Having this class was one of the most stressful and yet helpful experiences of my high school career. Granted, it wasn't as stressful as, say, precalculus or biology, but still. I learned that you REALLY have to budget your time or else you will be stuck with a rushed project that you aren't happy with. I learned this firsthand when I had to finish the interior spaces project in one weekend. That on top of using acrylic paints (my least favorite kind) turned out to be my least favorite project of the semester, even year. It was definitely a lesson in time management, but it was incredibly helpful to show me how hard I will need to work next year in AP Art. Having Art 4 twice will definitely help me when I'm putting together a portfolio, and this semester I made some of my favorite pieces. I'm excited to see what new ideas I come up with in the new semester.
One thing I will miss about this class is definitely the people. Having older students who are going into AP Art that can help me with my pieces was so incredibly helpful. The opinions of my peers were often the biggest help in my pieces, I can't tell you how many times I looked across the table at the other girls and asked them to help me if something seems off, or if I can't get a detail right on one of my pieces. It was also really helpful to see how their college application processes went along, and see how they put their portfolios together. It gave me some gauge of what my senior year has in store for me, even if it is a little stressful to think about. I feel like we really became like a close knit family, and that's what I'll miss the most about that class. It's hard to think about a different Art 4/AP class next year without these girls, and I will definitely miss the atmosphere in the room every morning. Art 4 with Mrs. Rossi is a rigorous class, and there is definitely a lot of work, but I feel like I improve as an artist every day. Mrs. Rossi has really helped me learn and grow, and I would not be the artist I am today without these classes I've had with her. I'm excited to see what is in store for me next year, and Mrs. Rossi, sorry in advance for the inevitable late blog posts, and last minute project completions. I can't wait to tackle AP Art next year, and I'm excited to see what I can accomplish.
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For this mixed media project, I went in with a certain color scheme and overall theme that I wanted to use. As you can see, I chose a lot of neutral tones and natural blues. I wanted to have a sort of natural theme and vibe to my piece. All the photographs I used were of things in nature; some were from underwater pictures, others were of wood, and one was even a picture of lightning (which corresponded to some of the text I used as well). I also wanted to have a certain "flow" to my piece, and really relied on movement. It's pretty obvious, but there is definitely a diagonal flow from left to right. I didn't want it to feel totally random, even though it was a mixed media collage. I had a hard time at first with trying to figure out what to put on this piece, since I'm not used to doing abstract pieces. I also thought of this as more of one big composition, and then I still went through and found smaller ones within that big composition. The pictures above are three different compositions that i found in my mixed media piece. It's always really cool to me to see what I can find in one abstract piece. I find it really fun to go around with the mats and see what I can find. My favorite of these three compositions is probably the middle one. I really like the variety of textures I used in this section. You can really see contrast in the different text sizes and fonts, which was one of the main things I was trying to incorporate into this piece. In the far left composition, I like the uniformity of the text size and direction. It has a sort of toned down vibe in comparison to the middle piece. I also really liked the colors in this section and how monochromatic they were. The composition on the right I chose because of the colors and movement. This one had elements of the whole piece in it: the tissue paper, text, painted circles, photographs, and even parts of the cards. I really like the way they all came together and made a cohesive mini compostiton.
I liked doing this piece because it was sort of a break from the structured projects I had been doing. It was nice to make an abstract piece of art that didn't necessarily have to have this huge amount of work and time put into it. That being said, it's not like I just threw things on a board, I still had to think about composition and how all my elements fit together, but it was still nice to sort of "let go" a little with my art. This project was a long process from start to end. I decided to combine the natural beauty of roses with a girl who was partly made of metal. Originally my idea was to do a portrait where the person was made up of clockwork pieces instead of metal, but I didn't really know how I would execute that where it would still look semi good. I didn't realize then that drawing the metal would be so difficult. I only really got it after I'd done the majority of the metal. There are definitely parts of this piece that I like more than others, and some that I would definitely change if I could.
The part of this piece that I think is my favorite is the metal strips on the shoulder and back. This was the last part of the metal that I drew, and I feel like I really captured the shiny, metallic look of the strips. I tried to make them look sort of like muscles, hence why I chose to go with strips. I think this part really emphasizes the mechanical part of the project, and I wish the rest of the metal looked more cohesive with the strips. I also really like the way my roses turned out. I like the contrast between the stark greyness of the metal, and then the soft look of the roses. I wasn't going to add them at first, but I felt like adding flowers would greater contribute to the nature vs mechanical theme. I also feel like they made the piece feel more put together, since they gave me a color to use in the background as well as a color to match the girl's lips. I just find something really comforting about the sort of monochromatic vibe given by all the pinks. Something that really bugs me with this piece is the nose. I know, sort of a weirdly specific thing, but I feel like I messed up big time with the nose shape and shading. If I could go back and erase the watercolor paint, I would definitely want to redo the nose. I also wish I hadn't gone in with prismacolors on the skin and had just stuck to watercolor. I feel like I got the skin tone messed up when I started using prismas. Overall, I feel like this piece was a success. I think this whole process helped me with my problem solving skills, since I had to improvise a little for a good portion of the piece. Even though there are some aspects I'm definitely not completely happy with, the parts that I feel were successful outweigh them. For example, the hair is one of my favorite parts, and I think that takes away from some of the parts I didn't really like that much. I know that my portrait work needs more practice, and this project really helped me learn more about that. I'm excited to see what I can do with them in the future, however. This project was VERY rushed to say the least. I did this over snow days and spent not even a full two days on it before I had to turn it in to the contest. I wish I could have had the full month to work on it, since I feel like it would have turned out more to my liking. For a last minute project I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out. My favorite parts are definitely the top red part and the glass part of the gumball machine. Let me tell you, drawing countless spheres for hours is surprisingly exhausting. The first thing I did after I finished this was take a nap because my eyes were just that tired. I think all my hard work on the glass really paid off in the end, however. I feel like that part actually looks like a realistic gumball machine, and I'm really proud of how I drew the reflectiveness of the glass. The actually "body" of the gumball machine I am not particularly happy with. I feel like the red metal on this part doesn't feel cohesive to the red on top, but that could just be my perfectionism kicking in. I think if I go back and spend a little more time on it I might be able to make it more to my liking, but for now I think it's good enough. And then we get to the metal. I can not draw metal to save my life, and this part was the last part I did on the drawing. AKA, I got lazy. I think I could have definitely worked a little bit more on this part, and that maybe if I'd started out with the metal, I might be more pleased with the outcome. Overall, I think I did pretty well with this assignment. It was definitely good to get some more practice with Prismas, and these colored pencil challenges might be something to try doing next semester when I don't have an art class. As stressful as it was, I think this project will definitley be beneficial to my skills in the long run.
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A Little InfoThis page is all of my art from Art Four, which I took my junior year of high school. The main goal of this class was to begin collecting pieces that I can potentially add to my AP Portfolio at the end of Senior year. During this class I created some of my favorite pieces, and also one of my least favorite (I'm looking at you, adirondack chair painting). I'll be retaking this class in the fall of senior year to add more pieces to learn and grow even more, and create more potential portfolio pieces. Archives
January 2017
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