Museum Gallery Visit 4: ES and MS Art Show!

AP 2D Digital Portfolio

Concentration 9, 10, 11, & 12

I am submitting a close-up of one of my concentration pieces as an exemption for concentration 9.

Extra timed-drawing for concentration 10.

Extra monoprint for concentration 11.

Extra found surface piece for concentration 12.

Concentration 8

 Timed-Drawing Diptych (Piece 2)

Manipulation of Materials:
Similar to the painting of the oil can, I found it difficult to paint acrylic on paper because it was hard to spread the paint and it dried way too quickly. I just had to adjust my speed and technique, which was fine since this was a three-class timed drawing anyways.

Problem Solving:
I've always wanted to try painting water, but never really got around it because I wasn't sure how. The texture always seemed too detailed and complicated, but it was only when April said "Just zoom in and paint the shapes and colors. Don't think of it as water when you paint it" that I finally decided to try it.

Concentration 7

I am submitting my triptych artwork as an exemption for this concentration assignment. 

Concentration 6

Timed-Drawing Diptych (Piece 1)

(180 minutes ~ roughly two classes)

Problem Solving:
After having a week of timed-drawings, I wanted to continue experimenting with making art under pressure. I realized that with timed-drawings, I really had to focus on the big picture rather than the minute details and making everything clean-cut. Because all of the timed-drawings I've done in the past were with rapidograph, I wanted to try something new, which is why I chose to do acrylic. It felt a little bland composition wise, which is why I've decided to make it the first part of a diptych piece.

Manipulation of Materials:
Although it is hard for me to paint in a fast pace, acrylic as a medium is quite fitting for timed-drawings because it dries super quick, letting me layer and add on more shape without having to wait. This piece was quite challenging, however, because I painted it on regular paper, making it harder to spread the paint and it drying a lot faster than usual when I would do it on wood or matteboard.

Museum Gallery Visit III: Polaroid at the Intersection of Art and Technology

 

For my third museum visit, I went to the National Museum of Singapore to see the Polaroid exhibition. This was the first photography art exhibition that I have been to, and I have to say that it opened up my eyes to new things I've never really paid attention or learned about. Being in a 2D class, photography was always an option, but I never actually considered it. This is partly because I've never owned or really worked with a high quality camera before, besides taking photos with my iPhone. Even with my phone, I've always taken photos of pretty views and with friends, but never really for quality use. However, after this exhibit, I learned a lot about the art of taking photos and how it can be a lot more artistic than people perceive photos to be.

Polaroid cameras made a comeback recently, which is why I am aware of them, but I've never actually taken the time to think about them. Now that I think of it, it's pretty amazing how we have a camera in our world that can take a photo and print it in an instant without us seeing what it looks like beforehand. This is why it is artistically unique, because Polaroids gave us the art of being ambiguous and taking a snapshot of the raw world -- no edits and no retakes. 

There were so many photographs displayed where, if it had been taken on our phones, would most likely be retaken because it was centered wrong or just didn't have good enough placement and lighting. But because of how off the picture is, the more unique and interesting it is.

Also, the way the Polaroid camera works is quite amazing. The fact that the camera can take in a photo of light and print it immediately within less than a minute is quite extraordinary. The creation of this tool required both the works of artists and scientists. Artists had to think about how to express their creativity and how to improve the Polaroid film, while scientists worked on the camera's mechanics. Again, this proves just how art and science can go hand-in-hand as the invention created a symbiotic relationship between the artists and Polaroid's team of scientists and engineers as they worked together to create the instant technology that became a transformative tool for artists. 

When you compare Polaroid photos and usual high-definition photos, the obvious difference is that Polaroid photos give off a more dull and rugged look, which just continues to add on to the artistry aspect of it. We always work on how to make cameras better by producing photos that 100% resemble reality, but Polaroid photos captures reality in a more distorted frame, allowing viewers to be more curious and see more meaning in the pictures.

Because of the immediacy of the medium, the Polaroid's instant process gives us more opportunities to observe, interrogate, and contemplate the space around us. I also saw multiple Polaroid composites, which I would love to give a try. The artists took photos of each section of a scene, and put them together as one piece of work. The best part about those pieces of work is how they don't always exactly fit, so when I look at it, I feel like I'm looking at a big puzzle whose pieces don't exactly fit.

Timed Drawings

(one class)

 (two classes)

Concentration 5

Manipulation of materials:

This was probably one of the most challenging acrylic paintings I've ever done, mostly because I didn't know how to get started with painting the strawberries since there was so much going on. For one, I realized that, like any other medium, a form of layering is very important with acrylic. Sometimes I painted pieces by doing shapes and details altogether, but with this one, I had to paint the basic shapes first, let it dry, then get into it with the details. 

Problem solving:

With painting the strawberries, I had to experiment with what paint goes down first and how to layer and layer the details on. The bottom left strawberry was the very first one I did, and I initially made the mistake of painting both the seeds and details at the same time with the red areas, but it ended up looking nothing like a strawberry. I did get really frustrated at one point, but after trial and error, I found that I first had to paint the red with the different shades down first to get the basic shape, then I painted in the seeds, and lastly I touched it all up with the white and black areas of the light reflections. 

Concentration 4

Creativity:

After painting the background and collaging the foreground of my pieces with my final exam pieces, I wanted to try a different combination of paint and collage by painting the foreground and collaging the background instead. I also used magazine paper to collage the crushed ice background instead of painting individual colors, but I think it ended up making the piece look a little too "all over the place" than I intended it to. It didn't turn out the way I had initially wanted it to, but it helped me learn what works and what doesn't with this specific media combination.

Problem Solving: 

I had a lot of difficulty with trying to make this piece look less scrappy and random. I had initially envisioned using magazine paper to create the background of the crushed ice by pasting on different shades of grey and white together, but it ended up being a lot harder than I thought. I tried to make the overall look of the ice smoother by pasting papers that are more similar neutral in color and closer to white, which helped a bit. If I were to do this again, I think I would cut smaller pieces of the magazine papers to create a more realistic effect of the ice.

50% check

I plan to finish my second piece (dragonfruit) in school before the weekend, and I am halfway through my last piece. I hope I can work a little bit on my last piece at home and continue to finish it during the last few classes next week.

Museum Gallery Visit II: Seoul Metro Art Center

Over the summer, my mom and I were taking the subway in Seoul during vacation when we came across a small section within the station where there were a bunch of art pieces hung up on display. When we went inside to take a closer look, I realized that all the paintings were done by primary students from schools all over Seoul. I actually ended up enjoying this museum a lot more than I usually do in more "professional" galleries, and I think this is because looking at artwork done by little kids allowed me to go back to the basics of learning art and how important they are to making meaningful pieces.

The student that painted this work may not yet have learned about exaggerative perspectives the way that SAS students did in high school, but even at a young age, this person already knew that interesting perspectives can result in a more eye-catching painting. It's true that out of all the pieces displayed, this particular student may not have the best artistic skills compared to his/her peers, but his/her work was the one that caught my eye instantly because of the image she chose to paint. By having the hands a whole lot bigger than the person itself, it grabbed people's attention. Exaggerated perspective pieces, which I only learned to really appreciate this school year, can really give that extra uniqueness to an artwork. 

This is also another example of an exaggerated perspective piece that caught my eye, and with this one, I also really admired how much attention and patience the student must have had to really be neat and meticulous with his/her shape and lines. 

The next two paintings that I was drawn to were these ones. Both are really similar in terms of the color theme and painting style, but what I really liked about it was how much the students focused on the shapes of their painting, and particularly the contrast in the first painting. These kinds of paintings I have always admired because, up close, they seem really basic, simple, and quickly done, but from afar, they are one of the most eye-catching ones due to the strength in their shapes and clear lines. It reminded me of how I used to be a hardcore perfectionist when it came to the smallest details, only to realize that sometimes they are unnoticeable in the final picture and that I spent way too much time on them. Of course, details and being attentive about them are both still very important, but sometimes it's nicer to just focus on the big picture. 

With this student, I could tell right away that he/she is a very neat and patient person. Every line and shape was painted to near-perfection, which of course resulted in a painting that was very clear and clean-cut. When I looked at this artwork, I saw a little bit of myself in it because even since I was young, I have always been one to strive for precision. I could tell that this piece took a very long time for the student to do, and I really appreciate how even though he/she is only in primary school, he/she is already taking the time and patience to create meaningful art. 

The last thing I noticed as I strolled past all the artworks on display was that younger kids definitely played a lot more with their imagination and were more adventurous about expressing it than high school kids are. There were a lot of pieces where there could not have been a reference photo for the kids to look at––they just simply drew what they had in their heads, like the paintings above. This really stuck with me because I always liked having reference photos and making art from it by looking at every angle, shape, line, and shadow, but I am sometimes afraid to try being imaginative with what I want to draw. Coming up with a creative idea for a reference photo is still completely different from coming up with an idea that is absolutely new and only in your head, while also creating that art without looking at anything to guide you.