Art 2 Final Portfolio

1. I think that my most successful project this semester was my butterfly drawing. The theme for this project was up close and personal, so the first thought I had was to do some sort of animal. I thought that doing an animal would give me a chance to include some detail that came along with the theme up close and personal. So finally, I decided to do my project on a butterfly. As far as materials, I decided to use prisma colors colored pencils so that I could easily  blend the oranges and yellows on the butterfly's wing. I choose a piece of pink construction paper because I knew it would be light enough to still show the colored pencils, but dark enough to still provide a fun background. I began by sketching five different thumbnails, each with a different layout. Than, I chose the one that I thought would look the best. I decided the layout pictured above would look the best because it took up most of the page without leaving too much left over space, or taking up too much space and looking overwhelming.After choosing the best layout, I began to sketch my butterfly. I than filled in the spaces with color, blending them the best that I could and creating lots of value. I really feel that this project was my most successful because of how well and realistic I made the colors of the butterfly look, and I also had fun making it.

2. The project that I felt I overcame the most obstacles with this semester was my dog portrait. The assignment was to create a 3D portrait of someone or something that you personally knew, and to use a different type of material to create it. When I first received this project, I had absolutely no inspiration. It was actually pretty frustrating for me, and I wasn't really interested in the project at all. I didn't know how to create a portrait with found materials of a person. Just when I was about to give up, I had an idea. Instead of doing a portrait of a person, why not an animal? So I found a picture of my dog as a puppy (pictured above on the right) and began to get to work. Now, I had to figure out what type of material I should use. Once again, I was stumped. So I went to the craft store to get some ideas, and that's where I found the rocks. I decided to use different sized black and white stones/rocks to recreate my dog's picture. I began by drawing the outline of my dog. Than, I hot glued different colored stones, using my picture as a reference to the location of the different colored spots. The third obstacle I faced was hot gluing the stones. I had to make sure to put each one in the right place, other wise, they wouldn't fit together to form the picture. Once I was done, I painted two round stones, one brown and one blue, to use as the eyes. But even after finishing the dog, the background just looked boring and bland because it was cardboard. I was stumped once again, this time, what to use as a background. That's when I decided to recreate the rocky background in the picture. So I cut out different sized rectangle construction paper pieces and glued them down. I took a risk with this project but doing an animal while everyone else was doing people portraits. Taking a risk made me successful in this project because it made my project unique and helped it to stand out. Overall, I overcame a lot of obstacles in this piece, but I think it really turned out nicely in the end.

3. The two pieces I think show my growth as an artist over the semester was the first project I did (what's the point drawing) and my sticky situation painting. Looking at these two projects, I feel like the one on the left looks like a little kid drew it. While the one on the right looks more professional. The first area that I grew in was application of materials. In my first project, I applied shading to the paper with absolutely no value. But in my painting, I show lots of value and highlights in the jar of honey. Using value helps create a more realistic picture, which is why I feel I improved in that subject. The second area that I improved in was technique and skills. In my what's the point drawing, the layout of my drawing was not creative and very boring. But in my painting, I feel that I was more creative and used more of a interesting technique in placing the things I painted such as the bees. The third area that I improved in as an artist with these projects was in my use of principals and elements. In the painting, my shapes and objects were much more realistic and I improved greatly in value. I also feel that my creativity was much greater in my painting because of how I applied the theme to my piece. In my what's the point drawing, I drew pencils with arrows pointing to the pencil's point, which I now realize wasn't very creative on my part. But in my sticky situation painting, I felt I was more creative in developing my idea. I chose honey because it is sticky, but instead of stopping there, I painted a few bees and a fun background to make the piece more interesting. This also helped me to improve in subject matter. Overall, looking at these two projects, I am satisfied with how much I have grown as an artist and improved over the semester.

 

4. This semester, I was introduced to a new way of learning and teaching by having choices in subject matter and materials. I think this was effective for me because I had more freedom and could use my creativity when developing my ideas for my projects. One example I have for this benefiting me was with my mixed media project. In class, we did several exercises that helped us develop our ideas and create our own techniques with materials such as newspaper clippings and different colored tissue paper. Once I began my project, the only limitations I was given was to create something with the theme of amusement. So I decided to make a collage of underwater/ocean because I love going to the beach and swimming/snorkeling in the ocean, and it brings me amusement. Being allowed to have more freedom with my artwork helped me to be more original, and it also gave the class as a whole a bunch of variety with our artwork. Having more freedom also gave me the chance to make mistakes and to learn from them in my own way. For example, in my mixed media project I made the edges of my cut out jelly fish too rough. After realizing this, I knew I had to fix it so I smoothed it with gel medium and water. Overall, I think this way of learning and teaching benefited me as an artist because it gave me the chance to be creative and improve.