Portraiture Technology project was very interesting in general. I was able to be open-minded about using mixed media in order to create an artwork. I enjoyed all the processes starting from investigation and finishing as a presentation for other students. It also gave me an opportunity to think about myself and how I would be able to express myself to the other people using different medium. I also think that the ISU community would be able to notice some characteristics through my portraits. On the whole, I think the whole process of creating a self-portrait was to know about myself and how I could show myself to the society.
When I was working on the investigation, I was able to learn about a lot of artists who created artworks using mixed media. I researched what kinds of sources they used in order to get an idea for my portrait. Vik Muniz, the mixed artist that was introduced by Ms. Sudra’s PowerPoint presentation, helped me in many ways to think out of the box. I was able to learn that every single material that is around me could create an awesome picture.
During art class, our class had an assignment to research about one portrait artist and one mixed media artist. I did not include this information on my blog, and I think I could have created a better investigation if I included it. I would have written down my ideas and opinions more thoroughly if I put more information into my investigation.
I also described how I would test my portrait in my investigation, but I could’ve come up with better test ideas since my test was not able to be performed. It turned out that I needed to change my test method in order to perform it. I looked at other people’s tests, and they were creative and easier to do. Even though it will be better if the test was creative and original, the main purpose of testing is to get results of how others think of my portrait. Therefore, I believe getting a result is a prior thing to do rather than just coming up with a unique test idea that couldn’t be on a practice. From next time, I think I should come up with practical method to test my product.
Creating designs for the portrait was very interesting part. I could know about many photo altering programs and most of them were very easy to facilitate and the effects were amazing. I was supposed to create five different designs using photo altering programs. I used picnik and photofunia. I preferred using the first website because the effects in that website were more suitable for me to express myself.
I think I could have used different photo managing program rather than picnik and photofunia. Mrs. Wilson gave different types of website that we could use; however, I was too lazy to try all of them. There might be some other effects in other websites and I could’ve created more designs. I thought I would be running out of time if I use too many websites, and I was not being a risk-taker to challenge myself. Nevertheless, I was very satisfied with all of my designs because they followed my design specifications most of the time.
A part that I have to improve for next time is to put more time working on designs. I do not think that I was spending enough time and did my best to create them. For the next time, I should manage time better in order to put my best effort for creating sketches.
When I was working on the create process, I was very pleased with the result of my portrait. At first, I was a little bit worried about failing because I did not have any good ideas to create this large artwork. However, as soon as I found the medium, I started to enjoy a lot and time flew in every art class. I did my best to create this portrait and I thought the portrait reflected my personality very well. I was able to have an opportunity to know more about me. When I was thinking of materials to use, I had to ask myself many questions about me. For example, I needed to ask what my favorite colors are, what my hobbies are and what I would like to do after I grew up. Some questions were simple while others were difficult to answer and I was supposed to have a lot of time trying to think about me.
Another aspect I was able to learn was that every material around us can be an artistic material as well. Spaghetti noodles were not just for cooking for me. It was a material to decorate my portrait as well as a matter to connect the portrait and myself in reality. I deeply realized that these materials were able to show the depth of the art as well. They were able to create shades and give 3-dimensional images to people.
I think the strength of my portrait is that I used various types of medium and each of these medium gave different feelings and meanings. For instance, the hands gave very strong impact with big contrast of black and white while my face looked smoother and softer with similar green tones. Also, while my hair represented one of my favorites, the background showed my characteristics. A weakness of my artwork is probably the process of working on the t-shirt. I could’ve drawn patterns by myself and it would be more creative; however, I was sort of running out of time and I just used the pattern that is from the internet. Therefore, the shirt pattern is less creative compared to others.
If I were going to do this project again, first of all, I might try a different pose rather than covering my eyes. Maybe I might show my eyes and make another facial expression. I definitely would try other medium to create my portrait. I could make a collage of animal pictures and paste them on my hair. I could try using rice next time as well. My original plan was to put rice particles onto the portrait so to make it look like it’s snowing. However, I canceled that idea because I thought the picture would get too complicated and messy. So next time, I probably could try using this material.
The hardest part about this project for me was choosing appropriate materials. To be honest, I’m not a creative type of person and I needed to think a lot in order to come up with unique ideas. However, I think it was a good chance to improve my creativity as well as my drawing skills. The easiest part was coloring my face with oil pastels. I used oil pastels several times before and now I’m pretty used to utilizing this media. Therefore, it tool less time for me to work on it. Recently I bought some oil pastels so materials were easy to get as well. Comparing with using acrylic paints and pasting noodle pieces, oil pastel was much more convenient and easier.
I think technology was a tool for me to achieve more creative work because without technology’s help, I would not be able to come up with many designs. It would take a long time to draw designs by hand. The photo altering program ‘picnik.com’ was a great help for me to create such unique design. I was able to brainstorm lots of ideas by altering my picture from there. Furthermore, with the internet’s help, I was able to learn about mixed-media artists and their artworks. This helped me to get an idea of mixed media for my portrait. Without the internet, I wouldn’t be able to know about mixed-media artworks because I didn’t have enough knowledge about it and I do not have books about mixed-media at home.
I needed to change my test idea since I was not able to work on my original one. The portrait was not supposed to have my name on it, but Ms. Sudra already wrote the name. Therefore, I got an idea from other people how they test their portrait. I wrote down some questions that are related to my portrait on the computer and asked a few students to answer them. Since there was not enough time to test my portrait to every student in our grade, only five people answered to my questions. All of them answered that the portrait represented me. Therefore, I believe my test ended successfully. If I had more time, I could’ve asked more people so that I could get more precise answer for the test.
The presentation went very well. I practiced the night before the presentation day, and I was not nervous when I was doing the real thing. It was risk-taking, but the result came out good. I was very satisfied with my tone of voice and eye contacts with other people, except that sometimes I was repeating same thing over again and my voice was pretty low. I should be more confident in myself so that whenever I have a public speech or a presentation, I could present with louder voice.
