End-of-term reflection.

This has been an interesting art year for me. I started off in mixed media, which as you know was well, dramatic to say the least. However, to my dismay my mind was quickly opened to a whole new dimension of art. It was no longer a simple paint and pencil on paper, my artistic thoughts were forcefully broadened and to my surprise, I let it happen. I allowed myself to work with wax and cloth and put things where my initial thoughts wouldn't have. The term in mixed media came to a quick end and I found myself deep in the throws of my original safe space, drawing and painting. Shocking as it was, I had never felt more confused. Every time we were given a new assignment, my mind went immediately to the mixed media place in my brain. I soon realized and foolishly believe that I was incapable of creating a really great drawing or painting. I recalled the way I used to feel in art class, my mind didn't have as much control as my hand when it came to drawing. It was as if my body sent the image my eyes saw directly to my arm, skipping my judgmental and second guessing mind that lies in between. However, after mixed media, which was so thought focused, I could no longer let myself just draw without stopping every second to decide whether or not it was, "right". I let this confusion discourage me until I dreaded coming to art class. I felt as though I had lost something so special to me in a matter of weeks. I incorporated paint markers into every project because they helped me circumvent the actual act of painting and after a while I had reached a state of complete boredom. Boredom led to fear as I realized how nervous I was to pick up a pencil and have my ideas that I could on longer paint or draw be proven true. I steered clear of the pencil and in doing so created some cool pieces, including one of my favorites which was paint markers (of course) on tinfoil, this was also pretty easy because it was just recreating another piece that I had already done during a different project. The hardest piece for me was the final project, the symbolic still life which actually consisted of drawing, and as of now is incomplete. I decided to draw all the art I had completed this year which was certainly not the easiest task. Everyday I would come in and sit down only to find myself completely befuddled and nervous, hence why it is still unfinished. I slowly found one aspect of the piece that I could focus on and that made the job a little bit easier. I still love art and I know that, or at least I hope that drawing and painting will soon feel like second nature to me again, but I am also glad that these two terms have gone the way they have. I was forced to deal, or in my case not deal, with an art dilemma this year that I have never had before. Granted it was terribly frustrating and discouraging, it was still a lesson that had to be learned. I know now that I can not allow myself to stop creating art just because it doesn't feel "normal" or "right". I have to let my mind and body tell me what is right and not contradict the ideas that I am presented with or have. So yes, this has been an interesting art year, but an amazing one as well.

Planning for Symbolic Still Life

For the symbolic still life project I plan on drawing and painting all the work I have completed this year. My theme is beauty and it the most general of senses I think that art is beautiful, regardless of its technical perfection or (in my case) imperfection. I hope to capture the feeling of each piece and how they can be combined into one final piece. For this project I will be using pencil, paints and pain markers on paper. Im working on 16x20 because you told me that was a good size :)

Pictures from Pictures

Planning for Opposites project

Describe briefly what you plan to do for the Opposites project. Be sure to describe your intentions, how your concept relates to your theme, and technically how you plan to create the work.

For the opposites project I was thinking about a bunch of different ideas however I finally decided on doing the opposite colors on a city sky line. It always amazes me that a city full of such beautiful and intricate architecture can still look gloomy and uninviting. With this project I hope to let the juxtaposition of the dark, black and white city scape to the same picture that I will infuse with bright exciting colors show how a simple change in colors can illuminate other art that lies within a city.

Blog #2 Theme Questions

QUESTIONS:

What questions can you formulate about your theme (at least 4)?

How does your theme connect to your life?

How does your theme connect to the world around you?

What kinds of images come to mind when you think about your theme?

What kinds of art or visual information (advertising, tv, film) have you seen that relates to your theme?

Why did you choose this theme and how can you envision exploring it through works of art over the course of the term?

ANSWERS:

How does beauty affect the world? How will the theme of beauty evolve in my mind throughout this class? How "ugly" can art be while still conveying a sense of beauty? How do individuals ideas of what beauty is vary?

Beauty connects to my life simply because I am surrounded by it. A sunset or a person laughing, even learning is all beauty. It may not be in a physical sense, and of course we are surrounded by beautiful people as well, but beauty is life in my eyes. It is the act of people living and being joyous.

I guess beauty connects to the world in similar ways as it does to me. Beauty is individual to each person, so where I may think it is a sunset, others see beauty in a birthday cake or the birth of a child.

Hollywood is essentially a magnet for beautiful people. All of our favorite TV shows are chock-a-block full of pretty girls and ridiculously good looking guys. And the commercials are not a break from the beautifulness. Any and all beer commercials consist of a party with a guy to beautiful girl ratio of about 2:20.

Before mixed media I always believed that art had to be beautiful, truly aesthetically pleasing. I thought that by choosing beauty as my theme I could explore the more inventive or as I said "ugly" ways of creating art. I am excited to see all the different ways to create beauty and to capture beauty even if the final result isn't the fully beautiful.

Essential Questions

How do artists develop content and ideas for their work?

Developing work is different for all artists and in order to grow and learn about their work they have to constantly try new techniques. From those trials they can pick and choose things to incorporate into new work. Ideas and content also spark from personal themes within ones past.

What kinds of techniques, behaviors, and habits allow artists to turn their ideas into meaningful works of art that engage the viewer?

Viewers are always interested in personal aspects of another persons life. This being said, when an artist incorporates things about their life into their work people tend to be interested. Innovative and "different" techniques also tend to pull a viewer in but traditional techniques done with a certain level of expertise can be just as impressive. Despite the habits one artist uses, capturing a viewers attention is a difficult task.