From watching the videos, it became clear that artists pay more attention to the small details commonly overlooked in the daily lives of many. Things like other people's behaviors, or reactions to different scenarios. Other observations pointed out in the videos were human interaction, and the effects of those interactions. Another point was how age can often affect behavior, and the fun side of people. When the artist used those aspects in her artwork, it added to the interest level for me!
0 Comments
My favorite final product was the horse painting that I did with the light bubble. I had to do a lot of problem solving with this piece to get it to look the way that I had envisioned. I ended up using an oil coat over the bubble to make it appear more like the sun was shining. Although, the one that was my favorite to work on was the girl underwater, just because it was challenging but I was proud of the way that it came out. I also had just worked on the watercolor painting of the sailboat before, and I learned a lot about different techniques from that with watercolor, and developed skill with that medium. I also really liked the way the photographs I took of bubble wrap came out. I was just randomly giving it a try, and those images were some of my favorites in my portfolio.
Out of all the pieces I did, the sailboat painting is probably the one I have the strongest personal connection to. I could communicate through my work with this piece by showing a calm environment, and showing the areas I have the most interest in. It is on the lake that we have gone to since we were kids, and shows the sailboat that we learned to sail on. Pieces like this, and most of the bubble pieces I did are really cheery and happy, and I think that they can bring back great memories for people when they look at them. Feelings people get from art, are ones that anyone can sense from looking at artwork. It is also very relaxing for me. For many people, art can carry a message around the world. Murals in school are often very cheery, and make me smile when I see them. Whether people notice it or not, art is everywhere around us, and I love to be able to think about what people wanted to say when they created their artwork. I learned a lot throughout this course. My skills developed greatly in many mediums I did not previously have lots of experience in. It was also really great to be able to collaborate with classmates during my projects, and benefit from their input! If I was ever didn’t know what to add to develop my pieces more, everyone always had a handful of suggestions. I am really glad that I took this class, and that I get to take it again next year! These are the images in my breadth section. These are the images in my concentration section. This article on the top ten mistakes made by art students was really interesting to me. I also think that it is a very valuable read for all art students. I definitely have experienced a few myself, and so it is beneficial to be aware of them so I can avoid them in my own artwork as much as possible. The one that I feel I experience the most is procrastination. I am the type of person who often waits longer than I should to get my work done, and I have to try really hard to stay on track and not have to cram everything in at the last minute. For example, I am writing this reflection the night before it is due, so I need to get better at that for sure! I also feel that I need to work on my presentation a bit, and making certain that I clearly show development in my artwork as I continue throughout this course. Overall though, I think this is a beneficial article to know what the art students who have gone through this before me have made mistakes with, so I can do my best to avoid them. For my boundary piece I used watercolors to paint bubbles. I interpreted the “boundary” to be like bubble space, and then painted the literal bubbles. When little kids are learning to give other people their own personal space, they might be told to leave people their bubble space, and to remember that invisible boundary.
In this project, I definitely developed art making and got to work more with being very exact with watercolors. I created original art, and during it, I took the chance/risk to add a background. I actually like the way it came out, and I think it is cool how it made the bubbles even more subtle. I really enjoyed being able to paint the bubbles and paint a subject that can have so much variety in the way it might look. I finished a little bit early, so I continued on and painted a microscope with the moon for the boundaries of the sky. I was going off of the quote, "Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon" by Paul Brandt For the bloom where you are planted part of this, I did a more literal interpretation of the title. I had flowers blooming. The flowers were drawn in pen and ink. That was good practice for me to do lots of detail, and it helped to develop that skill. I then added some watercolor inside each petal to brighten up the piece. Overall, I liked the way it came out, and I really liked practicing with the pen and ink.
At the beginning of this project, I did two quotes I found that I really liked. The quotes I used were: “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”, and “It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years” -Abe Lincoln. I was trying out doing calligraphy for the first time, and it was good practice. I really enjoyed learning how to use it, and also learning/developing new skills involved in it. For both of these I tried adding to them with some watercolor. One I just splattered paint all over, and the other, I just lined the edge with yellow.
During this project, I was able to develop art making skills since I have not done a ton of work with watercolor, and I really liked working with it. I created original art, and I took the chance of writing the words on the tree after it was done to incorporate the title of the piece “The Valuable Things to Me”. By including so many of the things that are valuable to me, I was able to communicate those things through my work. I learned a few new techniques as well. Such as, to use painters tape on the edge of the paper so that it doesn’t wrinkle. Also I was able to learn the best way to go from dark to light with watercolors. Writing all the small words was time consuming, but it made me better at being more precise. Overall, I like the way that the piece came out, and enjoyed making it. I think that I want to continue to do art with watercolor, because I really like using it, and I love the way that it looks. The first picture below is without the words, and the bottom image is pf the final piece. You can also see the painters tape around the image used to minimize the wrinkles. For this project, I also did some practice ideas for what to actually end up doing. I first did the bubble letter words that I was going to paint valued, but I didn't completely love that idea. Then I did the practice of the final project I ended up choosing. This is the value project that we did before. It was a good "warm-up" for the next value project. I got a lot more experience with valuing with colored pencils, and I actually really like the way it came out.
Dear Ms. Haggerty May, 2016
I earned an A in AP Art/Studio Art II because I always gave it my all. I did not just turn assignments in for the sake of the assignment, I actually tried hard to make it something I was happy with. Along with creating all this artwork, I learned so much more about art throughout the process. There were many techniques I learned throughout the year, that if I hadn’t taken the class, I probably wouldn’t have experimented with otherwise. When I tried new things, I would learn so much, and be able to use those techniques in future projects. This helped be to have diversity throughout my AP art portfolio, and broadened my skill level in general. An example of this was the charcoal self portraits that we did over the summer. I had never used charcoal before, and had done very few self portraits, but I was able to try it out, and then use those skills in later pieces that I completed. While I worked on my art during the course of the year, I kept in mind the AP portfolio examples we watched at the beginning of the school year. We were shown portfolios that earned a five, and what it was going to take to get there. The pieces that we saw were so detailed, and you could tell how much time was spent getting it just how the artist wanted. That is what I strived for. Although, I of course had to make it my own, and add my own touch to my artwork. I remember how interested I was at the pictures we saw, and strved to make my own interesting to viewers as well. I had to experiment, and certainly had some trial and error. I think one of the biggest reasons I received a 5 on my AP portfolio, was that I wasn’t afraid to go outside of the box. At times things didn’t come out the way I hoped, but sometimes it was the best decision ever. When I wasn’t afraid to try things, I often had the best results. An example of this was when I had thought to have finished my printing project with the stamps we made, and then thought of one last touch. I wanted to make an orange border around the page. It could have been a disaster, but I ended up loving the way it turned out, and was really glad I made the decision to do that. With the charcoal self-portrait, I learned a lot. I had never used charcoal before, so that and all its techniques were completely new to me. I was able to experiment on other pieces of paper first to get the feel for it. I also tried a little of the white charcoal which helped to lighten certain areas of my face, and make the darks seem even more dark. I was also able to figure out that with more layering, and erasing the charcoal, it became easier to blend. Also, Self portraits are not something I have done many of, so that was a skill I got to have more practice with, and improve on. While I was working with the charcoal, I had to try different ways to blend, and find what would look the best.
I think the part of my piece that I was the most happy about, was that the background was completely shaded dark. This really made my face stand out more. To begin, I had to re-sketch my face a few times to get the size how I wanted it. I took the picture myself, and adjusted a few light details to make it the way that I wanted. There was definately a lot of experimenting for me, and I learned techniques to using charcoal. From this project, I was able to try something completely new, and it did interest me to eventually try more artwork with charcoal. The graphite still life was an assignment that I was much more comfortable with. I have done still lifes before with paint, so I had practice with that type of artwork. I have not done tons of shading with graphite, but I found that to be really fun. I also did some experimenting with the graphite, and finding what was the best way for me to shade and sketch in the objects in my piece. For the actual image, I just used objects from my house, and aligned then in what I found to be an interesting set up. I balanced the vase and book, so that they were slanted, and holding one another up. I would say that the hardest part of this project was determining the different values of light to dark, but that was really good practice, and I was able to better myself on that. |