Color War

Term 1 Reflection

I think this term has gone very well for me and I have learned a lot. Compared to last year, I feel that my artwork has increased a big amount. I've learned many different things, which have all helped me in different aspects. One thing I have learned was the principles of design. I always knew what each of the parts were, but I think knowing what these principles really are, helped put words to what I was doing and thinking. I have also learned many small things that are helpful. I have learned how to blend better than I had already known, and whether to use charcoal or pencil. I think I have definitely grown as an artist. I have learned a lot, which has helped me grow. I think this year, I have put together everything I have learned and really tried to put it all in my work. What has surprised me is that if I put a lot of time and effort into my artwork instead of just giving up, it really does get better. I think my biggest success this year has been my extended pour painting. It took me a really long time, but I think it paid off. I used different materials in it. My last part involved using magazine cutouts to make a rainbow, which turned out to look really good. What I think challenged me most was the drop everything and draws. Although, it did get easier for me by the end of the term. I feel like I had a problem with making things look realistic and making them stand it. Something that really helped me with that was making the back round black. Advice I would have given myself at the beginning of the term would be to think outside of the box. Looking ahead, something I think I could work on would be to not give up. Even if art is frustrating, my work will always get better if I just keep going with it.

Chair With Coat

How I found today's still life less complicated then the still life's over the past few weeks was that I think everything came together. Over the past few weeks, I learned a lot and I think today I used everything I learned and put it all together. I think I still could have done better but I think it turned out well using everything I have learned. How I used some of the skills we've developed over the past three weeks was remembering how I made a mistake in my last drawing. I tried to think about how I messed up, and tried to do the same thing, but in the right way. Some of the skills were blending, emphasizing, and drawing the big picture.

Heart Breaking

The concept of my artwork was to have a full, bright, happy hear and a broken heart. The process went well for me and it was pretty easy. I brainstormed my idea before I drew it, and everything turned out the way we wanted it to. A struggle I encountered was the fact that it may have been too plain. I am not sure if I should have added more to it, but it looked filled up enough. I don't think there was anything else I thought would look good that I needed to add. I discovered that using the principles of design was really helpful. I tried to use as many aspects of it that I could. I think the most useful feedback I got was from Natalie and Sophie. They told me that in the drawing with the happy heart, I should add something on the edge of the paper, just too emphasize the heart even more. I think all my work was pretty successful. What I thought was most successful, though, was in the broken heart, the places where it was broken was in bold.

Principles of Design Research

The artist used the Principles of Design to support the story or the message of the work in several different ways. It had placement contrast, how the doll was really light and the back round was dark. The buildings on the right showed repetition. The logs on the left showed repetition: leading lines. The smoke coming up from near the American flag showed implied movement. The clouds showed implied movement, as well. There was also proportion in it. The dark back round took up more space than the doll. In the picture, the doll was larger than the buildings and everything else.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection Discussions

feedback:
-functional
-environmental
-it was good how there were people in there

one that I liked:
Natalie and Sophie's

Found Object Sculpture Reflection

Kings of the Sky

The concept for my work was to build a helicopter. I started out with the front of a radio. After I saw that, I could picture that as the front of a helicopter. The process of making my work wasn't to hard for me. The only hard part was finding the objects to go on the sides, which ended up being clickers. Other then that, I think everything went the way I wanted it to. The biggest struggle I encountered were the two bottoms parts that the helicopter rested on, which didn't turn it out quite the way I wanted it to. I wanted the two things to show and make the helicopter higher up, but I had to leave before the glue was dry. When I left, it unfortunately didn't stay in place. What I discovered doing this project was that if I think it though and plan it before, then it won't be as stressful when it comes to making it. I also found that having many extra supplies and materials to work with helped me think of new possibilities and ideas. The aspects of my work that I thought was most interesting was the propeller. I made it so it could actually twist, which I thought was really interesting. I had it resting on a doorknob so it was higher up.

Pile of Sticks

I don't think my artwork went as bad as I thought it would. I spent a lot of time looking at the sticks and less time looking at my drawing. I did this because I wanted to be sure I was putting everything in the right place, so it looked as much like the pile of sticks actually did. Making the drawing was really easy in the beginning. I just colored everywhere where I saw sticks. When I was finished with that, it became more tricky. I had to take the thinner pencil and try to draw in individual sticks. I was expecting my outcome to be worse than it was. As I was working on it, it didn't look right to me. I kept making parts lighter with the eraser, then making the parts around it darker with pencil. At the very end when I took a step back, I think it looked better than I thought it did when I didn't look at the big picture.

Mid-term Reflection

I think I am doing well with engagement in class. I am always prepared for class, with materials and my mind set on my artwork. I always ask Ms. Roberts if I need help or am stuck and do not know what to do next. I always follow the directions and listen to the teacher. I don't talk too much during class and I always clean up after myself. I think my art up to this point has been pretty good, and I think I am doing better than I did last year, which is a good achievement. Something I could try to work on would be to try to brainstorm more ideas, instead of automatically going with the first idea I think of. I also think I should be taking more risks in my art, because something great could come out of that. Something I really enjoy that I never knew about before, is making collages. I already made a projects that incorporated collages in it, and I think I am pretty good at making them. I also two collages in my sketchbook, one of magazines and newspaper, and one of duct tape. I think my sketchbook is coming along pretty well. I really like working on it during X block because there are a lot more art materials in the art room then there is at my house. However, I always feel rushed when I do it during X block. Something that I could change about that would be to maybe do half of it at home with the materials I have, and half of it during X block. On Tuesdays, drawing from observation has been pretty tough and frustrating for me. I feel that I struggle a lot by just flat out drawing. Although, I think I am improving and I'd like to keep going with it, knowing that I learn a lot and improve each time I do it.

Found Images Collage Reflection

SCATTERED BRAIN

The concept of my work was that a brain has tons of stuff in it. That helped me pick out objects and patterns to put in my collage. I put some things like toy trucks, and nail polish in it, to random shades of  colors and designs. The process of making my collage was pretty easy for me. Something I struggled with was trying to find objects that would go in the section, and not just doing a bunch of random designs. I discovered that I had to work the random colors and the objects together. I wanted to do a little of both, so I had to make it so they went together and that there was a bunch of shades of that certain color. The aspect of the work that I thought was most successful was thinking it through. Every image I saw, I had to picture it in my picture, and make sure it looked good. I didn't just automatically put it in because it was the right color.

The Changing Still Life

Three things I you had to do to accomplish the goal of keeping up with the changed that were happening and keeping the drawing looking like the still life were: being neat, making sure everything is in the right place, and coloring in certain objects so you can see what is what. It was helpful to be neat because that would prevent erasing. The erasing was the hardest part I think because it made everything so messy. Making sure everything was int he right place was also important. I had a couple times when I almost didn't have enough room on my page. Also, a lot of the things that I drew were way to close up, so everything else that came in front of it didn't look right because there really wasn't room for it. Coloring in certain objects was also important. It helped to distinguish which object was which. When you colored them in, it didn't look like one big blob, it looked more like different objects.

Found Images Collage

I got my idea for the collage I am making from a brain that was connected by wires. I thought another interesting way to show that would be to do the same thing, but with magazine, instead of wires. The feedback I got from the people in my group was:
-use more colored objects (cars, shirts etc)
-try to blend the colors by putting a little of one color in the other
-use more different shades of each color

three forms drawing

I thought making that drawing today was difficult. I had a really hard time making the colors go together and "blend". Something that made me feel successful was the block. Not all of it came out very well, but I shaded the bottom part well, and I think it looked a lot better than some of the other parts of the block. I also think I outlined each shape to the best of my ability. Something I learned during the process was to use a lot of charcoal when you try to blend the colors. I thought it would have been easier to use the least possible, but I was wrong. Something else I learned during this process was that it sometimes can look really cool when you use your finger to blend colors.

Extending our findings from The Pour Paintings.

My idea for extending my findings in the pour paintings into a new work of art was to make 4 different rainbows. My plan is to have 4 loops that all are connected. After one part loops under the other, I start using new materials. I used oil pastels, and my other options are using magazine, tape, colored pencils, markers, and paint. Some feed back that I got from my group was to continue with the rainbow, and not to change the colors. They all liked how I had in between colors. They thought it made it blend and go together really well.

Pour Paintings

When we poured paint onto the paper, I thought it was pretty hard to know that I couldn't control what was happening on the paper. I sometimes started to see certain interesting shapes form, but then then the paint kept spreading and she shape went away. Something that surprised me that I saw happen was when one color overlapped another color. Instead of making an ugly brown, the colors mixed together to make another interesting, pretty color. In my picture, I think I'm going to continue making more smaller pictures within it. Since the pour wasn't all in one big place, and is spread out, there isn't one major theme. I am going to keep turning the paper around and look at it from different angles so I can find more little shapes that I can draw.

Collaborative Drawings.

My experience today making collaborative drawings was really fun, but extremely frustrating at the same time. It was pretty annoying having someone else work on my drawing. I thought that the people working on it weren't going to see what my idea was, and they were going to completely mess it up. When I originally worked on my drawing, I thought it was pretty good, so I felt accomplished. When I saw other people's marks on it, it was frustrating because all of the work that was put into it wasn't all mine. I think having someone else work on my drawing added and took away from the final result. There were some things that were added to it that went perfectly, that I would never have thought to do. Also, there were some big mistakes that bothered me a lot that could have been avoided.

talk and draw

What was challenging about this experience was both being the drawer and being the describer. It was difficult because I'm not used to thinking about art work as shapes. I always think of it the way it really is. I realized that I had to depend on my partner and believer her that she was telling me the right thing to draw and where to draw it.  If I had to do this activity again, I would try to take it step by step. When I was explaining the picture to my partner, I wasn't really thinking of each individual shape, I was thinking how everything came together. If I had to do it again, I would make sure that I was explaining each shape. Another thing I would do next time would be to ask my partner more questions when I was drawing. I could ask her if I was putting everything in the right place and using the right colors, so my drawing could have been a bit more discriptive.

Reflecting on Picasso quote.

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."



What I think Pablo Picasso meant by his quote is that a child's mind is filled with fantasy and imagination. Children can be artists when they have fantasy. This is because they can think abstractly. Children can be artists when they have a good sense of imagination because if they can imagine, they can make art that isn't necessarily real, but very creative and different. When children grow up, they tend to lose the fantasy and imagination because they start to be interested to other things.