Art 1 Final Exam

     I am glad the 'Open Art Room' concept was used during this course. I believe that it really helped me to develop and grow as an artist. I also enjoyed the variety of options because not only did it give me the freedom to explore and create original art, but it allowed me to see the diversity in the other student's art during critiques. This made art class more exciting and enjoyable. It was especially nice to give and get feedback from the people at my table even if they were doing something completely different from me. The Color Project for example, was extremely open. There were three theme choices and three choices of materials. This meant for an extreme variety of pieces from the class. Although it was challenging to come up with ideas under such broad terms, I feel like that strengthened my imagination and creativity. The color project was one of my favorite projects because I did something totally unique and I was able to view the other student's unique pieces as well.

  

    


     I learned many techniques in Art 1 this semester. One of them was shading using a tortillon.  A tortillon or drawing stump, is a tool made of paper and used by artists for blending and shading graphite, charcoal, or other drawing materials. I first used this technique in the Two in One project to shade graphite. I didn't do that much shading with the tortillon but I learned its basic function. Later in the semester I used the tortillon technique during the Portrait project. This time however, I was both shading and blending charcoal. I used the tortillon much more on the Portrait project; in fact, I almost used it more than the charcoal itself to cover large areas. Having used the technique before was extremely beneficial to the Portrait project. Charcoal was one of my least favorite materials and I used the tortillon and techniques that go along with it to control the notoriously, messy, medium. I grew as an artist during the process of both projects; the first, in that I was trying new things, and the second by developing skills with techniques I was already comfortable with.

   
    


     I really enjoyed my experience in Art 1, and I plan to move on to the following art classes, but the most challenging thing for me this semester was coming up with project ideas. It is really hard for me to come up with unique ideas, and it takes me a while to do so. I found myself struggling a few times this semester trying to come up with things that were completely original. I think I need to broaden my imagination by doing more sketchbook drawings outside of school, making lists, and developing a unique style. I think doing art outside of art class would help me most because it would get me thinking and would develop my style and skills.

   


      My most successful piece from this course is my book carving for the Sculpture project. I am really proud of how it turned out and I believe I grew as an artist during the process. The theme for the project was 'Tell a Story', so I decided to represent the evolution of man, within a story itself, by carving it out of a book. When I heard the theme to tell a story, I immediately thought of the classic silhouettes of monkey evolving into man. Using an x-acto knife, I carved the book, cutting page by page, to represent human evolution. The aspect of the time it takes for adaptation to occur is represented by how deep each silhouette is cut. For example, the ape silhouette is 300 pages deep where the human silhouette is only fifty pages. After carving all five silhouettes, I painted flowers on leafy vines around the edge of the page. I was inspired to do this by the leaves on the cover of the book. I wanted to tie the inside and outside of the book together so it would feel like all one piece; so, not only did I paint leaves on the inside to resemble the outside, but I also painted a flower on the cover to resemble the flowers inside. I feel like this gives my sculpture piece unity, and my viewers direction on which side to open the book. This piece is by far my favorite as well as my most successful from this semester.