Semester 1
This is my work from my first semester of final year of art in Saint Louis High School, and sadly most likely the last art class I'll ever be taking. Similarly to Art 3, we were given less guidelines to follow for all of our projects, unlike Art 1 and Art 2. Although it makes me think more as to what I'll be making and how to start, I enjoy the freedom of being able to incorporate my own creativity into the projects. Throughout this semester, I worked on a variety of projects: self-portrait, vertebral column (abstract and realist), rope drawing, one-worded project, and the paper-pulp "change" project.
Our first project we worked on the first few days of the school year was the "one-worded" project. For this project we were supposed to think of a word that describes us, and then somehow draw that word. I think this was my worst project yet, as I didn't exactly know what to draw, what word to write, and made it with markers, making it look childish. I chose the word "strong" as it not only describes me, but I could easily represent the word through drawing a flexed drawing. I personally didn't enjoy this project. We also had to draw a skeleton, and the vertebral column project was by far the most challenging project for me to make. I have never been the best at drawing human figures, and drawing the bone structure of a human figure was even more challenging. It took a lot of detail to make it the most realistic I could make. Shading played a large role in making both the "abstract" and "realist" bone structures. On the more close-up picture of just the ribs and shoulders, I also had to use different shades of ink for the shaded parts. However, I think they both were my best I could give, and turned out pretty successful. Next, I'll talk about the self-portrait. We were instructed to draw a picture to represent different parts of us. As it's hard to see in the picture, I drew pon poms, lipsticks, glitter, music notes, flowers, bows, and an eye infront of a colorful background. All of these things make up who I am, as poms is a big part of my life, which also includes music (as I also listen to music outside of poms as well), and I'm girly which is represented by all the other things. All this is circling the eye that's located in the middle, which is suppose to be my eye (with it's eyeliner wings on point). It was first hard coming up with what to put into my drawing, but it soon came to me and I decided to have it look like it was all circling the page. It turned out fine but I wish I could've used brighter colors. We also had to again, create a rope. The rope drawing was also challenging to complete. This project was specifically hard and difficult to do due to there being so many lines of rope in one given area. The shading was also hard, as well as giving the rope texture. It did teach me to draw something of a different shape, with texture, and piled up. Last put not least, my favorite project was the "change" one, where we used paper-pulp. Although it was time consuming working with wet shreds of paper as I had to wait on it to dry, I really enjoyed it. I decided to make a melting snowman, as it has physical changes as the season is also changing, as the snow starts melting as it turns from winter to spring. I simply balled up 3 balls of paper pulp and then piled them on top of each other, kind of making them lopsided and squished down to give it the melting-effect. I also added "snow" at the bottom. Once it all dried which took around 5 days, I painted it white and gave it a lopsided face with its carrot nose and some of his buttons on the ground. I like how my snowman turned out. I enjoyed semester one of advanced art!
Our first project we worked on the first few days of the school year was the "one-worded" project. For this project we were supposed to think of a word that describes us, and then somehow draw that word. I think this was my worst project yet, as I didn't exactly know what to draw, what word to write, and made it with markers, making it look childish. I chose the word "strong" as it not only describes me, but I could easily represent the word through drawing a flexed drawing. I personally didn't enjoy this project. We also had to draw a skeleton, and the vertebral column project was by far the most challenging project for me to make. I have never been the best at drawing human figures, and drawing the bone structure of a human figure was even more challenging. It took a lot of detail to make it the most realistic I could make. Shading played a large role in making both the "abstract" and "realist" bone structures. On the more close-up picture of just the ribs and shoulders, I also had to use different shades of ink for the shaded parts. However, I think they both were my best I could give, and turned out pretty successful. Next, I'll talk about the self-portrait. We were instructed to draw a picture to represent different parts of us. As it's hard to see in the picture, I drew pon poms, lipsticks, glitter, music notes, flowers, bows, and an eye infront of a colorful background. All of these things make up who I am, as poms is a big part of my life, which also includes music (as I also listen to music outside of poms as well), and I'm girly which is represented by all the other things. All this is circling the eye that's located in the middle, which is suppose to be my eye (with it's eyeliner wings on point). It was first hard coming up with what to put into my drawing, but it soon came to me and I decided to have it look like it was all circling the page. It turned out fine but I wish I could've used brighter colors. We also had to again, create a rope. The rope drawing was also challenging to complete. This project was specifically hard and difficult to do due to there being so many lines of rope in one given area. The shading was also hard, as well as giving the rope texture. It did teach me to draw something of a different shape, with texture, and piled up. Last put not least, my favorite project was the "change" one, where we used paper-pulp. Although it was time consuming working with wet shreds of paper as I had to wait on it to dry, I really enjoyed it. I decided to make a melting snowman, as it has physical changes as the season is also changing, as the snow starts melting as it turns from winter to spring. I simply balled up 3 balls of paper pulp and then piled them on top of each other, kind of making them lopsided and squished down to give it the melting-effect. I also added "snow" at the bottom. Once it all dried which took around 5 days, I painted it white and gave it a lopsided face with its carrot nose and some of his buttons on the ground. I like how my snowman turned out. I enjoyed semester one of advanced art!
Semester 2
Below is my work from the second semester of my 4th year of art. As stated above, similarly to Art 3, we were given less guidelines to follow for all of our projects, unlike Art 1 and Art 2. Although it makes me think more as to what I'll be making and how to start, I enjoy the freedom of being able to incorporate my own creativity into the projects. Throughout this semester, I worked on a variety of projects: cardboard relief print, pop art lino print, clay projects, and a t-shirt.
Majority of these projects took a bit of planning, as I had to figure out exactly what I wanted to create and how I would make it. For the cardboard relief print, I decided to make a pretzel because I could easily figure out what parts to cut out. This project was fairly easy, although I didn't really like using the cardboard because all the indents in it and how easily it bends. For the pop art lino print, I went with the logo of on of my favorite bands. This project gave me more experience working with different cutting tools, as I had to cut down all of the linoleum block, besides the logo, making it raised above the rest of the block. For the clay I decided to make multiple little cactus figures, since I have a small obsession with cacti and collect them. They didn't all turn out exactly as I created them since little details and pieces must've broke off in the kilm. Last but not least, I made another shirt, working with a sticky sheet, the exacto-knife, and spray paint.
As my high school career comes to an end, I'd have to say art has been one of my most favorite classes every year, and has taught me so much more about art beyond what I knew when I first took art 1.