally had to do was take the deformed or scratched piece and just smooth it out or reshape it in a few minutes; nothing I had to stress about.
I would have to say that clay was probably my favorite medium to work with. I just think that clay made me the most comfortable, and I think it helped spark more creativity within me, like the idea of an ice cream bar. I think clay is so easy to create something out of nothing because it is so painless to shape, mold, and change texture. If you mess up with clay, all you have to do is smoosh the clay back down, and then you can already start to rework it without feeling discouraged. On my clay project, the only annoying thing was that every time I flipped my ice cream bar over, the sprinkles on my clay piece that slipped and scored would get squished. Trying to add small details, such as the sprinkles, is tedious when working with clay because the surface and structure are so malleable. However, I still think using clay is very fun, and I think painting clay is even more fun. This is because I enjoy getting to paint on something that I shaped myself rather than a canvas or any flat surface. I think I was able to master the techniques associated with clay quicker than others because, essentially, the logic behind sculpture is to create shapes, which is something I don't find challenging to do. The only challenging thing was to create a shape that wasn't too thick, or else it would blow up in the kiln. I thought I prevented this by making the thickness reasonable in my piece and also stuffing the body with paper towels so it would stay hollow. However, it still blew up, so if I were to redo my piece, I think I would have put extra attention to how thick my work was and carefully shaped it so I wouldn't have to worry about anything later on. Using the techniques, I also remember how to create pinch pots and use the coil and slab method from Art 1 more than I remember anything else from that class freshman year. In my piece, the shape wasn't tricky to craft at all. It was just two pinch pots that you create by pressing your thumb into the center of a clay ball, and the midsection of my bar was created using the coil method. I can never forget the coil method because all you have to do is make little clay snakes by rolling out the medium. The stick of my bar was created using the slab technique by just rolling out the clay, which doesn't even require much thought or effort on my end. And once again, if you mess up with clay, all I literally had to do was take the deformed or scratched piece and just smooth it out or reshape it in a few minutes; nothing I had to stress about.
4. Discuss one project where you felt you were the least successful. Explain why you felt this way. What would you do differently to change this piece? Explain . DON'T FORGET TO ADD PHOTOS
One project where I felt I was the least successful was our last project, the landscape painting in a famous artist's style. I just didn't feel successful because I didn't like my piece when I was finished, for starters. I just thought it looked messy, but not in a good way like Gerhard Richter's art. I thought the sky and the sun were fine, but then I just couldn't figure out how to blur out the trees and the bushes while still retaining the shapes of those plants. I think I was somewhat successful when I added different shades of greens to the greenery, as I believe it gave my piece more volume. I also just don't think the colors I chose went well together in terms of the style I was mimicking; the colors were just too pigmented and so different. A lot of Richter's pieces, especially the ones created using the squeegee technique, are in black and white, which obviously would be boring, and I needed color in my piece, so it was hard to gauge. Obviously, it would have been way easier to use a larger canvas and squeegee brush, but then that would defeat the whole purpose of trying to replicate his style with just acrylic paint and brushes. If I could do anything differently on this piece, I would have just blurred out the paint as I went along. While I was making this piece, I first let the background dry completely, and I was picturing just blurring out the tree and the bushes and sun, but that still didn't create the effect I was going for. I ended up having to paint over the dried background with more yellows and browns, which took up a lot more time. That would be the main thing I would do differently, but I also wouldn't brush out my landscape as much, so to say. I felt I just got carried away and started to take the paint and spread it over the canvas way too much, which made me lose sight of what I was trying to recreate. Overall, I don't think my piece was awful; I just think I could have gone about it differently from start to finish.
One project where I felt I was the least successful was our last project, the landscape painting in a famous artist's style. I just didn't feel successful because I didn't like my piece when I was finished, for starters. I just thought it looked messy, but not in a good way like Gerhard Richter's art. I thought the sky and the sun were fine, but then I just couldn't figure out how to blur out the trees and the bushes while still retaining the shapes of those plants. I think I was somewhat successful when I added different shades of greens to the greenery, as I believe it gave my piece more volume. I also just don't think the colors I chose went well together in terms of the style I was mimicking; the colors were just too pigmented and so different. A lot of Richter's pieces, especially the ones created using the squeegee technique, are in black and white, which obviously would be boring, and I needed color in my piece, so it was hard to gauge. Obviously, it would have been way easier to use a larger canvas and squeegee brush, but then that would defeat the whole purpose of trying to replicate his style with just acrylic paint and brushes. If I could do anything differently on this piece, I would have just blurred out the paint as I went along. While I was making this piece, I first let the background dry completely, and I was picturing just blurring out the tree and the bushes and sun, but that still didn't create the effect I was going for. I ended up having to paint over the dried background with more yellows and browns, which took up a lot more time. That would be the main thing I would do differently, but I also wouldn't brush out my landscape as much, so to say. I felt I just got carried away and started to take the paint and spread it over the canvas way too much, which made me lose sight of what I was trying to recreate. Overall, I don't think my piece was awful; I just think I could have gone about it differently from start to finish.