Final Drawing and Painting Reflection

Final Drawing & Painting Class Reflection

I am proud of my creative development in drawing and painting this year which is best exemplified by two pieces: the Mapping Project and the Portrait of an Artist Project. 

My intention in the Mapping Project was to avoid getting stuck in my head! I tried not to think while I was creating these small pieces … to be spontaneous. The way Chris talked about drawing what you know, drawing whatever comes to you, and going with your instincts was helpful. I really got absorbed in this project and wanted to continue working on this project longer than some people did. 

Since I had previously approached several self-portrait projects from a realistic perspective, my intention on the Portrait of an Artist Project was to take a more abstract tack. Three sources of inspiration had been in my idea box for a while: David Poppie’s sculptural artwork using colored pencils, Lucy Brigg’s silhouette last year, and the fabric of a dress I bought at Anthropology. As I thought about this self-portrait project, those ideas coalesced in an interesting way. Given my love of color in art and in all aspects of my life, colored dashes would be a central component of my piece. Another of my initial intentions was to experiment with the reversal of positive and negative space. In considering what sort of interplay I wanted between the silhouette and the dashes of color, I decided to place the dashes around and behind the silhouette as opposed to inside the silhouette. As a highly observant person, I am constantly stimulated by the world around me. As I aim to maintain an open mind, a blank silhouette seemed appropriate.

My least successful work this year was the still-life project, in which I created a net-like overlay by painting black lines over a photograph. The lines became too dominant and overshadowed the rest of the piece. 

I believe my greatest strength is artfully rendering weird island shapes … :-) I love this class and have given it my all throughout the year. It feeds my soul in so many different ways. What I’m most excited about in the future is working on my Mapping Project Part III and developing my realistic drawing skills. I also plan to continue my use of vibrant colors.

The 80 Drawings Project taught me a great deal about the benefits of spontaneity and taking risks, and these things apply to all aspects of life. The nature of the project went against my love of precise details and forced me out of my comfort zone as I made quick sketches off the top of my head and with very limited forethought. In the end, I found this approach very freeing and productive in terms of idea generation and creativity.