2D Design
Semester 1 Reflection-2D Design
During the time period of this class, we learned how to turn prompts, lines, or materials and turn into our own unique pieces of artwork. For the first few pieces—whatchamadrawit, beautiful oops, time capsule, designing with circles/dots, and extended blind contour we were given a prompt—this concentrated around a shape, words, a material, or an idea, and had to create what came to our imagination from this. This could be whatever we wanted as long it stayed within the criteria. This got us to think creatively and turn something into whatever we wanted. I learned that it didn't matter what I made as long as it was meaningful and thoughtful.
The next project where I learned was the digital art project. We used photoshop, and illustrator and learned some of the concepts and basics of these programs. I had never used these before so it was very new to me. It took me a long time to learn how to pick up the different strategies and how to use some of the tools effectively. When we used digital art we created logos and I created a portrait of my mother. These both took me way longer than I would have liked because of the difficulty of the programs. It took me so long to pick up on how to use them that I spent more time trying to learn how to use them than making the actual art. The final product was very cool for both my logos and my portrait.
We then took a dive into space, design, shapes, and abstraction. The two projects that focused on these the most were stars and stripes and designing abstraction. We were instructed to create these two projects only using certain concepts. For stars and stripes, we learned how to create a unique piece of art with a limited amount of colors and shapes. For designing abstractions we learned how to create a unique piece with a limited amount of concepts. We were allowed to only use things like space, motion, color, or whatever three categories you chose.
The next two were competition/spreading awareness pieces. Donate Life and the duck stamp were designed as pieces to bring awareness to either organ donation or ducks in their natural habitat. This taught us the same thing as the two projects before—how to create a unique piece with certain criteria. Our final projects were our sustained investigation. We got to choose whichever inquiry we wanted and create three pieces that investigated that. My inquiry was: How can I convey the Human body in different ways? I wanted to create 3 pieces surrounding the different parts of the body and make these all very different. First I made a female and made this with flat bold colors. The second was hands and feet using charcoal. The third was a mixed media about muscle and how this is a stereotype of men although it can also appear on women's bodies. I learned that the body is a very difficult thing to draw nowadays. If you make the proportions off or make it fat, muscular, or skinny it can be seen in a certain way.
The thing that I was most successful in this class with was staying true to what I wanted to create. Even with the different prompts and criteria I felt as if I continued to make pieces that I loved and was proud of. I loved how I chose materials that challenged me and that I liked and didn't like because it got me out of my comfort zone but allowed me to express myself at the same time. I think that I was most successful with this because in foundation I was directed to use many different materials and create different things that I wouldn't normally think of.
Something that I felt that I struggled with a lot during this semester was finishing my pieces. Although I loved what I had created in the end I felt as if I had artist's block sometimes. I felt like I didn't know how to finish a piece so that it could come out the way I had imagined it. I knew that it was good for ideas to change but I think I struggled with allowing my ideas to change. I am happy that in the end though with the results. I think I struggles with this because I didn't want my ideas to change. I don't think I knew how to allow them to change and make it still look good even though it's not what I wanted in the first place. I found that sketching out my idea processes helped a lot with this as well as asking others for advice. This helped me think out loud and receive different ideas that I wouldn't have gotten by keeping the ideas to myself and just in my head. Something else that I struggled with was how much time I was spending on each project. I felt like I was spending hours just on one small project. This became difficult because between sports, other classes, and homework it became too much.
Moving forward some of my goals would be to be more effective and faster in creating my art. I know this sounds hard to accomplish but I think if I just arranged my ideas better I would be able to find more effective ways to create art without going overboard for the same outcome. Another goal of mine would be to continue creating art throughout high school. Even if I am not taking an art credit I would like to set my own time aside to create small things that are meaningful to me. This would allow me to destress and find downtime within my day while still being productive and expressive.