Year In Review

one. looking back over the course of the year, and your blog posts, which project or projects were the most engaging for you? Where did you fully own your process as an artist? where did you get lost in the material or the making of work? 

I feel as if the final, relief print project, was the project that fully exemplified my skill as an artist, mostly because I had the most experience beforehand.  The relief project and the charcoal were both engaging because of the way we subtracted the black instead of adding it on. The most difficult project was most likely the photography project because it was hard to have light shine how you wanted. 

two. you have had a year of tremendous artistic growth. where do you see that you have grown the most? think about the studio habits as you answer and explain--observe, stretch and explore, craft, express, understanding the art world, reflect. which of these areas do you feel the most comfortable with? how do you see that comfort showing up in your creative practice?

I feel the most comfortable in my ability to stretch and explore different ways to display what I want on the material. This comfort shows in my work because I enjoy making many different drafts to see how they work differently. This exploration helps with discovering how to do something. 

three. think about the things we've studied this year--line, form, shape, color, pattern, texture, positive & negative space. discuss a few of these terms that are the most engaging for you. what have you learned about them? how do you have a better understanding of them?

Negative and Positive space are the most engaging because they change the mood of a piece drastically. If a piece is mostly dark, it has a sad mood , where if a piece has a lot of whites, it has a lighter mood. Texture is also engaging because it can change the look very 

four. course evaluation. which assignments were the most successful? which assignments were the most frustrating? What are one or two things that Mr. O/Ms. Seal do really well? What is one important peice of advice that you would offer your teacher so that they could make this class better?

The most successful projects were the charcoal and relief print projects. The most frustrating project was the value photography because of depending on the time/type of day the lighting could change, and it was very hard to control the lighting. One thing Mr. O does well is explain how to convey what you want on the material. One bathing that could be better is more options during each project besides just what you want to draw/paint/photograph, such as in the sculpture project, when we could decide between clay and plaster. 

Carving project

I arrived at my image by first starting with very few and thin lines, which represented calm water. As more carving went on, I decided to make more rough and intense water because I felt it was more visually appealing, as well as making thicker lines on the canoe to make it easier to see. I enjoy making intense pieces of art with lots of directional movement and things happening.

Printing on paper from the cork that we carved out was an interesting experience because of the way you can only make lines, no real texture inside the whites, only around the edges of the carvings, for example making rough lines to represent rough water, and smooth lines to represent calm water. Although it took a while(and was messy) to apply the ink to the block each time you wanted to print, the printing experience was better than just drawing directly on a piece of paper, because you can carve away the black very precisely. This form of printing, with no grays available, made the image a lot simpper, but even so, you could use directional movement to move the lines in a certain direction. I learned how to represent the movement of water, which was by overlapping lines in different directions. 

The way the three images read left to right, first on a simple white, second on a bright yellow, and third to a mellow gold, work well together because the background is transforming from one color to another. The group agreed the water was very well represented, and that there is not much to change about it. They recommended maybe trying to fit the boat more into the piece, where as now it seems sort of placed on top. Because the boat is the focus of the piece, it should be more clearly defined.