During my freshman year of high school, the counselor put me in Art 1 after she messed with my schedule so that my Geometry class would not have over 35 students. I was one of the 4 lucky students that was moved from Geometry and because of that, my schedule was adjusted and I ended up having to take Art. I was not happy in the beginning because I thought I didn't like the subject. Not only that, I was taken out of a class that had lots of my friends. Now I am glad that I was put in that class because that was the beginning of my interest in art.
My teacher for art that year had us working on lots of basic projects that helped me develop my skills. We started with sketches and worked our way up to painting. This year we worked with charcoals, colored pencils, oil pastels, pen, watercolor and acrylic paints. We did most of our projects with "dry" materials and only in the end did we start learning to work with "wet" materials.
Charcoal painting of a branch and leaves. This project was one was to practice with the different softness levels of charcoal and the shading that can be done with them.
For this project, we were required to bring in a teddy bear and draw it in pencil. The bear I brought in is made of towel-like cloth and it was challenging to do the shading. Over the years it has smudged so the shading has blended in.
I enjoyed taking art so much during my freshman year so I decided to sign up for Art 2 the following year. This time willingly. My previous art teacher left and we had a different teacher this year. To this day, I still think she was one of the best teachers I had during high school. In her class we learned not only about different art techniques, but also terminology and art history. She was a laid back teacher and did not assign specific project and instead assigned us to work on a project in a certain medium or style.
One of our projects was a collage. We were able to do it in any style and medium of our choice. I chose to do it in watercolor and chose a flower theme. I took pictures from magazines and laid them out how I wanted to pain them. My favorite is the purple flower at the top left corner.
The first time we got to use acrylic paints in class, we were also able to choose what to paint. I loved the movie Finding Nemo and chose to do my painting of Dory and Marlin.
Later that year, we had to do an abstract self portrait. My art teacher was also the technology teacher so she knew a lot about cool software to use for our projects. She had us take a picture and then use a program (don't remember what we used...though I don't think it was photoshop) to warp it however we liked. We were then to make a painting of our picture. This was the result of this project. It is one of my favorite paintings because my teacher used it as an example of what she was looking for with this project. I was so flattered ;)
The next year I didn't take art. This was not because I didn't want to, but because of scheduling conflicts. I did take a website design class with my art teacher from the previous year and we did do some very creative projects on the computer. Senior year I pleaded my way into art again. I had already taken Art 1 & 2 and there was no Art 3 so I was put into the Art 2 class as an Art 3 student. This year there was a new art teacher. I really liked my last art teacher and was skeptical about this new teacher. She had us do lots of 3D projects rather than the usual paintings and drawings. I did get some freedom with what I got to do but this was not really my favorite year for art :(
This watercolor painting was the only actual painting I did that year :/
After high school, I didn't have any more "formal" art classes but I did continue to work on projects on my own.
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I did this acrylic painting for my aunt. I loved working with the gold sharpie for the edges.
This is a remake of the teddy bear I made during freshman year. My cousin saw the original pencil drawing and liked it so much that I decided to make him a painting of it for his birthday. He named it Gus the Fuzz because it's a fuzzy bear.
Recently I have been working on craft projects as part of an art group I co-funded at the library I work for. This project involved using magazine scraps and glue to make shapes or scenes. The kids really enjoyed this project.
This year I was asked to help with face painting at the library's annual "Dia de los Niños, Dia de los Libros." This event is full of activities for kids to do and also promotes reading. I had done face painting before and so I was asked to help. These are some of the best creatures I did at the event.
This is my most recent acrylic painting. My partner-in-crime and fellow artist (who co-founded the library's art group with me) and I were commissioned an art piece for a Woman's History Month event, a "Lunada." We made a special art piece (which deserves it's own post...coming soon!) for this event, and I contributed this piece as well.
Art is now a big part of my life. I am really glad that I was "forced" to take art my freshman year because I learned something about myself; my love for art. I enjoy it a lot and I keep creating more pieces as time allows. I bought myself a sketchbook to have a place to doodle and keep my pieces together. I previously just took the pages out of an art notebook and most of my pieces were in the most random storage places (underneath my mattress, in the closet, in the garage, etc...) where they were being damaged. This "Sad Girl with Umbrella" done in pastels was one of the first things I did in my sketchbook. Now my sketchbook holds more pieces that I will share as this blog goes on.
Thanks for reading!
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