Foundations of Art

Final Reflection:

My favorite project we did in Foundations of Art was the Creative Color Design Project. I really feel this piece, in particular, reflected my love for very loud, colorful, and abstract art, which has been the base for many of my other projects this year. I am also not the most experienced with using paint. I have never had the most careful hand to work with small detail and small brushes, nor do I have the patience to keep replying to layers and layers of paint in order to cover the entire canvas. However, I enjoyed the value scale formative leading up to the project, as well as mixing different paints, and experimenting with different shades and tints of the primary, secondary and tertiary colors. One thing that I love about this piece is the hidden message and inspiration I had behind it. In my artwork, I attempted to make it look as if the color was bleeding out of the earth because I have always been passionate about taking charge and speaking up to save our planet and our oceans from climate disruption.

My least favorite project we did this year was the gridded charcoal drawing. I am satisfied with the way it came out, but the process was challenging. I tend to work slowly and often need time outside of class to finish my artwork, so this project was particularly time-consuming considering we were working with an 18x24' piece of tinted paper. For me, charcoal is a messy medium. I did not enjoy getting it on my clothes, hands, mask, and face, or lugging it back and forth between home and school. I also had a harder time familiarizing myself with each material. I found the white charcoal particularly difficult to use. Whenever too much pressure is applied, the pencils sometimes created an indentation that was hard to conceal. Many of the projects we have done this year also required you to pay close attention to detail in order to make your artwork precise, however, it was difficult for me to create fine lines and detail because they had to be smudged and blended, and it was sometimes difficult to repair mistakes.

I don't have many major suggestions for improvement. I enjoyed every project we did throughout this class and got to work with many new materials and learn many new skills that have improved my artistic abilities drastically. I did not just benefit from the assortment of projects and smaller assignments we completed throughout the year, but through artist statements as well. Writing really helped me deeply analyze and critique my work, and I was able to see my strengths and weaknesses. One suggestion I do have for the class is practicing more with paint. I used watercolors at the beginning of the year for my ‘Blind Contour Drawing' and ‘Negative Space Drawing’ and would have loved to practice more with them in class this year. I also enjoyed researching famous artists and movements for inspiration on our gridded self-portraits and would have liked to practice applying new styles of art to our own work more often.