Foundations of Art
In this class Foundations of Art, my experiences have changed a lot throughout my time coming into this class. Coming into this year I wasn't really sure what to expect of this class or what I would get out of it, but now this is all clear to me. Now that it is the end of the year and we are being asked to look back over all the projects we have created over time, it is also making me look back through the struggles and improvements that I have gone through. Because my personality is somewhat negative, I always thought my work wasn't very strong so I always complained about it. But the thing that I like so much about this class is how everyone told me ways I could fix my piece of art or ways I could just continue to work and make it even better.
At the beginning of the year, one of the very first projects we were asked to do was the time capsule drawings. This project was creating a drawing of an object, a corner of a room and a self-portrait. This was our very first summative project so it was kind of supposed to be bad. But later on, throughout the year we learned more techniques and ways to create certain objects and rooms with more technical visions. My time capsule drawings really didn't come out so great, but I was okay with that because later in the year we were asked to create another self-portrait but this time we have more knowledge on how to make it look more realistic. My second time through with making a self-portrait it came out a lot better, I had shadows, skin tone, more realistic freckles, and even depth to it. So, what I am getting at here is I really do believe my work shows how I have improved. Not just from the self-portrait example, but overall my mental hardness was a little bit more strong coming out of this year. I think every single project that we were asked to do this year has really helped me to improve my skills.
Overall this year I was pretty challenged with every piece of artwork but I think that that was a good thing because I had to learn how to overcome. Some projects that I found challenging were the 84 color project and multimedia drawing. I struggled a lot with the 84 colors project because I had no idea what to make. At first, I was going to do a bunch of umbrellas together from a bird's eye view in a city with a bunch of buildings, but once I started to draw that out I realized I didn’t like how it looked and how I thought it would come out. So instead, I stuck with the umbrella theme and went to umbrellas on a beach from a birds eye view. This idea I liked more, but I still really struggled with getting it in on time because I had switched my idea and also because I wasn’t happy with my color mixing. I struggled a lot more with the multimedia drawing project because I wasn’t very good with the shading part of it. I also changed my idea quite a few times on this one because everytime I thought of a new idea a better one came into my head. My first project I was going to do was an alleyway of a city but when I finished that project it looked nothing like what the picture did so I asked to do another. The second time I did a beach at sunset which came out a little bit better, but I still struggled with getting the right shading and color down.
A project that I am most proud of is probably the contour shoe drawing. This is because I really took my time on this project and worked really hard to make it the best I thought I could. I also really liked this project because I have learned throughout my life that I can draw object better than I can draw from my mind because I have something to go off of and I have something to keep the sizing and proportion in line. I was really proud of this piece of artwork because I believe it was really good and I think I captured all the details and correct proportions of the shoe really well. I remember that I was really excited for this project when it was first introduced because I knew it would come out better than my past projects. It did because I got the detail down and I was able to make it look realistic and look like my actual shoe did so I was really happy at the end of this project.
My work I think shows my strengths and weaknesses as a learner because it's quite obvious some of my artwork could be a lot better. I think this shows that some projects that we did this year wasn’t really my high key. Also this year for some projects we had a visual example at the beginning and I think that that really helped me to see other people techniques because I have learned that I am a visual learner and work best when I have already seen somebody else show me how to do it so I can go off of them. For example, for the squiggle drawing and blind contour drawing I don’t remember ever really having a visual at the beginning and those were two projects that I think I didn’t do so well on compared to others like the contour shoe drawing which we had a little video that we watched before to learn certain techniques and ways to help us through our process of creating the three views of our shoes.
Furthermore, my school year in Foundations of Art was really fun and a good experience. I really enjoyed this class and it was a great start to my day on white days. Overall I believe I improved my art skills a lot compared to when I first came into this classroom.