To be honest, when I first learned about this project, I think I died a little on the inside. Completing ten works of handmade art in one week what all fit one random word just seemed impossible! But somehow I did survive this project, little sleep and all! I created ten works of art that seemed to fall on the large side of the spectrum: three paintings, two drawings, two mixed media works, and three installation type works. When I first saw my word, I was a little glad that I actually knew what it was, but I wasn’t quite sure how to go across creating ten works from it. The word that I chose was bulk. After doing some extensive research on google images and the dictionary, I finally had a vision. Well, multiple visions. The main way that I envisioned ‘bulk’ was the litterial way, meaning things of large quantity and items created in large amounts. I also saw the word for how it sounded and felt, which would be dark and hard. In order to use this newly found knowledge of the word ‘bulk’, I needed to figure out what materials I needed to use to help portray the word. Mainly, I just walked around my house to see if I could find anything that was sold or produced in bulk: like cotton balls, books, birdseed, buttons, and sticky notes. During this time of art making, the hot-glue-gun became my best friend. I used it in many of my projects (without even burning myself once! Achievement!!!). The main three elements that I used in all ten works were: line, texture, and shape. Texture was very prominent in all of my works and helped portray the idea of mass production and the feeling of the word ‘bulk’ and many different shapes found their way into my work. Line was also used in many of my works, creating a feeling of endlessness. Also, the three main principles of art that I used in most of my works were: pattern, contrast, and balance. Pattern and balance worked specifically well with my word, because things produced in bulk often do create a repeating pattern and have some balance to them. I also used contract in many of my works to give them a pop of color, since many of them were black and white. Overall, after having critique and getting a chance to look at all of my works side-by-side (or as side-by-side as I could get them), I noticed a few things that I did well and what I need to improve. The thing that I noticed that I did well in was going “out-of-the-box”. To be honest, I think that I went a little too out of the box because I never took sculpture class and I’m not really interested in doing sculpture, so I’m not sure what compelled me to create so many sculptural pieces. But I guess thinking out-of-the-box is good, right? Along with the thing I did well, I also feel like I need to improve on my craftsmanship and working on proportion and size differences. I know that we didn’t have a lot of time for this project and we were a little rushed, but I still wish that my craftsmanship would have been better. Also, I know (and will forever need to) work on proportion. Many times I wanted to make things different sizes to vary up the image, but for some reason, I just kept drawing them the same size! I know that this is a think that I will try to work on this year. Finally, throughout all of this, I learned many things. One, that I am capable of a lot more that I though, because never in a million years would I have thought that I could create ten (decent) works of art i seven days! Also, that art is more painful than I remember, because apparently when I was working, I had really bad posture and my neck and back hurt after each piece. I will definitely work on not slouching when working on my following masterpieces so I don’t kill myself in the process. Well, a dead painter is usually a famous painter, am I right? :)
