Foundations of Art 

Final Written Reflection: 

Throughout the year, my work definitely illustrates some weaknesses, but it also illustrates some strengths as well. For strengths, I think that my work ethic would be one of my strengths because as you can see in all of my artwork, I did end up completing every piece of work whether I had to take the project home or I was able to finish the project in class. I also didn't get a grade below 80 on any of my projects which is pretty good in my opinion. For weaknesses, I think that my patience is definitely something I struggled with and it was shown in my wire sculpture the most. I chose my patience because I think my patience got in the way of my wire sculpture turning out how I wanted it to if I had been more patient with it I probably could've made it more sturdy and got a better grade as well as be more proud of my sculpture. The wire sculpture wasn't the only project my patience got in the way of this year. My patience definitely played a part in all of my projects as I would start rushing towards the end when I lost my patience with the project. I think this was also why art isn't my favorite thing as I struggle with it the most out of all my school subjects. 

Over the course of the year, I think my artwork shows that I have improved because as you can see in my first few pieces of work such as my pure contour drawings, I didn't really know how to correctly proportion my drawings let alone know how to put perspective into play. This is in comparison to my duck stamp for example. In my duck stamp, I think that my proportions were much better than in my pure contour drawings. I also think that I had a more correct way of putting perspective into play in my duck stamp rather than my pure contour drawings. Another example could be my painting skills. I think that over the year I learned a lot more about painting and improved my painting skills from the art history-inspired painting that I did to the surrealist painting that I did later on in the year. In my art history-inspired painting my paint strokes were all over the place and you could still see the canvas through my flowers which was not what I wanted. This is compared to my surrealist painting where you can not see the canvas through any part of the painting and the paint strokes are rather neat and not all over the place. 

I think that out of all the projects that I did in Foundations of Art, the wire sculpture was definitely the most challenging for me. I chose the wire sculpture to be the most challenging for me because I didn't really understand the process that well and I also didn't really know how I was going to make a horseshoe out of wire, but I gave it my best shot. This project caused a lot of anger for me and it didn't turn out how I wanted it to. I wanted this sculpture to be more sturdy and to be able to possibly stand up on its own, but that very clearly did not happen unfortunately. This project also hurt my hands a lot and I probably should have chosen the easier wire to use, but I didn't think of that at the moment and I soon regretted that choice as my hands would cramp up and have red marks all over them. I hope that this project was more fun for other people than it was for me because I think that if I understood the project a little more and put a little more effort into it or chose an easier object, I probably would've had a lot of fun doing this project. It just didn't work out that way for me. 

Out of all the projects I did this year, I am definitely most proud of my surrealist painting. I chose the surrealist painting because I enjoyed the process all the way from creating the collage to finishing the painting of the collage. This project was just really fun for me to do and I find this type of painting rather soothing it didn't cause me any anger or frustration although it did take quite a while. I also chose this project because I think it was honestly my best piece of work this year as it came out the best out of all of my artwork in my opinion. I also put the most amount of time into this project out of all of my projects which probably wasn't the best on my part, but I'm still very happy with how this project came out and I wouldn't change anything I did with this project. 

For the summer/future, I plan to continue working on my artistic skills whether it is through little doodles in a sketchbook/notebook or if it is creating larger paintings/works of art. I also want to paint my room possibly this summer which would help me work on my neatness as an artistic skill as I have to try not to get any paint on my ceiling or anything else other than the walls in my room. I also plan on maybe making a mural on one of my walls as I think it would look really cool. These are only possibilities, but I am going on vacation up north this summer and during that time I hope that I can have a sketchbook that I can doodle in while there are "boring" or low-key moments during that trip.