Critical Feedback

Today during class, I was able to get very good feedback from my classmates on my current project. Some helpful comments they made on my project was that they agreed with the my idea on using different shades to contrast the dark oil spill and the color of the ocean. Also, they also liked my plan of showing how oil spills kill many animals in the ocean, which shows how we need to stop this natural disaster. However, my peers also gave me very helpful criticism as well. They suggested me to change my idea to a more creative concept. Instead of doing something very simple, I now am showing how oil spills are affecting our country, but in more of a expressive manner. The ideas that my classmates gave me was extremely useful, and will be very helpful during the process of my project.

Pictures of Oil Spill

What if....?

1. What if there was no air pollution?
2. What if environmental problems did not exist on our planet?
3. What if there were more oil spills and all the animals were killed in the ocean?

Proportion and Perspective

While making the two drawing from observation, yesterday and today, I had a quite a hard time throughout the process. Yesterday the objective was to draw what we saw from our own perspective from a bunch of different objects, such as chairs, bowls, and a large bulletin board. Today, we again had to draw from our own perspective by looking at different sized shapes on a large table. One of the things I felt was pretty easy for me was noticing when I made a mistake while drawing. For example, if I placed a certain object to far of where it was suppose to be, then I would erase and use my eyes to see of where would be the ideal place to put the object on my paper. However, I found a few challenges through the process. One was drawing all the objects unproportional to what I was actually looking at. One time I drew a chair very large and did not think of how looked proportioned to the other objects on the paper. Also, I had a hard time multi-tasking. When doing perspective drawing, a good drawer can always multi-task and look at what their drawing and their paper. However, I tended to just look at my paper and have the image in my brain, rather than having a better sense of what I was really drawing.

Marks Made Drawing

When I first started this project I knew exactly what I wanted to do, a tornado. While looking through the unique cut-outs that my classmates cutout, my eyes zoomed in on one specific picture. It was a painting of a gray, spinning object that reminded me of a tornado. I then cut out a large piece of paper of black charcoal that resembled a dark sky. After cutting out bits and pieces of the black charcoal paper, my paper had overlapping shapes on the top. Under the sky, I attached the distinct portrait of what looked like a tornado, with "twirly" strokes of ink coming out from it. I decided it would be a good idea to put a base at the bottom of the paper, so I cut out little pieces of grass of what looked like it was crooked from the wind of the tornado. When I was finished with my project, I knew I could have done better. Some areas of my portrait was disorganized and hard to tell of what I was actually trying to portray. However, it was my first assignment and it is never to late to improve!

Reflecting at the end of the Course

If I could connect my art experience to anything, I would relate it to a rehab center. However, in this rehab center it is calm and different from the other ones. Many people go to rehab centers to get cured for a certain disease, issue, or sometimes advice, but instead, I went to this rehab center (art class) in order for my art skills to get cured. At the beginning of the year, I did not know the basics of art and how to draw any type of figure. Sometimes getting help at other places can be very frustrating if you cannot do the right thing and that was the problem for me. I could not please my own self by drawing the perfect picture or drawing what was assigned to do. However, in a rehab center as people keep going for help and getting advice from others, they get better and turn into a different person. Each time when I went to art class, my skills increased and whenever a new project came around my motivation also grew. All my life in different art classes, my art teachers and classmates gave me comments like "You can do better next time" or "What is that", but at the end of this course the comments that they gave me were, "Wow that is good". I remember saying at the start of this year that art has never played a huge role in my life and that I have always been terrible at it, but now I can say the opposite. I see myself drawing whenever I have the chance to, whether it is in class or watching T.V. At the end of some ones experience at a rehab center, there goal is to restore into a normal life and that is what art did, it restored my energy in life by making me do something that I love!

I See The Light Drawing

My goal in my light to dark drawing was to emphasize the girl who was looking up at the stars and to make the starts scattered and small. I also wanted to make the sky really dark to make the trees catch other attention so they would be to hide in the background. By using the light in the drawing, I decided not to color in the girl so she would be the only white figure in the picture, and make some of the trees VERY dark so it would represent that they are not able to be seen. Also I wanted to make the areas with starts around it bright so it means that, that area is brighter than the others. This idea came into my head by looking back at my peaceful past experiences when I was a little kid and that I miss very much. These moments are the ones that I wish I could continue but now I know when you are older you forget about the calming moments. I realized that when using different shades that I am able to portray different images in the picture and emphasize others.

Self Portrait as a Penguin

The reason I chose a Little Blue Penguin is because i thought it fit my personality the best. The name of the penguin fits me best because I have always been little and also people have always acknowledged me as a penguin if I had to be an animal. The reason why I put the penguin on top of a sun is because many people would not think of seeing penguins in a hot region, and rather see them in cold weather, like Antarctica. However, I am the type of person who would rather be in hot weather and not be cold. I did not get to the part of using different textures upon the penguin, but if I had the chance to i would have tried to used a tool that would of let me make feathers all around the penguin and try to make then smooth but also bumpy!

Me-Scape: A Reductive Block Print

This project was very difficult for me because I was not very coordinate by putting my block on the paper in the correct position. I think my process was not the best because should have been more patient and should have done a better picture that would have been easier and more orginial. My results for this project were not what the best because some ink ended up in different places at the incorrect places of the paper and made my picture very confusing. Also, the colors did not match the drawing, so I could have maybe mixed some of the inks to make the correct colors. Instead, i would have changed my picture to make it easier for me and, like what I said before mix the colors so the colors would others attention.

Thinking About the Use of Light in Art

Every day and every place that I am at, some how light is their. However, their are certain and situations that light plays a big roll. In many conditions, people tend to use light to catch others attention or sometimes a small amount of light to emphasize something. I have seen many pieces of art that contains a small area of light from the corner of your eye, or other artworks where the art is surrounded by light and other objects. I remember when I went to a play and there was one huge spotlight on the main character and the other small characters were just in the background. This told me that the light was pointing out the importance of that one person and how she stood out from the rest of her crew. Another time where light played a large role was when I was looking at this random painting and there was this pathway that was lit up and then when you looked on from the path, you saw darkness. Many questions popped up in my head and it made me wonder what how light can be symbolic in a work of art. Then I knew that when an artist puts a cast of light it means that they are emphasizing a portion of their picture and the light is playing a major theme in their artwork.

I am Me!

I think the strengths of my work of art is that it gets a message across of who I really am. I get to tell the most important aspects of my life, but in a piece of art. If someone I did not know very well would look at my artwork they would know that I come from an Austrian background, due to the red and white background, and would also realize I spend most of my time with my friends, family, and playing my favorite sports. While looking at my art, the parts of my story that come through the most is my heritage. I tried to make that part stand out the most because my Grandma was a very big believer of where she came from and always wanted to continue her proper Austrian ways. The artistic choices that allowed this to happen was that, since a orginial Ipod has color on it and people choose an Ipod that is their favorite color or that represents themselves, I decided to make the background of my Ipod the color of the Austrian flag. Those colors represent myself the best, since it is where my family came from and it is who I am.

Artist-in-Residence: Alexander DeMaria

I chose to pick one of Alexander's newer art piece's called Collecting Honey. Immediatly when I saw this drawing it reminded me of a picture being in a children's picture book. It made me think of all kinds of crazy ideas that came to mind. For instance, if this picture were in a book, "Could the story be about a fox in a lonely desert and going to collect honey for him and his family?" When I look at artwork I love think of how the artist came up with this type of drawing and it leaves me pondering. This type of artwork fits in with his other newer pieces because many of them look like he was trying to draw his own utopia. However, this type of drawing does not fit it with the others as much since they are very complicated and "busy" within the painting. In Collecting Honey Alexander chose to draw a very basic drawing, but also have a very clever story line with it. If I have the opportunity to ask him a question I will either ask Mr. DeMaria, "What was he thinking at the time when he drew Collecting Honey?" or "Why are many more of his older drawings in color, while most of his newer sketches are in black and white?" I am very eager to hear the answers of DeMaria and what he has to say.

Reflecting on Self Portrait

While discussing my work, I was able to share my self-portrait with my group and the progress that I have made throughout this term. They thought that my story was much better than it was on the first day I started and when I finish it they think it will come out very well. As for my work of art, my group could tell what story I was trying to tell by looking at all the tiny details that was showed on my self-portrait. The feedback that they gave me about my work up to this point was to cut out by drawing at the end so it could look more realistic. Also, they told me to make it more colorful so it could catch other peoples  attention easier. The only thing I still need to do is connect my pictures with string on the headphones. Approximately, I need only either one or two more classes to finish this project to be done!