Foundations of Art

During the course of this year, I think that I actually struggled a lot with my work. I feel that this class was draining in a way that has made me take a break from my own personal art. I came into this class really excited to draw and paint but now I feel that I didn’t draw as much at home than I did here. It’s been tough but I do feel like I got better some, at least I hope I did. I will go into depth about why, however I want to say that I really enjoyed working on most of the projects and in this course.

Going back to the improvement thing, it’s kind of hard to say whether I improved or not. Since we did so many different projects, it’s hard to make out anything getting better since the projects all ask different things and skills. Looking at my time capsule drawings though, I can see that I have definitely gotten better at perspective and I am very happy about it. In the past, I’ve always been terrible at drawing objects and rooms especially at funky angles. I am beyond elated that I can now do this. However it does take awhile to get all the orthogonal lines on, I find it bothersome. I will have to get better to a point where I am able to use less or no construction lines in a perspective drawing. Portrait-wise, I feel like most of the portraits we’ve done in class were all in a realistic style. However the self-portrait for my time capsule was quite stylized and I don’t usually draw realistically at home, so I’m not sure if I improved any on realistic portraits. Looking at some of the portraits I did for this class, I can really see how bad the proportions are. Another thing is that I was drawing them at bigger scales then what I was used to in a small sketchbook, so that was quite challenging. Overall I feel like I could’ve improved more.

The most frustrating part about my work in this class was that I wasn’t so motivated to finnish a piece. Especially for the mixed media drawing, and the 84 colors painting. I believe that I was just unhappy with the medium I was using or the requirements for the piece. Instead of trying my best to work with the requirements, I just got mad at them. And that was probably the most challenging thing for me. I’m very used to my own comfort zone in art. I exclusively stick to watercolor paintings/sketches and I was upset when my work didn’t turn out how I wanted with a different media in this class. Now, I obviously know that I couldn’t have automatically mastered a new media within the span of two weeks but in the moment I was angry with myself for not. So in turn, I think that I have a negative impression of some of the things that we did, especially of charcoal and ink since I hated how that drawing turned out, but didn’t bother fixing it since I was so tired of those mediums. In short, the most challenging part for me was trying new things and getting over not being perfect the first time. Now that I have come to this conclusion, I will push myself to get better at more mediums so that I don’t get stuck using only one thing for the rest of my art career.

Again, this year has been a little shaky for me in terms of art. I don’t think that I am proud of just one thing in the works I’ve done this school year. But I can say that I am most proud of the shoe painting that I did, the one with the bees. I like the composition and the color pallette, and I have to say that I love drawing bees now because of it. I think all in all, I’m proud of myself for trying new things. This might be a little odd considering my last paragraph however I now realize that I would never have done any of that stuff if I didn’t try new things. That wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t take this class. And a lot of good came out of it as well, like my bee painting. If there’s anything I’m taking away from this class, it’s that I should break out of my comfort zone more, and not be too harsh on myself if I don’t like a piece that I do.

I’ve talked a lot about my success and struggles already, so to sum it up, I think that my biggest weakness is that I don’t try to work with new things, and it is visible in my work. I think that the pieces I’ve done with watercolor (my most used media through the years), it turned out better because I have more experience with it. Maybe acrylic as well. Any other media that I have used, I feel like my struggle is visible. And it is kind of apparent that I gave up and quickly finished it. Maybe I’m being delusional but that how I feel. I think another weakness I have is proportions. It’s become increasingly obvious to me that I have trouble drawing at larger scales and at keeping the proportions looking good on faces and things like that. However I do think that my biggest strength is that I am able to make things look graphical and energetic. In the drawings with less of a realistic look, I feel that is where I really flourish. I think that when I try to draw cleanly, the drawing has no life, so I’ve become good at lines I think. Despite all the bumps this year I feel that I have improved. I am grateful for the opportunity and privilege to attend this class.