Building an Investigation

Practice: 

I want to use the skills I have learned in science classes to do research, and collect the information I need. I plan to make many entries in my sketchbook that work like field notes, where I observe patterns, drawing and making notes of labels and tendencies. 

Experimentation: 

I want to experiment with various materials including the ocean itself, as well as materials that are products of the ocean like seaweed, rocks, and sand. I hope to use the patterns created by the ocean like the tide lines and patterns of sea creatures to make art. I want to be inspired by this but also use it literally by printing with ocean materials and letting the waves make patterns. 

Revision:

I will add to and change work that I feel isn't as good as other works. 

1. I started out with a question about how humans connect to the ocean and how humans can be inspired by or depend on the ocean, but after a few projects I wasn't sure what to do and I had some other ideas so I ended up switching my inquiry to being about human connection. More specifically, how has human connection helped me through hard times and influenced how I see and act in the world. 

2. I think my most successful project is either #4 or #6. I think I am most proud of #4 because it felt really fun to do, and so I think it just was a very real representation of how I felt in the moment. I wasn't trying so hard to think about how I was going to make things look a certain way or trying to make something look realistic. With this piece I focused on just drawing what I felt and using the loose nature of the oil paint sticks to express my feelings through colors and shapes only. I have realized this year especially that I don't really like realism that much, and so instead of doing it anyway, I decided that I wanted to take a big step away from it for a moment and do something completely expressive and abstract. 

3. I think SI #3 was my least successful. It started off well with the materials and the cyanotype of the ocean cam out really cool. I had the idea of having people sinking into the ocean while sipping fancy cocktails, but I wasn't really able to show that very well. I wanted it to represent how the ocean can be perceived as a privilidge that only richer people get, with yachts and fancy restaurants, but I don't feel like the idea really came through. I also just think that my drawings of the people in general weren't as realistic as I had hoped, and the colors didn't pop on the background so it kind of all just faded together.

4. I have struggled the most with coming up with ideas about what to create. After each project, I've spent up to an hour just kind of sitting and looking things up, trying to brainstorm what I could create and how I can show my ideas through art in a creative way. I often think "oh i could draw this scene," but like I said before, I want to move away from realism a little bit because that's not what I really enjoy. So coming up with ideas of art that could not only connect to my inquiry but that I will enjoy making, and that are availble for material synthesis. I have struggled a bit with that as well this year. I have been trying to think of ways that humans are connected and using those methods in my art (like music, words, physical contact). However, I often have an idea in my head of exactly what I want a work to look like, and it's sometimes hard to incorporate a variety of materials.

5. I think that allowing myself to be aware of what materials are available and looking at some examples of work with unique materials so that it can help me to move forward in my material synthesis. I also want to look more deeply into my life and my connections to make sure that I'm really honing in and personalizing my art to my experiences, rather than just human connection as a whole. 

6. I want to explore more with photography in the future. I think photos are such an important form of connection. When you lose a loved one you often keep photos around, when you are missing someone you might look at photos of or with them, so I think that using physical photos of family members or friends in my art could be a cool way to explore. I think there are various types of photography like cyanotype, and wetting the film and placing it on another surface that I could use. I also have been experimenting with a lot of 3D work this year, and so I think that I should keep using that. Maybe I could do a sculpture with the hands where you peel away the rubber, since holding onto things whether figurative or literal in based deeply in connection. 

7. My work has developed to be more personal and less broad, especially through my change in investigation, I was able to focus more on my own experiences and emotions rather than such a large and broad topic such as the ocean, where in the first three projects I focused a lot on the broader connection of humans in general to the ocean rather than myself.

8.  (more layers/complexity, abstraction/self/items+artifacts, mobile, human symbolism v. human form, symbolism) A lot of people said that they liked SI #4 and that they liked my use of colors rather than realism. I think that that's a good thing to note because I have been wanting to experiment more with symbolism versus just the human form as one person said, and so I think that I'd like to experiment more with abstraction. I also got from many people that I should add more layers and complexity including items and artifacts as well as feelings that connect to my inquiry. I think that a lot of feedback reflected that I need to add more to my work, make it so that the viewer has to think when they see it, and they get a feeling rather than just seeing a form.

9. Next semester I'd like to dive really deep into myself, and the connections that make me unique so that my work is more developed and complex. I think right now a lot of my work is pretty self explanatory and doesn't make the viewer think very hard about what it could mean or what it feels like. I want to keep using a variety of materials because the area where I had a fair amount of people comment on was my material synthesis so I want to include that more clearly. I also got somebody saying that I was developing in my research and inquiry, so I think that making my inquiry more clear through each and every work as well as making sure that my works create a clear story or progression would be something to work on next semester.