Reflecting at the end of the course.

I came into this classroom at the beginning of the year, ready. I did not know what to expect besides an amazing space to work and experiment in. I did not know you, or some of my classmates, but here we are, months later, at the end. It SUCKS. This class was my favorite by far. All of the projects we did were interesting to me in some way, if not always challenging, I took my own approach on them and spun them around so I could take more out of it. I am always very eager to learn about things I care about, art being one of these things. I started off thinking that I sucked at drawing because I always thought of drawing as still life's which aren't my favorite, but you let us expand on drawing many other things, still life and pure original thought. I would say that a few of the highlights of my time in this classroom have been, my four hour project, my self portrait, and my light drawing. These projects were right down my alley so to speak. I hate having something plain to do, even in other classes I always somehow make it my own, personal you may say. I always put all my effort into trying new ideas and ways to process information given, such as when doing the block prints. Speaking of which, that might have been the lower point of this class. While my print came out alright, it was not exactly my favorite project to do. I will always remember doing the pour paintings because of the things we found to highlight within the poured images, I will ALWAYS remember that day in drop everything and draw when you took away and added things to the still life and we were all miserable! But it has stuck in my mind for sure. I will remember this class as being an open laid back environment where I could always be who I wanted to be and do what I wanted to do, and have many opportunities. This class ending is something foreign to me as last year classes ran all three terms. There really isn't any other way to put it besides being weird. Not coming up here everyday and enjoying this class to the fullest is going to be odd, and something I will miss dearly. This class ends with me having grown very much into my own artist niche. I know now what types of art I like to make, which I do not, and which I will do and enjoy and try my best on even if it is not what I care to do. I have learned the skills I will need to continue my art education throughout the rest of my life. I know that for the next three years of highschool, you will see a lot of me because art is something I love and will always love to do. I will always be interested in creating stories through drawings and hope to do so more and more as I grow older and grow as an artist. I can tell that with the skills I have been taught and adapted to this year in this class I will remember for the rest of my life. With hands on learning, I do best because it sticks into my brain. I know when I am a senior I will be doing some art project and I will remember sitting with Alex Fissler saying something crazy and doing something you assigned to us with gusto. So now we say goodbye well not really but it is weird and I will miss this class very much! Thank you for a great year :D

I See The Light Drawing

The Road of No Return

I used lights and darks to show the winding road leading to an unknown destination. I used it to show the mountains and the various crevices within it. I had a very difficult time deciding what to draw but after messing around with a few ideas, I let go and just started drawing and it ended up the way it is... somehow. I used the light pencils to draw in the light parts of the mountains and the darker pencils to shade in the darker parts of the mountain. I used the erasers when I wanted to show something as completely white with no smudges around it. I discovered that I needed to use a lot of contrast between light and dark to show what I was trying to express and that for a really dark color, you really need to press down on the paper hard.

Self Portrait as a _________.

This project made you utilize two different parts of your brain, the part that is creative and makes ideas, and the one that isn't afraid to get messy and goes through with the project. You had to use your hands to form shapes with the clay, but you also had to get a creative idea, then execute it. I decided to choose a butterfly on a puzzle board. I am very much like a butterfly because I am a free spirit who likes to flutter around and be adventurous and colorful while I fly all over the place, creating memories. I chose a puzzle board because while the can be messy to begin with, but the end result is always a clean cut picture with no depth, which is VERY unlike me. I am too all over the place to be a puzzle but I am just like a butterfly. In the past, I was no fan of clay after one particularly rowdy experience where my hair got stuck in the wheel... you can imagine the rest! Also clay is very sticky and dry and gets into your pores and under your nails and yuck, not my thing, I like being clean. I made myself as in intricate butterfly with many different textures on the wings. I chose to make patterns because it shows all the loose ends and differences about me and my life. I discovered that it is very hard to put clay together and get it to stick and you MUST slip and score a lot.

Me-scape: A reductive Block Print

At the beginning of the print making project, I was pretty confident with my ability to make a good print. I somehow ended up carving away the wrong sections of my block so my end result was not exactly what I intended it to be...anyhow, I did struggle with this project. It was very hard to work backwards, meaning carving away what you want to stay first, then printing, then repeating the process various times. Starting with a project that is difficult to begin with then making it harder by having to work backwards, conceptually made my brain go WHOAAA! If I were to do this project over again, I would really focus on where I was supposed to be carving away that way my end result ended up being more of what I wanted it to be.

Thinking about the use of light in art.

Light is an eager concept. Light is a noun, light is an adjective, and light is a verb. Tricky tricky. Light is usually portrayed as having a higher meaning, sort of like an angel or heaven shining down the white "light." Light is everywhere, you just have to look for it if it isn't obvious. I mean if you go outside and the sun is shining there is going to be light, but light doesn't have to be as simple as that. Light can be an illusion that makes you truly believe that something is light but really is heavy, or is really dark. Songs that talk about death normally refer to a some sort of light a lot of the time. Light can be misplaced, or it can be found but again, you have to know how to find it. Without the sun, the world would not be able to continue, so in some ways, light is the center of the universe. Without the sun no produce could grow and it is clinically proven that without sunlight people become very depressed. For example places like Alaska where the light never shines, have the highest suicide rates. See the connection between light and life? I do. In musicals, plays, and concerts, lights are used to represent things that are not actually there or to give emphasis or color to certain things that want to be emphasized. I know at concerts there are many bright colorful lights shining on the audience and mainly the artist performing to get you to notice them. In very dramatic scenes in life or in a movie, light shines so that the moment is captured, like a snapshot of a photo; you need just the right amount of light to show what you are trying to tell through the photo. This may sound really corny, but a long time ago I recall watching an episode of a very bad show called, "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide." In this specific episode, Ned's best friend Moze wants a date with the foreign exchange student. So Ned and his friends decide to make the perfect moment for the guy to ask Moze out. They go into a classroom and set it dark except for a backdrop of a tropical island. The chorus is brought in to sing high "aaaaaaaah," like you always hear in movies when someone see's the 'light.' Then there were doves flying around and a wind maker so Moze's hair is blowing in the wind. The last part was a bright light shining down on Moze, singling her out, so when the exchange student walked in he was drawn to her and asked her out. It is not very hard to guess what the light was trying to represent in this situation, that Moze is 'beautiful' and that the guy should ask her out. Light has the potential to do this because it draws you in, its just captivating. Then you have to look at it, especially for people like me because anything shiny holds interest to my eyes.