Reflection Essay

This year I feel like I've learned a lot about what I'm not good at, which has really helped me to rule out things that I will certainly not be doing in the future. I've realized that I'm not really an intuitive person, so abstraction is not something I'd like to continue with, either in painting or sculpture. But in addition to learning where my strengths are not, I've also found some things that I really enjoy. The oil painting unit, although a little messy, was really fun and I really enjoyed the glazing process because it was easy to go over it and redo it if I wasn't happy with it. I like oil paints more than acrylics because of the forgiving nature of them and also because of their slower drying time that is more conducive to my extremely slow progress. Additionally, I got to spend a lot of time working with pysanky, which I really enjoyed. I’ve certainly learned that pysanky may be something that I’d like to continue in the future. But aside from things I’ve learned about mediums, I’ve also seen what styles I enjoy more than others. I really enjoy creating more realistic things, not necessarily photo-realism, but slightly simplified realism. I still have room for some artistic license but I don’t have so much freedom that I have to rely on intuition. I’ve learned that finding a balance between complete freedom and photo-realism is where I’d like to continue with my work.

I think I’ve seen the greatest growth in my play pages and consistently creating drawings that I’m satisfied with in alcohol marker. Prior to this year, when I did sketches I wasn’t consistently successful, but I feel like this year if I actually dedicate myself to a piece in marker I can make it look passably okay. I think that I’ve grown in terms of my skill with markers, but I’m not sure I can say the same about all of the other mediums we’ve worked in. To be completely fair, it’s good that I’m not great at all mediums because it means that I can rule things out. Still, I feel that I’ve seen the most growth in my ability to actually draw things realistically. 

I think that I need to improve in terms of messages behind my work. I’m very good at making up meaning in my work, but I’m not sure that I’ve actually nailed down a message I’d like to share in my art. I understand that making a message in my work is perhaps the hardest part of the process, but I think that deciding on a message will help me figure out what direction I want to move in next year. I think in terms of craftsmanship, I can also improve significantly, but that’s a pretty broad goal that I’ll eventually achieve over time. Rather than focusing on craftsmanship as my single goal, I think I’m going to focus more on meaning in my work and hope that the craftsmanship of my work will improve with the development of symbolism and message.

Next year I’ll try to do more work in pysanky, based on what I’ve done in my fantastic four projects. I really enjoy working with wax and the process of considering every mark I’m going to make because each one is permanent. I think that I’ll take aspects of my fantastic four projects in terms of pysanky, but I think that I’ll draw on my play pages for inspiration of what subjects I should depict. I also think that in addition to pysanky, I might try to explore more oil painting or work in alcohol marker because of how much I enjoyed it this year.