3D Design

Reflection:

Over time, my art style and techniques continuously change and grow. In the beginning, it was hard for me to choose a material that was easy to work with. But I learned that using easy materials doesn't mean your work will be perfect. I decided to experiment with new materials, all having different levels of difficulty, and create pieces so unique and beautiful that I never would've been able to create if I didn't explore my options. This improvement and growth can be shown by looking at the material and detail of my work at the beginning of this semester and at the end of the semester. In the beginning, I used materials such as paper and yarn. I never really liked how my artwork turned out when I used these materials. So I decided to explore my material options further and I used clay. I really love the final product of my panda bear turned out, but the clay makes it difficult to turn it in on time; even though I did manage to turn it on time. Clay, which I used for the panda bear, wasn't one of the list of materials that I thought I'd use in the beginning of the year. In fact, none of the materials that I ended up using were what I was planning to use. But it worked out well because I met my goals creating new art I'm not used to and still having a very high grade.

I moved onto glass towards the end of this year. Glass is a difficult yet exciting material to work with. Not only are the color options endless, but also the creativity it takes to put the glass "puzzle" pieces together makes it a fun experience. It takes time to find the correct shape, size, and colored pieces but in the end when I saw my first glass piece completed I knew I wanted to create even more glass artwork. If there wasn't a piece of glass already cut that I needed in a certain color, I was able to use a special cutting tool and mat to cut the pieces I desired. One difficult thing about using glass is that sometimes the Elmers glue would stick to my hand and the smaller pieces of glass would end up not being placed in the correct spot. But I overcame this issue by using a small paintbrush to dot and place where each individual glass piece would be placed on the glass base. By using glass as my new material I was able to learn that I have a strength when it comes to colors and patterns. I noticed I had an eye for placing colors together that seemed to match so well, yet still being able to not take away from the center of the piece (flowers). But some weaknesses I had this semester were working with clay. I am unsure as to why I struggled with clay but I just couldn't mold it into the shapes I wanted. I tend to rush sometimes so I believe I just needed to slow down and work on one small part at a time. I may have more strength when working with the glass but I did enjoy working with the clay as well; I hope to be able to work with glass and clay again someday in the future.

Although there are lots of benefits to using different materials in art, there are also a lot of challenges and struggles, especially when it comes to experimenting with materials. The material/project I would find most challenging is the yarn cat sculpture. I spent so many hours working on just trying to get the yarn to look like fur. Since some of the different yarn types were thicker and different than others that meant the fur would look like different textures. Now at first when I was brushing out the yarn and it wasn't cooperating I was extremely frustrated because I was very determined to use the yarn. I was so concentrated on making the yarn fur look perfect that I accidentally burned myself with the hot glue gun I was using to place the fur on the base of the cat. Once I finally finished it didn't look anything like I wanted it to look like. I was expecting the white and brown yarn colors to blend, which didn't happen, and I struggled with figuring out what to use for eyes. I was upset for a while before I realized and learned that art doesn't have to be perfect. Art is never perfect. I was trying too hard to make this cat sculpture live up to my original expectations when in reality the final product was beautiful in its own way.

I learned that for a lot of my projects, especially the yarn cat, just because my artwork doesn't match my vision doesn't mean it's bad or ugly, it's unique and impressive in its own way, as is all my other art pieces. But as I moved onto other art projects I decided to use different materials each time, learning and understanding how I can use that material, and figuring out whether it is a material I wanted to stick to. I went from clay to wallpaper then finally to glass. Each of the pieces I made sure to make designs, sizes, and shapes balanced to draw attention to the eye. For my panda bear, I made sure to place flower designs where the white on a panda bear would be and left the rest black. For the wallpaper, I made sure to evenly spread out the paper flowers so there was no empty space. Lastly, for the glass, I spread out every piece and made the background's very simple so peoples main focus would be in the center where the flowers lay.

My favorite projects from this semester are the panda bear and glass pieces. The panda was one of my favorite because it was very rewarding seeing the final product; I had been working so hard to complete the panda. Each body part had to be attached perfectly and not too thick otherwise it would break in the kiln or it even could've cracked when drying. So I spent a lot of time fixing small mistakes made along the way, and letting the thick parts of clay on the panda fully dry before placing it in the kiln (which took a long time). So even though the panda bear was a struggle, since I had a tough time working with clay, I was very pleased with how the final product turned out. I also really loved all the different glass pieces that I created. I can't choose which one I like the most. Not only was the process fun, but the final product was also beautiful and rewarding as well. For the process, I used a clear glass base each time and used Elmer's glue to assemble the smaller pieces of glass into the proper locations so they looked like flowers. In the beginning, I kept gluing my fingers to the glass but I figured out ways to get around this, such as using a paint brush. Once each piece was done and out of the glass kiln, I was very excited to see the final products. I'm also very proud of my ability to try new things. The whole semester I kept a thought in my mind when trying new materials and designs and that was, "There are no mistakes in art," and, "Art CAN be ugly." These helped me to not expect perfection and to expect a unique product that had lots of time and effort put into it.