Foundations of Art Reflection

Time Capsule

Sep 11

Pure Contour-Three Views of a shoe

OCt. 11-17

Zoomed Shoe

Oct. 25 & 27

Linear Perspective

Nov. 6

Sgraffito Clay Tile

Apr. 27

Gelatin Prints

Apr. 23

My experience in Foundations of Art was fun, but a little stressful. Going into high school I was not really planning on taking a visual arts class since I was already taking two performing arts classes. Now as a senior and taking FOA, I wish I took this class as a freshman so I could have possibly continued taking a visual arts class. My experience in FOA was a little stressful as there was a set amount of time to work on each composition, being a slow working artist, and along with my packed schedule, I found it difficult to find the time and effort I like to put into each piece. One thing that surprised me about this class was the amount of artwork we would create. I have never created this many compositions and used so many different types of media as I did in this class which made it challenging, but also fun and proud of my own abilities.

The processes that I enjoyed were composing compositions using value and drawing realistically and doing the extended drawings. Doing the compositions that focused on valuing and realism really pushed me to pay close attention to details of the subject I was drawing. Practicing the value scale really helped me with differentiating value because when we first started the valuing unit my eyes had a hard time differentiation between the greys on the value scale. Although I still have a hard time differentiating between the greys it has become easier to tell them apart. The gridding technique used for realism really helped me in figuring out proportions and made it easier to copy the image onto my composition paper. With the extended drawings and the Beautiful Oops forced me to think creatively and figure out a way to make what seemed like a mistake or a scribble into a full composition. It taught me to not give up and start again, which I usually do, and turn it into something that could fit with the original subject. One definite struggle I had besides the value scale was creating texture with paint and painting in general as I have not had much experience with paint. The painting unit really helped me learn about the properties of paint and how to work around it to create a complete image.

The projects that I am really proud of are the Beautiful Oops, Extended Blind Contour, Candy Still Life, Duck Stamp, Surrealist Collage Painting, and the Scratchboard projects. These are the projects that I like the aesthetics of and/or spent the most time and effort on. I think these compositions really show how much I improved as an artist over the past year compared to the Time Capsule pieces I started at the beginning of the year. I am also proud of these because it shows that although I have not created any art since 8th grade I still haven't lost be touch. However, this does not mean I still do not need to create and improve.