Foundations of Art

Final Reflection:
My work illustrates a lot of different strengths and weaknesses I have as a learner. One strength that you can see through my art is how hard I work. I am someone who works really hard and wants to succeed. You can see this in my work because my pieces look like I put effort into them. You can also tell which works I worked the hardest on because they are some of my best pieces. One weakness that my artwork illustrates is my creativity. In projects, I will often decide to do what I think will be the easiest, instead of choosing a creative idea. This is evident in some of my works because of the subject I chose. My work is also a good way to show my weaknesses as a learner because you can tell when I put less effort into a project and didn’t do as well as I could have. Overall my work is a good indicator of who I am as a learner. 

My work shows my improvement because you can visibly see my work getting better, and you can see that I put more thought into some projects. At the beginning of the year, I chose more basic subjects that I felt more comfortable with and didn't challenge myself. My earlier projects didn't take as long and I didn't put as much work into them. My work shows that I have improved because you can see that I put more effort into later projects. This extra effort led to that improvement. My work also shows that I improved by my use of new mediums that challenged me. Before this class, I would have never used some of the mediums that I did this year. It shows that I have improved how I mentally view new assignments. I started to embrace new challenges and learned to love certain mediums that I thought I wouldn't. And, even if I didn't love using a certain medium, I ended up liking the project because of the work I put into it. This mental improvement will help me in the future to embrace difficulties and power through harder work.

The most challenging project for me was the scratchboard assignment. It was the most challenging for me because it was hard for me to get used to the materials. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out what tools I wanted to use. It also took a lot of trial and error to figure out how to use those tools to make my piece look realistic. It was also challenging because you can’t erase with scratchboard. This was difficult for me because if I wanted to fix something I wasn’t able to. This caused me to scratch too much white in some areas. It was hard for me to use a medium where I couldn’t fix every mistake. I ended up feeling okay about my final product, but it was definitely the most challenging piece I made this year.

The project that I am the most proud of is my collage painting. I’m proud of this painting because I worked hard on it and ended up loving my final piece. I worked a lot on color matching to match my collage, and I think I did really well on that aspect of the project. I also think I did a good job at making the piece realistic to my actual collage. I simplified some of the landscapes, but I kept the base of them the same. I was proud of how close to my original collage the painting was. I usually struggle with making an art piece that is close to the reference I used, but I felt like I did a good job at that with this project. I was very proud of the way that my project turned out because I was satisfied with the piece and knew that I put a lot of work into it. 

In the future, I hope to continue creating art in some capacity. I don’t know if I will take another art class in high school, but I plan to create more art on my own. I used to journal and would make collages in them. I might continue doing this at some point in the future, as it was very therapeutic and I love making collages. I also used to paint a lot for fun, and I want to pick that up again sometime in the future. For me, creating art is less about creating a good piece and more about the process. I love making art just for the sake of it, and not caring what the final product looks like. This was why I loved painting. I’m not entirely sure how I plan to continue making art, but I do know that I would like to continue making art in some way.