Bermuda

End of Term 1 Reflection

My expectations and goals for the projects were very high. I wanted to make the best possible pieces of art possible. Some of the projects were very challenging but for the most part they were not bad. I think I met my expectations on the collage and sculpture. Some of my drawings were not really good. The various elements of our Art Principles class are realistic drawing, shading and collages. We do a variety of things in class. Each project is very unique and requires us to stretch our minds. This term overall has gone very well. There were some challenges towards the beginning of the term but I persevered and kept going. Drawing realistically is very difficult for me but not collages. I have learned many things to make my artwork better. Shading is very important in determining which side the light is hitting. My skills as an artist have grown. I feel much more confident about my artistic ability. I am now not afraid to attempt anything in art. My sculpture of a turtle made from circuit boards really surprised me. I would have never suspected it to look that well put together, especially the shell. My biggest challenges have been the drop everything and draw that we do every Tuesday. I am not a very strong drawer. Each different still life is a challenge. I think practice makes perfect. If i want to become a stronger artist, I must keep working at it. All of my drop everything and draw drawings lack variety. They all look bland and so boring. I would have liked to use the different principles of light and dark along with shading. All those factors would have made my drawings look that much better. In the Spring, I hope to get better at drawing from Observation. I enjoy seeing the pictures I draw on my blog. It is pretty cool to see how my pictures look from a computer. 

Chair with Coat

I found today's still life to be much more easier to draw than previous weeks. It was less complicated because there were only two main items, the chair and coat. The sticks were hard to draw because there were just so many of them everywhere. The fabric was a lot different because it was loopy and all over the place. I used the skill "from general to specific" for this drawing. I started out making a rough sketch of the chair and then got more specific adding the coat and whatnot. I also shaded which is another skill we learned.

Game Time

The concept behind my work of art is the theme of basketball. I decided to use this theme because there are both positives and negatives to the game of basketball. For the positive, I had one guy taking a free throw. Free throws are a positive because you are literally getting two free shots from the foul line. My negative piece was a defender stealing the ball from an offensive player. Losing the basketball is obviously a negative. The process for making this piece went pretty well. A struggle I encountered was trying to draw realistic people. At first it was challenging, but once I drew a few people, it got much easier. I discovered I can somewhat draw realistic people.

Fabric Drawings

I felt like drawing the fabric went pretty well. It was not that difficult. I knew where all the individual pieces of fabric were. The shapes of some of the fabric were not entirely exact. Drawing the fabric resulted in a more distinct picture than the sticks from last week. The sticks were just a bunch of lines jammed together.

Principle of Design Research

I looked at the artwork called Dempsey and Firbo by George Bellows. He used the Principles of Design to make his artwork very clear. It helped identify the story behind his artwork. There are many little things you can identify by using the Principles of Design.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection Discussions

• Fill in the empty space. 
• Glue everything together

I thought the pirate made by Silmar was really good. It had many elements and was well crafted. It looked really good as well.

pile of sticks

I think my drawing of the pile of sticks went well. It started out pretty general with just marks showing where the sticks were. Then as time went on, I tried to make it more specific by targeting just a few sticks. It felt very easy making this drawing. There were not many specific things in the drawing, just a bunch of sticks. I felt like the outcome was good.

Mid-term Reflection

I think my engagement in class is both good and bad. The positive aspect is that I listen and follow procedures very well. I take care of the materials we use and put them back the way I found them. I take a positive approach towards my art by trying my best knowing I am not the best artist. I would like to work on speaking more during discussions and having my voice heard about my art work. My work of arts so far are the result of my best effort put forth so far. Some are pretty good while others are not so good. I really like my collage that I made with all the animals. I would like to work on making my pieces of art more realistic. My sketchbook is filled with some pretty different spreads. I enjoy spending time working in it drawing whatever is on my mind. For next term, I want to use different materials in my sketchbook rather than always using pencil. I find that drawing from observation is very challenging for me. It is hard to draw a realistic art setting. I hope I can improve on that next term. 

The Changing Still Life

Three things I had to do to accomplish my goal was be open to change, adapt and draw quicker than usual. There were a lot of changes to the still life we we were drawing. Objects were being added and taken away constantly. That goes with being able to adapt to the new still life. Adapting is very useful when drawing a changing still life. Drawing quickly was very useful in drawing this still life

Found Image Collage Reflection

The process of making this collage was both difficult and easy at times. It was tough finding enough animal images that went together. Filling up the entire paper without leaving any white spots was also hard. There needed to be something everywhere on the paper. I discovered that a bunch of random images can eventually come together to make such an interesting work of art. Some parts of the collage actually looks decent. I think having a common theme of the collage makes it a lot easier to find images because you know what you are looking for. I think the aspect of placement is very important. Placement either makes or breaks a collage. You want every image to look good where it is. I had a very strategic idea as where to put all my animal and animal related images. I found bodies of water to put on the bottom of the collage representing a water landscape. Then I moved up to a grassy landscape. I decided to put all the animals above the grassy landscape because they don't live on water. 

Found Image Collage

I got my idea for my collage by my love of animals. When I was flipping through the magazines, I found many pictures of animals and I thought that it would fit in perfectly. I am finding landscapes of the animals and later I am going to put the animals in their natural habitats. My peers gave me some good feedback. They said they really liked my idea about blending the animals with their habitats. They also said I should try to spread out the animals more.

Three forms drawing

The drawing experience today felt fairly simple. We looked at three objects and drew them realistically. I felt that drawing the cup and block was very easy. The pine co on the other hand was very challenging. I felt that my block was pretty successful. I needed to work on my lighting when I was drawing the block. I should have knew that light was only hitting one side. I learned that drawing these three items was not easy although it sounded simple. There were so many factors we had to think about when we drew. 

Extending our findings from the pour paintings

From my pour painting, I saw many little things as well as a couple of big things. I decided to go with making an alligator in a swamp/rain forest. I want to turn a cramped alligator from the pour painting into a completely free one on my new piece of art. My classmates gave me so really good feedback on my work of art. They said that I should try to include more to fill up the page. Someone also mentioned that I should maybe add some more trees because I only drew two.

Pour Paintings

The original pour paintings was out of my control. The shapes were forming in any way it wanted to. By rotating the drawing, I created all of the different shapes an images. When I saw something I immediately stopped pouring and took a look. It was hard giving up the power to create the shapes. I was surprised by how some of the things looked so abstract and the difficulty to locate something.

When I came to further develop the drawing, I tried to look for something big. That did not really work out so then, I began digging up the different shapes into many little things. My picture is headed towards a lot of little different things.

Collaborative Drawing

Having someone else add to our drawing helps to add more to the final product. It is interesting to see how other people view your drawing and then build off of it. It felt good to return to my original drawing. It was fun to see what other people added. Some of the things were very interesting to look at, and some things were a bit strange. I think that the collaborative drawing overall was a good experience. It is interesting to see how one little drawing can be expanded on by almost anyone.

Talk and Draw

The challenging thing about being the drawer is that you never know what your exactly drawing. You must draw from what your partner is telling you. It is even tougher when your partner is not good at giving directions... Being the describer was also challenging because you could not just name the items that you saw. Describing all the items was not simple. Some items were so abstract that it was hard to specify each part exactly. If i could do this again, I would maybe make it so that the drawer could get a general sense of what kind of items he or she are drawing.

Thinking about the Artist

Anyone can be an artist. It takes someone who has an open mind and has creativity. Creativity means that someone has new ideas and are open to them. It comes in many different sizes and forms. Creativity can come from someone old or young, it doesn't really matter. For an artist to be productive and creative, it requires a couple things. First, they must have the right tools to use. They need the right materials to be an artist. They also must be motivated and inspired to their work of art.

Reflecting on blocks, play dough, and finger paint.

When I first touched the materials, it took a while for me to have a flashback to the past. I just had the items in my hands for a while. I made colorful balls with the play-dough. I made finger prints with the finger paint. The blocks reminded me of building large towers. After having my flashback, I knew what to do with the materials. Everything was slowly coming back to me. I felt like a kid again working with these materials. All the things I used when i was a kid remind me of my childhood. I really liked using the blocks because they were the things i used the most.

Reflecting on Picasso quote.

I think "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up" has a deep meaning. It means everyone is an artist in their own way. Every child has potential to be an artist even though they may not know they are. As children grow up, they use or lose their artistic ability. Some artists will continue to pursue art while others will lose the ability.