Art 1 Final Exam Spring 2014

The Concept of an "Open Art Room"

I feel, for some people, that they just chose a certain theme and topic because it was easy and 
they knew how to do it; For other people like me, we chose a certain theme and topic because 
it would challenge us and force us to learn something new and exciting.  I really enjoyed this way
of art though. It forced me to use different media and learn different ways to create pieces of art, 
so it definitely got me to grow as an artist.  I never knew how to use charcoal in the ways I did 
before "Open Art Room" came to the Apex art department.  I never knew how to shade objects 
with it or even use it correctly, but now I can create textures, shade, and even create highlights 
with a white charcoal stick.  This can be shown in the goose's fur, the swan's beak, the blades 
of grass, and the eye of the goose.  I never knew you could layer the charcoal as well.  I always 
thought it came out as one single shade of black and never knew you could layer the charcoal 
strokes to make it light or dark.

What I Learned the Most From

I learned that even if things come out in a way that you didn't like, you can always make 
something out of it.  You attempted to draw a person, but it came out completely wrong?  
Great.  Make it into an alien, a cartoon, or surrealism piece.  I had an issue with a clay tile I was 
making and it shattered because the kiln heated up too quick.  The whole right side of the tile 
was completely cracked and there was no way I could glue it back together.  I decided to 
shatter the whole tile itself and create some brownies out of it.  I learned from this piece the 
most because even disasters and mistakes can be beautiful.  I never would have thought my 
tile would shatter, and once it did, my heart shattered as well because it took me three days to 
think of the idea and put it all together.  My teacher always told me of ways to fix something if I 
didn't like the way it looked and I never realized until now that you will never mess up.  There 
will always be a way out of it and it will still look just as good as before so don't give up!
                            

Gaining Skill From Previous Projects

Journaling probably made me grow the most, artistically, because I have, once before, done journaling, but I wasn't really sure what I was doing.  I just threw a couple clips from different magazines onto a piece of paper and wrote a couple of things and thought it was good journaling, but it didn't have any balance or composition.  In the piece I've done recently, my journal has a better color scheme and balance to it.  It makes sense and even though it isn't as good as I could make it, it's composed well.  For me, it was hard to find the right pictures to go with the color scheme, but I ended up just putting in a bed that had a weird shade of blue so that it would pop when you looked at the journal.  The words I put on there is, "Prayer of Sleep," and it isn't really a quote from somewhere, it's just words I thought of when I heard the word 'sleep'.  Again, this journal isn't the best I could have made, but it definitely is better than the first one I made.  Believe me.

The Most Difficult Thing in Class

The most difficult thing to do during class, for me, was thinking of ideas.  I would always draw a blank when I was forced to think of an idea for one of my pieces.  My ideas usually come from random times in the day, like when I'm taking a walk, watching T.V or scrolling Instagram, and don't really have a theme that I need to follow.  I feel like it would help if I was just nonchalant about it.  I think so hard about the idea being perfect.  I always feel the need to impress someone and make them think, "Now THAT is a piece of art!"  If my ideas are original, I don't like them, and If they are too out-of-the-box, I still don't like them so I guess you can say that I'm a perfectionist in the art department.  Like this one piece I made around the first few weeks of school.  I couldn't find any way to make the girls head fit perfectly with her body so I worked on it for so long and even took it home one day because I needed more time to stare and think.  I ended up controlling my perfectionist part of me and decided it was fine.  I brought it back to school and my teacher ended up telling me how to fix it and after that I thought it was almost perfect, but not quite.  I lost time and had to keep it the way it is so now I'm dealing with it.  I still feel like I have to go back and fix it, but that's exaggerating.  Like I said before,  you can't make mistakes in art.  They can always be fixed.