Foundations of Art

This year in Foundations of Art, I came in with little knowledge of art, and art skills. The skills I have learned from my first-time capsule drawing to my final independent project are countless. We have done so many units this year that have improved my skills, as well as helping me gain new skills. Before Foundations of Art, I had never sculpted with wire, made gelatin prints, used charcoal, scratchboard, made my own prints, linear perspective, and using shading to create a realistic self-portrait. I have also learned useful art vocabulary, and the importance of art history as well.

My artwork over the course of this year has improved immensely. The difference between my two self-portraits along tells this difference. In my time capsule self-portrait, there is little to no shading, and the features look cartoonish instead of realistic. Even though my second self-portrait could use improvement, there are still aspects of it that show my new learned skills and technique. In my second self-portrait, the features are made by shading, however, there is still a lot of outlining that could be improved on to make it even more realistic. I think that the project that shows the most growth from my time capsules is my linear perspective drawing of the hallway. At the beginning of the year, I couldn't even figure out how to make a wall look 3D and not make it look like a part of the floor. Another kill I have learned this year and have applied to my work to improve it was how to draw an object using a reference. Before this year I always would guess what something looked like, but when you have the object you are drawing in your hand, and studying it, you realize more detail to make it look more realistic.

The top three hardest units we have done this year have to be linear perspective, self-portrait using shading, and wire sculpture. These units were all hard for me because apart from self-portraits I had never used any of these materials or methods in past art classes before. The linear perspective was really hard for me at first because it was very important where each line was connected and had many steps that were hard for me to follow at first. Like all these projects the more I used the method or material the better my work became because I got used to it. Linear perspective was also really hard for me because I am not the best at drawing straight lines (even with a ruler). I did learn how to use a ruler at different angles to make sure my lines were straight and going in the right direction. Next, was my self-portrait. I have always had a hard time with shading, and self-portraits because I never drew exactly what I saw, I would always go back to the cartoonish unrealistic looking features. The difference between my formative and my summative for this unit was huge. I had just started to get the hang of shading and not outlining features. By the second or third time, I did this my skills had improved greatly. The next hardest part about this project was my mouths and noses. This was such a struggle and frustrating process for me because I couldn't understand how to use shading to make these features pop. I wouldn't say I got it exactly in my final result but it was greatly improved from the beginning of my process. Lastly, the unit I struggled the most with a first was wire. The first project we did I couldn't even make my connections tight enough to hold my piece together. After a long frustrating process, I learned that I had to tighten the wire at all different angles if I wanted a strong connection. The second part that was hard for me in this unit was assembling my made pieces into one big creation. This was hard for me because I had a hard time handling the material all at once: My wire would slip out of my hand just as I was about to tighten it, and once I connected the two they weren't tight enough and I had to start all over again. This might seem like a small problem but it slowed me down a lot. Although, the more I worked with the wire the easier it got. I just had to work with the material over and over to be able to succeed, and finally, I did.

My biggest success this year in Foundation of art was the scratchboard drawing of my cat. I really liked scratchboard and its process. Even though going square but square had been hard for me in other units it finally clicked for me in scratchboard. For this project, I really mastered how to used a reference to match it to my project. The thing I am most proud of for this project was my attention to detail and the fact I went square by square the whole time, which I had failed to for any other project.

My strengths as a learner show through my artwork with my backgrounds in each of my projects. I'm strong at abstract shapes and patterns, so when I get to add them in my art it shows my strengths as a learner. My weaknesses as a learner show in my artworks such as drawing realistically, and realistic features. This is not my strong suit so projects like my candy still life and self-portraits show my weaknesses as a learner.