- My black and white cut out was my most successful project in Art 1. The theme of my cut out was bluegrass music. To achieve this specific theme I cut out a guitar and a banjo and added vines to tangle between them to make it have a true bluegrass feel. The process to complete this project was very long. I had to start off with just a sketch to see where the placement of my items would be. Then I took a piece of tracing paper and traced my sketch onto it. After this step, I took my tracing paper and traced my sketch from that onto a piece of black paper. After my sketch made it onto black paper i took a white colored pencil and colored in the places that I would cut out. When i completed that, I started to cut and then put my final on a white piece of paper so the black would pop. I felt satisfied with the instructions that I followed to complete this project and that the instructions given were guaranteed to bring me success. I felt this way about the instructions because they were very specific on what to do so I never made a big mistake.
2. One of my least successful projects was my shaded skeleton. I did this project near the beginning of Art 1 when i wasn't experienced with drawing realistically at all. A issue that I repeatedly ran into while I was working on this project was getting it to fit on the piece of paper that we were handed. Once i tried multiple times to get it to fit, I finally got it. After i got it to fit, I ran into a new problem concerning the shading of the skeleton. I was fairly new to shading when I did this project so it didn't end up looking to good. I never set a specific light source for the skeleton so it was shaded all over with different light sources hitting it. To change this piece for me to like it I would have to practically erase the whole thing. The first thing that i would do is make it fit on the piece of paper on my first try. This would prevent me from having erase marks all over it. I would make it look more realistic after that. After making it more realistic I would set a light source to be hitting it instead of just shaded random places.
3. The skeleton on the left compared to the oil pastel shapes on the right displays how much I have grown as an artist in Art 1. For the skeleton I was to draw a realistic skeleton while looking at one and shade it in and make it proportional. For the oil pastel shapes assignment I was to draw three shapes overlapping and shade them in with a light source hitting from anywhere I wanted it. I definitely grew in my ability to shade from my skeleton to my shades. Not only did I grow in the ability to shade but i also grew in my ability to use the application of materials. I went from using a normal number two pencil to using oil pastels. When I drew my skeleton with a number two pencil I was pushing too hard in some places and too light in others. This caused me to have uneven shading throughout my drawing. When I was using the oil pastels my skill level with the amount of pressure I use when drawing had changed dramatically. With the skeleton I was only able to use one color, which was grey. When I moved onto my oil pastels I was able to use any color i wanted. This expanded my creativity with the project and allowed me to expel in my artistic vision. While working on my skeleton I had a lot of trouble taking up space on my paper and fitting the skeleton in it. When i was working with the oil pastels I used my new found knowledge from the class to determine where I would place my shapes and how I would take up the space that was provided. I also had to think about how I would place them to overlap without putting the shapes right in the center.
4. I have a personal connection to my painting of Topsail Island. Topsail Island is my favorite beach ever. Every single beach trip that I've taken for the past 7 years, I have gone to Topsail Island and I have stayed in the same exact house. We were going to buy the house that my family always stays in about a year ago but it was a short sale and by the time the house was able to be sold to us my dad lost his job so we weren't in the best financial place to buy a hose. My dad still is unemployed at the time so we haven't been able to go to the beach for a long time now. Im saving up money so I can go just for a couple days with my mom. I wanted to paint Topsail Island because I miss it so much and I got a new phone so I lost all of the pictures that I had of Topsail except one. I figured that if I painted it and kept it in my house that I would always some part of my favorite place in the world.
5. My favorite medium to work with was the paint, as it is showed above. I really enjoyed the paint because I thought it was fun to mix the primary colors. It truly helped me get a understanding of the color wheel. It also helped me remember what primary colors to mix to get any other color. It provided me a challenge to get really specific colors like the sand or the violet in the bottom left corner of my painting. I also liked applying the paint on the canvas. For some reason, I liked to use the paintbrushes. I want to improve myself on the skill of painting and using the different paintbrushes to make different strokes. I plan to practice painting over summer, I enjoyed it so much. I believed I liked painting so much because painting really challenged me in multiple ways and I always like a challenge. It challenged me with creativity and making it look realistic. Im not satisfied with the way my painting turned out but I am with satisfied that I found a new activity that I would love to try again.