“Two of the most important concepts I learned this semester”-

The first important concept I learned this year was Lines. This concept helped me to understand how space should be divided, how shapes can be created, and how to add texture to my artwork. An example of a project where I used lines was the controlled doodle. We started off by drawing one long line that twisted and turned any way we wanted around the paper, then we filled in the space with more lines in different patterns and arrangements(See image 1). This project helped me get used to lines and how I can be creative with them. Another concept I learned this year was value. This concept helped me to understand how I can make things look more realistic by adding contrasting shades of color to my work. Different values can often help create a certain feeling or appearance to art. It took me a little practice with adding shadows and highlights to understand how different values interact but I eventually got it. An example of this concept in a project is my final still life(See image 2). While this wasn’t my favorite piece of art, it taught me very valuable lessons about value. In order to make it realistic, I had to add the natural shadows of each object, and the highlights that the light created. This was tough to do, especially while stippling, but it eventually turned out ok. I learned many concepts this year that I hope to continue to use while making art and when observing the things around me.

Assignment I’m most proud of”-

I would say the assignment I’m most proud of because of the appearance would be my endangered species pinch pot. I really enjoy working with clay, so this was a fun project to complete. The glazing process was also fun to do, I hadn’t done it in a while, so it was fun to experiment with again. This project taught me to be mindful of how different parts of something work together to look realistic. My manatee had pretty good proportions in my opinion. I tried to use the same amount of clay for the head and the tail so one part of it didn’t look unbalanced(See image 3). However, I am also proud of my etching assignment, not necessarily because of how it ended up looking, but because of how much I learned. I had never etched before, I have carved on linoleum, and I thought it would be similar, but it wasn’t. It was tedious and difficult to get the lines that I wanted, and to figure out what space I wanted ink to show up on while printing(See image 4). This taught me patience and decisiveness.