Art 1 Final Portfolio

Which project was your favorite or most successful this semester?

My favorite project this semester and the one i had the most success with would be my self portrait. I had no idea how to draw portraits before i took art. When i would draw protraits of people, i wouldn't draw their eyes first. The most important part of drawing a portrait of someone is their eyes. If you don't draw their eyes correctly, then the portrait won't really look like the person you are trying to draw. I also learned how to apply value correctly to a portrait. The favorite part of drawing the portrait would be drawing the eyes. I learned that when drawing the eyelashes, you must make the lashes a little like sideways checkmarks. Before we learned how to draw eyelashes, i would just make straight lines. I also would make the eyes look cartoonish rather than realistic.

Regardless of whether you liked or disliked a project, which one did you learn, grow, or developed the most from? Please explain.

The contour shoe drawing project i think benifited me the most artistically. I used to just draw the basic shape of the shoe and make little bows on it, as shoe laces. Now, i can draw a shoe more realistically. It may not be the best looking shoe, but at least it more realistic than just putting bows as shoe laces and making it 2D. Contour line drawing helped me with drawing other objects. Contour line drawing helped me to draw hands better. Drawing without lifting the pen was probably one the hardest things I've had to do in art. It took me about like ten tries because i kept lifting the pen, so i had to start over. In the end, I think that my shoe ended up looking really good.

Choose 1 piece of Art that you used skills and techniques learned from previous projects. Discuss your growth as an artist and how you incorporated these skills and techniques to create the piece.

The lynx was probably another one of my favorite art projects we did this semester. I really enjoyed the process of printing onto the paper. I learned how to print and use linoleum correctly. I used what I learned from the value unit and applied it into making the fur in the lynx. During the process of making my print on the linoleum, I was very cautious and afraid of messing up. I guess you could say I learned that when making anything in art, this project taught me to not be so afraid and that if you mess up you can find ways to make that mistake into your piece of art. I had made the tree too thick so i make the lynx a little thick too! I also tried to make whiskers, but it didn't look right so i just kept making more fur. I think learning from my mistakes in this project taught me that I'm not going to do every project perfectly.

Which project do you feel was the least important in learning the concepts taught in this course? Please explain.

I think the cartoon skeleton project was the least important in this course. You had to be really creative in making the skeleton of the cartoon character. It took me a while to come up with his skeleton. I think it's the least important project because we spent about two days on drawing skeletons. I didn't get to really learn how to draw an actual skeleton. I only learned how to correctly portionalize the bones of a skeleton. Learning how to draw skeletons didn't really help me with any of my other projects. In fact, it didn't help with any of my other projects. I did enjoy this project though. I'm not meaning to sound negative about the project because I really did like making Chicken Little's skeletal structure.

Choose a piece or artwork where the subject matter reflects you as an artist. One that you have a personal connection to. Please explain your choice.

I have a personal connection to my landscape painting. The painting is from a picture i took during one of my favorite beach vacations. I was standing on my deck facing my pier and decided to take a picture and I really liked it. I had many memories during that beach trip, so I think that that is why i choose to paint it. I made it for my mom though because she loves the beach and that beach trip was her favorite too. I loved but also hated painting this project. I spent most of my time trying to paint clouds like Bob Ross, but it just wasnt working for me so I just made the sky partially cloudy. After I finished painting this landscape I took a step back and felt like I was back on my deck taking the picture with my phone, looking out at the beautiful sound. This painting is my absolute favorite project I have done this semester because I have such a personal connection to it.