Advanced Art and Design

SEMESTER 1 REFLECTION

Advanced Art and Design was one big learning period artistically for me, where I was able to grow so much as an artist. This class really allowed me to let go and try new things without the fear of how it might turn out. At the beginning of the semester, I was still really nervous to try new things and be bold, but as one can see through my art, towards the end of the semester, I began to branch out and not be afraid to trust my gut.

Over the course of the semester, I have really struggled with my timeliness. It usually takes me a while to come up with an idea that I really like for a project, and by the time that I start, the in-class work time is usually over with and I have always found it hard to space out my time at home to do a little bit each day instead of doing all my work the night before it is due, and oftentimes after it is due. For the upcoming semester, it will be my goal to prioritize turning in my work on time, even if it is not perfect, especially with the understanding that I can always go back later and add new elements and ideas that sometimes only come to me after I move away from a project for a bit.

YEAR 1 REFLECTION

Throughout this year, I have had the opportunity to experiment with so many new mediums. In the beginning, I thought that acrylic paint was going to be my thing, however, after a year of experimentation, I began to drift towards illustration through pen and markers. During the first semester, you can see how in my work I did not really have a style. I used watercolor, acrylic paint, oil markers, and just a pen. However, one can see how in my second semester, I began to mainly start to use markers and pen. I feel like a good example of my improvement would be my New Revision Projects. Through these projects, one can see how my illustrations have improved, not just in the technicality but also in my ideas and creativity. For my first revision of an Old Work, in the original I only used pen, however in the new work I used color to give the piece more of a dreamy feel as well as adding planets to go along with the theme. It is little ideas like this one that I feel like I have really improved my work.

I feel like it is very common to see little shading in my work. This may be because I got too carried away with the illustration part of my work that I started to forget some of the elements of art that I could use. While it is common to see shading laking in a lot of my work, I feel like my use of color was one of my strengths this year. Working with markers, it can be very hard to get one good flt and even color, however, I feel like through this class I was really able to master working with markers, after understanding what will and won't work.

The most challenging thing for me this year would be challenging myself. I feel like too often I would stray away from something that I wanted to do because I thought it would be too hard and therefore the final project would look bad. Because of this, one can see a lot of faces in my work, but simplified faces, because I find them easy to do but the detail is hard for me. For a lot of pieces, I would start the project planning on doing something realistic but then stray away from that after something minor went wrong and then slowly start to make the whole piece abstract in an attempt to cover up my mistake. Sustained investigation #8, and #5 are both examples of this.

This year I am most proud of my ability to start to really find what I love doing, that being. illustration. In the beginning, one can see how I used so many mediums before transitioning to mostly pen and marker. I am also proud of my willingness to use completely new mediums such as oil markers. I was able to really surprise myself with how much I loved using oil markers.

Over the summer I would love to start drawing things in nature, outside instead of off a photograph. I feel like this would allow myself to practice drawing 3D objects instead of something that is already made in 2D for you. In the future, I will continue taking art classes and possibly minor in studio art in college because I just find art to be so relaxing and fun.