Final Art Reflection

Over the course of the year, I have really found my desire to build and create minimalist structures that are still eye-popping. My most successful example of this type of work is my red box, which keeps the minimalist perfect box but the bright red and textures catch the eye.

The red box stands out to me because of its simple geometric form, colors, textures, and interesting stand. The box really honed in my crafting skills as I was required to make a perfect box and then make an interesting stand to accompany the art. It also made me understand the significance of the simple geometric shapes, which can be so clean and beautiful if implemented correctly. 

Another successful example of my artwork over the year would be my "winning" wax man sculpture.

The wax man sculpture stands out to me because of the uniform black color and simplicity in the pose. As I was creating the sculpture, I was really able to learn about the importance of patience in art because it really is a process that can't be rushed. I was able to study the human form to create the most realistic pose possible while retaining the simplicity that I had come to enjoy from my artwork. I honed in my skills in creating a piece of artwork that has a much more significant meaning than just the artwork itself. 

My least successful work would have to be my transformation project because I never really found something that I wanted to build. Eventually I built a tree out of wood, but I didn't have enough time to really make the tree my own. 

Although I still think the tree is a successful piece of art, I don't believe the project overall was successful because of the failed experiments and ideas. If I could redo the project, I would hone in my intentions and choose a piece of art to build as fast as possible, instead of experimenting with several different ideas. 

I would consider my crafting skills to be my greatest strength, simply because I was able to build several challenging sculptures with the skills I learned in the class. I also think my time management skills were one of my strengths but I had a small lapse with the transformation project. Overall, I thought I used my time wisely and generally spent the entire class time allotted to working on the project. 

As I said before, I think my time management skills were a great strength in the class because it allowed me to put a lot of effort into every project. I have it my all on many of the more ambitious building projects, but on some of the smaller projects I seemed to have experimented with too many ideas and therefore my effort wasn't always directed to creating art. Even when the final project didn't turn out perfect, the effort I put into each sculpture can be seen through the difficulty of the project. I think a great example of my effort can be seen with my artist in residence project. 

I put a lot of effort into putting together the box because of the many pieces that were involved in getting the box on par with my intentions. While the box may not have been my most successful project, it showed me that effort does have great rewards. 

I am most excited about being able to use the skills I used in the class to build things that I truly want to build. I learned that creating art can be very calming and I will remember that in the future. Even if the materials and tools for building sculptures aren't available in the future, I will always be excited about just putting ideas down and drawing them on paper. 

My skills I've developed in this class have really taught me the importance of effort and time management, which are both useful skills in all the stages of life. I have also learned that not everything has to turn out perfect to be successful and that things can change, but that just means that you have to change with them. I have learned patience skills as well, because sometimes the results of effort are not immediate, but that doesn't mean that I should give up. 

Overall, the class has taught me a lot of lessons that I will apply to my work throughout my life. I have also learned valuable crafting skills and how to use power tools correctly, which is always useful. 

Culminating Work Project

One of my inspirations was created by a group of architects who created a "cardboard cloud" that was essentially a floating city made out of cardboard. While my city doesn't float, I liked the idea of using everyday materials such as cardboard to make interesting art. 

For my culminating work sculpture, I decided to use my prior building skills from building minimalist and very geometric sculptures to make a city. Originally, I wanted the city to be chaotic but be surrounded by a very calming perfect box. As the sculpture grew, the city became more minimalist and clean, making the surrounding box essentially useless. I experimented with many materials, and decided to use cardboard, foam boards, and metal in the final project to make the city more realistic with the diversity of materials. I also made the buildings of the city different heights, shapes, and widths to increase the realism. 

I painted the bottom board all black to really contrast with the buildings. I also painted some of the buildings black as well to show that buildings rise up from the ground and become part of the terrain. 

I wanted the different sizes of the building to make it look more like a cityscape, which I think can be displayed fairly well with the picture above. 

 

This art piece, called "cardboard cloud" was one of my inspirations because it showed me that I could use everyday materials to make art. The creators of the piece wanted to make a floating city, and while my city doesn't float, I used the box idea to create a city of my own. 

Final Project

For my final project, I want to stick to my generally clean and minimalist sculptures and make a box. I like making very clean shapes but adding elements that make it a little more interesting than just a simple box. Therefore I want to make a box that is filled with what looks like a city out of circuit boards. The box would only be a frame and the sides would be glass so people can look in and see the city. I haven't decided what material to use for the box frame, but it would either be plastic or wood painted black. I thought about putting small lights inside the box too, but I might not have enough time to set that up. I want a somewhat chaotic and crowded city to be surrounded by a very calm and simple city. The box is going to generally look like this but it wont have the weird bottom thing. 

 

Transformation Project

I intend to create carvings from apples to show the transformation from a seed to a tree and finally into an eaten apple. I want to show the life cycle of apples and generally show that everything is ultimately connected. I will document each carving with photos because the apples will rot before I can finish the whole project. The apples represent life and nature in general and each carving will represent the truly never-ending life of nature.

Box

I decided to make something that would be simple to build and at the same time elegant and clean. I decided to build a model because building a full size box wouldn't have been practical. I choose to build it with wood, and used new wood for the walls and old wood for the trim. I like the effect of the trim because it makes the box shape stand out.

My original plan was to take pictures of the box and photoshop them into real places as though it was actually a building, but I didn't have time at the end of the project.

The door is also a diamond shape because I wanted the box to be more interesting, but if I could do it again I would probably use a more conventional shape for a door to make it look more like a real building.

I am pretty happy with how the box turned out, I think it could have used more work to make it perfect according to my original vision.

80 Drawings Reflection

In the first minute I didn't really think about what I was doing so the drawings are less refined, but also more raw. With the 3 minute drawings I normally thought aboutwhat I was doing and had a sense of what the final drawing would be. Sometimes I would finish this drawing in less than three minutes so they weren't necessarily complex. With the 5 minute drawings I tried so make more complex stuff to fill the 5 minutes. I have good drawings that I finished in all of the time lengths. The entirety of the group changes a lot due to the range of time that I did the drawings. Sometimes I would draw clean lines and circles and sometimes I would draw random shapes and just move the pencil randomly. I liked to draw simple and clean boats and cars but also very random shapes.  

Artist Emulation: Donald Judd

I built a box to emulate Donald Judd's style, but the final box has a much more texture and impurities. While making the box, my artistic sensibilities expanded to understand what texture can do to sculptures by adding interesting effects if done correctly. I first used clay, but that proved to be more difficult than I imaged because it broke so often. I tried a lot of wood boxes before making this one. I applied putty to smooth out the box and make it minimalist, but it turned out to be an awesome texture.

I painted the inside red to make the box stand out and scorched the edges to add even more texture. I will carry on my use of texture to make sculptures stand out.