Advanced Art & Design

I don't think I have ever had a class which I worked so hard outside of school for, however because of this I don't think my art has come so far in such a (relatively) short time period. My first work of the year to my last sustained investigation of the year show massive improvement, especially as I actually used very similar materials. In my first work of the year it is very juvenile and flat, (although I actually quite like the way that piece turned out) it is simple and anyone could have created it. However through revisions and experimentations in mostly different kinds of paints all year long my work has come miles, especially because I am less timid with adding people into my artwork, a big fear of mine at the beginning of the year. You can also see improvements in my medium usage, I started this year really having no idea what gouache was, however it has become one of my favorites because it is such a good mix of acrylic properties and watercolor properties.

My favorite medium is acrylic, that's not a new fact, I've been saying it all year. But because of this I don't tend to stray too far from acrylic and maybe reley a little too heavily on that medium. Because of my talent with acrylic I can pick up similar kinds of painting easily, such as gouache which I already discussed. However I'm also a very visual learner and I tend to use the mediums I see in use in the classroom. Al Dawson was my desk neighbor for about half the year and I would observe him using gouache then try and replicate it later, but if I didn't see a medium in use in the classroom, odds were that I didn't use that medium. I think this shows my strengths and weakness as a creator because I can learn visually quickly, but I don't always take the time to learn about the unknown mediums on my own.

I feel like I can replicate things easily, that is one of my skills as an artist is that I can replicate things with little difficulty, I often draw inspirations right from photos I have taken or from photos I have seen, but a challenge that I struggled with this year was creativity. Often I was replicating real life buildings this year for my portfolio, but I really struggled with how I would make something "my own." Another challenge I had this year was meeting deadlines, in the latter half of the AP year I'm not sure I met very many. I work best when I do all my work at one time because I can get into an artistic zone and just dial into my art. But it was hard to find large chunks of time, especially in the winter with my ski training and as a consequence I often had to rush works and do them in the middle of the week, I think this negatively impacted some of my works. A third challenge which I tried to overcome towards the end of the year was relating my processes and materials with my artwork. I worked hard to pick materials that made sense to my work, this is seen best in building investigations 14 and 15, where I thought I best connected my art to my materials.

Without any specification, I'm proud of my prowess as I develop artistic skills, as I said I've come a long way as an artist this year as I can crank out better work than ever before. I felt a little burnt out of my sustained investigation halfway through the year because it just seemed boring to me and I was a little embarrassed with the sophomoric nature of my choice. As I looked around the classroom especially at Jillian Wight and Alec Gideon's works, it seemed others were being more creative than me in their explorations. My work this past year started feeling a little 2 dimensional or boring as it felt like I was just replicating pictures I had already taken, but something, as I realized around the end of the year, was that I had been practicing artistic skills all year. Especially skills that I personally hold important, such as sketching, painting, layering, mixing paints, and building shadows, I developed this year at a much higher level. When we were turning in one piece a week I was constantly practicing these skills, especially because I was only more or less replicating this year. So overall I'm very pleased with my sustained investigation because while not all of the work is super original or interesting to look at (I am very proud of some of them), I was always furthering my skills and knowledge. That is what I am most proud of this year.

Another thing I loved about this year was the sheer volume I was creating in. Even if I didn't feel super creative at certain points through the school year, I still had art I needed to turn in every Monday or Tuesday, because of this I created way more this year than I ever had. I would like to continue this artistic work ethic through the summer and into next year and the future, I defiantly plan on continuing art this summer and I would like to fill up my sketchbook by sketching every day of the summer. Sketching I have always found to increase my creativity and artistic skills especially when working with shadows and still objects. I would also like to continue playing with size and scale of my works, another thing I experimented within the end of the year as I worked on different sized canvases. I would like to eventually be able to paint on a much larger more impressive scale than I currently paint on as I have always looked up to Picasso and some of my favorite Picassos are paintings like Guernica, which is on a massive scale. Finally I'm not currently registered for AP art and design for my Senior year because the workload was just so much junior year, however, I'm having serious second thoughts because of how much I have learned and how far my art has come this year. While I'm currently on the fence it seems almost a shame to me to not take this class next year as I have it available to me right now and won't ever again have it as an option.