1. Which artwork was your most successful?
I believe my observational artwork of the deer at my house was my most successful piece of art. First of all, I feel as though I did a great job with the shading of the lighter and darker values on the hide of the deer. Secondly, I believe that I got most of the proportions down, something that I have been having struggling with this year. Third of all, from the light source provided to me, I believe that I did a great job with shadowing. Finally, I believe that I did a nice job of cropping and positioning to capture the majesty of the most beautiful creature on Earth, in my opinion. Overall, all of these techniques I used came together very well to create, what I think, a nice piece of art.
2. Discuss one project where you felt you overcame the most obstacles?
My first project, the stereotype theme, was the hardest and most challenging for me so far. First of all, as I mentioned already that I have been having trouble with proportions this year and this art shows it. Without looking at what people actually look like first, I started drawing from what I thought a person looked like and I messed up proportionally and characteristically. Secondly, I had trouble with staying on the theme of men being stronger than women because I represented the women being equally as strong as the man. This led me to change my theme to argue against the stereotype of men being stronger than women. Finally, I had a hard time using the paper space wisely. I couldn't judge how much I should crop my artwork because I didn't know how much of my drawing would be left in the final piece and I didn't want to cut out any of the image, so I decided to leave the image as it was. After all of these obstacles, I do feel as though I represented a really good argument against the stereotype of men always being stronger than women. Even though it shows the physical side, women can be as strong or stronger than men in different ways such as intellectuality.
3. What two pieces show your growth as an artist?
These two pieces of art are from when our class was exploring new mediums/techniques. As a person who only uses pencil to draw, I found it difficult to complete these artworks due to the lack of experience. Finishing these pieces of art, with the help of my teacher, Mrs. Barnett, came with a prize - learning experience. With new knowledge of different mediums/techniques, I have grown as an artist from just being a pencil drawer to using mediums and techniques like scratchboard and charcoal,
During the observation theme, I wanted to find a way to capture the beauty and strength of deer/buck. The conclusion I came to was that I need to crop this image to just the neck and head instead of the whole mount with the shoulders and the antlers. Just as I was hoping for, the cropping created the sense of majesty and freedom that deer have in the wild as opposed to showing the whole mount that would've made the deer look captive in my garage. I believe this has made me grown as an artist by making me able to create a different meaning of things by the means of view and perspective as opposed to an art piece that is boring and doesn't show much meaning like my first art piece, the stereotype theme.
4. Coming from Mr. Gray's class last year to your class has been a complete change in the way I have learned things. I thought that the way you taught this year was really good! Instead of being limited to everyone having to do the same piece of art in Mr. Gray's, your way of teaching allowed for everyone to do anything they wanted with any medium/technique as long as it represented the theme. I like this way of teaching so much better because it allows for people to excel in what they are good at already and also allow for people to develop in other techniques/mediums that they could improve on. This benefits me by making me more confident in the things that I already know how to do, like the use of pencil, and the things that I can work on and get help from, like my current project with the use of prismacolors. Overall, your way of teaching has opened my eyes far more than they have ever been in terms of creativity.