AP Art and Design

Final Reflection

This past school year, in particular throughout the AP portfolio portion of this years’ curriculum, which took up the majority of the time in art class, I believe that I was able to show improvement not only in my technical drawing skills but also regarding experimentation with materials and processes. In particular my line work improved immensely, this being especially evident to me upon reflecting on my entire portfolio as I was able to implement line work not only in pieces done with pen but also digitally or with other mediums such as colored pencil and graphite. At the beginning of my sustained investigation as well as the first couple of assignments of Advanced Art and Design, I stuck with materials and styles familiar to me and that I was comfortable with. My first several pieces, though some of my favorite works and certainly perspectives or styles I am less familiar with, stuck to utilizing ink pens with a limited color palette, mostly sticking to red, black, and occasionally blue. However, toward the end of the year I felt more confident in trying out new drawing surfaces, for instance, whether it be working digitally on a large scale in the Adobe Suite, layering pieces of tracing paper, or experimenting with collages. I also started to incorporate more color into my works, eventually progressing to create two entirely colored pencil pieces. Not only did this round out my AP portfolio to a much greater extent, especially to meet the rubric regarding experimentation and revision throughout the portfolio, it also pushed me as an artist to at times move away from familiar materials or processes and try something new. I also believe that throughout my work this year I was able to acquire more sophisticated architectural drawings than those I previously had made, which were made possible by the skills that I have learned and developed over the course of not only this school year but sophomore year as well.

At the beginning of my sustained investigation, I felt that my ideas were flowing and inspiration was coming to me with incredible ease, allowing me to produce a number of pieces that I am very proud of. However, approximately mid-way through the school year, I struggled to create works that truly reflected both my personal style and voice but also my inquiry question, leading me to create two or three pieces that I was incredibly unhappy with. This period of lacking creativity and motivation illustrated a great weakness as both and artist and a learner. This being that I began to dedicate less time to works that needed and deserved more time, as well as that I was unable to take the feedback and critiques I was receiving and incorporate those ideas to inspire new projects. This specifically I see as my greatest weakness, as I was given by classmates, peers, and other individuals constructive criticism and advice regarding my work that I could have taken into a greater account to fuel new and different works of art, something that I limited myself on yet would have helped me greatly when I was lacking inspiration. Looking back, I in particular wish I would’ve used specific feedback such as creating a full landscape or experimenting with impossible architecture to inspire me at the moments that I was unable to come up with ideas for a specific piece. Especially when observing, participating, or receiving critiques, it was also an almost humbling or grounding experience in the sense that it showed me that though the intention for a piece may be obvious to me as the artist, having spent hours developing the idea and creating the final product, yet that the theme or message often has to be made much clearer, much more evident through the usage of intentional materials for example, to ensure that my intentions for the piece are understood correctly. I tried to take this into account more having received much feedback on, for instance, incorporating landscapes around my designs to give a sense of scale and purpose to the design, which in turn inspired several of my later works.

In terms of challenges throughout this year of art and in particular the period focusing on the AP portfolio, at times I found it immensely difficult to find inspiration and motivation, though I my greatest struggle was managing my time appropriately. At the beginning of the school year I dedicated much of my weekends and time after school to work on my art, resulting in many of my favorite works that express my inquiry and artistic ability very well. However as the year progressed and other AP classes course loads picked up I struggled to stay focused, motivated, and on top of my art, this being especially difficult seeing as I am always drawn to working on a larger scale. Limited time to create as well lacking inspiration led me to struggle through the midpoint of my investigation, which lasted until I was able to create a work that I was proud of from sketch to finished work. Despite my struggles throughout parts of the school year, I am incredibly proud of my development this past year in using a different style of art than I have previously done, that being architecture inspired works. In particular since architecture is my intended course of study and career to pursue in the future, I am very grateful for the opportunity to create and begin to build an architecture specific portfolio. In terms of skills, I am most proud of what I’ve learned regarding developing my ideas and using intentional materials and processes to support the message of my pieces. This is an incredible skill to have started to gain as an artist, and I believe that in a couple of my pieces I was able to achieve this quite well.

One of the most significant and impactful takeaways from this past school year was the value that developing ideas in a sketchbook has. For each of my sustained investigations, I spent a significant amount of time drawing in my sketchbook to experiment or plan with different mediums or materials. This process allowed me to not only ensure that my ideas were solidified enough to begin on my final paper, but also created opportunities to discover new inspirations or things to incorporate into my work. Having never actively kept a sketchbook prior to this school year, it was immensely helpful to have it be essentially a position of the grade and rubric, as from now on I intend to always keep a sketchbook with me. In addition to sketching in my free time, next school year I intend to take Ceramics I and II to further round out my art portfolio with some three dimensional work, as well as take a year long independent study. For this dedicated study time, I would like to work on my technical drawing skills and ability to draw from life, something I generally do not do on a regular basis in my free time. Not only would this allow me to explore another kind of drawing that I am mostly unfamiliar with, though nonetheless interested in, it would also allow me to build a portfolio of pieces useful to submit with college applications in the earlier part of the school year.