Art One Final Portfolio

1.)  I feel that the landscape painting was my overall most succesful piece of artwork this semester.  The reason I feel this way is because I was able to come away from it, very proud of what I was able to create.  I was able to incorporate lots of value within the mountains in which I felt I was struggling the entire time.  As I was painting this piece I was never able to define the mountains rugged texture but now that I look at the piece as a whole I feel that I was very succesful in defining the lines that separated the regions of the mountains.  If I were to critique this piece, I would say it's fatal flaw is the river.  I kept trying but I was never able to make the areas of sediment to actually look like it was naturally part of the river.  Even though this is true I still believe that the lightness of the water provided enough contrast to all the dark in this painting to make it not a total failure.  When I was painting this I absolutely hated it until Ms.Rossi told me to look at it from the back of the room.  From then on, whenever I felt that it wasn't coming together I just took a step back and realized that it was just that I will always feel that it is not good enough.  Overally the reason I would say that this is my most succesful piece is that I could actually see how I interpreted the photograph in this painting.  This artwork truly reavealed my inner artist.

2.)  I believe that the project that I as an artist learned the most from was the iPad value study.  This project allowed me to practice using value at ease because if something went wrong I could just undo it.  I think that this piece of artwork taught me not only how to use value, but how to blend colors and use shadows to define a light source.  The iPads were wonderful because they provided a greater margin for error.  Also they were great because you could easily blend colors together to create many values rather than struggling with a pencil.  After I completed this project I was able to incorporate the techniques regarding value and shading into all of my other pieces.  Through this piece I finally learned how to shade with the shape to create a three dimmensional effect.  Even though this piece may not look the way I wanted it to, I feel that it is the piece that I learned the most from and is definitely very important as a stepping stone for my success in art.  Value was one of the hardest things I had to learn in this class, and I think this was a great way to better understand how to use it.  This piece of artwork was a wonderful experience and was very helpful.

3.)  The clay tile I believe incorporated the most techniques that I learned in this class.  I had to use methods that I learned from the beginning of the year to new ones I learned right before making it.  Some of the techniques that I had to use were line texture, the use of lights and darks, lots of value, and new methods such as coil handbuilding.  The first instance that I had to use varying line texture was in the creation of the tree.  To make it look more natural I including varying thicknesses of lines to make it look like there was some bark.  I also had to use this technique to make the toucan's feathers.  I had to use various types of handbuilding to create the piece that I desired.  I had to use coil building for the tree, slab building for the leaves, and pinch building for the entire bird.  The part of the project that I needed the most techniques was in the painting process.  Whenever I thought I was done, Ms.Rossi would say "You need more value!".  It took for ever to incorporate enough lights to make the piece pop!  This is not the only technique I had to use, I also used everything I learned about painting from the landscape and used it in this piece.  The use of all these techniques led to a far more successful project and I know that it would not be nearly as good if I had not learned these methods.

4.)  The photoshop projects in my mind were the least important in learning the concepts of this class.  I feel that we never actually used any of the techniques we learned in this project anywhere else during this class.  Even when we did use technology, usings iPads we never made anything using photoshop.  I didn't understand the purpose of making someones tongue into a frog or turning a set of perfectly delicious pancakes into an angry fish.  Although this project was very fun and interesting for me, I believe it had no connection to the concepts we covered in this class.  I am a technology person, and this was very interesting but we never used any of these techniques.  This I feel belongs in a computer art class rather than in art one.  The only instance we even used photoshop was in the creation of a tri-color image for the stencil portrait and even that had no relationship to these.  Overall I think that these were really fun, but had no relationship to the art one concepts.

5.)  I think that the cartoon skeleton was the project that reflects me the most.  This project was the first one that we did and it shows who I truly am.  We were not given the skeleton of this cartoon, we had to envision it and make it what we wanted it to look like. For this reason I feel that it shows the artist that I really am.  I also feel that this has a personal connection to me because it seems like something that I would do in my free time. I might not paint or mold clay in my spare time but I might make a cartoon skeleton.  This also reflects me because we had not learned any techniques when we completed this, it was all my imagination and what I thought was "Real" artwork.  I chose the character, I chose the proportions of the bones, I chose the placement of the bones, I chose what to include, this piece was all about me.  This is why I think that I relate the most to this piece.  Even though this is not that complicated or colorful I think that it is one of my best pieces because it truly reflects who I am, not just what people want.  I hope that I will again have an opportunity to create something like this, and see what has changed in how I portray myself.