Foundations of Art 

Looking through my foundations of art portfolio and the way this year has been going, there have been strengths as well as weaknesses throughout my experience. As a whole, I've enjoyed Foundations of Art for the opportunity to create art and try new techniques or styles. Along with this came challenges where weaknesses, as well as strengths with my skills, rose. For example, some of my strengths include having attention to detail, knowing what's proportional to each other, and shading. For instance, some pieces of art of mine that consist of these characteristics include the candy still life, when I had to keep in consideration the size of each candy relative to each other, and my self-portrait, where I had to be thoughtful with my every move as well as work on my shading. And the mixed media drawing as well as the scratchboard of Beau, where I had to have great attention to detail since I couldn’t fix a mistake or go back in any way. One of the weaknesses my work illustrates includes realisticness. For instance, the surrealist project and the duck stamp don’t illustrate realisticness very well. I could’ve spent more time working on the background on the duck stamp and blended my paints a little more so that I wouldn’t have had such a high contrast, in order for my surrealism to look more realistic. Throughout the process of Foundations of Art class, I have had many challenges, some weaknesses, and some strengths, but all around, I feel like I have improved vastly as an artist.

My work shows how I’ve improved for several reasons. For instance, if you look at my pieces of artwork that are near the beginning of my Foundations of Art page, you’ll see that I didn’t include many details and as-advanced techniques as I later developed. Once I worked on the space project, I think I improved with my detail since I had to think about where each line would go, which patterns I would use as well as thoughtfully going over how I would use the negative space. Another project that I think helped me improve my art overall was the mixed-media drawing. While working on this assignment, I had to think about how I would draw a 3d animal realistically, how to shade certain parts, as well as making objects proportional. This project, compared with my time capsules near the beginning of the year, shows the improvements in my artistic style and how I made certain adjustments. My space project, for instance, as well as my candy still life, helped me with my attention to detail and thoughtfulness throughout the process of Foundations of Art.

The most challenging project I faced this year was probably the scratchboard. For this project, the process didn’t take a lot of steps, although it did take some time to try and replicate the picture of Beau. My first step in this process was to decide what to create, whether an animal or anything that can be made on scratchboard. I chose to scratch my pet, Beau because I liked the picture of him, it almost looked like a .5, and I thought it would be cool to make something from a different perspective than usual. After I chose to scratch Beau, I started with the ear and went to the right, finishing the artwork with the nose where I added detail, stippling on many little dots. Along with finishing the nose, I also added the whiskers around the nose and the eyes as well. The challenging part about this project was the fact that I couldn’t go back if I made a mistake, whether it was big or even small. This aspect made me think about my steps more thoughtfully and critically. 

The project that I’m the proudest of is my mixed media drawing when I used white and black charcoal as well as ink on pastel paper to create a work of art of Beau, my dog. Several goals I had for this project were to make the dog look realistic to look very similar to the picture. With the drawing being realistic, I wanted my dog to have the texture of fur as well. Another goal I had was to advance my skills using black and white charcoal since I hadn’t used the charcoal material many times before. I believe I met my goals once I finished the project for a few reasons. For instance, Beau looks realistic because I used the charcoal materials correctly, which I think advanced my technique while doing this project. I also created the texture of fur on the drawing. By completing my goals for my mixed media drawing, I am proud of my result.

I have several artistic goals for the summer/future as well. My first goal is to spend more time drawing in the outdoors as well as get more inspiration from nature. I feel like most of the time, I make art based on objects I find inside my house, whereas I could create art based on the biosphere surrounding us. Another goal other than making art based on nature, is to start and finish a notebook for art. In this notebook, I can create anything I want, using any materials. This way, I can try new ways of making art, for instance, collages, or using pastels.