Stars and Stripes

The objective of this project was to recreate the American flag using the same properties of art. In this case, the regular Americans flag has shape, color, contrast, lines, and many other properties of art. Using these same properties, like the same shapes and colors, I recreated the flag in a different and creative way then what it actually looks like. This project let us play with these properties of art and take something that we are so used to and see everyday and make it something new, something that we want it to look like.

To complete this project I used acrylic paint on canvas. I did this because I thought it would look the best, because acrylic colors can look very full and bright, and I thought that that would give the best contrast and color to my piece. First, using a template, I traced the 7 stars onto my paper, and then painted the background all navy blue, avoiding the stars so that they could easily be painted with just 2 layers later on. Then, I drew lines across the page, with pencil, using a ruler, only making markings on the white space of the stars. This way all of the lines would look lined up and straight with each other, even if the stars were different, kind of like a template of stars had been placed on top of the stripes. Finally, I painting the white and red stripes in the stars and the. proceeded to make the lines of the stars as straight as possible.

I was a little excited for this project because very often I complete projects that I want to make look semi-realistic, so I don't really play with full colors and shape and contrast that often. I also really enjoyed seeing all of the different designs from the class because it was cool to see how we were all giving the same flag, and only using the artistic properties we remade it into our own. The big part I wanted to do with my piece was to make everything even. The American flag is very divided, there is a little blue and stars in there, but most of it is the red and white stripes. I wanted to play with that and find someway to make the amount of stars, stripes, red, blue, and white even. I think I succeeded in that aspect, even though the real meaning behind it may not be very obvious. I realized after I had completed that I had 7 stars, which could represent the 7 continents, and 16 stripes that could represent the 16 counties of Maine. So I somehow managed to accomplish connecting the whole world, and little Maine and America all together in one flag, which I think came out well with the colors and contrast and such.