Foundations Of Art

Reflection:

First off, I find the following task of writing a paper to reflect upon my year in art a little daunting cause who would think you would be writing a paper in an art class. What was most challenging? How did I improve? What was I most proud of? All are valid questions and should require an honest answer. To be honest, I originally chose art because I thought it would be an easy class to obtain my fine arts credit, boy was I wrong.

From the first day of class I felt overwhelmed by all the steps of each requirement and the need to photograph and write an artist statement for each project. Art has never been my strongest subject for many reasons but maybe on some level I was taking art as a way to challenge myself. I absolutely felt that the class was a challenge. A challenge because of the multiple steps, the short turnaround times between projects, and my struggles to perform all these tasks with one functional hand. I generally don’t use my disability as an excuse but rather an honest way to explain how hard it was for me to do most everything asked of me in the class.

Looking back on the year I am most proud of the fact that I managed to pass the class. When the third quarter wrapped up and I noticed that my grade was a 58 out of one hundred I was concerned how that would impact my ability to get the credit for the class. Now after getting some high scores on recent projects and turning my projects in, in a more timely fashion I feel more confident that I will pass the class. Another thing that I am proud of is my final independent project. I think that this project was my best as I was pretty much let loose to do whatever I wanted. The project allowed for me to display my passion for aviation and share my love for the Boeing 757.

To briefly summarize how my work has improved over the year I will use two words, more complex. My original drawings were basic without details but my current drawings and projects have more features and characteristics that made each project unique and better. I have never been one to focus on all the details and struggled to do that with each project. I guess you could say that I am more of a “bigger picture” person but I challenged myself to put in more detail and time into each assignment to improve.

What ways does your work illustrate your strengths and weaknesses as a learner? I don’t think many of my art projects reflected who I am as a learner. Many of the projects I rushed through to get them done so I would receive some sort of grade other than a zero. I truly think for me that if I had been given the opportunity to do less projects and focus more on the quality of work then I would have put more of myself into it and improved more as an artist.

To wrap up my reflection I will say that it wasn’t until the last assignment were I could do whatever I wanted was I able to enjoy the project I was doing. Despite the class being a challenge I have not completely ruled out taking another art class in the future. I have learned that you should never go into something thinking it was going to be easy and no matter the challenge always try to do the best job I can.