My most successful project was my texture collage. I think I was very detailed and knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted a very contemporary feeling to it and I think I achieved it by keeping it simple, yet evocative. I used robe, nails, paint, and cloth. I think these items worked very well together and formed a really nice piece. For this project, I improved my skill of focusing and working intricately, as this project required both of those things. Having half black and half white added an interesting aspect, as that made it very unique and evocative.
The most challenging project for me was the plaster project because it was very hard to keep the shape I wanted, while not breaking off a huge chunk at the same time. I think my work did actually somewhat resemble my sketches, except I wish I had more time to maybe make a facial expression. I didn't really make any changes because I wanted exactly the same thing I sketched, but along the way I had to make some adjustments. These adjustments include making my sculpture more compact, so I could focus on the actual movement. There were a lot of problems. One of them was making sure I was not chipping away too much. I had a hard time visualizing my figure in the block of plaster, so that was very hard.
Since we've learned so many new formal elements (balance, texture, value, etc) I think I now know what these really mean, artistically, and I will be able to apply these to different projects in the future. It was really helpful learning these elements because they are everyday words that I would have never thought of in artwork. But after this class, I feel like my understanding of composition is a lot different, but a lot better. My strongest element, I believe, is balance. I really like making things symmetrical. My texture collage was an example of how I made it pretty symmetrical.
Another one of my strengths would definitely be working in the darkroom. I am really happy I got the chance because I learned a lot of ways to perfect a picture. Not only that, but I feel like I have also improved my photography skills, which is very pleasing because next year I am very excited to take intermediate photography. I am ready to take what I learned this year and apply it to the course next year. I learned how to change the lighting of a picture, how to develop a picture, how to change the aperture, and how to use a filter.
This class has also helped me understand how to develop an idea to start and art project. I feel like i know how to develop my ideas into artwork, specifically by sketching it out first and adding a 3D aspect, to help visualize. But, artwork is also about expression, so it is also good to go with the flow and see what your outcome is. There were a very projects where I started out with one idea and ended up with something completely different because I had a change of idea.
