My experience in this class was very educational and helpful to help me succeed in art. I had a really good time and learned a lot of different ways to create art. I didn't know that there were so many materials that could be used and so many different techniques. I find it pretty cool to just be able to experiment with the different materials to see what you like and dislike. I think that this is definitely a class that I would recommend to people if they want to build their skills or if they don't have confidence in their work. At the beginning of the year, I didn't have much confidence in my work but as the year progressed I began to grow more confident in my work.

My work shows that I have improved drastically from the beginning of the year to now. I was looking back at my time capsule drawing and I laughed because I know that I can do a whole lot better than that now. It looked like something a 5-year-old would've drawn which was about where my art skills were at the beginning of the year. When I look at my more recent pieces I am proud of them because some of them look pretty professional for being done by a freshman. You can see that in the time capsule drawings I had 0 technique but my more recent ones do because I was taught new ways of learning.

I think the most challenging thing for me was time management. For a lot of projects, I ended up turning them in late because I just didn't have enough time to complete them. Mrs. Friesland says I am a perfectionist and maybe she is right. It takes me many many hours to complete even the simplest of projects or artwork because I want to make sure I am turning in my best work. The most challenging material for me to work with was probably the charcoal unit. I kept getting frustrated with the amount of time the piece I was doing was taking and I kept smudging the charcoal with my hand and having to go back and fix it and erase and add to parts that were already done.

I think that I am the most proud of my scratchboard piece entitled "Cocoa". This project definitely took me the longest to create out of all of the projects but I think it's the one that looks the best out of all of the pieces I did this year. It looks very similar to the reference photo that I was using as a reference. I also used the grid method to grid out the scratchboard before starting and this is the only piece where I can't see the grid lines. I did other pieces with grid lines but you can still see them a little in other pieces but not this one. I also like it because it is meaningful to me and my family. It is a picture of my tortoise which is sort of like part of the family.

My work demonstrates my strengths and weaknesses as a learner in a few ways. For example, as demonstrated by my time capsule drawing I can't draw realistic things without using the grid method. I've never been able to draw realistically free hand. I learn better with things that are not realistic. For example, at the beginning of the year, I relied on surrealism in most of my pieces and making almost tye-dye effects because I wasn't comfortable with realism. As a learner, it was really hard for me to do our hallway project and trying to draw 3D because that always confused me. I am usually good a pushing through things that are tough however and still worked hard to get things done to the best of my ability.