Author: Jess (Page 1 of 3)

As we are finishing up the semester I thought one of the best ways to conclude my inquiry project would be to do a 2 part “finale.” One post that is more serious, and another that is just a bit more fun, as a little sendoff for this inquiry project.

In todays post, I have decided to reflect on everything I’ve done over the last few months, and answer a few questions that I have for myself, and that you may also have.

Q: What did I like best about this inquiry project?

I really liked that this project stretched me as an artist and made me branch out of my comfort zone. I know what I am good at, and I chose intentionally to stay away from anything that I already knew how to do, or felt confident in. Instead, I chose to look at things I had never really done before, or things I had avoided (like drawing people and faces). It was genuinely fun learning more about things like abstract art styles, or finding various different diagrams people have made that helped me learn how to draw a human body.

Q: What the worst part of this inquiry project?

It took too long. To be honest, I really wanted to keep my weekly re-creations as something I could complete in an hour, but every time it took around 3 hours at least, because I had to not only research the art style or medium, but also do the thing. With this in mind, I perhaps should have chosen something different just because of the time consuming nature of the assignment. However, there is a silver lining in this, as because art takes time, I was able to sort of shut my brain off and watch a movie while I worked, which is not something I can do while working on other assignments.

Q: What was my favourite recreation, and why?

I think of everything I did, my favourite recreation was by far the clay models. I enjoyed how really it was much more than just the clay. I had to create a diorama of the stage, using an old cardboard box, and paint it. In addition, I also wanted to try and recreate the lighting so I had punctured the box to let light through the top, and shone flashlights and blacklights on the diorama, mimicking stage lighting. All of these things together meant that this week’s recreation was so much more than just clay. It was a whole scene, and I thought that was really cool. I ended up taking so many pictures of this from plenty of angles and with different lighting and I really enjoyed that and seeing it all come together was great.

It was also very fun because of how comedically ugly the clay figures were. It really let 12 year old Jessica shine through.

Q: What did I learn from this experience?

I learned so much through this honestly, but I think one of the biggest things was just learning to be okay with public mediocrity. I had to be vulnerable, because this is not the kind of art that I do. I intentionally picked something that I knew I would struggle with. Yet, as a result of wanting to grow and challenge myself, I had to then put all of this kind of crappy art online for my classmates to see, which was really hard for me to do. I am a perfectionist, and I don’t like people seeing things that I have done if I am not proud of it, or if I do not think it is of good quality. So, this meant that I had to be okay with people seeing the mistakes, the good, the bad, and the ugly (im looking at you clay figures).

Looking back and reflecting on it all, I think I am proud of what I accomplished. I’m glad I got to do this even though it was challenging at times, or things didn’t always turn out the way I wanted. I also think that this really did help me to improve my artistic skills, and perhaps if I re-did some of these projects, they would be better this time around now that I’ve learned something. Hopefully, I can use the skills I’ve worked on this semester in future art projects and develop these techniques further.

If you would like to go back and see how I ended up here, look Here

So this week I wanted to do something a little bit different and talk about my experiences with clay, and specifically modelling clay.

I had the idea to create a 3D model of the scene using something like play dough, as a fun way to show a way that art is accessible to all ages, and can look very different from what we think art is supposed to be. However, play dough is expensive when you don’t already have multiple colours, and it dries out quickly, so I decided against it. I then thought about creating clay figures, and then painting them. However, I thought about this further and realized that this would be quite the time consuming task, and I’m trying to keep the time I commit to these recreations under two hours. This task would have taken days to do. So, I settled on Modelling Clay.

Of all the art modes I have looked at through this inquiry project so far, this is the one I have the most experience with. But do not be fooled! That does not mean that I am any good at creating 3D figures. It is in fact the opposite; I am comedically bad at it.

When I was a kid I used modelling clay to create claymation movies. It was so much fun, and for a time, really inspired me to be a filmmaker. Clearly, I chose another career path. But that goes to show you the impact modelling clay had on me as a nine year old. If time permitted, it would have been fun to revive this lost childhood passion and recreate a video of the performance this picture was taken at, but that would have taken a significant amount of time more than I have.

I also remember using modelling clay in school to create models and dioramas. The one I remember best (because I found it in my parent’s basement about a year ago) is a diorama of the scene from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that I did for my grade 5 class, of Lucy at the lamppost meeting Mr. Tumnus. I had created the scene out of modelling clay, and a piece of cardboard. I loved the idea that creativity can and should be part of the educational process, and felt that it was such a fun way to get little Jessica to engage with the story. This, was my inspiration for the assignment here.

For my current recreation, painted a cardboard box to look like the stage, adding in the LED lighting, and the screen in the background. After that i punctured holes in the roof of the box to mimic stage lighting, and then created the modelling clay figures. The process was really fun and reminded me a lot of the projects I did when I was younger; however, it was so time consuming, so I ended up only creating two of the three models I was planning on, and kept the figures extremely simple to make sure I wasn’t spending way too much time on this. The result was very entertaining to me, and also quite funny, as the figures are in comedically bad shape.

If you had held this up to me and said, “Hey, a 7 year old made this” I would have believed you.

Once I placed the figures in the painted box, I tried to recreate the stage lighting in the image with a small blacklight and two other flashlights. I did what I could with my limited hands.

That being said, it was tons of fun reliving my childhood creativity outlet here making these figures, even if I was better at “sculpting” when I was 9.

Enjoy my recreation, and perhaps have a little chuckle at my high art creation!

To find my weekly reflections on this course and my learning, look Here

To find my other inquiry posts, look Here