Foundations of Art

Giovanni 15 June, 2019

This was a great first year in high school and I have come to truly appreciate Foundations of Art, which really helped me throughout the entire year. When I felt stressed or bored, I could always work on a project and this made me become even closer to my love of art. Even though I struggled with some projects, when I saw the final result, I was extremely proud of what I had done. After struggling with some projects, I would always start sketching and drawing down ideas for my book or anything else that came to my head. Eventually, I even incorporated those ideas into my projects. Before I started FOA, I always thought of myself as a pretty good artist, but it wasn’t until I actually started this class that I truly unlocked my full potential. I was pushed me to my limits and, in doing so, I grew in both my artistic talents and knowledge of art. FOA was one of the classes that I took this year that I greatly appreciated and learned more than I could have known about art history, different ways to create a sculpture, and how to use the best connection to keep a strand of wire from falling over.

Not only had this class opened me up to my full potential, it also taught me techniques and ways to use tools that will be extremely important in the future. I learned how to use scratchboard, create sculptures by using wire and even how to create another sculpture out of cardboard. These projects often took up a lot of time but were fun and intriguing to create. However, my favorite projects were the ones that I could make using the materials that I had at home, graphite and ink drawings. This type of art is my favorite and that was why I created my final project using graphite and ink on top of it. I love the clean lines that are created and how the black contrasts so much with the white paper. I think that I also love using ink so much because it is the thing that pulls everything together and makes everything else stand out. Even though I loved the final project, there were still some projects that I struggled with and that I did not enjoy doing, although I still enjoyed the results. One of these projects was the surrealist collage painting. The reason that I didn’t really like this project is simple; I am a bit of a perfectionist. Usually I work on a project with only my brain in use (excluding the other tools of course). However, when I have some sort of reference and I can’t match the reference with my actual project, I get dejected and I feel annoyed for the rest of the time working on that project. But by the time I am done, I am still proud of my work of art and view it as important as the rest of my works.

The techniques that I learned in FOA really supported my artwork and made them better than they ever were before. From the gridded technique for realism to the value strips for shading, I learned to become a better art student and how to create art that I could have only dreamed of a year ago. My self portrait project would have been a lot more difficult and would have looked a lot less realistic if I had not previously learned about gridding. The same could be said for the Charcoal & Ink project if I had not learned about value strips and shading beforehand. I am extremely thankful for everything that I have learned through FOA. However, there was some difficulties that I had when learning new techniques such as the Surrealist Color Collage, and the Oil Pastel Color Study. The main trouble that I had with these projects was the same for both of them; mixing different colors. I often had a hard time judging the correct colors to add to create the color that I needed to match my reference. Therefore, I did not like these projects as much during their making, even though I did like the end result.

I have multiple projects that I especially loved to make throughout this year, such as “Scratchboard”, “Assemblage Animal Sculpture” and “Independently Designed”. I believe that these projects also show how much I have improved as an artist, from my first day in FOA to my last. After comparing my “Time Capsules” to my most recent projects I am completely surprised and happy as I view my growth as an artist. I am glad to see that I have improved and that I will be able to put my newest skills to use in the future and my "Self Portrait" drawing, the work that I am most proud of, show my growth since the beginning of the year. After comparing my "Time Capsules" with this drawing, I realized how much better I have become and how far I can go to become even better. I know that I can still keep growing as an artist and can still improve. I will not want to lose any skills that I have learned and will continue to work on many other art projects over the summer and the rest of my life.