Art 1 Final Portfolio

1. Which project was your favorite or most successful this semester? Please explain.

The mongoose shown above is the outcome of the printmaking project. I'm not sure how successful it was (though I was immensely pleased with how it turned out) but it was my favorite. This project offered a lot of variety in making it. It came in stages: first, several sketches. Then, carving out the stamp. Then, after possibly going though the convoluted process of mixing ink, applying the ink to the stamp and actually printing. Other projects would include solely one step, like drawing or painting. Occasionally, there would be an instance where one had to sketch out the idea beforehand. Either way, this project didn't dwell for too long on any single stage and produced a splendid mongoose as well.

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

I have developed and grown the most from this one. Specifically, my ears and eyes. They have developed and grown to be much larger than they actually are. Especially those eyes. They follow me everywhere.

In addition to these mutations, I have also learned a reasonable amount from drawing my eerily-staring, rough approximation of an evil twin. I'd even say that this project involved the most learning. There were all these peculiar statistics about how far apart one's eyes are on average and whatnot, so much that I had to draw a diagram on a different page. I also learned how the facial topography interacts with lighting and all that. And, most noticeably, I learned how to reach the uncanny valley in my drawings. I'm not entirely sure if that is good or bad. On one side, it seems human enough for my brain to be disturbed that it is not quite human. On the other side, it is not human enough for it to stop being so creepy.

3. 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.

I'm not sure if you can tell, but that is a painting (It is also a picture, but it is a picture of a painting). The reason it looks so realistic is because I used techniques like shading and color blending while I was painting it. In fact, I even sort of used elements from the skeleton unit to plot out how my [happy little] tree would branch with a pencil. And I must be a time traveler as well, because I used perspective, a technique I am set to learn next week, to make the bushes seem far away.

At the beginning of the Art 1 class, I could have probably painted something similar to this, but I imagine that it would be distinctly more smudgy. The leaves would have formed a single solid brick of foliage, and the roots would probably be something more resembling an octopus. In fact, perhaps by the time I reached the roots I may have been so frustrated with the unwieldiness of the acrylic paint I may have just printed out a picture of an octopus and pasted it on the general region where the root were supposed to be. Now, towards the end of the semester, I view myself as a gritty retired cop of the arts with enough experience to do as I please. I've seen a lot, after eighteen weeks on the force. These projects think they're somethin' special. Maybe they are. *Sips coffee*

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

I would have to say the contour drawing unit. Though I found my futile attempts to draw hands using this technique infinitely amusing, the joke became a bit stale after the unit progressed from hands. The project for the contour drawing part of the class was to draw a shoe with a single line.

Though I could think of several more interesting things to draw than a shoe, (A kitchen appliance, for instance) that is not my issue. No, my issue is knot even the fact that at the time my shoes were probably one of the most disgusting, malnourished-looking creatures to walk the Earth, and that I had make a somewhat glorified image of one of them so that it would resemble an actual shoe rather than a ball of torn cloth and rubber. The problem is that the contour line unit really did not have a point, at least in relation to the other units. It was not used again in the class, unlike things like value or color theory. Perhaps an analogy would help illustrate the idea:



Imagine that you are stranded in a forest, and you are forced to construct a masterpiece out of the materials you have in the forest to please the forest gods. Where are you going to find a tool to crate contour lines? Even if the forest gods granted you an infinitely long vine, would you rather use only that unwieldy vine or any collection of the materials you have?



I really saw no point to drawing contour lines at all. Perhaps I was missing the idea, but to me it seemed that the whole lesson was just an awkward, redundant bunch of assignments between the beginning of the semester and more interesting things. The bottom line here is that I have ugly shoes and contour lines displease the forest gods.

5. 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.

 

This piece has the deepest connection of all of my art. This is my hand - it is literally part of me. This is the Guido hand drawing we did pretty early in the year. The assignment was to draw your hand in a certain position, then draw over it the textures of an animal. The reason it is the answer to this question is because it is a Kraken. I have a fondness for drawing things that don't exist (as far as I know), you see. Ridiculous things like hand Kraken. This project was exactly my style; I drew a freaky thing tat probably wouldn't happen. Most of the time, if I were asked to draw anything I wanted, it would end up something like this. Even more often, there would be dinosaurs and sharks and some form of hot charged beam such as lightning or lasers. One of my favorite pictures I have drawn is of a fleet of bionic ninja dolphins flying towards some floating islands with jet packs, zapping things with Tesla coils, meanwhile a volcano is going off on one of the islands and on the other island, there is an outpost trying to fling plasma at the dolphins. Another picture I have, one that was actually for a school a assignment, is one of Napoleon Bonaparte twirling a baton, and behind them there is a dinosaur with a laser on it's head roaring and a chopper shooting at something out of the picture, while a huge explosion takes up the rest of the background. But I digress. The point is, if I ever become an artist, this kind of obscure yet very awesome kind of artwork would take up a large portion of my gallery.