Reflection and Planning Essay

What I Learned & How I Have Grown

Over the course of the year I have learned to let go of perfection and allow personal growth to stem from failure. I have created a number of works that I was unsatisfied with however, rather than letting these pieces affect my mood I have learned from them. I know now that I do not enjoy sculpture and that I do enjoy painting, excluding oil painting. I feel I could still improve my use of time;I tend to view making art as a chore rather than as something fun to do. I hope to look at art from a different, more positive perspective over the summer. I will also work on leaving perfectionism behind. 

Sketchbook Motifs and Personal Themes

After looking through my sketchbook I noticed a common subject was ocean creatures, specifically sharks. Beyond my play pages I depicted sharks multiple times in personal pieces and in my sketch book. My sketchbook was also filled with work from other classes, chemistry notes and solving math equations. I used these common elements of my sketchbook and combined them to form a theme: chasing relaxation in a stressful environment. Balancing something I love like art, and something more stressful, like school is hard but it is something I enjoy doing and pride myself in being good at. I wanted to convey this theme throughout my four pieces. I greatly enjoy mixed media collage pieces as well as water color. These two mediums are polar opposites, collages have stark edges while water color paintings are fluid. I thought that these two mediums portrayed the balance of stress and fun within my life. The pages that I most enjoyed were often the more goofy and loose sketches rather than the well planned spreads. I allowed myself to be gestural and have fun during this project. The pages with bold lines and sharp edges were generally more successful, my personal favorite was the sharpie page. I took this into account while making my pieces for this project. 

Play Pages & Project Reflection

My first piece is a paper collage made of origami and other colored paper. The shark in this piece is very stiff, it is made up of boxy segments with harsh edges, while the fish that the shark is chasing is fluid and moving. This piece portrays chasing relaxation while being stressed and anxious. My second piece is a water color of sharks swimming through sunlight. This piece represents the movement of life and the release of expectations to enjoy the quality of being. My third piece is an origami shark. This piece was the most challenging because I kept wanting the shark to turn out perfect. In the end I tried many times and failed, and still, my final piece is not perfect. I want this piece to represent trying hard and still failing, once again there is stress and relaxation simultaneously represented within this work. My final work is of three imaginary friends. This work is based on the Imaginary Friend art assignment. The three friends, Fernando the sock monkey, sparky the star, and Petunia the hippo all represent my childhood self, a version of me that felt absolutely no stress. I am, overall, very pleased with all four of my works, though I must admit the imperfections in my origami are still very annoying. I am working on letting go of perfection and finding relaxation in the things I love most like making art. 

How I Can Use What I Have Learned

I will continue making art over the summer. I will continue portraying emotions within my works and rejecting perfectionism. My main goal over the summer is to create more mixed media and water color works. I will also try sculpture and oil painting again, though I did not enjoy the process the first time around. I believe that I can grow with these media and learn important lessons from my failures.