Final Thoughts

Two of the most important concepts I learned this semester:

This semester, one important concept that I learned was how to understand perspective because it’s crucial in creating realistic drawings. I believe that this concept was most important in the “Final Still Life” as well as the “One-Point Perspective of a Room” assignments as that allowed me to focus on making every shape and angle convincingly realistic. Before this semester I never considered perspective as a valuable part of art and drew perspective with no strategy but after looking through my rough drafts of my artwork, I noticed why perspective was needed. For me, the assignment that helped me improve creating perspective to prepare for my final still life and my one-point perspective of a room drawing was sketching the various 3D cubes with the use of the horizon line. This lets me see how attention to detail in every line and angle plays a part in the shape as a whole. Another important concept from this class that I learned this semester was contrast and how that plays a role in making memorable art. This concept came in handy in the “Endangered Species Ceramic Bowl” assignment as I made my endangered animal stick out from the background by painting it a much lighter green than the lily pad behind it. In doing so, my bowl is more vibrant and the frog immediately catches your eye and becomes the focal point rather than blending in with its surroundings which is in contrast with what it typically does in nature.

Assignment that I am the most proud of:

When I look back at all the assignments that I’ve completed, I think that I’m most proud of is my imitation drawing. This may sound like an odd choice to pick because it was not an assignment that required that much dedication, just recreation. Plus, it was simply a homework assignment and not an all-out project, but for this particular assignment I put in more effort than usual. I believe I was more passionate about this drawing because it involved one of my favorite parts of art which is resembling a specific piece of art with my own personal style. Additionally, this assignment impacted my learning by standing as a necessary and important step in constructing my final still life since it gave me a chance to test out cross-hatching. Without this assignment, I wouldn't have had enough knowledge of the technique and would've been clueless while sketching my final still life. I think my determination in making my imitation drawing resemble the actual piece of art by Henry Moore also helped me focus on how controlled sketches are incorporated in the process of making the drawing come together.