It was quite a journey to the end. After 7 long weeks, the independent project is finished, and so are my 7 paintings. The end to this project is here, but a new beginning and a door has opened up for many new artworks.
The project had me going on a roller coaster, ups and downs with my process and emotions. I had my times of weakness and struggles, but I also had my time of strengths and genuinely enjoying the process and loving the outcome. My plans definitely did change throughout the process, I didn’t stick to what I hoped I’d be doing, but I think that’s okay, for your art to go in a different direction than intended. I didn’t think of this idea until I was into a couple of paintings, but I decided to unify them all, bring them together by incorporating each of their birth flowers. This project went from displaying each BTS member the way they are in the group, to the way I interpreted them in my mind, and displaying the BTS members through my view. And I believe, this was a much better approach. Everyone has different ways of seeing things, so I like that through this project, people will be able to see the uniqueness in the paintings, and I hope they’d have a better understanding of who I am as an artist and how I view the BTS members. This project helped me understand my weaknesses and strengths more, and gave me ideas on ways I could improve, and told me about the things that I am good at. Through this project, and through all the ups and downs, I’m excited for what I will create next.
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Art is hard. It’s a process and a journey. There are obstacles and hurdles, but I find that the end result is satisfying and worth the hard work. My plans changed a lot while working on my paintings. I decided to stray away from inspiring them solely on the BE concepts or the WINGS films and do more what I feel does well to represent each member. Sometimes I didn’t have a concrete sketch or idea of how the painting will be and just winged it, but other times I did a complete sketch and planned it out. I found out that both ways worked for me, as I’m happy with all the end results. So far I’ve completed 3 paintings, and I’m working on my fourth painting. Something that I found hard was trying to incorporate different things and having them blend in and work well. Finding what I want to base my paintings on and bringing them together in one painting was a struggle. Sometimes I had too many things I wanted to incorporate, and other times I didn’t have enough, or I was stuck on what to add exactly. I have mixed feelings towards my art. I have so many other ideas that I think, ‘oh this was much better, I should’ve done this instead,’ but that’s not very professional and it isn’t what I set out to do. The struggle helps me. Struggling with your art is one of the ways you can grow with it, and I feel like when you struggle, you find solutions and ideas to help you. To wrap it up, the process hasn’t been easy, it’s been difficult and I’ve wanted to give up many times, but thinking about the end result and the satisfaction, and how good the hard work will pay off, keeps me going. When things get challenging, I feel like running away. When we were introduced to an art history research project, this was where I said ‘maybe joining VAM was not for me’. But, I persevered through and I’m proud of myself for not giving up when I felt like it. This project was for us to learn about art, the movements and the artists that came before us and the influence it has had on the following movements and the art of now. This project is to remind people of the art academy about where art comes from and how we are always being influenced by the art that happened in the past. The topic I chose was Post-Impressionism, and I focused primarily on Vincent Van Gogh. He’s a huge inspiration for me, and looking at his art and life is always so interesting and this was one of my favourite parts, looking into the actual art of the movement.
I was mesmerized and impressed by every one of my colleague’s infographics and their speech. Whether it was the movement I was interested in, the presentation and speech, or the design of the graphics, everyone was so fascinating to look at. One of my friends did Dada-ism, and I really liked the end result of their infographics and vectors and their speech held my attention. Another one of my colleagues did Baroque and Rococo, and their vectors looked absolutely stunning, and it tied in so perfectly with the infographic and the movement. The speech for Medieval art had me reeled in, and I was laughing with the humour added. I learned about Medieval art all while having a laugh and I loved it. The last one I’ll talk about is one that my peer from VAM 20 did, a video and slideshow on animation and I was so entranced by the video. The editing skills were amazing, but not only that, it informed me about animation so well. Now, usually, you are either your best friend or worst enemy, but I think it’s possible for you to be both. You can both understand all your strengths and compliment yourself, but you can also understand your weaknesses and critique yourself. One thing that I’m proud of myself for is the layout and design of my infographic. I was most nervous about that, wondering if it would live up to the standard my teacher has or the idea I had in my head. But the end product, like most of my works, did surprise me and I liked it better than I thought I would. However, when it came to the actual research part, I struggled on that the most. I don’t like researching. I prefer others teaching me and helping me through the research, that’s how I learn better, so doing research was slow and painful for me. I couldn’t wait for my research to be done and to finally get into the actual design and applying the research into my artwork. Despite this, I am still proud of myself for persevering. Something I think I would do differently is the amount of information I put into my infographic; I would put in more. I would also do my vectors differently because although I prefer simple things, sometimes simple drawings aren't enough, especially if I'm trying to showcase a specified art movement or style. Writing the speech was really fun for me because I like speeches and I like presenting, despite how nervous it makes me. Using MLA citations was new and challenging, but I'm glad I was able to learn about it and it was definitely not as difficult as I thought it would be. Presenting, however, I wish I had shown off my infographic more instead of focusing solely on the speech, but it's better not to beat myself up and focus on things I've could've done but didn't. I'm still grateful I was proud of my speech. All in all, this was a new, fun, and challenging experience that made me do a lot of things outside my comfort zone. I'm happy I was able to have such an amazing opportunity to learn more about both art and myself through this academy. I look forward to my next creations in V.A.M. This is the part that I’ve been anticipating the most. Our independent projects. I’ve been waiting to do this ever since we were introduced to it, and the first thing that came to mind was BTS. I talk about them a lot, and they’re artists I admire a lot, and I’ve always wanted to do an art piece inspired by them or dedicated to them. This project would be the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Now, choosing what to base my paintings on was difficult for me to choose. At first, I thought of using their concept photos for BE, their most recent album, but then I looked into the past and thought about their WINGS Short Films. These two were what I thought of because each member has their own room that captures their personality and interests in their BE concept photos, and WINGS because of how much I love the videos and the theatrical elements, hidden symbols and signs that contribute to showcasing the theme of BTS’s album WINGS. I get a bit carried away talking about BTS sometimes, but to get to the point of what I hope to create in my project, I want to do 7 individual paintings to display each member’s personalities and interests. One of the biggest issues I had was not knowing what to use, the BE photos or the WINGS Short Films, but then I thought to incorporate both alongside other concept photos, music videos/films and other interests/hobbies they have to capture their personalities in and out of BTS. Through this project, I hope to show my understanding of design principles and show the members through each painting. I'm excited to have the freedom to do what I want with my art for this project, and I'm looking forward to the end project. Goal setting is either your best friend or your worst enemy. But the feeling of accomplishment is even better than the feeling of setting goals and makes it worth it. I did much better with my goals than I expected. I’ve developed an art style, yet I know it will always evolve and change. For now, however, my drawings are how I like them. As for the anatomy part, I’ve learned the basics, which includes someone standing straight or waving. Even then, I’m proud of the progress I made. As for the personal goal, learning to read and write Urdu, I had more struggles but I can say with confidence my speaking skills with the language have improved a lot. I can make out most words and identify the letters, and although I’m setting new goals, I will make sure to work on these until I’m happy with where I’ve gotten. Now the time has come to set new goals, and hopefully, feel that nice sense of accomplishment in a few months.
I read a lot; it’s one of my favourite things to do when boredness hits, or when I’m unable to sleep. But thinking back to it, sometimes I don’t fully understand everything I read. Why did the main character make a bad decision when they had better choices? Why did the author write this paragraph in the way they did, and how were they able to invoke so many emotions? This semester we’ll be doing a novel study, and so my goal is related to that. I want to have a better understanding of what I read, what I’m being told and why the plot is the way it is or why the author wrote it the way they did. This goal seems difficult, but using the SMART method, I’ll hopefully be able to figure out how to improve my reading comprehension skills. We got the ‘S’ part down, but next comes measurable. How will I be able to record my growth and improvement? The idea and the way I was thinking of approaching this, was to reread something I’ve read before, but this time take notes. Look for things I didn’t notice before or look into things that intrigued me. I recently read a book that had a long prologue, and it had bothered me a bit, but thinking to it now, there’s a reason the author had written it like that. Now, how achievable is this goal? I say my grades and how my skills will be put into use for this upcoming unit will tell me how I’ve progressed. This goal isn’t too far off, and this is a skill I’ll need for the rest of my academic life. This also ties into relevance and how realistic this goal is. It’s doable, and it may not be the easiest but to me, the effort counts, and I think I’ll have fun reaching my goal. I get to read, learn about what I read, and understand English better. Win-win. My second goal is for the VAM academy, and this one was hard to think about. There’s a lot I want, a lot that I always want to improve on. However, one thing that bothers me is the waves of creativity and inspiration along with the lack of motivation and no inspiration. Sometimes, I’ll have no ideas yet other times I’ll have too many ideas. To say specifically, my goal is to execute my ideas and do what I can to take my ideas out of my head and put them on a paper or canvas. Whenever I have ideas, whether it would be for an art piece or writing, I’ll never execute them, and I’ll let them rot in my brain until the motivation or inspiration passes. I hope to reach this goal by sketching my ideas when they come to mind, even if it’s something small with my finger and my phone or something big with my sketchbook and pencils. This isn’t something that can be tracked well, but the way I hope to approach this is by starting new with a new sketchbook and a new google doc for my ideas. I want to be able to look at the dates and look at the progress and ideas I had. My experience and time with my goals this year were much better than I expected, yet there’s always room to improve and I hope this semester will leave me with more ways, time and motivation to complete my goals. I’m a bit hard on myself, and it can be frustrating but I can say with confidence I’ve been more positive about my goals, my art and my life, in general, more this year than before. I hope that this positivity will keep up until the rest of the year, and I’ll feel that sweet sense of accomplishment once again. As a big media consumer, sometimes the consumers know what the audience wants, better than the media producers. For example, when there’s an ending to a movie or show people don’t like, there will be alternatives written or animated to give the audience what they thought was better. When there’s a song thats amazing but with slight adjustments and remixes, it could become even more enjoyable than it was before.
A film we were shown in our VAM class was about copyright in media and in art. With copyright, ideas are intellectual property, and they are locked until they’ve been purchased. Then, there’s copyleft. Copyleft is said to be sharing ideas with the public domain protected, with free exchange of ideas and for the future of art and culture. My initial thoughts watching this was, that there is a lot behind the media I consume on a daily basis that I wasn’t aware about. However, I am copyleft and I think, it’s okay for work and creativity to bloom from others previous work. Some songs I love were sampled or inspired by old classics, and I think there’s nothing wrong with it. In fact, looking at previous works, incorporating them into your own may give you ideas and room for growth. At one point in this film, they talked with a registrar of copyrights and she said “you can’t argue your creativity when it’s based on other peoples stuff.” This arguement made me feel a little ticked, because everyone who creates has used other peoples work, whether it’s based off of it, or if it’s indirectly inspired by it. In the end, there’s a fine line between sampling or inspiration from a piece of art/media, and copying the content. If the originality or creativity isn’t whats being highlighted in the remixed work, then that’s simply a duplicate. Copyleft isn’t simply copying things. It’s not taking a song, messing around with it and posting it on the internet. It’s taking a song and changing it, rearranging it and adding your own personality to it. Having your artwork based off of another artwork or a reference isn’t tracing or slightly altering it. It’s using your own unique style to take something that was good, and making it into something that is great. To be honest, I wasn’t very fond of goal setting. At the start of the year when teachers would inform students about goals, I would be annoyed, and think that it wouldn’t benefit me. I would set basic goals and didn’t give much thought to it. However, I hope to make this year different. Instead of thinking negatively, I hope to put in the effort to help me complete the goals I set for myself, and be happy with the outcome. But now the question for myself is, how am I going to achieve these goals? What I think makes my motivation for this year different is the concept of S.M.A.R.T. goals. S is for specific. What is the goal, and why is it important? Often times, the goals I would set would be something broad like, ‘get at least 75% in your classes’. Like this, however, I have a clear objective of what I wish to accomplish. M is for measurable. How am I going to track my progress? When a goal is measurable, it is easier to achieve it. Previously, I would set a goal and give myself a date, but now I know to track my progress. I hope to do this by making mini-goals for myself that will lead up to the overall goal I wish to achieve. A is for achievable: is my goal realistic, and how can I attain this goal? R is for relevant. How important is the goal, and how is it applicable to your life? Lastly, T is for time-bound: what could I do now, and where do I hope to be in a few months from now? I like to think T and M are similar, as they both will allow me to track my progress and see my changes and how close I am to achieving this goal. Now, enough with the explanations. I know how to set goals properly and efficiently, so the question now is, what are my goals? It’s difficult to pick just one thing, as there are so many things I hope to do. I want to learn how to sew and embroider, but how is that important and applicable? It’s a simple hobby I hope to teach myself. So when I picked out my personal goal, I chose something that I know will benefit me after the goals have been completed. I hope to teach myself how to read and write in Urdu. I already know how to speak the language, as I usually speak English at school and Urdu at home. But now, I want to expand my knowledge of the language and learn how to read. This is important to me because I wish to be closer to my culture and religion. I speak a lot of Urdu at home and I am often disappointed in my lack of vocabulary and grammar, and I get embarrassed when I’m corrected on the bad grammar. That being said, I will be practising how to read and write. I’ll be updating my progress, but starting slow, I wish to learn the basic alphabets at first. As I progress, I hope to start reading words and working my way up to reading long passages of writing. Choosing a goal for my Visual Arts and Media Academy, was proven to be just as much of a challenge. Truthfully, I think I lack a lot to be an artist, so sometimes it does shock me that I'm even in this classroom. However, instead of thinking negatively, that I’m not good enough for this, I’m pushing myself to think positive. This academy is an amazing opportunity for me to expand and grow as an artist. So, as it is with my personal goal, my academy goal is something that I’ve been thinking about for a while and I will finally start to do. I want to learn how to draw faces, proper anatomy and hopefully develop an art style with faces as I learn and grow. With all the things I think I lack, I am the worst at faces, as I’m never quite satisfied with the outcome. By the end of the school year, I hope to achieve this. I know at school, and through online communities, I’ll have the right resources. After school, or during free time in class, I can spend my time practicing in a sketchbook. I will work my way up, the same as learning to read Urdu, and eventually get to where I want. With that being said, I hope to make my grade 10 year different, with a more positive mindset and goals to accomplish. I’ll update my progress as a way to track it and when I feel unmotivated, I can re-read this and remember what I’m working towards. |
AuthorLaiba Taj Archives
May 2021
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