Final Art Reflection

Two pieces of work that I have done this year that I find the most successful are my pop art collage and my landscapes book.  I like my pop art collage because I like how the same exact image portrays a myriad of emotions and feelings just through the different colors used to paint them.  I like how the different paints can also accent and complement many different aspects of the same cups.  I like my landscape book because it conveys all aspects of nature through photo, ink drawings, and digital images.  I also like how I incorporated different sections of nature all into one book to show a portfolio of the work I did.  I like how the pages flow together, and it has a crisp, clean look.

Title: Landscapes

Project: To create a book including a focus on nature through photo, digital image, and ink drawings

 Title: Cup Pop Art
Project: Create a pop art painting using the same image, making one monochromatic, one complementary, one analogous, and one free choice, which I did monochromatic again.

The Landscapes book stands out to me because of the different line qualities used in the ink drawings. The ink provides a smooth texture that can be used to convey many different looks and emotions, which draws me into that specific medium and piece of work.  My least successful work was probably my 3D plaster sculpture.  My clay moquette was fine, and I liked it, but when it came to carving the plaster, I ran into some difficulties.  For example, when I was trying to carve off a piece of my plaster block, half of my sculpture completely shattered and fell off, making my mold smaller than I would've liked it to be.  Also, I did not like the medium because it was very wet at first, and then it got very dry and fragile all of a sudden, so it was very unpredictable.  I also didn't like the tools that we used to carve them because I found them hard to use to do to my plaster exactly what I pictured in my mind.  I learned to be patient about different mediums and learn how to properly work with them to escape making mistakes that are hard to recover from, such as part of my piece shattering.  I would use smaller tools on the majority of my piece instead of using the big chisel the majority of the time of working on this project to get closer detail and use a more gentile tool to decrease the risk of chiseling off too much plaster.  I consider drawing, painting, and photography to be my biggest strength, but more drawing and painting because I enjoy working in the dark room and using both the film cameras and digital, but I had a hard time learning how to use photoshop and at the beginning of the year aperture was very foreign to me.  However, towards the end of the year, I figured out editing in aperture and improved a lot.  Drawing and painting is very fun for me, and I like how I'm in control 100%.  I feel like on projects I really enjoyed I have all my effort, such as the pop art and photo and ray o gram and wire project and drawing the 3D objects, but on projects I wasn't so keen on, I didn't focus as much as I should have, like in the sculpture project and movement sketches.  I'm excited about becoming a more skilled drawer and painter because I have always been really fascinated in those mediums, and I am excited to go more into depth.  In this class, I've learned to be more patient with things and figure out ways to fix mistakes rather than just give up and start all over again.  These will help me outside of the classroom and apply to every day life because they are good things to know. 

Landscapes Reflection

I tried to focus on hillsides and landscapes rather than up close and in detail.  I included a few up close and in detail shots in my book, but I tried to have mostly landscapes and far-away shots.  While taking the photos, I looked at light very carefully, focusing on the natural light and shadows given off.  I tried to have a good balance of my whites, blacks, and grays, since we shot in black and white.  For line quality in the ink drawings, I tried to vary the size and density of each line I made, making no two lines similar, because in nature, no two lines really are similar.  I played on the shadows especially when taking photos both on campus and at phoenix lake.  I tried to capture the fascinating shadows and document them in my book.  I was drawn in by the photos with shadows, and I wanted to incorporate at least one into my book.  I focused on form in both my photography and ink drawings by examining the shape of the objects and trying to capture them either on film or on paper.  I focused on objects with various textures and shapes and sizes to add diversity into my book, even though it all is landscapes and photos or drawings of nature.

Landscapes

Form Reflection Questions

I came to understand the concept of metamorphosis throughout this project by using the tools to chip away at the plaster. While chipping away at it, the plaster transformed from a big block into a movement sculpture. My work physically addresses metamorphosis because the places where I chizzled away at are very lucid and clear. I pushed myself to use different tools and methods of chizzling to better understand the plaster itself. The different tools allowed me to get different looks to the plaster and smaller tools allowed me to get into smaller crevices and make more detail than the larger ones that were helpful to carve out big sections of the plaster. During the beginning of the project, the larger chizzles were easier to use because I was focusing on getting the overall shape of the sculpture. However, the smaller carving tools came to be very handy because once I had my overall shape I started to work on smaller details. At first, I wanted to make the sides more rounded inwards like an oval, but I made them more rectangular because I liked the geometric shape of it. Also, I made a hole from an air bubble on the front of the sculpture and I like how it looks. The air bubble provided the opportunity for the singular hole on the front of the sculpture. I would have worked more delicately when carving out my shape because when I was carving it out, a big chunk actually fell off completely, which definitely changed my final vision of my piece.

Clay Moquette and Plaster Abstract Sculpture Final Pictures

Clay Moquette & Plaster Sculpture

Plaster

My plaster object is called "person stretched out" because it resembles a person with their feet spread and their arms sticking up in a vertical angle.  My piece resembles shape because it has a distinct shape and the shape of it really stands out.  The texture of my piece is really important because it is smooth, and that is the purpose of it.  The edges are key, too, because they are the things that determine that shape and it's quality.