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Every project I've done this year has included some sort of painting element (whether watercolor, acrylic, or oil paint), so I think my most significant area of artistic growth would be painting. Some artistic struggles that I faced this year would include blending and knowing when to pay attention to detail. The blending, as seen in my flower pots and my extra credit project could have been better. I need to add more lights and darks and I think with more time I would definitely go back and add more details to my flower pot painting. I think I might have spent too much time on the background and wood of the painting, so I rushed to finished the flowers in the end. Next year, I hope to work on my painting skills, but I would also love to try new types of media. I've already done 2 landscapes this year, but I'm interested in maybe doing 1 more. Thank you for being and amazing art teacher; I had a great semester!

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The grid category I used for subject is exterior space. I chose to work with watercolor and acrylic paint, which is a media that I have used before and am familiar with. I attempted to include new techniques from online tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geVZnEeVabQ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvJxtQ--n5k. I worked through this piece very fast and I think I could've spent more time on the plants in the foreground. I liked the idea of using geometric shapes in the mountains and the layering of the green hills. I was a little hesitant to darken the blue in the mountains because I wanted to keep the mountains "airy" and light in the background. However, I'm happy with my decision to darken certain parts of the mountains and add geometric shapes.
From creating this art piece, I struggled with blending acrylic paint, but I learned how to layer watercolor and well definitely use that technique in future projects.

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I chose the theme "Little Things."  In my painting, the flowers are a part of the flower pots, which are many small parts of the table, and the table is a part of the background. I tried my best to create an interesting background and create a wood table. When I began the painting, I was hoping to focus on the petals of each flower and what made each flower different. However, I somewhat ran out of time and rushed through the flowers so some of them are not as detailed as I'd like them to be. Overall, even thought it was my first time using acrylic paint in about 2 years,  I think it was a good start and I can't wait to improve my plant and flower painting skills with my next independent project.

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Little Things

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The grid category that I used for subject is exterior space. The media I chose to work with is watercolor and various types of ink (including ball point pen, gel pen, and fountain pen.) The technique I used was a mix between gestural mark making (pen) and carefully defined and rendered painting. Finally, my composition was based mainly on strong diagonals and some use of repetition and variety. I think I was most successful using strong diagonals for composition. It was my first time using fountain pen in a long time, so I was a bit hesitant to do gestural mark making.
From creating this art, I learned how to lighten watercolor and that it's okay to just let watercolor settle by itself because it can leave a cool pattern instead of a plain color. Also, I think I've become more comfortable with gestural mark making and even though I want to try other types of media, I would love to try gestural mark making in another project.

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1. I used complementary colors orange and blue (and white and black) and was able to achieve around 12 different colors.
2. I contrasted neutrals with bold colors by creating blue bubbles (bold colors) that contrasted the neutral background. I placed various bold bubbles all around the painting so that I could use most of the canvas paper. Also, the orange fishes helped create contrast to the blue bubbles and provided another splash of color.
3. I liked how I included the pattern on the instruments and the shading on the bubbles. However, I think I could have done more with the fishes. Also, I'm not happy how some of the strings turned out because I think if I had been more careful they could have been a bit neater.

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MY COLOR SWATCH complementary colors: orange and blue