Advanced Art and Design

This year was the most challenging and rewarding year of art that I have ever had. I had to challenge myself and make sure I get my work done. But because the year was so challenging that means I improved a ton since last year. When we started the Sustained Investigation unit I knew I wanted to do characters. But when we started, all I did was just a character on the paper with nothing else. I got a lot of criticism saying I should have backgrounds and add more of an environment. I didn't like that at the time because I wanted the drawing's main thing to just be a character. I immediately changed up my work in SI #2. I added a background to the art with two characters involved and I made one of the best works I would do all year. This showed that I could take criticism and use it well to create a better piece of art for the SI.

The most challenging thing this year was the workload. Being in my junior year there is about two times the amount of work I have had in previous years. I should have known the workload was going to be a lot more but I didn't take steps early on to make it easy on myself to get my artwork done in time. I struggled with this because I liked doing art so I wouldn't prioritize it over other homework. Therefore, I would have to rush my art because I didn't start early and make it look good over time. An example of this is SI #3. I started the night before the art was due and it looks messy. Another example is SI #13. This is a piece I started on early and I am very glad I started early because I think this was my strongest piece this year. 

A piece I am the most proud of is my jacket (SI #13) and SI #7. I like my jacket because I thought for sure something was going to go wrong or I was just going to have to call it good when I finish just to be done. But I surprised myself and made it look how I wanted it to look and there is nothing about it I would change. The other work of art that I am proud of is SI #7 because I impressed myself with the whole greyscale aspect of it. I always use a ton of colors in my art because it is a good way to show expression. But I got some criticism that I use too much color and the same color pallet in every piece of art that I do. So I switched it up and I like the way it turned out.

Something else I tried to focus on towards the end of the year was how I was going to use different materials to make my art different every time because I always used paint or paint pens/alcohol markers. I tried collaging, encaustic, digital media, and ink pen. I also tried working on different compositions like a water bottle and a work jacket. These challenged me and helped me think outside the box from just a regular character on paper.

My goal for art in the future is to maybe go into graphic design as a major or minor in whatever college I go to. I also really like clothes and I showed that in my artwork this year with all the characters. It was also in my sustained investigation inquiry. So I might go into fashion design or apparel design as well. This year has given me a lot of opportunity to explore different ways I can do art and use art and I grew and progressed in my style.