On the first day of this class, we took a pre assessment and answered seven questions. Last Wednesday, we received an identical pretest to take again and then given our original. Our final exam is creating this blog post, which is about the differences in our answers and how it symbolizes how we have grown as an artist.
In the beginning of the semester, I said that an artist needs to utilize observation in order to create a realistic image. Although I had a similar answer at the end of the semester, I then understood more why you need to. Your brain creates shortcuts to save energy, and one of these shortcuts is seeing a simple image or shape and using that to represent a more complicated entity. For example, a common stored symbol is a 'mushroom tree'(right). This is when a green puffball rests on top of a trunk, no branches or anything. Although this seems easy to avoid, there are many, many, many more stored symbols in your brain, and the easiest way to prevent falling victim to them all is to simply observe your subject.
Plagiarism is not a very clear subject, not even in the court, which is why those trials last waaay longer than they should. (I'm looking at you apple.) In art, plagiarism is even less clear, so that raises the question 'is copying plagiarism?' In the beginning of the semester, I was discussing this from a purely law-based standpoint, saying that it is only plagiarism if credit is not given to the original artist. Over the semester, however, I learned that no art is truly original, and often inspired by another piece. It may be similar, but the new work is different. For example, one minor project done this semester was a character remix, where we took a pre-existing entity (probably copyrighted) and changed them a bit, but were still recognizable. For example, I took the painting 'The Son of Man' by Rene Magritte(below left) and attempted to make a sticky note mosaic (below right). Although clearly based off of it, I do not believe it is plagiarism
In the beginning of the semester, I said that an artist needs to utilize observation in order to create a realistic image. Although I had a similar answer at the end of the semester, I then understood more why you need to. Your brain creates shortcuts to save energy, and one of these shortcuts is seeing a simple image or shape and using that to represent a more complicated entity. For example, a common stored symbol is a 'mushroom tree'(right). This is when a green puffball rests on top of a trunk, no branches or anything. Although this seems easy to avoid, there are many, many, many more stored symbols in your brain, and the easiest way to prevent falling victim to them all is to simply observe your subject.
Plagiarism is not a very clear subject, not even in the court, which is why those trials last waaay longer than they should. (I'm looking at you apple.) In art, plagiarism is even less clear, so that raises the question 'is copying plagiarism?' In the beginning of the semester, I was discussing this from a purely law-based standpoint, saying that it is only plagiarism if credit is not given to the original artist. Over the semester, however, I learned that no art is truly original, and often inspired by another piece. It may be similar, but the new work is different. For example, one minor project done this semester was a character remix, where we took a pre-existing entity (probably copyrighted) and changed them a bit, but were still recognizable. For example, I took the painting 'The Son of Man' by Rene Magritte(below left) and attempted to make a sticky note mosaic (below right). Although clearly based off of it, I do not believe it is plagiarism
Artistic style is a very general term. In the beginning of the semester, I believed this was nothing more than the way an artist's work appears. I was really wrong. By the end of the semester, I learned that style is not just how the artist's work appears, but also how it is made, why it was made, how it reflects modern events, and many other factors. Plus styles are not just unique to the artist. There were art movements representing an art style, such as surrealism, pop art, cubism, baroque, impressionism, the list goes on and on.
This class has done much more for me than I had thought on the first day. I had believed that this class would be like any other art class. I had thought that we would simply do projects with pre-selected mediums, but boy was I wrong. This class is so much different than those I had in middle and elementary. There is far more freedom than I had before, and I have enjoyed this thoroughly. I was correct about what I would learn though. I predicted that we would learn a multitude of strategies to improve our abilities as artists, and that is exactly what we did.