Juan Nolte
Juan Nolte Reflection
Semester One:
During this first semester of AP art, I felt like I've really grown as an artist, and have learned many more techniques in order to improve my art. Before starting AP art I was limited to creating artworks that were designed by my Art teacher, well this helps improve my art skills I felt like this art wasn't truly mine because it was made for an assignment. this all changed when I started this year, I suddenly had the ability to create whatever I want and had full control of what am doing and how I chose to do it. Although I don't know my exact style of art yet I feel like this opportunity is bringing me a lot closer to it. throughout this year improved my digital art techniques I've learned how to better use layers and how to better use different types of brushes to achieve different textures. One new skill I'm extremely proud of is my ability to shade, during my first project “ divine intervention” I spent many hours on the Reaper and Angels clothes this gave me a chance to experiment with shading clothes. I found that after I finished the piece my ability drastically had changed compared to when I had begun. One of the things I struggle with still is trying to create realism in my artworks. some of my artworks like “What Utopia” were designed to look animated, but my other pieces lacked realism. I think that my problem lies with shading and Light when I draw by tend to show objects through lines instead of colors and I think that if I take time to experiment with color I can improve the realism of my pieces. I really enjoyed the first semester and I'm looking forward to the second.
Juan Nolte Reflection
Semester Two:
During the second semester of Ap art, I felt like I went through a major change in my artworks. Starting with "Same Sky" I started using more of my own photography in my pieces. Using my own photography allowed my pieces to become more personal to me, as a result of this I felt like my pieces explored the concept of my own identity better. Not only could I now make my pieces more personal but I was more invested in my art, I wanted to finish my art pieces but also aspired to experiment with my ideas and how I could represent them. I stopped caring about how others might interpret the art and started wondering what it means for me, and what does it say about my life. While looking for new ideas instead of thinking of things I Knew I could draw I instead looked for concepts in life that I wanted to explore more like identity masked by anonymity, the effect of the world on a person, or even just why seemingly insignificant things are significant to me. My style of art has definitely changed from first to the second semester and in addition, to this, my view on art has shifted. I'm very happy with the progress that I made this year in art and want to continue to explore my artistic ability even after I'm not in AP art anymore
Juan Nolte
Divine Intervention
Medium(s): Digital media
This piece was made using an app called procreate. It is meant to symbolize the final moments in a person's life and the final judgments people might face. It is meant to highlight how a person's fate is not necessarily set in stone but how there they can change it even on their deathbed. It depicts a reaper waiting for a person in a hospital hallway but then an angel comes to intervene. In this piece, I played with society's norms of good and evil and how they might be represented in the final moments of someone's life. The difficult parts of this piece were working with lights and finding the right proportions of items in this work.
Juan Nolte
What Utopia?
Medium(s): Digital media
This piece was made using an app called procreate. It is meant to symbolize the facade that we governments put up in order to make people think that everything is alright and that they have cracked the secret to true democracy. This picture depicts the US capitol building, but with a crack in the piece that allows the reader to observe a dystopian world that reflects the conflict that exists in the US's political system. In this piece, I played with the role of government in society and how it is not perfect like people might lead you to believe.
What Utopia process pictures:
Juan Nolte
Breaking Reality
Medium(s): Digital media
This piece was made using an app called procreate. In this piece, I reflect on the contrasts between my vision of reality and my imagination. When thinking about reality, I think about how that reality is much bigger than just my life or any life on earth. Often people think that reality is limited to what you experience, I wanted to portray it as much more. So I chose space to depict it, as a way to represent how vast it is. When thinking about how to represent my imagination I thought about two main ideas that fuel it, love and change. I chose to represent love by drawing roses that wither the further they are away from me, as a way to depict present and past relationships. To represent change I chose a symbol of a frog since in many different cultures and religions it represents transformation and change. In the middle of my piece, you see any eye this is meant to represent my view on reality and imagination.
Untethered imagination process pictures:
Juan Nolte
Same Sky
Medium(s): Digital media
This piece was made using an app called procreate. In this piece, I wanted to contrast the different places I lived and the relationship between the sky and the ground. This piece symbolism all the places that I have lived: it symbolizes America through the grand canyon, South Africa through the safari, and Germany through the mountains. in this piece, I wanted to convey that no matter where I was, one thing that always stayed the same was the sky. I used this as a simile explaining that: no matter what changes I experience there would always be something that will remain constant in my life. This artwork illustrates that simile.
Juan Nolte
Change
Medium(s): Photography and Digital medias
This photo was taken in the Middle of Marrietta, GA. I took the picture and edit it on Procreate. This photo is supposed to show the inner struggle of trying to cling on to your past self while in a rapidly changing world. It also shows the mental struggle of not changing who you are while having to make a choice. The halo and the scythe represent the moral and antithesis choices that we are forced to make in life. The red sky and green ground are supposed to represent the changing world.
Juan Nolte
No Intervention
Medium(s): Photography and Digital medias
This artwork was created through the use of photography and digital art. This piece is supposed to represent the identity that we assume when we are online under the mask of anonymity. It shows people are different when they know there will be no repercussions. This piece is also meant to represent the idolization of the idea that you can be anyone and also no one. This idea is the byproduct of being truly anonymous like hackers and governments and often fuels a sense of false power.
Juan Nolte
Self Reflection
Medium(s): Digital medias
The piece is meant to symbolize love and loneliness, when creating this piece I wanted to experiment with the idea of love and loneliness and how that affects our identities as humans. In my experience, one of the biggest effects on a human can be love or in some cases the lack of. In the artwork, you can see a character having to make a choice between love and loneliness, although it seems like a straightforward choice I wanted to show that it's not always the case. The heart symbolizes love and the skull symbolizes loneliness.
Juan Nolte
Self Reflection
Medium(s): Digital medias
This piece is meant to symbolize how different elements in life can affect your mood. What led me to explore this topic was Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD Which means that your mood is affected by the weather. People who have this disorder are prone to feeling depressed and sad when it's raining, and all though this is a more drastic example of how we are affected by the world around us I thought that it was a perfect example of the fragileness of the human identity.
Juan Nolte
Reflect
Medium(s): Digital medias
This piece is meant to symbolize how our identities are a reflection of the world around us. It's a reflection of all the moral, ethical, methal and physical choices we made. It's a reflection of all the people we meet, and all the places we've been. This photo was taken in a forest and you can see me in the reflection of a mirror that I brought to the forest.
