Final Blog Post

 The two works that I believe are my best from this school year would be my blown up picture of a fire hydrant with textures on it (from the texture project), and my four paintings of a coffee mug ( . (neither have formal names). These two works really demonstrate how I have used the idea of "stretch and explore" to develop my craft. For the fire hydrant, I though the project was on texture, I brought in a side of digital media and photography to help bring out the textures. These two concepts contrasted each other better than I expected which created a great composition. The smoothness, color and intrigue of the photo (I blew up the photo so only a small handle of the fire hydrant was in the print) worked with the rugged, unique features of the textures (the textures were rubbings from several different things) to equally bring each other out. "Stretch and explore"was a big part of this project because, bringing in the photo helped me separate this work from the idea that everything had to conform as simply a set of rubbings. Next, my other work that stood out to me the most was my collection of four paintings of a coffee mug. Just like the texture project, my paintings of the cup in the color project (mixed in with diptics on my blog) incorporated a digital side too. I set up my composition, took a picture and used that as my basis. There ins't much shadow in the photo, but there a lot of different backgrounds that I used different shades for. In this craft, the "stretch and explore" idea came in when it came to experimenting with colors and how I could shade or lighten the paint. What I liked about that was that I could fix any "mistakes".

My least favorite work was my relief sculpture from the texture project. The problem I had in this project was that I could not find inspiration. I felt rushed in the beginning of the project and I started putting random things together hoping that it would work. The textures themselves were good but they did not go well together. Also, I did not like that I "separated" my sculpture with the large piece of blue wood in the middle as that disrupted the connection. Knowing all of this now, I would go back and look for textures that may be different, but go well together and bring each other out.

My greatest strengths I would say are my creativity and open mind. These two qualities god hand in hand.  I usually can come up with some great ideas and manage to translate what I want into a piece of art, but I also can pause and look back at my work, make it better and most of all take suggestions.

Overall, my performance in class I think is highlighted by the fact that I work hard every time and I truly enjoy and have a passion for art. The fact that I love art makes it easy to give it my all and really experiment in class. I do think I could improve in efficiency. I have always liked to take my time with art, but at least in class I have to speed up my process so I can stay on task and not get behind.

I am very excited to continue with art next year. I am most looking forward to learning more techniques of drawing and painting that will help me improve my art. I want to absorb the most knowledge possible to keep working to make my art better.

Art has many lessons to be learned from its long process. All the values we have learned this year such as "stretch and explore" and "engage and persist" can be translated to life and work. You always have to give one hundred percent in your work and life to get great benefits.

Landscape

There were two parts to the landscape project: drawing and photo. The photo side of the project was much easier for me as I am very familiar and comfortable working in the darkroom. I can look at my print and know what I have to do to improve it or simply to get it exactly how I like it. This idea of "perfectionism" I have developed, while it may work with photo, it does not work for everything. When it came to drawing, I got frustrated when I could not translate the exact lines, shadow and composition I was seeing onto my paper. This struggle influenced the project heavily for me. My drawings are much more focused on certain objects that are closer to me, whereas my photos have a "bigger picture" sense about them. This created a very interesting composition of my book as on nearly every page I have a "smaller" drawing contrasting a "bigger" photo. My drawings are very line oriented whether the lines are fine or somewhat abstract.On the other hand, my photo's were much more detailed and had more to do with a larger focus and more interesting composition. When it came to making my book, I was very comfortable in what I wanted to do. I accomplished the cool cover I was looking for and I tried to contrast my photo with my drawings on almost every page. This project helped to show me two the different ways I can go about trying to "capture" a landscape. Now I can use this as a base for other projects similar to this one in the future.

Sculpture

 Throughout this project the idea of "metamorphosis" guided my work. Without any specific intentions when I started this project, I kept coming back to this idea and tried to think how I could relieve my work. I was able to physically use the idea of "metamorphosis" by taking my idea and use my creativity to bring out the sculpture how I envisioned it.

This was the first time I have worked intensively with plaster so experimenting was a big part of this project for me. The best way that I was able to "learn" the clay was by making mistakes and figuring out what I could and couldn't do. The same idea applied when it came to the tools. Making mistakes actually wound up helping me. Also as the project went on, I began to really get a clear vision of what I wanted to do, so I sought out the right tools to do the job.

When I started my work I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was eager to get started so I was just carving away. As I was carving, I thought about using the natural shape of the plaster I had made to my advantage. Once I got the idea to make a hand I never looked back. I got a specific vision in my head and   then I was just working to perfect it.

Knowing what I do now, I would have been a little more careful when carving. Even though I think just going for it is fun, I would have liked not to have broken a piece. Also, I would have tried to use close to the entire piece of plaster. (I had used up about half before I figured out what I wanted to do.)

Outstreched, worn down arm and hand.

Interim Blog Post:
With my sculpture I am trying to shape the form of a worn down, beat up hand. I am approaching this by using some of the smaller chisels to chip at the sculpture, roughening it. Also just not worrying about smoothness in general.

Value

FINAL BLOG:

a) This time second time around really improved my drawing. I didn't make any "big" changes, but with the help of good critique and persistence,  I made a few "smaller" ones that really helped to bring out and present my drawing much better . The first significant thing that I changed was the contour of the entire drawing. I made the front and back edges straight instead of slanted and bolded the front one while making the back one prominent but also sort of fading it into the background to draw the viewers eye back. Next I darkened my shadows which helped with the light/dark contrast even more so than before. Then I sharpened the edges of most of the objects to help them really own their space in the drawing. I also Darkened the bottom of the smaller can and added shadow. Lastly, I made the bigger can's top more precise as to what it really looks like by drawing in the top. Overall I learned that despite what I may think, it is always better to go back and edit as little details can improve your drawing so much.

I didn't get to return to the darkroom a second time after my three first prints, therefore my analysis is in the original blog post.

b) The darkroom photos were much more comfortable for me to work on. Working in the darkroom is something that I really enjoy and I like to try to make the "perfect" photo. It is a fun process and that let me free up mentally to experiment. The drawing was less comfortable because I tend to be very critical and hard on myself. If I could feel the same "freeness" as I do with the darkroom, I could be much more comfortable.

I believe that the drawing process leaves more room for expression. In the darkroom, while you do have the opportunity to express yourself in your photo setup, that is really all the expression you get to put into it. When drawing you set up your still life creatively but you are also able to improvise to a certain extent and show how you personally see the still life. Ten people could take a picture of the same thing and when they develop their photos, they will almost all be the same except for a few differences in how light or dark the photo is. If those same ten people all drew a still life, they would wind up with ten completely different drawings.

When I return to the darkroom in the future I think that to keep experimenting I could work on different original lighting and enlarger lighting to create more variety and also to experiment with leaving my photos in certain tubs (developer, fixer etc..) longer. For my drawings in the future I could experiment with shading and darkening certain areas to make it "pop".

FIRST BLOG:

Developing a way in which to work on this drawing was interesting. The shading and value aspect of this assignment was my favorite. I found that once I had my boundaries  and "rough draft" down I felt more free to explore with value. I though that using darker shading around the whole drawing helped guide the viewers eye. Creating my outline was much harder. I had a tough angle and struggled with getting things like, most notably, the paintbrush to look like they were going back in space. Once I had finished, I thought I had done a good job capturing the shadow, but one thing I could work on for next time would be making things "pop" a little more.

My darkroom creations worked very well. In the beginning my photo was a little out of focus but I patched that up with my next two. Experimenting with timing and lighting took a while each time to find the "perfect" combination but it turned out well. The one thing I had trouble with was how much time I would leave my photos in the developer, fixer etc... I was too anxious to finish up and that caused me to have a few mess ups. Looking back I think that next time I should look to really bring out one aspect of my composition.
(One of my compositions was a little ruined as someone put theirs on top of mine when it was still wet.)

First photo: two clicks from brightest, 14 seconds
Second photo: two clicks from brightest, 16 seconds
Third photo: two clicks from brightest, 10 seconds