Reflection Essay

This part year in Art III was characterized by a lot of growth in my art. Through the four major projects, self portrait and artist copy, self portrait sculpture, still life oil painting, and abstract expressionism, I learned different things to develop my art. In the artist copy and self-portrait, I learned a lot about anatomy. It taught me to see things first as major details, and also to look at the negative space as well as the figure itself. Furthermore, I learned how I can use hatching to shade and how to identify and replicate major plains of shading for realism, especially in the face. During the sculpture project, I learned a lot about creating likeness in a three dimensional piece, constantly turning my work to make sure all sides looked good. The still life oil painting taught me attention to detail. I would say the most informative thing I learned from the experience was how to create form and make things not look flat. I learned a lot about contrasting shadows and highlights, as well as creating depth between multiple different objects. Finally, during abstract expressionism, I developed as a painter because I worked a lot with color and color theory to try and make more vibrant colors when they were essentially all complementary colors. I also learned about action and trying to portray a theme in a way that wasn't obvious and could be open to interpretation. Furthermore, I learned different methods of making brushstrokes, from swirls with just the tips of the bristles to painting with a palette knife. I think I saw the greatest growth in the still life oil painting project. This is because I transformed my work from flat shapes at the beginning where I struggled to capture form because of a faulty technique, from developing a new way at going at form by adding shadows and highlights simultaneously to see form shaping as I went.

While I have learned a lot and improved greatly, there is still room for further improvement. Abstract expressionism was the most difficult unit for me, and I struggled to make something truly non-objective. Also, it felt like I was focusing on the creation over the process at times. Focusing on the brush strokes and action, and keeping the theme as an idea rather than an explicitly depicted image will likely help me improve. Moreover, I think I could improve my sculpture by focusing more on the big shapes in the beginning rather than trying to get small details. This is because once I added the small details, there were many major proportions messed up that I was too far in to change.

I can use what I've learned as I move forward with my independent work next year to create work that not only has good technique, but also good meaning behind it. This year I focused mainly on my technical skills, learning how to flesh out form, apply color theory, replicate proportions, and much more. Along with this, in learning about spotlight artists and doing my participation such as lunchtime lectures and podcasts, I think I have also developed mentally in how I think about art. This has made me less rigid in themes and types of art, and has inspired me to create something truly symbolic and not purely aesthetic in my work next year. For example, my play pages focused on strawberries, and for my "Head Project" of the Fantastic Four assignment, I tried to recreate passion in cooking, making only the cooking supplies colorful while everything else was monotone and dull. I think this year will allow me to take it even further in my summer assignment with more time. I will have more technical skills, and hope to use oil in my summer art. Furthermore, I will flesh out my theme more by applying it to the work in more aspects than just color, but in composition, shadow, and other things.