Foundations of Art

End of Year Summary:

My experience in foundations of Art this year has been amazing. I love the variety in projects we did and am excited for art next year. There have definitely been projects that I haven’t done as well on but, overall I think that they turned out good for my first year.

When looking through my work over the year there is a clear view of my strengths and weaknesses. I think that I definitely have a harder time with drawing. Specifically realistic drawing. I could probably have an easier time drawing a cartoon or making a sketch of someone’s name but if I were to try to draw something with shading and highlights I would probably not do as well. For example the Sgraffito project I just used a basic spider web sketch and it turned out to look like a spiderweb. But if you asked me to draw a spider web hanging in the corner of a doorway I would probably struggle more. I think understanding and being able to point out my weaknesses is a pretty good skill because then you know what you have to do to improve.

I think that the most challenging project I did was the wire project. I feel like generally if you keep working on a sketch you can generally make it look good with time but with this project it wasn't about shading or erasing. It was about making sure to keep all wire parts so squished together that the wire would not be able to budge. I think in the end I failed at this and therefore, my sculpture had a wild time falling to the left. This was also the hardest project because we had never done anything like this before, this meant I had no practice. As well as being hard to physically create it was also difficult to come up with an idea. I couldn’t think of anything that could become a sculpture that wasn’t already a basic shape. Such as a cube, pyramid, or prism. If I were to do this project again I would probably try to come up with a more creative idea.

I think the project I’m most proud of this year is the linoleum prints. Not only am I most proud of this project, this was also one of my favorite projects from this year. Keeping the fact that it was my favorite in mind it might explain why I did so much better on that one! I am most proud of this piece of work because I think it ended up looking the most professional. I can imagine a canvas tote bag with the black leaf pattern and how if I saw it in a store I would actually think it is cool. I measure which I am most proud of on which one would I actually choose to hang up on my wall. I am a very picky and particular person when it comes to artwork that I make and which pieces I actually like. This extended version of this print I am also very proud of because I did something abstract that didn’t look absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes when I try to make an abstract piece of art it ends up looking lopsided and messy.

This summer my goal is to get into a better habit of just drawing. I’m not good about working on drawing outside of class assignments. I think that if I were to work on just sketching random things realistically instead of cartoon like, that I would probably get better at drawing. One of the things I’m worst at drawing is people. I would like to be able to draw a realistic person with all of the features by the end of next school year and I think that being able to practice over the summer would be a great help. I’ve always loved art and interior design but I have extremely low self confidence. I feel like by the end of the summer if I can remember to keep sketching and practicing that I will have a sketchbook of things I’m proud of.

I can see my improvement through even the smallest things. Such as when I sketch out my ideas for idea generation now, I have an easier time sketching out 3d ideas, or the fact that I can now describe which materials are what and what they are used for. Such as the different softness of pencils or the amount of white paint you need to make a color lighter. I think a lot of my creativity this year started pretty shallow in the beginning of the year and now I can see certain ideas that I think really improved.