With such a wide range of choice, and all the things I'm passionate about, I had a difficult time picking a single theme. After Christmas, I received a set of watercolor pencils and started to play around with lines and colors, and chose to do something using both the lines and the bleeding colors.
Time went quickly, and I found I needed to pick any theme to begin my final portfolio. I selected a simple theme: "Things that make me happy". This theme gave me freedom in what I could make, and creating happy art obviously brings me joy, so why not? The hardest piece out of my chosen three, was (of course) the one with people. I wanted to use one of my favorite pictures of my partner (Alex) and I, and spent many days making numerous practice sketches, playing with the ink and watercolor, and trying to make recognizable faces of the both of us. After lots of practice pieces, tears and frustration, I was content with my final product and added colors to represent a certain feel (joy, contentment, etc). I still see things in my piece that I would've liked to have done differently, but I've embraced the imperfections of it, because people are not perfect. The blurred ink and messy lines in places represents the little imperfections that make people beautiful. My other two images represent my love of nature (in this case, the mountains), and my love for rain (particularly thunderstorms). I used unusual colors because of my fondness for unique spins on how color is portrayed. Personally, the colors represent the overall feel that nature gives me. Using the watercolors, I was able to allow the colors to move and bleed, which created a stronger feeling of freedom that can be seen in nature. Through this art class, I have learned many things. I was introduced to new techniques of creating art, which widened my expectations of what my abilities were and could be. I became inspired by seeing art that my peers created, as well as humbled. My confidence in my own art went from virtually nonexistent, to being able to create a work of art, and show it to friends and family with pride. I compare myself to other people's work much less now, and can focus more on expanding my personal abilities. I've found a voice through art, that allows me to speak against issues I feel strongly about, and feel like I am heard. Through experimentation, I've learned what kind of art represents me as a person, and styles that give me the ability to express myself in a unique way. I've come to know art class as a safe, fun place where I can grow artistically in confidence and without feeling judgment. I'd like to thank Mrs. Purtee for teaching and encouraging me to do things I didn't think I could do (and for remaining helpful, especially with my many questions!) I will dearly miss art class, and I can't wait for the next one that I'm able to take. I knew immedietely that I wanted to choose lines for the elements of art project. I love pretty much all types of lines, and I especially think its really cool when people, animals or objects are broken down into simple lines to create a simplistic image. I thought about doing scribble art, because I've always thought that was really neat as well. I decided on trying to create a face out of a single, continuous line ( although I could strech to two if I have to). To practice and design what I was going to do, I tried to create multiple different drawings of the same image, all without picking up my hand when drawing the picture. My resource practice image was my friend's pencil pouch, which showed an image of a sort of mermaid princess. All together I made about four copies of that image, and found that with each practice try it got much easier to create a more finished looking image. I had to learn to let the line flow, because I couldn't pick up my pencil and erase what I had just made, or start off a new line with something new. At first it was frusturating, because I couldnt make the angles and features of a face "perfect". But as I practiced, I ended up really enjoying what I was doing. It took a lot of focus and was relaxing to make once I let go of trying to perfect the face. I especially enjoyed making everything in the image connected, because I love to think of the lines in a person's face, and how they're all contected to make a complete image. I figured I would try and use this method to draw some sort of portait. When I opened my phone to look for an inspiering idea or interesting profile to draw, I saw my partner's face on the backround image of my phone and thought, "why not?". I've always thought he had very strong and unique features that would be interesting to try and recreate on paper. And since I have almost a year and a half's worth of pictures of him on my phone, I had plenty of different expressions and angles to choose from. It took a few tries (I think three or four) and different pictures until I had a copy I liked. On the bottom of my page is my final copy, which is done with two lines and traced in pen. I wanted to make it out of one line, but I struggled in the placement for the mouth, so I picked up my pencil and started a seperate line, specifically for the mouth. Overall, I really enjoyed this style of artwork, and I would be happy to consider it for my final portfolio.
Why would an artist choose to work with a limitation? How does this change the way they create? Working with new materials creates new challenges for an artist to think outside of the box, as well as their comfort zone. When working with a new material or technique, it can give the artist a break from their usual medium that they use often. Typically, classical art uses materials like different types of paint, pencils, clays, etc. Therefore, people come to expect that style and use of materials from artists. However, it is important for artists to be unique, creative, and evoke thought, meaning or feeling. When an everyday material, or a material that isn't typically thought of as an art material is used, it has a tendency to impress whomever is looking at the art, and makes them think. I was impressed by all the ideas I researched, so it was difficult to choose an idea I wanted to use. I thought about using recycled materials like beads to create something, sand, or using a tool (like a stick) to paint something. I was certain on the idea that I wanted to use my left hand to create something. However, using my left hand isn't exactly unusual for me. I'm ambidextrous, so I often use my left hand while painting, using clay, and sketching. So I thought, why not use both hands? A video of the artist, Jackson Pollock, inspired me to try splatter paint. I've always wanted to try splatter paint, and I especially love being messy with paint and trying different movements of my hands to splatter and drip the paint. I got to use both of my hands, sometimes both an once, or separately (with different colors.) To help figure out how I wanted the splatter paint to look, I listened to music that was super fun to paint to. I ended up being able to get most of the paint on the paper, and only a handful of it on my clothes and somehow all over my face. I think it ended up being one of the most fun art projects I've ever done, and I certainly would do it again. In the pictures attached, I added a picture of my finished painting (which I titled "Hardcore finger painting") And the other picture was when I tried to take a selfie after I was finished (totally worth my phone case getting covered in orange.) There was another project was assigned where we were supposed to create some sort of pixel image. I definitely a hard time with this project. I really liked the idea to create an image out of words, but once I tried that, I figured out that I really didn't like how it looked. I ended up making a sort of sad creation with a sketch of a cute monster, and a background of newspaper clippings. It wasn't fun to make, since I didn't feel like making happy art at that time. I didn't want to work on it any longer, so it'll probably end up remaining unfinished. This week held a new unit, called "Artists Take a Stand." The assignment required a topic about something important, as well as something we are passionate about. I had a difficult time picking a topic, because I immediately thought of a few subjects I would be interested in creating a collage about. I decided what I wanted to do after thinking about something my friend said a few days ago. This particular friend has thick, shoulder length hair, and was walking around with his hair parted into two french braids. He was excited about his hairstyle because he felt unique, fashionable, and comfortable with his hair out of his eyes (even if it was unusual for a boy to have french braids in his hair). My immediate thoughts were that he looked great, and I was happy he was so excited. It didn't cross my mind that it might be a fashion that he would picked on for because it was "girly" or "gay." Another person who's very close to me commented that he wished he was confident enough to wear his hair in a braid, because he loves the style, but is to afraid of the criticism and homophobic comments that would ultimately be said about his hair. It made me think about the restrictions people face in our society on how they choose to express themselves, what they wear, and how they are viewed. Although there's been progress in acceptance of an individual's choice of identity, there are still many prejudices about what's considered acceptable in self expression. For example: men's clothes are largely similar in color in style (so they can maintain a "masculine" look). It is frowned upon for men to wear makeup, skirts, long hairstyles, and even bright colors without being stereotypes as a feminine person or homosexual. The same goes for women in terms of choices of clothes, long or short hair, makeup or choosing not to wear it. I strongly believe that every person should be able to wear what makes them feel comfortable and beautiful, without being criticised. I chose a picture with makeup artist and recent Coverboy, James Charles, to represent my topic. I thought the image was powerful, and he looked beautiful and confident while wearing makeup. I edited the picture slightly, and added text that says "Everyone deserves to feel beautiful" to show my point. At this point I'm not positive where my art will be displayed, because I would be sad if it got vandalized in school because of the sensitive subject. It will more than likely be displayed in Mrs. Purtee's Art room, or online (possibly both!). I was really excited about this assignment and it made me happy to be able to represent what I'm passionate about. In this unit, we went over skills such as: clay, painting, drawing, and printmaking. It was sort of like a
-refresher/introductory/ make sure you don't clog the sinks with paint- type of unit which was a helpful way to start the class. Most of the things we went over I had heard of before, except for a few different techniques and printmaking as a whole. I really enjoyed creating my shirt using the printmaking, especially since I've never seen the process before (although it was a little tedious since the screen printing material refused to dry.) My favorite project has been the painting, since that is one of my favorite medium. I chose acrylic since I like the way it applies to the canvas much more than watercolor. I'm in the process of trying to be realistic with my painting, and realizing that there has to be many compromises in order to fit my style of painting and the little experience I have with it. (I also learned painting clouds is one of my favorite-but-most-difficult-thing-ever objects to paint.) Clouds may kill me. I also loved the drawing, since it's my second/tie with first place medium to use. I wasn't really sure how to properly use the different levels of graphite pencils, so that was helpful to learn. Realistic drawings are very difficult, but it's something I'd like to work on. Below you'll see examples of a clay tile (of a flower), printed shirt (of cats), and a realistic drawing (of my Buddha necklace.) The painting, which is acrylic on canvas, is still undergoing work, but by the end of that project I will hopefully have a landscape painting of one of my favorite spots in Germany. |
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