What Is Art?
It took me almost two drafts to make a final art piece of what my art project is going to be and how it's going to look like. I first began sketching using a pencil and started drawing a girl. I took some time to design what her clothes might look like inspired from the creation myth. I made the eyes first, face, body and hair. I started coloring using color pencil and made the colors and shadows blend to her skin as much as possible. I used some black behind her bangs, her neck and legs. I planned to make it as 3-D as possible. I colored her skin and tried to blend it with the shadows on her skin. I used pressure onto the color pencil to make the color light or dark on her dress and hair. Then I outlined the girl using blank ink pen to see if it looked better and it did so I outlined it all over the pencil lines from the girl’s face to her dress and her legs. I started drawing the background, the trees and the grass. Everything has to be balanced with making it 3-D between the girl, the trees and the rest of the background with the clouds and the grass. At first I just wanted it to look simple and animated. When I got feedback from Andrew and Katherine, they suggested I should work on my shading and lightness to make it look realistic. I took that suggestion. I already had some shading and it would look weird if none had any from where the girl is standing and the clothes. I know I’m not as good as coloring and making things realistic but I decided to take that chance into exercising my skills to become better. I really admired Katherine’s work. Even if her project was in Photoshop she still drew her image by hand and it still looks fantastic. I really liked the colors, everything there had shading and the shapes of her person was perfect. Every color blended in its place. I used her work as my motivation to make my art good as well. I know I can never have a good skill as her but it was worth the try to improve my skills. One of my inspirations that I took while I was looking what art is below.
I liked how frilly the outfit looks that I took in for making my character’s clothes. It looks something unusual and it had a nature feel to it. I took in some light color for my art. I had the idea of making the dress stand out while it balances out with the background. I wanted to prove that my interest in fashion could be art.
It's rather hard because there has to be light in a certain direction, the shadow the girl is standing on and the trees to making it look good as possible because it's behind the girl and there should be some darker side in the tree. I used paper to blend the clouds and I just scrubbed in onto the picture. I also had a colorless blending color pencil to touch it a little bit and blend. I really took my time and effort on my art and I’m proud of it. Some of my struggles were the grass. At first I didn’t know how to make it realistic. It looked really off when I experimented the grass and colored it all green with triangular drawings. It was hard finding a way to make it shaded. Then I had help from Katherine and it was a great help. Her technique was almost a crosshatch when she drew the grass. I had decided to use that technique and began stroking curvy lines repeatedly all over the page. It took a lot of process and repetition. I kept drawing lines on top of each other until it looked as realistic while using pressure lightly or harder to show some shading.
My COMPLETE definition of art is like a design. Everything is completely made up from inside our imagination! WHOOO! Art has to be beautiful and colorful (though some may disagree because black and white is pretty too!). I think it has to show emotions and hard work. I think in ways my project connects to my definition of art is it has colors!! I do think I have been putting my effort in it. I choose to do it slow without rushing myself and not putting any hard work. The moods that I seem to have put in my project is something that has the nature feel to it. I use colors to express them and most of them are light that gives the light emotion. There is also a feel of beauty combined with nature since my project is connected to the creation myth. It just had to feel green.
I believe art is everything. Art can be random but I believe that it comes from hard work. It wouldn’t be art if there were no effort. If there’s effort it shows that there was thought in making it and it connects to expressing what you want to put out there then it would be art. Art should also be something that you take away from your perspective, maybe in life. Which I think makes art because it’s sharing someone’s point of view and it starts by creating something that expresses it by using art. I think the qualities art should have is it shows emotion, it doesn’t have to be anywhere fancy like the museum and it has colors to express feelings and thoughts. In my definition of art, moods, symbols and metaphors are what are used to express thoughts and feelings. I think it’s a different way to look at it instead of writing and having people read them. It’s much better to look at a picture with a whole story in one piece.
Art is very important to me. It’s because I am an artist and I like to do a lot of art related things like drawing and using colors. I enjoy creating things that I take from my thoughts into what I want to see in paper. It’s also like therapy for me because it helps me express my feelings in a different way rather being bottled up and causing it to be stressful. I like having to draw out my feelings and still hide them in a picture. I can express anything and at the same time hide them. I think with art it shows more of how much you put into it. It shows hard work and how amazing it is to be able to create something with your own hands rather in the media. I guess if it’s using visual art, it looks more real. It can be real rather showing a picture. In my art piece, the qualities it should possess for it to be an actual art piece would be filled with colors. It will show shapes, the pictures would have balance between each other. I will make sure that it takes hard work to finish my piece because it’s part of what I think art is and colors I will use to represent a part of me.
The process for developing my definition of art did not took a while. I looked at a few pictures that were random. I determined what part of the picture I liked the ones that I don’t seem to like, and the ones that’s interesting. It’s changed my view on art; everything doesn’t have to be pretty to look at. That the first thing I notice about an art piece is colors, which makes it important in art. Even without researching what art is, I would see it everywhere and I realize it also doesn’t have to be in a museum that certain people can look at it, it should be shown in public where everyone can see it. I think art is beautiful. No matter what the art piece is like it depends on that person’s view what beautiful is. I decided to make my art visually. I will make a simple picture of a woman with an evening dress. I would like to make the dress stand out more. It would be a connection to fashion designing and I want to prove that as being art.
