Breadth
Garden Gloves
The Great Smokey Mountains
Tiger
A Cornfield
Concentration
CONCENTRATION STATEMENT:
My concentration is based on my grandparents, Madonna and Melvin Wortmann, and how they have consistently been a part of my life since I was born. As I mature, I realize how much my grandparents have impacted me. My grandma, whose camaraderie is boundless, is a seamstress. She has done everything for me, from creating a quilt for me as a infant, sowing my broken stuffed animal’s back, to constructing my high school graduation dress. Everything of mine somehow has a vestige of her. My grandpa is a farmer and his affection is subtle and caring. He has always been there to call me a “nod-head” and amuse me. His dedication to his family and farm help me strive to become a devoted family member like him. While creating my twelve artworks in their honor, I have discovered new techniques and better means of composition within my pieces. At the start of my concentration, specifically my hummingbird piece, my figure ground relationship and light source were not effective. Through the progression of my pieces, the proficiency of a figure ground relationship, rule of thirds, and manipulation of light values and light sources have become a ideal to me.
Comments
As I created my work throughout this school year, I have learned many different techniques with many different medias; however, the most important technique that I have discovered is to use the contrasting colors on each other rather than using black for a dark area. This helped a lot because I strive to not use black in any of my pieces unless necessary. For example "Little Red" the dark on the body of the tractor is red and dark green, not black.
The most successful aspect of my artwork is the figure ground relationship i create within each piece. With my first concentration piece, "Hummingbirds", my figure ground relationship wasn't strong due to the background being plain and the perspective of the birds not connecting all together. But as I continued with my pieces my figure ground relationship grew more complete. With the project "Sunday Dinner" I went back after it was due to create a better foreground and background difference. I made the background appear fuzzy and not in focus to illustrate a more effective figure ground relationship. This aspect of art has become a more successful part of my projects.
Throughout AP Studio Art I have learned how to use medias that I have never had access to before. I have gained experience with conte, acrylic, velum paper, india ink, and colored pencils, all medias I have never had a chance to use before. With each media I learned different techniques and different styles. I learned that colored pencils are a media that I am very strong with. With colored pencils I learned how to layer them properly and to use other colors in place of different colors. Such as "Grandparents" I used purple tones on the face of my grandma rather than peaches and browns, and with my grandpa's face I incorporated blue tones into his face.
ADVICE FOR FUTURE AP STUDENTS:
Learn the media before you use it on a piece, practice it! Don't go into a media you are unfamiliar with. Do some research with the media you are interested in, seriously go on google or youtube or whatever to discover how to use that media. If you go in blind you are going to miserably fail 9.99/10 times, there is that 0.01 chance you will win, but only if you are Van Gogh. But in all seriousness take your time to learn a media and not to just jump into the fire called art. My first time using acrylic paint was a disaster, I didn't take time to learn the media beforehand, therefore that piece didn't make it into the final cut of my portfolio. It is a piece I never want to speak of, so I share this information with you so that you don't make that same mistake as me. Anyways good luck and take all advice/feedback given to you seriously!