Amazing Marking Period 2 Artwork - 2018-19

By Matias - 6th Grade 

This is my reflection, or rather, my artist’s statement for my blog. So… guess I should get to writing it, then. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Let’s start off with the first mini-project we did in this Elements of Art unit, which is none other than Lesson 1, obviously, but the focus of Lesson 1 was FORM! This was the first of all the mini-projects in this unit, so my artwork wasn’t at its prime then, not as good, I think, as I exited this unit, because you always leave a place with more knowledge than you brought. For the ‘form’ mini-project, we had to draw a three-dimensional sphere, make it look as realistic as we could—this meant adding in shadows, shading the sphere differently in different places, shading the background, and all that good stuff. Then, lastly, we had to label each of the individual parts of the sphere, which was fairly easy to do. Of course, the element of art that came into play here was mainly form, but you can’t do any art without encountering any of the other art values. No really—it is virtually impossible, unless… well… like I said, almost impossible. And speaking of what I said before, I am now going to talk more about what my sphere masterpiece is like. And before you ask, my amazing drawing does have a name, thanks for asking—Matias’ Sphere. I know, I know, it’s such an amazing name that you can’t stand it, but please hold the applause for later. Now to describe my artwork. It’s basically a circle—sorry, sphere—shaded all sorts of pencil-gray to demonstrate the form and position of the sphere itself, and it casts a short shadow in front of it, and there’s a dark gray background. Now, just picture that… or just look at the slide, which should be somewhere near this artist’s statement. I should stop writing so much for each itty-bitty question, or I’m bound to run out of time to write about all my mini-projects like this, so now I am going to write shorter responses. My artwork was created by pencil: pencil outlining, pencil shading, pencil shading, pencil everything. I did not use anything to trace the ring-shaped outline of my sphere, unlike some others in this classroom. My big idea behind my artwork was mainly just to create the artwork so I could turn it in, and as far as I know, there is no hidden meaning woven into this piece de resistance, unless there is… in which case I don’t know about it, so I cannot write about it. I know you are probably looking for some super-important meaning that could silently change the world, but as far as I know, it’s a pencil drawing of a three-dimensional circle, so sorry if I can’t please you further with this specific response, but hey, at least it was a bit longer than my previous response. My goals for this artwork, to tell you quite frankly, were to turn in my piece and (hopefully) get a pretty good grade for it. My overall thoughts about this piece of artwork and this marking period are that I did pretty well on this piece of artwork, but I could’ve done better it, that much I will admit. I don’t really have too many opinions on this marking period, and I doubt I will with my other responses with my other pieces of artwork… at this point, I sigh of exhaustion as I reluctantly begin the next paragraph… or twelve. 

So, here I am. After form, the mini-project that everybody did was TEXTURE/VALUE/LINE!!!! I think you can guess from the title what exactly this mini-project was about. If you couldn’t guess, it was all about texture, value, and line! So without further ado, I will begin my artist statement on my mini-presentation for none other than TEXTURE, VALUE, and LINE! For this mini unit (or rather, mini-project), what we had to do is as follows. We had to create multiple contour drawings (that’s when you look at a picture of something or that something itself and blindly draw what you see) of ourselves, by taking a photograph or two of ourselves on our computers and then trying to draw EXACTLY what we saw, down to each itty-bitty little line (HINT, HINT, LINE—LIKE ONE OF THE THINGS WE WERE STUDYING IN THIS MINI-PROJECT). Needless to say, the results were hilarious. The main one I did (I chose the funniest and most weird-looking one to take a picture of) was this one of me. Well, you already know it was a depiction of me, but what you DON’T know is exactly what it looks like. Unless you’re reading this on my blog…  and there’s a picture of my contour somewhere nearby… in which case forget what I just said. But I have to describe it for you for full points anyway, so what’s the point in not doing so? It looks like a really messed-up version of me. More specifically, there are no pupils in my eyeballs, or anything but white for that matter, my left eyebrow appears to be melting, although that could just be some hair in the way, and my lips ate all the way to the left. Wow, that is a mutilated thing. I must admit, I find it kind of creepy! I just created my art by putting pencil to paper, like every other work of art is begun (or at least, er, I assume), and then, TA-DA! A couple minutes later, my grand work of art was complete. The big idea behind my artwork was, well, there wasn’t any big idea. I was just doing what the directions said to. Speaking of which, there’s no huge and sentimental meaning behind this drawing, either. It’s just a contour drawing of a guy with dripping eyebrows. Nothing else to it. And no, there’s no name for it. It’s primarily because the drawing is that of a guy with no pupils and a dripping eyebrow, so, that’s pretty self-explanatory. What would you name that? Oh, never mind. It does have a name. It’s Guy With no Pupils and a Dripping Eyebrow. My goals for this artwork were, believe it or not, to get full points for the assignment. Dangerous quest, right? My goals as an artist and how to grow as an artist, though, were to gain more understanding about how to create a contour drawing, and how to make one REALLY, REALLY good, and also how to draw. You know why? Because with each pencil line you draw, you become a better artist, no matter how simple and small that pencil line may be. Do you get what I mean? My overall thoughts about this artwork were, Yeah, this was a very weird picture I just drew. It looks more like a guy with no pupils and a dripping eyebrow. That’s really all it resembles. But, hey, at least it got me some points! And about the overall marking period, these are my thoughts. I don’t have any. Okay then. But there were two things that we had to draw for this mini-project. The second thing that we had to draw for this mini-project (TEXTURE/VALUE/LINE) was this chart, sort of, with different patterns on each line, but with each pattern growing further, the pattern grew bolder and more severe, if you understand what I’m trying to say. Let’s say one side started off like this (period doesn’t count; that’s the end of a sentence): /   / /. After that, it became more like /  / /  /, and then / / / / /, and finally //////. You know? Well, that’s how it went. And they were different designs, too, not just one kind repeating over and over and over and over. There’s no title for it, and this time I mean SERIOUSLY, THERE IS NO TITLE FOR IT, as in, I am not going to make up a generic and random title right about now as I did with the other two pieces of art. There was no huge meaning behind this piece of art. I created this art with pencil and paper, again, as always, it seems, but this time, rather than create our own abstract contour drawing, we copied this chart from a document completely, except for this little part at the bottom where we have to make up our own patter growing more severe and bold with each passing… well… square, pattern turn, whatever you wish to call it. There was not much of a goal here, either, unless you count getting better at art a goal. Hey… wait… oh, silly me, it is a goal, and a huge one, too. Well, you know what I mean. Why would you be doing art in the first place without desiring to get better at it? Hmmm. If you were in a art class, then… never mind. About this piece of art I created, I thought something along the lines of Cool drawing! It looks so interesting and interesting. It also looks interesting! And intricate. And detailed. And complex! And of the marking period, this is what I thought: No thoughts here. I never have thoughts for the marking period, for some reason. Time to painstakingly begin writing about shape and space now. Oh, joy. 

Our third mini-project for this bigger unit was SHAPE and SPACE! For this mini-project, mini-lesson, whatever you’d like to call it, we had to actually make a paper boat, and then draw it. So, again, it was a double project. But this time, learning from… ahem… previous experiences, I am going to kill two birds with one stone (don’t worry, I would never kill a bird, I love birds, birds are awesome, there are birds everywhere, and they’re so cute and amazing and…) Sorry about that. I just had to ramble on and on and on about birds for a few lines. You know? Anyways, this time I’m going to say one thing about each piece of art when I’m talking about it. For example, let’s say I have to be writing about the meaning behind my artwork. I would say, In my drawing, there was blah blah blah. In my real paper boat, while there was blah blah blah, like with my drawing, there wasn’t as much blah blah blah with the blah blah blah of the boat. So now I will begin writing. Even though I just wrote. And I am writing right now. Agghh! The world can be very confusing at times. So, this is the prompt. Describe your artwork. So, for my paper boat, there are these striped I drew in pencil for decoration on the paper before I folded it, and in the picture, it’s all folded and put up against the wall on a table. So yeah. That’s basically what it looks like. My drawing looks basically the same, or at the very least it was intended to look like the original paper boat; that was the assignment. The only big difference is that in my drawing, my paper boat is floating on water. It was never ACTUALLY on water, but it’s called artistic license, so I used that. It’s pretty cool, actually. Artistic license, that is. How did you create your art? Good question, prompt. For the paper boat, we had to read a WikiHow article on how to fold an ordinary sheet of paper into a paper boat (that’s supposed to really work but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never set it on water!) Then we just followed the instructions and made our boat. The way that I created the drawing of my paper boat was that I just copied what my paper boat in the photograph looked like, and used artistic license to add water. What is the big idea behind your artwork? You know I never have any big ideas for these assignments. You know. Or… do I? What were your goals for this artwork? Well, for one, I wanted to get better at art, but more specifically I wanted to try folding, like origami, you know?  Origami is cool, and I haven’t really done too much origami before, so that’s an interesting and cool thing. What are your overall thoughts about your artwork and the marking period? Well, of my artwork, I think it’s rather good; I spent a decent amount of time working on it. My thoughts about the marking period?  Well, I think that the marking period was swell… or maybe swell but without actually saying ‘swell’ because… well… yes. 

So finally! My artist’s statement is at last complete. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I certainly enjoyed writing it.