Artist Statement
It is a great semester for me. I have never had so amazing art classes before. I did twenty-four art projects in this semester, such as soap carving, pop art, color mixing and painting, figure drawing, weaving and digital photo manipulating. I tried my best in every project and there were three projects which impressed me deeply: the enormous shell, a drawing for the Rome Colosseum, and the printmaking project.
Agnes, Elsa, me did the shell together. It was hard to imagine that we could do a shiny, flexible, and invulnerable shell with newspapers. The purple shell is 10 times larger than the original one with fake pearls and crystals on it. It can be closed or opened because we connected two parts of shells with movable metal plate. We made a basic model for the shell using clay and attached newspaper on it. After these newspapers being dry and hard, we took it off the clay, painted colors on it and added decorations. The idea was from the poster with a big burger. Our group wanted to make a challenging one with both beauty and reality in it. The burger could be separated into pieces, and our shell could open and be closed. It shows that we are trying to make an artwork closer to the real object, instead of imitating the appearance only.
I did many sketches before I got the final edition of the Rome Colosseum. I did the drawing with pens and pencils. The drawing was a sketching for the Rome Colosseum, but it took me a lot more time than it shown on the paper. Initially, I got many planning lines on the paper and sketched the contour of the building. Then I sketched the doors and got rid of the planning lines. Lastly, I added details on the drawing. The drawing for the Rome Colosseum is much more complicated than one-point or two-point perspective drawing, but it is typical for perspective drawing and I want to seize the opportunity to try it.
In my opinion, printmaking is the most difficult project in this semester. It needs both strength and skills. There are many tools for printmaking: stereotypes and carving tools, such as block cutters, tiny and big knifes, bent and straight blade and so on and colouring tools, such as blushes and plastic rolls. I chose two prints out of ten prints I did. One is a red and yellow tiger, and the other one is a green turtle. The process contains two parts: carve the pattern onto a stereotype and print it. Firstly, I drawn a sketch on the paper and replicated it onto the stereotype. In addition, I cut out the useless parts to show the pattern on the stereotype. Finally, I rubbed the stereotype evenly with colours and printed them on the paper. I want to show emotions of these two animals. Therefore, I used different colours or wet colours to make the pictures moving. This strategy worked a little bit in the end. I also carved bad situations of environment in the background of these two animals. They are both endangered animals and they need more attention from human beings.
My goal in art is to increase my speed and creativity by doing more projects. I used to be a girl with no art feeling and art education. However, in this course, I learned many objects and fun stories about art. I equipped more and better skills than the beginning of this semester, and I can see developments in my art work. Ms. Lesa used to ask us to do quick sketch and I thought that it was useful. She shown us a lot of works from other artists to give us inspirations. I will keep her words in mind and keep chasing my goal.
In this art class, I learned both for skills and for history of art. I was taught that art wasn’t just about the craft or painting the artist shown outside. It was also about their inner thoughts and the stories or cultures behind it. Art was a feeling of human beings, so it was different for everyone. Ms. Lesa always told me to come up with a different idea for the same theme or feature, and that was when the creativity went by. Every moment when I was doing an art project, I got relieved instead of a feeling of stress. Art enriches my life and broadens my horizon. I will appreciate this art class forever for the happiness and surprise it brings.
