Final Term Reflection

Approaches to Learning Skills: Media Literacy, Organization, Creative Thinking

Areas of Strength

• Researching and presenting the PowerPoint about the abstract artist and abstract musician with my music partner
• Being organized in class and having all the materials ready and taking things home if I hadn't finished
• Coming up with ways to include the same shape but creating different patterns

Areas of Development

Next time I could add more texture to my art piece and use different materials instead of paper and paint. Also I could use the principles of art in my artwork. I could improve time management because I left it till the last day to complete my artwork, instead of rushing it, I could've used my time correctly and more efficiently. I also found it tricky when I had to fill in the white gaps in the poster without covering the main pattern. So to overcome my challenge I searched up patterns that involved squares and got inspired by a few.

Wow and Wonder

I was impressed this term when I managed to come up with a story to sustain my artwork. So my artwork had a purpose and there was a meaning behind it.

Final Art Piece - Serial Art

Love Story

My artwork represents a love story it symbolizes a beautiful relationship built by two individuals. In the artwork, these two individuals are standing on top of their love mountain causing them to be separated. The purple representing the royalty of the woman and the yellow representing the joy of the man. They have experienced many beautiful things together and have shared their love through words and actions. However, their relationship has had downs and many complications. Both have had different battles inside them represented by the squares on their love mountain. They are both standing on top of their mountain and as so close to being forever happy. To finding the secret of true love.

But...
If one takes a step, they both fall off the mountain.
They are so close, yet so far. They long to be together. Love so strong its taking over their lives. She is his world and he is hers.


Then they both jump.

Analysing my Artwork

Colour

The purple represents the woman in the relationship as purple is associated with royalty, luxury, wisdom, independence and creativity; all attributes that represent a woman. The yellow represents the man in the relationship as yellow is associated with freshness, joy, loyalty and energy.  I halved the A2 poster so one side was painted, using water colours, yellow for the man and the other side was painted purple for the woman. For the heart in the middle of the poster, I decided for it to be red because it was the only coloured that matched purple and yellow but was also associated with love. The circles made out of newspaper are the only shapes that aren't made with paper. I chose to use newspaper instead of coloured card paper because the writing and words on the newspaper represents the words that the two partners have said to the other during the years, for example 'I love you', 'You are beautiful', 'I would do anything for you', 'You have changed me' but they also represents the ugly words they said to each other when they were fighting or arguing, 'I hate you', 'I never want to see you again'.


Pattern

I used two shapes: square and circles. Initially my first idea was to only use squares but after having completed all my patterns using just squares, I felt like my artwork was incomplete. So I decided to add circles. For the main pattern which is the pattern with the purple and yellow squares represents all the experiences and things the couple has done together. That is why a yellow square is also accompanied by a purple square - they are always together. Also I used the squares in different ways as it didn't always look like a square, sometimes the square was placed vertically so it looked like a diamond. On both sides (purple and yellow) there is a mountain made out of the newspaper circles. The mountain represents their love and how it grew with the years. On the each of their 'mountain' there are scattered squares which represent the conflicts and problems the woman and the man are experiencing. For the woman the squares are purple and for the man the squares are yellow. The squares on the mountain are of different sizes as not all problems and conflicts are really bad. Some conflicts was just a silly arguments, others could be bigger and more important. They could have affected the way the man or the woman grew up. The heart in the middle symbolizes their love, as they are both 'jumping' off the cliff, they are both risking their lives for the person they love. Their story shows that they would do anything for each other.

Working with Shapes and Patterns

Serialism in Visual Art

Serialism is an art movement where objects are assembled in an order. The composition of serial art is a systematic process. An early example of serialism is  Constantin Brancusi's sculpture Endless Column.

During these lessons in art we talked about serialism and what is the concept of serielism art. For our final project in art we had to create an artwork which included a pattern and reflected the idea of serielism. Firstly I had to divide an A2 size piece of white paper in 9 squares (3x3) then I was given the task to choose any 2D shape and choose 1-2 colors. The assignment was to cut out the chosen shape from the chosen colored paper, you could cut them out in different sizes but always keeping the same shape. I chose the square because I think it's the easiest shape to make and there are hundreds of possible patterns I could come up with. We spent the first and second lesson cutting out shapes since I needed quite a lot. I cut out three different sizes of squares, the biggest one measuring 6cm by 6cm, the second one measuring 4cm by 4cm and the smallest one measuring 2cm by 2cm. The two chosen colours were purple and yellow as they nicely matched together and would look appealing to the eye on the A2 poster.

Here are the shapes I used to make my pattern

When I started cutting out the shapes for my pattern, I already had an idea in mind of what pattern I wanted to create and how it would look like. However when I had all my shapes cut out, I realised that I needed to develop my pattern more and make it more complex but still keeping an order on the paper. I wanted a clean pattern with shapes of sharp edges so my paper wouldn't look messy but instead would look almost sophisticated. This is how my pattern looked like after two lessons. Even though it wasn't finished I had a clear idea of how my final plan was going to look like.

In the fourth lesson, Ms told us that we had to create an idea behind your artwork. Why are you creating this? What does this mean to you? Why did you choose the colours and the shape/s? I started thinking about this but I found it quite hard and I kept thinking that my artwork was missing something; that is was incomplete. I wanted to add another shape but didn't want another colour because then the artwork would be too chaotic. I decided to add a circle but instead of using purple and yellow, I decided to use newspaper as the 'colour'. At this point I still hadn't figured out why I was using the newspaper or why I chose circles and squares, I just liked how it looked visually.