Drawing Art Portfolio

1) My “oh the places we will go” drawing, in my opinion, was my most successful. When I heard the project name, I immediately thought of bright colors and traveling. I came up with a pretty cool idea to do hot air balloons and I’m really proud of this drawing. The materials I used were pen, marker, and water color. At first, I wanted all black and white balloons with just the blue water colored sky in the background. I was told that I needed more color so I added the marker to a couple of the balloons. I didn’t add it to all of them because I really liked the way the balloons looked without color. I actually wish I didn’t color the balloons at all. I chose a medium-sized square. I chose this size because I wanted to add a lot of balloons in a more compact area to show the realm of possibilities for travel and adventure. Overall, this was my favorite project.

2) My “animals on the go” project was the project that I overcame the most obstacles on. The main obstacle I had was shading all the scales and finding value in each and every one of them. I wasn’t going to shade each and every one of the scales individually... right? Wrong. The only way to perfect the chameleon was to shade each and every scale. Each scale took one-two minutes to draw, so imagine having to draw over 100 scales. Plus, I had to draw the branch, the bug, and the other parts of the chameleon. Of course, this was also my most time-consuming project. What should’ve taken one week, took two. I had to come to Mrs. Rossi’s desk and ask her what I could do better until I felt it was perfect. Another area in which I struggled was just liking my own work. When I started the thumb nails for this drawing, everything felt hopeless. Even when I finished, I still didn’t feel like the drawing was good enough until I got a few compliments on how people in my art class thought it looked like I printed it off of the internet. I challenged myself by taking a risk on something I had never done before (drawing a reptile). Overall, the “animals on the go” project was the project that I overcame the most obstacles on.

3) These two pieces show my growth as an artist. In the figure drawing, I grew by being proportional. When I drew people before, I would always focus on the teeny, tiny details before I even looked at the big picture. Now, I know how to draw quickly and still get the look that I want. Also, I used to never be able to use charcoal. It was basically a deal breaker for art projects. If we were using charcoal, I gave up then and there. Now, I can say that I enjoy using charcoal because of its blending qualities and how easy it is to use when you know what you’re doing. In my character drawing, I grew as an artist by learning my own style. The character project made me really stressed out because I wasn’t used to having so much freedom to draw what I wanted. Through this project, I learned how to use water colored pencils and I found my style of art. Now, instead of using water color for small areas, I can now use water color pencils and add more detail by using them. Overall, these were the two projects that I grew the most on. 

4) This semester teachers introduced a new way of teaching and learning. Students had choices in subject matter and materials. I liked and disliked this at the same time. I feel like it was effective by letting students find their personality in their work. It made me enjoy what I was doing and I took more pride in my work. I felt like I was trusted more to make good decisions on my pieces rather than possibly not enjoying a material being used and then feeling like I couldn’t do the project. I also disliked this because sometimes I didn’t know what to do and I felt confused and looking for approval with each material I sought after. Although I enjoyed the freedom of materials, I also disliked that I had a very vague basis on which to produce a project upon.