These two pieces are my summer art projects. One is a self portrait and the other is a still life. Both were done in charcoal on toned paper. These were really good assignments because they allowed me to demonstrate artistic behaviors. First of all, I created original art with these pieces, not only because I came up with them but because I expressed my own voice as an artist through them; I feel like they have a subtle stylistic quality. I don't really like how the still life came out, however, I feel like I should have chosen a better subject; one that was more interesting for me to draw and one that shows my personality a little better. As for learning new techniques and processes, I've worked a lot with charcoal before, but I definitely feel that these projects helped me improve immensely in my use of tone and value. I like the way my self portrait shows my personality in the expression that I chose. And even though it was part of the criteria for the assignment, the use of charcoal also kind of reflects who I am and my habits as an artist; if we could chose any medium I probably would do it in some sort of black-and-white value-based material because that's what I like. Unfortunately I think my subject for the still life could have reflected who I am as a person a little better. Looking back I realize it was somewhat uncreative of me to choose to draw a cup with paintbrushes in it. Even though it was a requirement, using a large sized paper was a very big challenge for me; I had to make sure that I had everything mapped out so it wouldn't look awkward or out of place on the large space. And that's something I usually don't have to worry about, even though I know I should always be thinking about how the picture is going to fit. I wasn't really able to collaborate with these two pieces this summer, but I did ask my family what they thought. It's not exactly the same as having another artist's opinion and constructive criticism, though. I think I will definitely use my still life as a learning opportunity because I'm not really happy with the way it turned out. I think if I were to choose this subject again, I would make the paintbrushes different and change the composition, because overall I think it was kind of weak. It's very important to reflect on your artwork, and think about what you did well and what you would change. It's a critical step in demonstrating artistic behavior, and without doing that I think I would never improve as an artist. When it comes to having a global awareness, it's also very important and crucial to observe other people's art and think about what they did that may have been different from what you did. It's kind of difficult to connect these assignments to a global scale, because they were designed to be very personal and individual. But I think it;s really great when art is political or has a message, and that's something I want to try to incorporate that more into my work in the future.
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Authorjohanna carr Archives
May 2016
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