Final Independent Project: Question

For our Final project, my question is: Who will I become? 
I decided to use the theme time, as well as my own dreams I have for my future. While brainstorming I constantly came back to my own life, and how I saw it panning out. I think my question will open up a bunch of possibilities for my final project.

Final Independent Project

This term in art, I have learned the values of color, shape, size, and angles. All of this topics have been important in the projects we have done so far in this class. In art I have learned new techniques that I think will help me with my art in the future. This year we did a drawing from observation that included blocks, cones, paper, and a table.  I found this drawing challenging because it really focused on getting the angles and proportions right. Because of this drawing I feel like I learned information on angles and shapes that I didn't know before. I learned new techniques that can help you get the right shapes for a picture. Besides working on angles and shapes, I learned more about color value, and creating shadows with paint. This was a challenge for me because it was difficult for me to get the right colors for shadows. I enjoy mixing paints and getting different colors, but using paint to create a painting it more challenging then I thought it would be. I learned that importance of placement, as well as the right colors. For years I have known that in art you make mistakes and learn from them, but this year I really got to see my mistakes and try and fix them. I know that everything I learned this year in art is going to help me with my final project and make my project great.

Thinking about drawing and painting

I believe that painting and drawing an image, as apposed to take a picture of it, is a way of seeing the image in a different light. Photography is something that I love, but I feel that by spending time and drawing a scene or an object out you are showing how you see the object. I think that pictures can also show how you see the object, but in a different medium.

When I draw an paint I feel like I can let myself make mistakes and learn new techniques. I know that in art you are always learning new things, but when I take a picture I know what I need to do. I think that with photography and painting you need to learn new things that can make you a better artist in the end. I enjoy the fact that photography, painting,  and drawing are different because I feel like I am doing something different in all of them. I think that painting and drawing will always be an art form that has many different techniques that a person can master.

In our world today, we can use two dimensional art as a way to show the different feelings and ideas, depending on the shapes, colors, and movement we use in our work. I know that Shepard Fairey covers a lot of political topics in his work by using different images, colors, and words to get his point across. In art you don't always need to use words to get a point across because art is open to many different interpretations. I like the fact that art is open to many different ideas because it makes looking at something and have a different view from someone else interesting.

Artist Statement

Ever since I can remember art has been something I have loved. From painting, to drawing--from clay, to pencils, art has always been in my heart. When I was a little girl my family would go down to Martha's Vineyard every summer, where my dad and I would have our annual art shows. During these art shows I would be able to go crazy with paint, leaves, twigs, newspaper, and string. My dad would make a giant teepee with dead limbs from trees, newspaper, twigs, and paint. At the end of the day my dad and I would show our art work to our family and neighbors. These moments are what made me become the artist I am today. I like to follow guidelines once in a while, but the moments I had with the paint and newspaper thought me that art can be messy, wild, and overall fun. My brother is an artist as well as my mom who enjoys pottery. I come from a background of people who have supported me in the art I have made over the years. Art to me is a safe place for people to be free of rules, to be free of boundaries and limits. My art is a way for me to express myself in many different styles and techniques, while having the time of my life.

Art 21 Reflection#3

Florian Maier-Aichen:
Is an photographer who spends a lot of time perfecting his work. He spends a lot of time with color and shading in his work. Maier-Aichen uses an older camera that makes his pictures have this sort of older look to them. He also adds his own drawings to many of his pictures by taking the picture first and then adding his extra details after. Maier-Aichen is very keen on color and experiments a lot with adding different colors to his work, as well as using different filters. He uses colored filters on some of his pictures, which adds different tints of color to the places he wants color to show up. Maier-Aichen loves abstract art and tries to add little things to his work that makes it abstract in their own way. I can relate to his work because I am a photographer and photography is a passion of mine. Maier-Aichen will wait all day and night just to get the right shot and picture that he wants. He sometimes has multiple steps to his work, such as taking a bunch of pictures with the filter and then putting all of the pictures together to create one good one. Maier-Aichen will sometimes add things such as lines or abstract objects to his pictures. He also does a lot of color changes and object things to his work on the computer.

Hiroshi Sugimoto:
Is a photographer who takes pictures of lots of objects as well as 20th century architecture. Sugimoto works at his loft and is able to control the light and backdrop when he is taking pictures of objects like fossils at his home. He photos aren't crowded, they are pretty bland, but there is something about his process and the thing that he takes pictures of that really stand out. Sugimoto develops his pictures at his home in his dark room. Many of his pictures are just black, white, and gray, but some of them have some brown tones, he plays around with a lot of the neutral colors. He collects lots of fossils, which he takes pictures of and shows some great detail. Sugimoto uses an old camera to take his pictures. I can relate to his work because sometimes I think that taking a picture of something in just a plain color can make something look very beautiful. I like how his art style changes, some of it looks more modern and other subjects look more detailed.  Sugimoto has math in his 3D work, he also tries to design the setup for his space for his art shows. His work has good details and show how he looks at the objects and things in different ways.

Process Reflection#1

This week in art I was able to finish my clay work. I was very happy with the way it turned out and with the fact that I finished it. I was able to start my symbolic portrait and draw a sketch for the idea I have to my independent project. I challenge I had this week was coming up with an idea for the independent project. I decided that I did not want to stick with my first idea, there for forcing me to come up with something new. Once I had my idea I was able to come up with a great sketch of what I wanted to do. Another challenge was finishing the clay project, I had trouble coming up with a scene or thing that could represent the person I was trying to make symbolically. My next steps for this coming week is to finish my symbolic portrait, work on my independent project, and finish the mural with my group. I plan to get most of these things, if not all done.

Art 21 Reflection#2

Ellen Gallagher:
Is and Artist who uses lots of collage, paint, and carpentry in her work. Her goal is to show the moods, feelings, and different sides of people and things through her art. I like the way she takes regular pictures from newspapers and things and adds paint, and materials to her work to make it look amazing. She talks about peoples emotions and feelings in a picture that she makes come alive just from adding more materials to her work. Collage is something that I enjoy doing, but the way she adds to much more to the collage is what makes it into something that I can relate to and want to try out. She has a lot of characters in her works the come up more then once. Many of her photos are from Ebony magazines from the 1920s. She has collected all of these photos from over time to use in her art. For one of her shoots she took many different black in white photos and added her collage and color to them. Ellen also does some paper carvings of designs, shapes, patterns, and objects. She does tattooing in medal works of photographs and paintings. Other collages and project that she does has more meaning behind them as well as lots of different materials to create one large amazing piece.

Cai Guo Qiang:
Is an artist who uses gun powder to make his drawings come to life on the page. His goal is to show his audience that art doesn't always have to say something to be great, it can just be something. Qiang's father was one of his inspirations. His father used to draw little landscapes on used matchboxes, as well as paint on silk scrolls. He says that when he first starts a drawing it is like falling in love for the first time. Qiang makes his work not knowing how it will turn out in the end. In the end his is either happy with his love or he isn't. I like that way his paints look with the animals and shapes in the middle, and the explosion around them, it reminds me of spray paint kind of. He first draws the animals and shapes on the paper and then he sprinkles the gun powder around them in a way that keeps the shapes and such in a form people can see in his art. I can relate to his art because sometimes art isn't made to be perfect, it is made to be something unexpected and amazing at the same time. Imperfections in art are sometimes what makes the piece better then it already it.

Reflecting on group work

This week the mural project has been a challenging one. My group decided at first to go with a concept that was putting all of our ideas into one. We worked on that for a while but in the end it didn't work out well. It started getting very messy and many of us worried about if people would understand what we tried to put on the mural or if there was any message getting across to everyone.  It has been difficult because at first when we tried to please everyone we ended up having an idea that may not please the people who have to look at it everyday. A challenging part has been deciding on what we are going to do. Once we decided to work on a new mural idea we had to decided what it was going to be about and what it was going to look like.  Four people our of the five in our group decided on something that had to do with Boston.  Even though we all agreed on it we still had problems coming up with what parts of Boston we wanted or what types of things we wanted to show. Today we finally picked a concept we want to do, but the only problem is that two people from our fiver person group didn't come to school today. I like the whole group as a whole can accomplish a lot when we agree on things, but when we don't then it becomes harder. I think that if we all try to work on one concept and we put our minds together on one thing then we will have a great mural in the end. We have some very talented people who all have different skills that may be good for our mural. We all just need to lean to balance all of our skills and make it into a mural that people will enjoy seeing.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection

For found object sculpture the concept of my work was to make little kids reading a book. I  got the idea from the little book I found in one of the piles of junk. The process of making my sculpture consisted of me drawing my ideas down and then finding things that I could use to help me make my ideas come to life. Some things I struggled with was finding the proper things to make hands and feet. I wanted my sculpture of the children to look more human and less robotic. I discovered different things like little toy parts that made great hands and feet, even though it looked extremely robotic it worked well with my sculpture. I think the aspect of my work that was the most successful was my idea process and how I ended up creating the end product. Even though at times things didn't work out the way I wanted it to I ended up make a sculpture that I enjoyed and went well with how I imagined it would look.

Hot Air Balloons

For my glass half full project I decided to do the pros and cons of going up in a hot air balloon. The concept of my work was to show that hot air balloons can be something that is unsafe, while being something that is fun and enjoyable. The process of making this piece consisted of me drawing landscapes and a hot air balloon as the main focus point. One problem I faced was the fact that I wanted to use colored pencils but I kept on smudging them pencil with my arm to a point that it looked chalky. I also was having problems with my balloon and making it look like a well balanced circle shape. I discovered that sometime it will be hard to have something turn out exactly the way I want, but in the end it may look better then I thought it might. I got feedback from Lili, who pointed out things like the colored pencil and helped me with some proportion problems I was having. I think that aspects of my work that are the most successful have been the colors that I have used. Even though the colored pencil smudged a lot, the colors that I used look realistic and worked well with my project.

End of Term 1 Reflection

This term in Art Principles has been a great experience. I have enjoyed the projects we have done and the work I have accomplished. I have learned a lot about myself as an artist throughout my time in the class. I learned that I am not good with shading in drawings, which made some of my D.E.A.D pictures not turn out the way I had wanted them to. I think I have grown as an artist because I have learned things like your painting doesn’t have to be perfect right when you start drawing, it changes over time as you go along with the process. I tried to put lots of effort and time into my drawings and projects, while adding my own ideas to them as well. The thing that has surprised me the most is the fact that I don’t shade. When I am drawing I normally don’t notice if I am shading enough in a place, but when I come back and look at my drawings I can tell if I should have shaded something or made something darker then something else. I think my biggest successes has been my growth with my observation drawings. I used to hate observation drawings because I never thought I was good at them, but once I started to learn some simple tricks to drawing from observation, it became a whole lot easier to draw from observation. My biggest challenge this fair has been finishing projects. I work hard on my projects but I never finish what I started. I would like to finish more projects on time, since I don’t know if in the future it will matter more about getting the work done on time. If I could give myself some advice it would be to work more on shading and finishing the work I start. One thing I think I should continue to work on is finishing work/ making my projects look good and are done to the best of my ability, and shading places that need to be shaded in a drawing.

Chair With Coat

Today's D.E.A.D was more difficult then the ones we have done in the past. The chair with the coat was harder to draw because everything in the picture had its place. If a person came up to me and looked at my drawing they would know if I did the chair arm wrong, while with the sticks and fabric people would not be able to tell if I messed up on my work. Today I tried to do more shading in my drawing then I normally do. In this setup shading was important because without it you wouldn't be able to tell the coat apart from the chair, or the black vinyl cushion on the chair to the wooden arm rests. All of the shading was important, just like the proportions of everything. One thing that I had to look out for was proportions. I had to make sure that I mad the chair look like it was bigger then the coat, I had to make sure the legs on the chair looked the same side. This D.E.A.D was harder the the last two because I was trying to make sure I had everything placed in the correct spots. I also had to look for the little details, which made the picture look accurate and where important. I tried to make sure I had everything I needed, but it was hard. I enjoyed this weeks dead, but it was one of the hardest ones that we have done in a while.

Fabric Drawings

Today drawing the fabric went pretty well. I just had to make sure that I remembered to shade different fabrics and try to make them all look different. I struggle with shading most of the time, so I needed to work shading and adding some more details to different fabrics. I enjoyed drawing some pieces of fabric because I felt like I put more time and detail into the piece.

While I was attempting to recreate the fabric I thought that it was extremely challenging at some points. I wanted to add many details to the fabric and I started to give up at some points, but I kept with it and made sure I tried to get it done and make it look nice. I felt okay trying to recreate the fabric, but some fabrics where harder to draw then others that had lest detail.

Todays drawing felt different then the sticks because I felt like everything had its place, while in the sticks I felt like if I moved something by accident no one would notice it. I enjoyed the stick drawing more because I had more freedom while I was doing it. On the other hand I forgot to put light and dark on the stick picture and on the fabric picture I felt like I attempted to add that more. Overall I enjoyed todays D.E.A.D.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection Discussions

For my found objects sculpture I have decided to make little kids reading a book. I am currently not finished with my project and I have to add some more things to it as well. I got the feedback to add arms and maybe some more hair to my people/ person. One sculpture that I thought was successful was Alexandra's project, which was fire/ flower. She did a great job, and got the feedback to make it bigger and more wild so that it looks like fire.



 

Found Images Collage Reflection

 A wedding in India

In the process of making my collage a friend gave me the idea to make the shape of India for my paper, since I decided to make an  Indian wedding. I got the idea for a wedding because my table had a lot of wedding magazines and I got the idea for India because the magazines had lots of colors such as reds, oranges, yellows, and pinks. When I started making my collage I started ripping the different colors out and gluing them onto the paper in the shape of India. One struggle I encountered was that it was hard to cut out the shape of India, since there are small little parts to it. I eventually got the hang of it, but that was after I messed up a bunch of times.  I think some aspects of my work that were successful was the way I put my piece together. I thought that everything fit well. I made sure that the wedding dresses looked good in the places I put them, and I also used wedding dresses of different sizes. I Also put different streamers that said I love you, and I had an elephant as well. I really enjoyed this project because I got to do something the ended up really great. I hope we do something like this again some time.

 

Mid-term Reflection

 Art this term has been a great experience. have enjoyed many of the projects we have done and the topics we have talked about in class. I believe that some of my work was done to my best quality.  Some of my strengths consist of working hard on my work, even when I don't finish it sometimes.  I think one thing I need to work on is finishing more projects, that is my goal. I have never had to use the "I'm doooonnnneeee" worksheet, because I always have a project I need to finish.
My engagement in class is very good. I make sure I listen to what the teacher is saying and I work hard on the assignment given. There have been times when I didn't enjoy the "D.E.A.D" but I still did my best and tried to put 100% into the work.
In class so far I have finished one big project, the collage that we worked on. I am not really good at finishing many of the projects on time, but I do get them done at one point or another.
In my Sketchbook I have made sure that I do the two spreads a week. The only problem with my sketchbook is that I do work, but I normally don't finish it. This has become a pattern of mine, start work, don't finish. I am going to work this week on finishing work that I start in my sketchbook and so on.
On Tuesdays we drop everything and draw, also known as D.E.A.D. I have enjoyed some projects we have done on Tuesdays from drawing from observation, but other times I don't like it. drawing from observation is normally so exact with what you draw that I find it harder then other types of drawing. I enjoy all of the projects we have done in Art term one, but drawing from observation hasn't been the best.
Art has been great this term, and I hope in stays one of my favorite classes.

The Changing Still Life

Today in class we had to make sure that we kept up with the changes that Ms. Roberts was making to the still life setup that we were using. In order to accomplish the goal of going along with the directions I had to make sure that I changed what was on my picture to match with what Ms. Roberts was changing. This tended to be difficult sometimes because I would have to erase things and add things all at the same time. It is very difficult and almost impossible to erase charcoal from a drawing. Another thing I had to do in order to accomplish my goal was make sure that I had everything on the picture from my point of view. The last thing that I needed to do was make sure I could see the set up with out moving my whole body. Once we started making sure that I didn't move my whole body didn't feel really important, but keeping up with the directions was a key point. One thing that I would do differently would be to us different a different material to draw my picture with, since the charcoal was easy to erase.

Three Forms Drawing

Today in our class we did an art event called D.E.A.D( Drop everything and draw). Normally I do not like observation drawing, but I liked it today because we got to choose how we wanted our drawing to look. We only had three objects, a cup, pine-cone, and a block. I liked the activity because we got to practice shading and finding the details in the object. If we did this project again I would be okay with it, since I was fine with it today. One thing that I need to work on more is some of the shading. Once we hung up our drawings I noticed that I didn't have shading in some places, so the object I was trying to draw didn't look as realistic as it could have been.  One thing that I need to work on is trying to get  details in things like the pine-cone, I never got to drawing it but I think if I did I would have tried to add the extra details. I felt fine doing the project since I enjoyed it, but also having the little demo before helped me realize that I didn't have to make it look realistic on the first try, it helped me realize that my drawing would progress as I worked on it.  One thing that I do not like in drawing for observation is when we have to draw something that is already set up and then we have to draw it the way it is, I liked being giving the choice to decide were I wanted to put something on my page.

Pour Paintings

When we first started making the pour painting I enjoyed the abstract way it looked on the paper. I thought that the project was different in a way that made it enjoyable. When the paint was wet it was hard for me to see anything in the shapes that is made on the page. I didn't really see anything besides a splash of wet paint in the middle of the page. It was fun just putting the paint on the page and seeing the shapes that it took in the end.

The next day the pour painting was dry and it just looked like a splash of paint on the page. When I looked more closely at it one of the first things I saw was a bumble bee. As I looked around more closely I started seeing animals and bugs in the painting. I am still working on the pour painting and as I go along I am starting to see more sea animals and bugs. The pour painting project has been a very enjoyable experience and I am looking forward to working on finishing my project.

Thinking about the Artist

An artist is a person who is not afraid of showing their creativity in different ways. An artist is someone who will try new things and add their own flair to whatever they are working on.

Being creative means that you will use your imagination to make your own thing, something that could be different from other peoples art. Being creative does not always have to be what you thing about when you are making a piece of art, it can also be what you add or do when you are making art. You don't always have to think about what that thing is in you piece or how it should be, just making something, anything that adds something that is different.

In order to be creative and productive an artist needs to think positively in order to make a good piece that they will enjoy. They need to slow down and just do what they want, don't always think, just do what pops in your head. The last thing that I think an artist should do is always be open to different ideas from people or yourself, never be afraid of mixing something new or putting to different mediums together, just try it, and if it doesn't come out right the first time you can always try again.