End of the Week Reflection

This week, I made 3 paintings. The paintings of the flag and chair I already posted about. Today, because I wasn't sure what to do, I decided to do a water color pencil/painting of a peacock feather. Looking ahead, I want to start my final piece. I decided I'm going to do a painting of something looking through something else, whether it's a window or tunnel. I'm not sure yet whether I want to do it on canvas or maybe wood. I will look for inspiration on materials over vacation. Maybe I will begin painting over vacation.

The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp

Ms. Tharp suggest several methods for "scratching". Describe what Tharp means by "scratching" and select three of her methods you think would work for you and describe how you could use them to get going this term.

• Ms. Tharp describes many different kinds of people's methods for "scratching." By this she means there are many ways for getting inspiration and ideas. These ideas range from traveling to another country to observing falling rocks to going into vintage clothing stores. The main way of "scratching" that I can relate to is changing my environment. I do this when I am traveling or just driving to school. I often get my inspiration from things or places I see. I use nature in most of my work. I also use reading once in a while to get inspiration for my work. 

Ms. Tharp also gives several warnings. Which of these warnings do you think could apply to you and how you can you see using her advice to combat them?

• Don't start with perfection. Just start, and as you go along, add more detail.
• Don't always rely on others. You need to plan ahead of time if something happens, because if you don't, your piece might fall apart.
• Plan your idea but not too much. You need to make sure there is some wiggle room.

First thoughts, future thoughts

Background information:
I have been making some kind of art for most of my life. I really began to love art during a middle school art class at my old school. It all started with a painting of a bowl of fruit. My experience of art and this class is what I wrote my college essay about.

Interests:
My favorite material to use is acrylic paint. I hope to use it a lot over the next two terms along with some new materials I have never used before. I also enjoy photography. Maybe for the final project I can combine both paint and photo to make something really cool. Usually I make 2D pieces, and that's what I intend to do for the most part in this class. One theme I love making my art about is nature. I like painting from either observation or from a photo I have taken. Usually, I include lots of color in my paintings.

Ideas:
I want to make a series of paintings based on a photo. I have yet to take a photo that I will use, but I have taken some example photos as ideas.

Year reflection

      I had a lot of fun in Art class this year, and learned many different things. At the beginning of the school year I really didn't like drawing. Throughout the past 2 terms, I began to enjoy drawing a lot more. Because we drew once a week, almost every week, at least in the first term, I feel I have gotten so much better at it. I especially like the drawing I did of the pile of sticks. Another thing that I feel I'm good at is painting. Something else I realized this year is that I love using so many different colors in my paintings, collages,  and sculptures. In the future I will keep drawing and painting, not necessarily as a job, but for fun during my free time.

Reflecting on group work

It's fun to work in a group once in while. Because there are many different people, there are many ideas. In my group we combined many of our ideas into one big/good idea (that was better then any of our individual ideas) that we all liked. It's also helpful to share the responsibility for the project. People have different strengths in skill that they can contribute to the project.
Although this hasn't happened in my group, I could imagine it would be difficult if people disagreed with each others ideas. Also, it would be annoying if people didn't do there part of the project, which fortunately hasn't happened in my group.

End of Term 1 Reflection

     I really had fun this term. I got more interested in and better at drawing. I used to kind of hate drawing, but as time went on and the more I practiced, the more I enjoyed drawing. I learned how to use different techniques for drawing, and shading. I also was able to experiment with different materials like charcoal, different lettered pencils, and a simple eraser.
     I feel really good about how the most recent drawing we did (the popcorn one) turned out. I was able to use different techniques to make it actually look like popcorn, and to make it look like it's not just floating in the air. I also think that my sketch book has been a big success for me because I got to be free and do whatever I wanted to in it. I got to pretty much get to just express myself.
     Something that was difficult for me was was the fabric drawing. It was hard for me to draw the texture of the different cloths, the shape of them, and the way they hung down. Also, the collage of the the sun/water that I made was kind of hard because I had to cut out many many many small pieces of paper. It took a lot of patience.
     Some advice I would give myself is to continue to work my hardest and just keep practices different techniques.

Is candy good or bad?

     My concept was about candy, and whether it's good or bad. In the positive picture, the person is very happy and is holding candy. In the negative picture, the persons teeth are rotten and she is kind of crying.
     It was hard for me to draw the peoples faces. Also, in both the positive picture, it got kind of annoying to do the back round.
     Throughout this project I figured out to use contrast to make certain things stand out (like the lollipop and  the rotten teeth/face).
     Before I had done the back round, I asked multiple people what I should to for the back round. They all basically said if the object you want to stand out is light, make the back round dark and the other way around, if the object I want to stand out is dark, make the back round light. I asked Lili, Emma, Alexandra, Kathy, Riley, and Ysabel.
     I really like how the back round of both picture turned out, especially the positive one.

Fabric Drawings.

I thought that parts of my drawing were okay, but I didn't really like the way it turned out. I felt that it was kind of difficult to draw the different fabrics and shading.  Last weeks drawing of sticks had more details that I liked. The fabric drawing was made of mostly shading instead of detail. I had more fun drawing the sticks than the the fabric.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection Discussions

My group said the rainbow was noticeable.

I liked Kate's "bunnaroo"(thats probably spelled wrong). I thought the tennis ball head was funny yet cool. I also like the clothes pin bunny ears. They are the actual shape of bunny ears.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection

Keyboard Rainbow

Mid-term Reflection

1. I think that I have been pretty engaged in my artwork, and the class in general. Although I don't talk much in class, I listen and use what I hear to make my work better.
I come to class on time and and almost, if not always have my hw done on time.

2. So far I have worked in my SB, done a painting, a collage, a sculpture and some drawings. I have worked hard on all of them. I like how they have all turned out, especially the found object sculpture. I like how I didn't just glue on random buttons, but I made a rainbow with them.

3. In my SB, there is all different kinds of things. There are drawings, a collages, a page filled with round stickers, doodles, cut outs, a painting, and pages full of colors. I really enjoy working in my SB because it is relaxing and fun. I get do whatever I want in it, and express myself.

4. I used to hate drawing, but the more I practiced, the better I got. Now I kind of enjoy drawing, depending on what it is. I guess I am kind of glad to draw every Tuesday because I get more and more practice drawing in different ways, and with different materials.

Found Images Collage 2

I finished my my found images collage. I really like how it turned out. I like the colors and the way the water and fire blends together.

At first it was fun and I couldn't wait to work on it, but later on it got more difficult to keep cutting little pieces if paper. My whole collage is a bunch of small pieces of paper cut out by hand. Also I had to re-glue some of the pieces because they fell off cause the glue I used wasn't that strong.

The Changing Still Life

To accomplish the goal, I had to 1: work fast, even though it might not look that good, 2: work lightly, so in the end I could erase things, and 3: have patience so I wouldn't get upset about it.

I had to work fast because that was the only way get everything down on the paper. Things kept getting added so I had to make sure to keep drawing them.

I had to work lightly because I had to erase almost everything in the end. It didn't erase very well, so now I know to not draw hard so it can be erased and look good.

I had to have patience because if I didn't then maybe I wouldn't have been able to do and finish it.

three forms drawing

I'm not all that into drawing. So today was kind of hard for me. I thought that the cup turned out well, and the block turned out okay. I didn't really get to do the pine cone. I didn't have enough time. I started it though and it was pretty hard to do. I have trouble drawing the details. I also need to practice and need to work on shadowing. I haven't really done much of that in the past. Overall, I think I did good and if I had more time, it would have been better.

Pour Paintings

     First, my partner and I mixed different color paints and poured them on the paper. One of them looked like a heart, and one of them had a dinosaur and some kind of animal. The heart one dried weirdly so it doesn't look like a heart anymore.
     I didn't end up using either of the ones that we made. The one I chose was different shades of orange in weird shapes. I ended up turning it into a gorilla with huge hands. I painted in the grass and the sky so it wasn't just floating in mid air. I also had to paint in the back legs. I painted over some of the orange that was above the gorilla because it didn't work with what I was doing. I thought it was pretty fun.

Collaborative Drawings.

I think that the final result is pretty good, except the sky is not as good as i wanted it to be. It was to dark for me. I would have liked a lighter shade of gray. I liked the hill. It was changed from being snow, to being grass.  Overall I thought it was okay.

I felt okay. Like I said before, i liked the way the hill ended up, but not really how the sky turned out.
It was fun seeing what other people thought of to change or add to my art piece. It kind of gave me other kinds of ideas. It opened my mind in different ways, and gave me a new perspective on it.

Thinking about the Artist.

An artist is someone who expresses themselves in a creative way. Creativity is when someone creates something new and original. An artist needs time to do there work, and a space to do it in. They also need to have patience, and an openness to the world. They need to let their mind flow from the inside out, as well as from the outside in.