Art Class Reflection #2

During this art class, we were asked to cut out three different shapes from three different pieces of paper. We needed to cut out one geometric shape, one organic shape, and one recognizable shape. Each of these shapes needed to be different sizes. For my geometric shape I cut out a circle, then for my organic shape I cut out an interesting shape with no straight lines (see image), and then for my recognizable shape I cut out a star. We were then given 5 different materials we could choose from to represent our texture. The five materials were magazines, wallpaper, drawn, material, or rubbings. I choose to use magazines, material, and rubbings for my art piece. After cutting out each of my shapes I then started adding texture to each of them. I started by adding rubbings to my organic shape. I got this piece of pink foam that was textured and starts rubbing the crayon over top to create a neat pattern. I originally practiced using the rubbing technique on a blank piece of paper first to see how the rubbing technique worked. I found it worked better when I used the crayon on its side as holding it upright left some lines. As I was rubbing the crayon, I realized I wanted to use a different colour. I decided I would change my crayon three times, making three different sections of colours on my organic shape. I then moved onto the second shape, the recognizable shape. For this, I decided to cut out a piece of material. I chose some material from the back of the room and glued my star on first, and then cut it out. I found this was easier than tracing because I only had crayons to trace and they were not showing up very well. After this, I needed to do my last shape which was the geometric shape. I choose to do a circle and I went to the back to get a magazine clipping. I choose an image of a cactus as it had a lot of texture to the image and cut out a circle of this image. After I had cut out all my shapes, I was prompted to place all the shapes together to build an imaginary insect that consisted of a head, thorax, and abdomen. I then arranged my shapes into the order I wanted my insect to be and glued them on. After finishing the arrangement of insects, I decided I wanted to add some finishing touches. I began to add legs and antennae to add to insect image.

While making this project, one new thing that I learned was about the different kinds of shapes and their names. I had no realized there was an organic shape, and that it consisted of no straight lines. When I originally seen an organic shape, I thought it was just a blob and did not consider it to be a shape, as I thought shapes were more structured like square, circle, octagon, and star. I learned that you can also turn anything into something. In other words, we took 3 different shapes and 3 different textured materials and combined them to make an insect. I think this was a great exercise as it allowed us to be creative and use our imagination.

While making this project I created an insect. Through this process, I expressed different elements of texture and shape and transformed them into a mythical insect as shown in the image. This insect is composed of three different shapes, which are three different sizes and three different textures. These are all examples of implied texture as you cannot feel them, rather they are all textures you can just see.

When making this art piece I enjoyed doing the rubbings. I thought it was neat to choose different materials and see how they left textures on the paper. I liked how this aspect of my art turned out as it created a unique design. The thing I liked the least about this art piece was assembling it as an insect at the end. I wish I had been able to plan this piece of art, and if I had known I was making an insect I would have planned the shapes and textures differently.

If I were to do this project again, I would like to know that my final product will be an insect. This way I could coordinate my images better to make it go together better. Each of my shapes were created completely different and I did not think of them as going together.

I used the creative process planning my art. I started by planning the types of textures I wanted and the three different shapes I wanted to create. I then began to explore and the different types of textures by practicing rubbings on an extra piece of paper. I then started working through each of the artwork following the producing preliminary work stage and then finally had to present, perform and share how I changed my three shapes into an insect.