end-of-year | reflection

My recollection is admittedly a little clouded, since it's been a really long year, but this is to reflect on my personal artistic growth througout my time in Art 3!

WHAT SPECIFICALLY HAVE YOU LEARNED?

I've learned a lot of stuff... in particular, though, I've learned a lot about the technical aspects of creating art: the thought that is put into formatting pieces, the materials, and the underlying meaning behind the artwork. It's been really interesting, although I've been pretty frustrated at some points, which was demotivating, but I did enjoy learning about these aspects. I like just creating art in general, when I have time, so I wouldn't put a lot of thought into what I was making other than "I want to paint, and I want to paint with these colors," -- which led to lots of small, low-quality paintings of pictures from my phone. On that topic, I've learned a lot about how to improve my skills in making art, specifically in painting! The oil painting unit forced me to be (somewhat) more patient, to take the time to really look at what I was painting in relation to my actual painting (as opposed to, let's say, painting off vibes). I didn't really enjoy that unit that much, to be honest, it was sort of frustrating for me because it forced me to be patient and paint in thin glazes, but I overall think it was beneficial for my technical skills as a painter. I enjoyed the abstract painting a lot more, although I wish now I had painted on a large canvas... maybe sometime in the future, next year or something, I'll explore that more. In the abstract painting unit I liked learned a lot about color. I feel like I've had a good sense for color in general, even prior to this, but the color theory activities were helpful with understanding why and how colors interact the way they do. I think it'll be useful to know this if I paint (when I paint) over the summer.

Sort-of on the same note, I've learned a lot about human figures through the gesture drawing unit at the very beginning of the year (which was probably my favorite). Although I really prefer painting over pencil, when I'm able to paint, I thought it was cool to be able to get a grasp on anatomy and how the human body works (technically, not like, biologically), because I really like portraiture! Overall I've learned a lot this year, it's been fun despite some of my flaws when trying to complete the projects, and I'm really looking forward to Art 4 next year.

WHERE HAVE YOU SEEN THE GREATEST GROWTH?

Honestly I think I've seen the greatest growth in my patience. I'm a naturally impatient person, I hate being bored, and I hate not feeling like I'm doing anything -- i.e. I like to see visible, quick, substantive change --, so the large number of projects throughout the year that required me to take my time, look at what I was doing, actually try to be accurate in my subject (calling back to the first paragraph and "painting off vibes") was tough. However, I think as the year has progressed I have learned to embrace this slowness, even if I'm dissatisfied with it, because it is really beneficial if you're trying to, you know, create a good piece of art. The first self-portrait project was especially rough in regards to having to be patient, because even if my recreation wasn't particularly accurate (in regards to my appearance or the reference technique), it took a lot of time to do due to the detail and scale required. It was just sort of difficult for me. However, I think if we did a similar project at the end of the year, or over the summer (NOT a suggestion just a thought), I would see a lot of improvement in the effort I put in, because I would feel less overwhelmed by the scale and the time required. This isn't the only area I've seen growth in, obviously, but I do think it's the most prominent just because I was/am so naturally impatient.

IN WHAT AREA DO YOU FEEL YOU NEED TO IMPROVE?

To go off of the prior paragraph... probably still patience. Although, more in regards to overall work ethic, this time. I would consider "patience" as an umbrella covering three major areas I could stand to improve in: starting projects, putting effort into projects, and wanting to work on projects. Starting projects is the worst part, I naturally procrastinate for pretty much everything -- even stuff I want to do! --, which makes it hard to finish projects in time when they're geared towards taking, well, over an hour. Even once I start projects, and even after my growth this year in learning to be patient and put in detail and work, I just want to get them "over with." It's really annoying because I actually enjoy making art, but for some reason whenever it's assigned any motivation to do it just leaves (no offense?). So, "wanting to work on projects" and "putting effort into projects" are sort of conjoined, in a sense, because if I don't want to work on a project, I won't put effort in, etc. etc. So even though I've improved a lot in that area thanks to Art 3's assignments (which is not really saying a lot because my work ethic is still terrible, although I will say I liked most of the assignments!), there's still a lot of room for improvement.

HOW CAN YOU USE WHAT YOU'VE LEARNED AS YOU MOVE FORWARD WITH YOUR INDEPENDENT WORK NEXT YEAR?

Well, I think I'll definitely incorporate the gesture/human figure drawings I mentioned in the first paragraph, since I really like doing those and portraiture and all of that. I might move more into painting in either acrylics or oils, probably acrylic, although I'm sure I'd still incorporate the techniques we learned during oil painting (although we also learned a lot, i.e. wet on wet, impasto, sgraffito, etc.), possibly combine painting and portraiture (which I haven't really tried before). Color theory will help a lot with this since I'm a fan of like, the bright colors and all of that? I don't really know how to phrase it, but probably closest to the colors in like, Fauvism, although not necessarily in that particular style. I really enjoy painting so I definitely think I will focus on that, using the techniques we've learned this year (and my own personal touches). It's a little daunting, not really having a goal or set of parameters for what to do (although I do like it a little more, going back to my issues with motivation and all), but I think the freedom(?) will allow me to explore painting and expression/subject/color a lot more than the set curriculum of Art 3 (no shade to Art 3, it has been super fun). The play pages brought up a lot of interesting perspectives on unconscious choices in art, mostly in regards to how "masculinity" was pointed out as a theme for my play pages on deer, since they all had antlers, which was not something I consciously realized while doing them. I think it'll be cool to see how stuff like that plays out in like, painted portraits, or something similar, or something not similar because doing independent work will allow for a lot of room for change in subject/topic/etc.