Reflection Essay

This year I have learned so much about various areas of interest. As an art 3 student at Maggie Walker I feel like I have been able to try things that I have never tried before. I loved pushing myself outside my comfort zone and trying techniques that I would never dream of trying on my own, and even if I didn’t particularly enjoy some of those, I am still so glad I tried. 

This year I have learned a lot about myself, however I have also learned a lot about how I like to physically create while trying new things. I learned how to safely widdle, how to cast plaster without getting too much sand on the outside of the casting, how to glaze over oil paintings, how to study artist mark and understand that each artist creates differently, and even how to connect wood using holes and pegs. One of the biggest and most important things that I have learned this year is that I truly feel the most comfortable painting with oil or acrylic paint, and enjoy creating work that is realistic. 

 In addition to working physically, I also learned how to understand and depict what I am trying to say within my art mentally. I have discovered that I really like connections and studying how people connect and what bonds people together, which has been a continuous theme throughout my work for this semester, and I plan to explore it more in art 4. 

I have seen the greatest growth in my mental awareness throughout the course of art 3. At the beginning of the year I got easily overwhelmed with my art and often felt like I couldn’t see the end of the project I was working on. This often made me feel a little trapped or restricted and truly made me more reluctant to create. Over the course of the year however, I have found myself finding tactics to make myself feel less and less overwhelmed, and now at the end of the year I feel comfortable enough with myself to sit and paint for hours on end. I have figured out that sometimes I need to work on the easiest parts of paintings before I tackle the harder details, and that I always need to finish the dark parts before the highlights. I also know that i need to have a plan, and I like to have my materials set out before I start now. I also know that it is easier for me to paint when I have people there who I can talk to, and music is always an essential. All of these things have helped me grow into an artist that is comfortable with herself and how I choose to create.  At the beginning of the year, I couldn’t draw with chalk for the artist copy for more than 20 minutes at a time, however now I find myself going to the art room after school whenever I can and being able to relax and focus for about an hour. 

I feel like I need to improve on making certain elements of my art stand out more by using techniques such as color theory to make the colors really sing, and focusing on making the highlights really pop. I feel like if I understood these areas with more depth my paintings could be a lot more appealing and realistic. 

 In addition to working physically, I also learned how to understand and depict what I am trying to say within my art mentally. I have discovered that I really like connections and studying how people connect and what bonds people together, which has been a continuous theme throughout my work for this semester, and I plan to explore it more in art 4. In combination with this idea, I have learned that I enjoy painting using acrylic paint, and I really like large scale paintings. I think the biggest thing for me in Art 4 is doing what I prefer and going from there. In conclusion, next year in Art 4 I will use what I have learned in Art 3 by recognizing that I enjoy the feeling of being proud of a painting and knowing all of the details look exactly how I envisioned them and the hard work paid off. For these reasons, I really enjoyed the oil painting we did in quarter 3 and plan to begin my year in art 4 with painting.