ART 3 FINAL
1. Which project was your most successful? Describe the theme and or topic and the process you went through to complete the project. Were the choices you made regarding material, size, technique, etc beneficial to enhancing this project. Please explain.
I really think that this project was my most successful. The theme was movement, and we had to show it in some sort of way. I really learned different techniques through this project, as it was completely different than anything that I've ever done before. I had to learn to leave the shadows instead of shading them and to emphasize the highlights. I also had to make an interesting composition, making sure to not add anything to the middle of the piece. I also added different movements of fish, and different sizes of fish to add depth to the scratchboard. I really got a feel for scratch board towards the end of this project. I learned to move my hands further up the knife to make sure I didn't keep accidentally cutting myself with the blade! I really learned different ways of shading and learned to make the scales of the fish pop by kind of rounding around the shape and keeping my source of light in mind. This was my very first time working with scratchboard, and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.
2. Discuss one project where you felt you were the least successful. Explain why you felt this way. What would you do differently to change this piece? Explain.
I really think I would chose this reflection project to do over since it was the least successful. I got a small white scatter of paint on it from when it was in storage in the art room, and I think the general idea of it was great, but I executed it in a poor manner. I think the idea would be better if it was on maybe tan paper with prismacolor pencils. This would allow a lot more detail and fine lines that was hard to do with a paintbrush. Then you could take a ruler to it and add all of the darker lines and emphasize the highlights in the roller coaster, and even make the girl look a bit more real. You could even make the roller coaster look more dilapidated and run down by adding rust and make the grass seem overgrown. I really like the idea that I had, but I feel like painting just wasn't the way to go with it. I also would've brought the girl forward, so you could add more details to her and so the roller coaster didn't seem so small compared to her. I feel like the girl and the roller coaster are out of proportion, and If I did it again I would've completely changed that and made sure they look right against each other. I also would've added the bars that go completely around the roller coaster to help support it, since most swirly roller coasters have that. I didn't do that in this piece because it would've looked really sloppy with paints, but with prisma colors it really would've come together. I would also add a face to the girl, and added more detail to her hair and made sure her skin looked more real. Her skin in the painting seemed too dull, and I really needed to add pink to make her look alive. I would have also added a lot more color to the mirror, and made it look a lot more interesting. I would've made the colors a lot sharper to increase the contrast between the girl and the background where everything is dull.
3. Look at your body of work over the semester and choose 2 pieces that show your growth as an artist. Discuss each piece and how you grew in the following areas: application of materials, techniques and skills, artistic vision, use of the principles and elements, creativity, intuition and subject matter.
I constantly ran into many problems when I made this little fat kangaroo. At one point, his foot flew off and I had to tape it back together, which you can see in the photos. With the help of my teacher, I glued it back together and it looked fine. I also had some problems at first trying to make everything hollow and putting everything together. When sculpting, I always had problems making anything hollow before putting the pieces together. Instead, I sculpted a solid form of the kangaroo, which allowed me to focus more on the actual shape and form of the kangaroo before I hollowed it out. This helped SO MUCH and is really why I think I became so happy with this piece. Hollowing it out after would be something that I would always do in the future. I also encountered some problems when it came to the painting of the kangaroo, since I had to touch all around the animal and paint it at the same time. I constantly got brown hand prints in the white areas and white hand prints in the brown areas. It was really a struggle. I also was confused if I should add values to the kangaroo. I ended up adding some highlights to it anyways where I think the fur would catch the light. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and I think I grew a lot as an artist through making it.
We created this project mostly off of the work of Botero, an artist known for making everything he paints of sculpts kind of fat. This was kind of the first time I had to gain inspiration from another artist. I had to find some sort of animal to make fat. I think one way to emphasize the fatness of something would be to use a usually skinny animal, to make the difference between the normal and fat sculpture more drastic. I really like kangaroos, and they're a fairly skinny animal, I decided to try that. I used my own idea of a fat kangaroo and went from there. I looked up many different types of kangaroos and tried to doodle them a little heavier than what they really are. I really tried to make it very fat, but I still tried to keep the actual shape of a kangaroo there to make sure it still looked like an actual kangaroo instead of a blob. I think it ended up looking a little bit like Roo from Whinny the Pooh. I even added a little baby kangaroo in the pouch to make the artwork a little bit more interesting to look at.
4. Choose 2 mini lessons that you felt were the most beneficial in your learning for that particular project. Include photos of these and explain thoroughly. Do you feel you needed more instruction for success? Explain or did you feel that the instruction given was enough to ensure success? Explain. (if you do not have a photo for this just answer the question without one)
I think this project was the project that I learned the most, since I really gained some familiarity for the different types of oils. Before, I only had the oils that I used at home and I usually needed paint thinner to help spread it across the canvas. I also learned to paint the whole canvas orange before painting over it. This really helped make the colors pop and added texture towards the foreground of the painting. I also had to learn to paint with my arm hovering, which was pretty hard as I usually rest my arm on the canvas, but the paint was still wet and I got green grass over my clouds, which you can see in the top right hand corner. Next time, I wouldn't do that and I would also make sure to use less of the oil we used to help spread the paint, This really made my sky kind of cakey and hard to work with as I tried to finish my painting. At first, working with the oils was very hard, since I was kind of unfamiliar how to work with oils that were kind of old. It was very hard to spread and almost chunky. I wish we had a short tutorial on how to use them and how to work with them even if they are chunky and harder to spread. Overall, I really like oils and this experience helped broaden my horizons about different painting mediums to work with. I feel like I really learned a lot from that project.
5. What medium was your favorite to work with? Explain.
This medium was really my favorite to work with. It was with watercolors and acrylic paints, and I feel like the outcome worked pretty well. I'm really familiar with paints and watercolors, and I had a lot of fun planning and putting the two mediums together. I had some problems with the paints resisting the watercolors, but it helped create a blotchy look that helps make up the clouds. I really liked how the clouds turned out too, with the reds and the yellows mixed in with the white. It helps create a mystical look and you can still see the red sailboat under it. I also used some colored pencils in this too, but that didn't really work since the colored pencils refused to fill the wells of the watercolor paper that I was using at the time. Although I had a lot of problems with mixing the two different types of mediums, I really like them individually. I love how the watercolors worked together so I could add highlights and different types of reflections to seem as if the boat was glowing. It also helped me darken the values around the edges of the tree to add some depth to the painting.
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