Foundations of Art

This class was a very great experience for me. Unlike any art classes I’ve taken before, we made a lot more art, all which were very different and unique. Because of the practice and techniques that I learned, I grew as an artist and improved a lot from when I first came in. I use a lot more shading, to emphasize darker and shadowed regions, and use more effort when it comes to small details. This is shown in almost all of my projects, but where it was crucial was in my historical self portrait, and the christmas lights. In my self portrait, emphasis was key when it came to showing depth, shadow, and even shaping in my face. One specific area where it was the most important was my nose. Noses in general don’t have distinct lines, but do have distinct prominence of the face. They’re mostly made of shading on almost any self portrait, and this is where I had to overcome avoiding shading and try something new. This also happened for my Christmas lights. The shading of the picture was very intense, and without it, you wouldn't be able to tell what the objects even were. The christmas lights were made of glass, meaning they were very reflective. I needed to add white areas to the very front light so the illusion remained true. When I did this, it gave the texture of glass and it appeared very realistic. It ended up working very well, and I’m glad that I went out of my comfort zone.

The most challenging part of this year was probably time management. Making sure I’m on time with completing each assignment was tricky, especially because I take my time with a lot of things, and it takes me time to even come up with my own unique idea. I ended up almost always taking my project home and finishing it in my own time, and this worked out the best. The other tricky thing was flexibility in being able to take on many different projects in areas I’m not so comfortable in. For example, carving, printing, and molding wire. All of these were very different and new since I’ve only done my own art using pencil and paper, and that’s what I’m the most comfortable with. Although I wasn’t so confident at first, I ended up really enjoying these new techniques and ways to create art, that I would’ve never discovered if I didn’t take this class.

I was the most proud of my strengths as a pencil and paper artist. As I mentioned before, I’m the most comfortable in this area, and since I got more experience, I improved even more, and I’m very happy with that. Some specific things I’m really proud of include my self portrait, which I explained before, and my formative assessment of a room of your own creation. This idea was very unique, and I was nervous about how it would turn out, but it worked out very well. It was one of the first things that I got to do creatively, and the illusion that I had in my head worked to my advantage. What helped me in this process was my previous learning in lines, space, and texture. All of these helped determine what the objects actually were, and overall, the project made me very satisfied.

Clearly, looking back on my time capsule drawings, I improved a lot as a pencil artist. Meanwhile, when I tried new ways of art, they never turned out as good as when I need my pencil drawings. This tells me that I do very well learning more in depth about subjects that I am already comfortable with.