"The Journey"

End of Term 1 Reflection

The first term of Art Principles was pretty good. It wasn't perfect for me, I was bored at times and that affected my engagement and performance. I've learned many new things this term, like techniques for drawing, what the principles of design are, and how to make a good collage. I don't think I like or dislike art anymore than I did at the beginning of the term, however I do think I have much more knowledge about art and different types of art then I did before. What has surprised me this term is that I'm not bad at all aspects of art. I think my final collage project going great, and my found objects sculpture was good too. My biggest success so far is becoming more engaged over the last couple of weeks. My biggest challenges have been finding ways to stay interested in what I'm doing so I pay attention and do well. If I do that the outcome of my work will probably be better. If I were to give myself advice it would be to do what I said earlier from the beginning, to try to find something interesting about what I'm doing. To continue to grow as an artist I need to find a part of art I like the best and continue doing that.

Chair With Coat

I think it was less complicated to draw the chair and coat than a pile of sticks, but it was still difficult because things were more defined so you had to draw them right. I don't think I used any skills developed over the past few weeks because I don't think I have any.

Glass Half Full Project: + and - of Sleeping In

The concept for my Glass Half Full project was to draw two drawings: one showing the positives of sleeping in and the other showing the negatives. The process was relatively easy, I had an idea quickly and knew pretty much exactly what I wanted to do. I was mostly happy with the way it came out. Not completely, but I'm not the best drawer so it wasn't too bad. I got some feedback saying I should add some color to select elements of the drawings to emphasize them more. I used that advice and found that it worked well. The aspects of the project that I think were most successful was I did the best I could and was focused more than usual.

Top: Positive

                                                                                    Bottom: Negative

Principles of Design Research

The piece of work I looked at today is called "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper. Hopper made good use of the Principles of Design to support the story and message of "Nighthawks". There is good balance in it with use of asymmetry. He uses emphasis in the picture with his placement of the bar in front of the other things on the street. He shows movement with the leading lines of the streets. He uses good proportion by making things in back of the bar smaller to show that the bar is closer than the rest of the street. Also the people are proportionate to the bar and street.

Pile of Sticks

It was extremely difficult to draw the pile of sticks, even when I wasn't trying to draw the individual sticks. Drawing is not my strength, and it felt awkward to try to draw the sticks. The outcome wasn't very good, it looked like a smudge with things sticking out of it. I think I needed to add more detail to the middle of the pile.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection

 

Mister Pierce

The concept for my sculpture was to make some sort of person. The idea came from the broken in half shell of a hand-held fan. The shape reminded me of a small person. I looked around for small objects for the nose and eyes, and I ended up finding other things that I could use for the rest of the body parts. Finally I thought I was done. I had feet, but it wouldn't stand up. So I found a piece of plastic that could be used as a base, then put rocks and shells on it so it wouldn't be so plain. I didn't really encounter any struggles, I think I was the first to be finished. Just because I did it fast doesn't mean I rushed through it, I'm happy with the way it turned out.

                                 

Pour Painting Drawing

Mid-term Reflection

For my engagement, I think I need to find things that I'm interested in. If I'm not interested, I will be much less engaged and pay less attention to the class. That also goes for the projects I've done. The ones that I've been interested in, like the sculpture and the drawing of the forest, I did better on, did them more quickly and I wasn't bored. The other projects didn't come out as well because I was bored and didn't put much effort into them. The sketchbook I think I'm doing fine on, it's actually kind of relaxing just to sketch anything you see. The drawing on Tuesdays I'm not always engaged in because standing up and drawing for half an hour really isn't my favorite thing to do, so I end up not paying attention to what I'm doing.

The Changing Still Life

To make this changing still life look good you had to draw kind of quickly and draw lightly as well so you could erase things easily. You also had to get the shading right to distinguish colors. I didn't do any of those things, because I didn't know at first that there was going to be things added. By the end of the drawing after erasing and drawing and re-erasing things, my picture basically looked like a huge grayish black smudge. You could hardly tell what anything was anymore. The way I would do it next time is draw lighter and get a good eraser.

Found Images Collage Reflection

"View"

The idea for my collage was a view from the cockpit of a plane. The view would show a futuristic city with other planes and roads in the sky with cars. The process was relatively easy, all I had to do was find images from magazines that fit what I needed and paste them onto paper. I didn't really struggle with anything, but it got pretty tedious after a while. I discovered that my idea actually wasn't all that bad. I think it coming out the way I wanted was the successful part of the project for me.

Found Images Collage

My group told me that it was a cool idea, to add more things and objects in the sky.

Three Forms Drawing

Drawing can be very relaxing, especially when your are listening to music, which I did today. I felt like I did a pretty good job on the cup and the block, but I struggled with the pinecone. Drawing what you see is much easier said then done, especially with things that have odd shapes and angles, like a pinecone. What I learned from doing this is that you have to be patient with yourself while you draw. Go from broad to more specific, that will make it a lot easier.

Extending our findings from The Pour Paintings

My idea was to make a drawing of a forest. I ended up drawing some trees, a stream and a few deer. I didn't get a lot of feedback from my group, but they did say it was abstract and I did good on filling up the entire page.

Pour Paintings

It actually felt good to pour paint on a piece of paper and let it decide what shape it would take. That way no one can say it's bad, because you have no control over where exactly the paint goes. I was surprised at how many little shapes and objects I could pick out of the painting. It was kind of like looking at clouds and finding things within them. When my pour had dried and I started to try to pick out things, everything I found was an animal of some type. I found a parrot, a hamster, a goat, a deer, and more. I have no idea exactly what direction it's going in, I will just draw what I see.

Collaborative Drawings

I felt completely fine letting other people draw on my painting because I'm a terrible painter and I trusted them to do better than me. I was not disappointed when I returned, people had added many details that I hadn't thought of that were very good. Both paintings that I had to add to were very good so I felt weird changing anything about theirs.

Talk and Draw

Both roles in this activity were very difficult. It was hard for the describer because you couldn't say what the actual item was, you had to just describe in great detail what it looked like so the drawer could accurately draw it. It was hard for the drawer because sometimes the describer would be to vague and it was hard to tell from their descriptions where the item was in  relation to other items or how big it was. If I did this activity again I would take it more slowly, not missing anything and trying to be more descriptive. 

Thinking about the Artist

An artist is someone who devotes time to putting their thoughts down on paper, on a CD, in the form of a sculpture, photograph, or anything else. Art can be nearly anything, from a doodle to a painting covering the length of a room. Art is anything you say it is. To be creative is to think outside the box, to be original and different from everyone around you. To be productive and creative at the same time is to put those original ideas into the form of anything you like. To do that you really have to care about your work and put your heart into it.

Reflecting on blocks, play dough, and finger paint

When I first touched the materials it did remind me of when I was a little kid in preschool. I just did whatever I wanted to do. I started out building a tower with the blocks that turned into a house. I put all the paint in my hands, put my hands on the paper and just let them decide what to do. I ended up putting my hands and forearms into the paint and then pressing them on a blank sheet of paper. It was actually very fun, just letting my imagination go. It was very relaxing.

Reflecting on Picasso quote

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."
What I think Pablo Picasso meant by saying this is that younger children are always naturally creative, curious and artistic. As we get older we mature more and for example, painting a picture of the sunset seems like a childish thing to do. Picasso was trying to tell us that we have to keep that creativity and imaginativeness alive, which in turn will probably make us happier.