FINAL REFLECTION

At the beginning of the year, my projects were flat and lacking. Lacking not just in subject, but lacking in depth and meaning. Before this class, I wouldn't truly think about what I was making. I would whip it out in a few classes; not to say that I didn't try, but it wasn't my very best. After a few projects and received a lot of feedback from peers and teachers, I realized that I needed to truly dive into my sustained investigation. I began taking a lot of time fact-checking and doing research, compiling lots of reference images, and making sure that the subjects were proportioned correctly and the colors were what they were supposed to be. As a result of living on a farm, animals have always been a large part of my life. But I was fascinated by the animals I couldn't see everyday in my barnyard or out in nature, the wild jungle animals is what interested me most. Big cats especially, such as tigers and cheetahs. Elephants and and rhinoceroses were equally amazing to me.

As I grew older, I began to understand that these animals that intrigued me so much were beginning to die off, whether it be from poaching or habitat destruction or something totally different. For that reason, I chose to focus on endangered animals in my art this year, from giant elephants to tiny bees. Peer critiques, even though sometimes they do last a little too long, have given me the necessary feedback to improve my art. One of the most frequent pieces of feedback I received was adding more than one subject. I broke this barrier multiple times, first with my parrot project, and again with the penguins, monkeys, and bees. When I only had one subject, I made sure to change the perspective and have each one in a different position, anything but frontal facing. I have become an expert at using Acorn to make my own reference images. Burnishing my colored pencils has also become a strength of mine. Over the years, I have been able to take feedback and make sure I use it in my future pieces, which is why I have been successful in this class.

However, I did have my struggles. Thinking of how I want my subject(s) to be presented has always been difficult. I've often spent a whole class trying to figure out how I want to set up my page. And background. Backgrounds are the worst. Coming up with a background that fits with my investigation and adds depth to my subject has to be one of the hardest things on the planet. I kind of have a fear of using new materials as well. Graphite and colored pencil are two of my favorite materials and it took a while for me to try something new. This new material was watercolor, a material that has become one of my top three favorite art materials. On a more personal level, much of the art I produce receives a lot of hate and negativity from myself. I spend hours on a piece of art, finish it, and not be much of a fan of it. I have often found it hard to actually be proud of my work. Slowly, though, I am getting to the root of this problem and hopefully soon I'll be able to pick it out and through it away.

In the future, I think I want to continue using graphite and really starting to hone in on that skill. Recently, I have started doing religious art, and that is something I want to explore. God willing, I plan on joining a small order of religious sisters in Still River, MA. These sisters have an apostolate of teaching, and only the elementary school has an art teacher. I think it would be a good use of the skills I have learned in my high school years to help with the middle and high school art program.

SEMESTER 1 REFLECTION

When I began this class in September, I didn't know exactly what I was getting myself into. I knew that it would be more challenging and in depth than my previous art classes, but I didn't know to what extent that would be. After I picked my sustained investigation question (How can I show the beauty and importance of endangered animals through art?), my mind was all over the place. I knew what I was trying to show but I didn't know precisely how I was going to do that. My first project had an interesting idea, but the technical skill was just not there. I needed to push the values and deepen the meaning of what I was trying to show my viewers. So moving forward and after receiving feedback from the class, my goal was to not only start pushing my values but also to show why and how the animal I was focusing on in my art was endangered.

I have been successful in presenting one single figure and have also started to advance in my success at showing why the animal is endangered. One of my strengths is researching and exploring more about the animal I am drawing (or painting, etc). I have learned so much about different animals and I find myself being to explain exactly why these animals are endangered, whether it be from poaching, habitat destruction, or illegal wildlife trade. As is common with artists, I have also had many struggles. I started to experiment with text and was relying on the text to push the meaning of my art, which is something I wanted to move away from. I love using text in my art, but I wanted to try to use my presentation skills instead of writing skills in my sustained investigation; I succeeded in this in projects six and seven. Another problem I have is coming up with an effective and meaningful background for my work. I wanted to make the background connect with the foreground and my topic in general, which I am still struggling with.

Next semester, I want to work with multiple subjects and explore different angles other than frontal. I have noticed that I have been stuck with frontal, single subjects for a very long time, which is rather unfortunate considering I'm now a senior in high school and could definitely challenge myself more. I did one work that quite large and I loved working with this size. I think it would be quite fun to play with the sizing of animals, maybe by having elephants on smaller paper while presenting small parrots or tortoises on large (very large) paper. I would also like to start playing with material and adding materials that have to do with my subject like I did with my parrot piece. While I can't use a tiger pelt or elephant tusks for my art, I can use other materials that are like those. I might want to try using colored pencils more because in the past I have had quite a miserable time with colored pencils. I tend not to burnish and my blending skills are somewhat poor (more than somewhat, very poor). Painting with acrylic is another material/skill I most certainly do not excel at, so this might be something I want to use as well. This being my last year in an art class at Freeport High School, I truly want to push myself with my art and deal with topics that may be challenging to talk about. I have learned so much in this first semester and I want to continue to advance my skills and technique.