I love art and it is an important aspect of my life, so I thought this presentation of my exploration of art would be a great example.

1. Graphite Exploration
Non-Smudge
Smudge
Try #3
Try #2
Try #1
I’ve been using graphite as a media for many years, and was
mostly self-taught. In 2013 I learned some of the basic rules of
shadow and light, how to blend, and to draw things how you see
them and not how you think they are seen. Shading was
challenging for my because my older methods were just me
copying the techniques of others that I liked, without exploring
graphite and learning myself.
I learned a lot and improved when focusing on proper proportions and on
lighting. I believe that in art, a great deal of it has to do with not only learning the
basics of art but also trying to find your identity within art. I am in this process,
and am still searching for how to make my art different than others. Most of my
art is a rendition of other peoples art, with a good amount of it being
me trying to imitate their methods perfectly and without difference
in order to improve upon myself. I believe that if I build up enough of
the skills of others, I can collect all of their good
qualities in art and make them my own, thus
making me a better artist.

2. 2012
2013
2014
What I’ve noticed in these self-portraits is a progression of realism; in
2012 I would only draw what I thought faces looked like, with basic
shape and basic shading. In 2013 my shading improved and parts were
more to scale. 2014 was when I learned how to draw faces
proportionally, and to use correct shading. As I carried on with faces,
I’ve learned that not all faces are symmetrical or perfect, but with the
proper skills, can be drawn exactly as seen.
Trying out different angles improved my freehand ability to
draw heads/faces to scale. Practicing with conté was helpful
due to how you were required to draw, shade in, then blend
back down into the paper and repeat the process until you
produced the shading you wanted; each step would be more
detailed than the last, with the last step creating fine lines
that added sharpness to the originally blurry drawing.
Instead of just going into it as I would have normally done,
conté taught that building up will create a more precise and
realistic piece.
Development
with
Faces

3. This was my experimentation with using acrylic after so long of not doing so. The
sketches show my exploration with the different facial expressions I could do to convey
a way to curiously hide, in an effort to portray how the message would read as painted
to the below, “I appear essentially understandable, valid, recognized. But – also exists a
general idea going on in me. A disturbing accompaniment to a constant extinguishing
of life” . To me, this meant how we all try to find out who we are, and why we are how
we are. We say we are ourselves, when really we are just a collection of past
experiences and people we’ve met. Which leads to the question – who are we really?
Am I nothing but an assortment of what I've experienced? Who am I? And many other
questions of identity.
This was my first time in using acrylic, this was also my art history piece so I
needed to do a good amount of experimentation (as you can see around my
final thumbnail of the piece lul) which was supposed to imitate the piece “Christ
Enthroned” (drawing of piece shown beside final piece). Before I decided on the
final thumbnail however, I went through many viewpoint to perceive the girl, in
an attempt to make it look bet, I ended up coming back to the original
viewpoint. In this exploration I learned a lot about the different viewpoints you
can create to give a painting a different feel. Experimenting with the paint was
challenging because I was trying to create the exact color they used in the
original image, with the same color themes and same method of drawing
human parts such as hands, feet, and face.
Image Development

4. Monochromatic
faces
Without intent, I happened to create two very closely
related pieces which may be used for a theme in grade
twelve. They both contain the shades of black and white
and the color red. I know mirrors reflect what is on them
but they mostly appear to be on a grayscale. Both of these
pieces taught me much about perfection in art, and about
how to create emotions that form when viewing art pieces.
When viewed by friends, the word that came to mind was “a suppression of inner rage, dying to get
out”. These pieces were essentially made to show others how I see the world in my own head, how I
process things, and how I see myself. That wasn’t the main idea for the 2D piece, but it stemmed off
of what the 3D piece symbolized. There were many unintentional connections between the two
pieces, like how they both had tiny bits of shapes that would form together like a puzzle, how they
both technically had black backgrounds, and they were both made to have no definite gender. I
think initially these things had no purpose, then developed a back story due to exploration. Both
pieces also became much different than what I had first imagined them as, in a way changing
themselves as I went along cause from trying a method then realizing it sucked so
I would try something else and it would usually work.