Reflection Essay

This year I have learned a ton of new information regarding art across many mediums. One thing that I have specifically learned this year is composition. Previous to this year I did not know how to arrange my compositions in any of my work, so a lot of my pieces of art looked a little weird. Even if the actual art was good, the bad composition ruined it. This year we learned how to do composition for our oil paintings. Now whenever I am making something, I focus on balance, the rule of thirds, and I make the composition interesting. In past years I may place the subject right in the center of the page, but now I know to put it somewhere else, and allow some parts of the subject to run off the page.

I have seen the greatest growth in my ability to copy life. In my art skill inventory art, my drawings are inaccurate to reality. This is something we worked on throughout the year. When we did figure drawing at the start of the year, I learned how to accurately depict the human figure. Compared with my original art skill inventory drawing, the figure drawings I created during this unit show vast growth in this area. I also have improved at drawing portraits, as shown by my self portrait. This shows that I understand how to draw a face from life. Finally, during our still life unit I learned how to paint actual objects based on what I see in front of me. Before this unit I struggled most with drawing objects, so my oil painting shows the amount I have grown in this area.

Moving forward, I need to improve my ability to come up with ideas. Even if my overall skills have improved in my work, I still find it very difficult to come up with original and interesting ideas. For example, in my self portrait drawing I did not come up with a creative way to show my identity, so I just drew my face in a basic portrait style. This has been an issue for me for a while now, and I think the most recent “Fantastic Four” project has helped me improve a little bit. However, I still need to get better at this because next year I will need to make up a lot of ideas.

Next year I will definitely use all the skills I learned this year. Specifically, I can use my knowledge of color to understand how different colors will affect each other. This is very important because different colors can completely change how an artwork feels. Something else that I will definitely use next year is the wood carving skills I learned this year. I think this could have many applications, because making wood into whatever you want could add to your art in an important way. I could add wood carving into my work to make it look cool.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed this class and all the projects we did throughout the year. I am so excited to come back next year for Art 4!