Foundations of Art

Reflection: 

When it comes to my strengths and weaknesses in art,  they are well represented in the pieces that I have made this year. For starters, strengths can be seen in my pieces made using either pen, charcoal, or just plain old graphite.  Art made using those materials made way for some of the strongest pieces I have made all year, and they reflect my learning process by becoming more developed and "sound" as I continued to use the material (mostly pen).  Weaknesses can be seen not from material, but from the composition of each piece. A good majority of what I have made, maybe even half, is lacking in some sort of background.  As time went on my art slightly reflected my attempt at making a fitting background, but overall, I stayed away from filling in the blank space. 

Boy, am I glad for the time captures because those are incredibly important showing how my artwork improved as the year went on.  My first self-portrait is absolutely horrendous, with little to no shading or detail.  My graphite self-portrait, however, I am amazed at. The hair, the shading, I did not think I had it in me to create something that realistic looking. It 100% is a strong improvement from my time capsule, and is the project that I am most proud of. I took my time with this one, and it was worth it. The shading came out amazing, showing depth and shadow in the face that I did not think I would be able to create. I am in love with how the hair came out and am so glad I took the time to draw in all the strands on the outside as they make the whole portrait look more real. I'm also just proud of the fact I could actually create a drawing of a face I did not immediately want to burn. 

Don't even get me started on the most challenging project I had to do. That would hands down have to be the mixed media drawing.  Before this class, I had never drawn or used charcoal as a medium for art, so I was going in blind. Getting gradients was a nightmare, and it did not help that I put a whole new meaning into "last minute" with that project. Blending the charcoal to try and hide the grid ended up with me almost ripping through the paper, and trying to get the white gel pen to work over the charcoal was a battle I do not want to experience again.  For all the blood sweat, tears, and experimentation that went into that piece, I'm actually really satisfied with the outcome. 

When it comes to my artistic goals in the future, I want to continue making art. Not to the scale of some of these projects, but more on the casual side. This year taught me so many different methods and styles for creating a work of art, and I want to continue the journey of finding my own style and what I am comfortable with.