Midterm Student Reflection: Drawing Lab

     Engagement for art portfolio class was easy for me. I came prepared for class everyday, was excited for new upcoming projects, and was just excited for that time of day when art class started. During this term we worked on a few small projects and two big ones such as the windows and doors project and the map project. For each one I worked systematically and was organized on my approach to directions on the projects. The process for each project also came easily to me. If I was stuck it would help to jot down or draw ideas in my sketchbook. If I had any nervous thoughts on what I was doing or was not sure on the way I was going to handle something I was not afraid to ask my friends or Ms. Pollack for assistance. When they gave their opinions I was respectful and open to their ideas. This class was a very successful time for me. I got to use many materials such as water color and painting that I have never used before. Sometimes I have this bad tendency to want to make something that is perfect the first time and if it is not then I start to lose hope. This class has taught me that we are human and it is natural to make mistakes.

     Sketchbook assignments were sometimes a bit difficult for me. Sometimes was hard to incorporate drawing in my sketchbook once a week because of a hectic life. I also got confused on some of the assignments or how many drawings I was suppose to do. But when I do draw it calms me down. 

     Drawing from observation was a good break from other projects. Some of the types of drawings we did were an overview for me but it was also good to get back to the basics. 

     Blogging has been enjoyable. Although we have not been asked to blog much I still do keep a chronological order of all my artwork for the future. It will come in handy one day when showing colleges and just to see all the work that I did. 

     With technology so available to us we sometimes lose the meaning of art. Images can be copied so easily and what was once a priceless picture that was one of a kind can now be produces in mass quantities. Pieces like the Mona Lisa can now be hung up in your old bed room. The feeling that the artist may have expected us to feel when we saw their original painting may have been lost through the time. Creating art of our own is a way to get that feeling back into art. We can look at art differently and with our own artwork because we have nothing to compare it to because it ours. 

     From experience drawers and artists look at the world differently. We do not only see objects or the way they may seem as a first glance but we see them as shapes, colors, meaning, and so much more. We look more in-depth in just the simplest things.  

     All together this class has been enjoyable, successful, and a new experience. I am excited for the up coming term and for the new projects to come with it. I want to keep exploring new materials and get better at them.

Shoe

     For this art portfolio project I just wanted to do something simple. In the end it turned out a little more difficult than I expected. For Christmas one year my mom let me design a sneaker on NikeID.com and order it. The shoe is very colorful.

     Painting is not in my expertise but I wanted to work more with it and try to get it down more. I thought that the shoe would be perfect for a painting because of the define lines and lots of colors.
The final product turned out well although I had trouble recreating some of the bright-neon colors.

The Curtain

     The process of the windows and doors project took longer then I expected. From my last ideas of my dad in the silhouette with the ocean in the background I used that as a base. The image looks similar to it in shape but the person is not in silhouette. To add more of a meaning to the picture I added a curtain, for a more mysterious factor. For the shape and folds of the curtain I took a picture of my best friend standing behind one.

     When I was home one night I was cleaning out my room when I looked under my bed and found many art materials! It was a great find. One material that was under there (for who knows how long) were water colored pencils. It was interesting using the pencils because I never had used water color before but I liked how it gave the picture a layered, full covered, look. When the painting was finally done I thought that it turned out better than I expected and that there was a lot of hidden meaning in it (Which I attentional tried). 

Portraits Using Photoshop

     For this project I got the idea of this type of portrait from a picture that I found on Pinterest. http://artistaday.com/?p=15225 The picture that I found was made from oil and canvas. Instead I took my own approach on it and used Photoshop. The first step was a mini photo shoot with my best friend in which we had to take some plain photos of each other's faces and then some photos of our hands over our faces.

     After trying to get the perfect photos I put all of the photos onto Photoshop. It was a long process of trying to cut the basic features from one picture and pasting it to the pictures that contained the hands. It had to be exact so you would not be able to tell that you cut and pasted the eyes. I'm sure that there were many different approaches that could have been taken but it was a project that was different from anything else that I have done so it was a good learning experience. The final pieces turned out well. 

Art Ideas

These images are of other peoples' work in art portfolio and in the future maybe I can work off of an idea that I got from their work process. 

Eric's Spray-paint Art

Alexandra Barnard Pottery

Windows And Doors

1) How have artists throughout history used windows and doors in their work to show more than one space?

• Two different stories → One window/door could show one aspect while the other door could show another
• Lighting → Different moods
• Inside and outside → Nature
• Moods → Different lights create different moods 
• Shapes and light → Geometric shapes

2) How can windows and doors work on an emotional or metaphorical level to communicate big ideas?

• Freedom
• Closed door/window could mean the blocking of freedom 
• Someone opening a door or window could mean the want of freedom 
• Open window/door could mean the ability to have freedom → More relaxed setting (Less tension) 
• Safety 
• Closed door/window might mean that someone is safe 
• A closing of a door or window could mean that someone is trying to get free from the outside world or things that might harm them
• An open window or door could mean that someone or something is more susceptible to harm (Burglary, murder, stealing, ect.)
• Any of these can add emotion to the artwork by adding a story, tension, calming, or really any kind of emotion. This is what the artist is trying to do → Open up your emotions make the person who is looking at the artwork feel something weather it is dislike, controversy, or happiness. 
• Controversy in the painting gets people talking

Presentation

Starting The Project

Other artists images:

Dining Room in the Country, 1913

Pierre Bonnard 

Wind From the Sea, 1947

Andrew Wyeth

Hallway 3, 2008

Gage Opdenbrouw

My images:

Suki, Dedham MA

Raindrops On Car Window, Duxbury MA

My Dad In Silhouette, Puerto Rico

Japanese Theme

      In freshman year I started a project that I never got around to finishing. It was my only art project that I really did not get done so I brought it in to finish it. It was a drawing and it was supposed to represent my grandmother. It is the Japanese Rising Sun flag and in the red there are mostly bad memories and in the white memories she thinks of.

Japanese Rising Sun Flag

In the right hand corner I drew a picture of my grandmother and my grandfather, it was their wedding photo.

My Grandmother And Grandfather's Wedding Photo

In the top right hand corner I drew the Vermont flag because that is where my grandfather is from. On that same side I put 1996 and 1961 because those are the years of my birth and my mom's. The left hand side has the man-of-war Jellyfish. When my grandmother was little her brother got stung by many man-of-war Jellyfish and she has been scared of the swimming ever-since. To the right of the Jellyfish there is a tree because, like me, my grandmother was a little trouble maker. When she was little she tied her brother up to a tree because he was bothering her. So the tree represents that moment that she thinks fondly of. On the bottom left hand corner there is a close up drawing of the Japanese wood block painting of "The Wave" and the pages of Beethoven's music floating in it. My grandmother loved Beethoven as a child and she remembers listening to it with her father.

The Great Wave

Next to that I put a Singer sewing machine because this is a memory that she has with her mother. Because her mother taught her how to sew.
        The part I needed to finish was the middle. Before I had the solders in Hirojima lifting up the American flag. But I did not like the idea of war in the middle of her life so instead I drew a lady holding a samurai sword. For some reason this image reminded me of women's rights in Japan because men were the ones that went out and fought but this women looked like a samurai. My grandmother told me before that women's rights in her time was much different than it is now. And that they were just suppose to stay home, cook, and raise the children. I also tried to paint similar to the Japanese wood block paintings. To the right of the women I drew a line of people traveling thought the mountains. My grandmother has had a different life than a lot other people and she has traveled a long way to be where she is today. So this picture represents the journey of her life. I drew both of these in the island of Shikoku in which she was born and raised in.

Around the Island I wrote worlds in Japanese such as "Japan", "Mimi", "Emma", "Paula" "Jack" and "Shikoku".

The Final Product

     The start of the new term started the next project. For this term I really want to get more done then I did last term. Which means small projects. This next project I got from a website called Pintrest. It was a quick process that I got done in two days. The first day I painted a black tree (without any leaves). The next day I mixed some paint to get a pink color and I took a plastic Coca-Cola bottle and dipped it into the paint and then placed it on the paper. The final result made the painting look like a Japanese cherry blossom tree.

The Final Product Of The Japanese Cherry Tree