Progress Update

This past month has felt like a mad rush. Next week we have our Viewpoint unit hand in and presentation, as well as Exploring Specialist Techniques. Both units have been great fun and I have learned many things since beginning them.
The week after next we have our Botanics unit to hand in and present. Being the most tricky of the units so far to initially get started with I am pleased with how my sketchbook and final piece have progressed! I enjoy drawing, so having to include sketches of various flowers was a pleasant experience.

As for Viewpoint, I've felt the only way express my creativity regarding ideas for my cover and centre spread was to have a bash at Photoshop. Although weary to begin with I soon grasped the basic idea and how the different tools worked. Many if not all my ideas for the final pieces required me to get them down on paper first, just quick sketches. This proved a valuable reference when trying to convert the ideas onto the computer.

Exploring Specialist Techniques has allowed me to further investigate printing, and more particularly, lino prints. I have really enjoyed cutting my designs and experimenting with colours and composition.

I hope to achieve good grades with my last 3 units of 1st year, fingers crossed!

Expanding my Knowledge of the Art World

Having learnt about many artists through High School I believed up until a month or two ago that I had a good idea of what kinds of artists had been and gone throughout history. To me, Art was simply an outlet for very creative people with the passion and skill it takes to produce beautiful paintings, or drawings. My outlook and personal opinion on the matter has changed and developed a lot since beginning this course.

On Monday afternoons we have been looking at the periods in history where groups of artists have challenged tradition and disrupted the norm and created new ways of physically producing artwork. This has opened my mind to the art world, it has questioned my view on what 'art' really is.

So many people find comfort in pigeon holing things they come across in life, things have to be categorized and for example if one person with an open mind and a flexible perspective, views a blank canvas with three single dots in the centre, that person will take their time and develop a patient opinion on the piece. Other people instantly decide "That isn't art! How could it be?! It's nothing, anyone could do that!"
I used to be like that person. I guess it's a maturity thing, not to say someone who simply doesn't like contemporary art is immature, nothing like that. It;s just a trait you develop as you grown up. That is what I've come to learn since starting the course, is that you don't have to like every piece of art in a gallery, it's about appreciating and realising the artists ideas and motives and developing your own opinion on their piece.