foundations of art

This year in Foundations of Art I have learned so much, and I saw a big overall improvement in my artwork. At the beginning of the year I had very little knowledge about art techniques and skills. Now, looking back at my work from the beginning of the year to now, I have improved so much. Not only did I learn many things about art in this class, I learned about myself as an artist, and what I enjoy doing. The class was a lot of fun, and I’ll be able to take many of the things that I learned with me into the future.

My work shows how much I improved over the course of the year because at first I could basically only draw one-dimensional objects and I couldn’t match color values. In the beginning of the draw I could only draw simple things like one-dimensional flowers and faces, but now I can draw a proportional 3-D image of a dog, an image only out of pastel by mixing colors, and a 3-D sculpture. I can say that at the start of the year I never expected for me to improve this much as an artist. I can now use materials like charcoal, ink, gelatin, paints, and pastels, instead of mainly cheap colored pencils and markers. My artwork shows that I can now analyze color and shape to make a realistic piece of artwork. The most challenging thing for me was probably charcoal and ink. I am proud of the final result of the project, but it was a challenge to get there. It was challenging because charcoal and ink are very messy materials to work with, this was the biggest piece of artwork that I had ever done, and it was a hard image to be able to create. But, I am proud of how I was able to overcome these challenges, and make a great piece of artwork of my old dog.

I am most proud of my candy-still life because I was able to exhibit highlights and shadows. I think that the candies look very realistic. The candy-still life was my second draft, and I am so proud of how much better it came out compared to the first one. I truly think that second drafts are great because you get to fix your mistakes from your first draft, and you also improve a lot. My work showcases both strengths and weaknesses, like most artist I have things that I am good at, and other things maybe not so much. My weaknesses are painting cleanly and wire sculptures. I think I struggle with painting cleanly because I try to rush it and it ends up coming out looking messy. I struggle with with wire sculptures because I have a hard time making fish-hook connections, to make the project look even and stand up. I would say that my strengths are still-lifes, color design projects, and clay tiles. My still-lifes are strong because I am not afraid to make a second draft and improve myself. My color-design projects show that I know how to analyze color. Lastly, I take my time on clay tiles and use out of school time, to have a good final project.

Overall, I had a really good year in foundations of art and I was able to learn a lot. I am so grateful that I was able to have this opportunity to learn how to become a better artist. I will take these techniques and skills into the future.