Visual Arts 2 Final Exam
1. a. In this piece, I re-created Andy Warhol’s “Campbell's Soup Cans” painting. To incorporate the monster theme into the picture, I decided to have little monster arms coming out of the can from different angles. Also, I included holes in the can so that you could see a faint image of the monster’s eyes. The medium I used to do so was acrylic paint. This was my first time doing an actual painting with acrylic paint and it is something that i’ll probably never forget due to the struggles that came with using it. The most trouble I had with using paint was getting the lines to be thin enough so that the painting looked crisp. Another thing I had trouble with was adding depth to the top of the can. I learned that you paint with a darker shade of whatever color you are using to show the part of the image that is away from the light so that it shows depth. In the future, I will make sure to use a thinner paint brush so I can make the painting look cleaner.
b. This was an assignment given to the class where we had to fold a strand of paper and tape each end to an actual sheet of paper. After this, we analyzed where the light was shining on the paper and where it was darkest. Then it was our job to draw what we saw using a white colored pencil on a black sheet of paper. I struggled with making the picture look completely realistic but I also think I did well considering it was my first time. I learned that paying attention to wear the light shines is a very big deal in order to create a realistic image. In the future, I will always make sure to take an actual picture of what I am trying to draw so that I can find where the light source is.
2. In my opinion, my artistic strengths are being able to not give up when working on a certain project as well as taking constructive criticism and learning from my mistakes. I feel that if you can’t take criticism then there isn't much room for improvement for you. Some artistic weaknesses of mine are that I like to stay in my comfort zone with the mediums I use. I used to mainly just use pencil to sketch images but after taking this class I am more comfortable trying new things. As I move forward, in order to improve I will have to be more open to new things and techniques and I will also have to work on drawing obliques.
3. The reason why I don’t think this piece worked out the way I would've liked it to is because I have a lot of white open spots on the paper where I didn’t cross hatch. My main struggle was not being able to figure out how to make my lines thinner with the pen. I overcame it by facing the problem head on and just drawing the lines closer together towards the bottom to show depth. If I were to be given the same assignment again, I would make sure the whole picture is cross hatched and I wouldn't have blank white spaces.
4. In order to create this picture I used pencil and my sketchbook paper. It’s my favorite piece that I have done because I think I did a really great job making it look realistic and adding depth to the darker spots of the eye. If I had to determine what this piece says about me as an artist I would say that it says I am good at drawing and making images come to life on paper. I think it is better from the rest of the work that I have done because when I drew this, I was in a relaxed state. With other projects this year I had a deadline of when something needed to be finished. But when I drew this, I did it on my free time because I actually wanted to do it. What also makes it “good” is that I enjoyed making it and can definitely say that it showed me that I have a lot of potential in this area.
