Art 1 Final Portfolio

1. My favorite and what I think was one of the most successful projects in Art 1 that I created was the landscape canvas painting. This was my favorite project because it was something that took a while to complete, but I liked every day of it, adding something new every day. It was soothing and relaxing to sit and focus on the painting while using techniques learned in class to make it as good as possible. I feel that this was one of the most successful projects because the colors work well together by mixing together to make warm and calming colors that sets the tone for the painting. I used only black, white, red, blue, and yellow to make this painting, so finding the exact right color to make all of the shades of whatever part I was working on was sometimes hard. I had to use and experiment with different amounts of colors to find the shade that I thought would fit the painting well. I had to use different brushes and brush strokes that I learned in class to make the trees, grass, and sky. For example, in the trees, I used a fan brush and dabby brush strokes to get the texture and shape of the edges of the trees. It was hard to decide which project was my favorite between the value scale drawing, the stencil, and the painting, but I came to the conclusion that I like this one the best.



2. The skeleton project was the project that I learned the most and developed the most from. Being the first project of the class, it really helped to see what I was doing wrong before coming into the class. It also set the tone for the rest of the class for the drawing projects. For example, I used perspective, shading, and exact measurements for future projects that we completed. It was also good to see exactly what I was doing wrong by looking at them side by side and what could be done to fix it for that project and future projects. The first project, for me, is always the hardest because not having taken an art class before (except elementary school), it was good to automatically see where I stood and how much work I had or wanted to do to make my art better. I don't think that my second drawing (left) of the skeleton is perfect, but definitely a huge improvement after my first and after learning several drawing tips. Although it was not my favorite project, I think I learned the most from it.

3. The project that I used skills and techniques from previous projects was my self portrait. The projects that I used skills and techniques from is the skeleton drawing, newimal bones drawing, and value scale drawing. From the skeleton drawing, I learned proportions and measurements of facial features, which obviously would help me with a self portrait. The value scale drawing helped me with shading, the proper amount of it, and where to put it. I used shading in my hair, eyes, lips, and nose. Last, the newimal bones drawing helped me with precision of the facial features, especially the eyes. It made me want to pay attention to detail. These techniques helped me grow as an artist because repeating the process of each technique was practice, and doing them over and over made me better at doing them. Incorporating these techniques was easy because they came naturally when drawing the portrait because I was so familiar with them already. If I had not learned those techniques, I doubt the portrait would have turned out as well as I think it did.

4. The project that I feel was the least important in learning the concepts taught in the course was the shadow project. It was the least important becasue I think that I could have done this without ever being in the class. There were no new material or techniques that we learned that could have helped us with the making of the trash sculpture. Also, it was probably the most easy project of the year, the hardest part coming up with an idea of something to build. Although it was fun to think of things that we could build, and actually build it, the process was not hard and I did not use anything new that I learned. We tried to be creative with it, so we made a castle. Mr. Sands projected a night sky onto the projector to make it look more real adn dramatic. With that being said, the overall project was fun, but I did not use anything learned in the class to make it.

5. The value scale drawing of the car was the piece of artwork that reflects me most as an artist and that I have a personal connection to. I chose this because it was one of the more fun projects for me to create. This drawing reflects me because I enjoy drawing, it is a cool car, and there are many different "shades" of me, like the car. It reflects me as an artist because I think the shading part is fun, figuring out how much a certain area needs to be shaded to look realistic, and using the shading tool was cool. I also like paying attention to detail and think I'm pretty good at seeing the detail and portraying it accurately. I have a personal connection to it because it is probably the best drawing I have ever created. It took quite a while to make, but it was all worth it in the end. Even though it is not perfect, it is still very good for me and I am proud to have made it.