For this activity, we started off by creating different types of lines, and then had to describe them. Now, while I didn’t really have a hard time creating varying types of lines, on the other hand I struggled immensely with coming up with around 4-5 words for each. I found that towards the end I kind of kept repeating my adjectives, like smooth and solid for example.

After creating our variety of lines, it was time to move on to the next portion- color mixing. At first we were only given the primary colors, and then eventually black and white to create different values. After we created a color, we had to think of a word/everyday object to describe it; I had a lot of fun with this part, and started naming my colors after different foods and cartoon characters- like Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time *que These Lumps*.

Finally, after both activities, it was time for the final section of class- landscape paintings. For this portion of the assignment, we had to sketch 3 different imaginary landscapes before deciding which one we actually wanted to create. My 3 ideas for my painting were a snowy mountain-scape, my own version of Halloweentown, and finally, a land full of lollipops and ice cream complete with a caramel river. This is ultimately the option I decided to pick for my final painting. When it came down to physically creating our paintings, we were given a big, flat brush at first for laying down color, and then a smaller brush for details.

While I wasn’t too crazy about the last two activities, I actually really enjoyed this one. For me, I felt like I had a lot more creative freedom than with our previous prompts- probably because I didn’t have to worry about the overall flow and style of my work matching up to someone else’s. Additionally, this project made learning about colors a lot more fun, as compared to just basic color wheels. If I were to use this project in a classroom, I’d probably skip over the line portion and just go straight to color mixing and painting (since I want to teach high school and figure they already have an understanding of lines). Overall, I can see this being really successful in an Intro to Studio Art class, but not in upper division drawing and painting studios.

For the first part of this assignment, we were prompted to make as many patterns as possible using only the primary colors at first, and then mixing them onto the paper itself. We were encouraged to use different tools and textures to create our patterns, like foam brushes, sponges, popsicle sticks, and cardboard- just to name a few. At first I had a really difficult time with this assignment, it keeps coming back to me not wanting to lose control of the piece and realizing I need to for the sake of this class, and feeling at one with my inner kindergarten self. You can see throughout the progression of my patterns that I start off really rigid and tried my best to make everything as uniform as possible, but then shifted towards a more freeform pattern.

After we got the hang of making our patterns and mixing our colors, it was time to take this activity to the next step by combining everything together. We started off by creating a pattern with one color on the edge of our paper, so for instance I started with the red zig-zag in the top right hand corner. From there, we had to paint our next pattern adjacent to our first one, and then mix the colors together on the paper. We were prompted to fill up the entire paper first, and then begin layering on top of that; just to see how many colors and patterns we could actually make.

The last part of this activity ties back to prompt 1; we had to randomly chose a classmates pattern that we were drawn to, and make a collaborative painting out of it. I was really drawn to the sponge texture on the one I chose, as well as the use of the primary colors. Since I liked the pattern so much, I was trying to think of ways to enhance it, instead of cover it up- ultimately I decided on some wavy lines, some zig-zags, and a few bubbles, but I think it turned out so cool!

I’m usually the first person to say that they hate collaborative projects, but these past few activities have been slowly swaying me to believe otherwise. While collaboration has it downfalls, it has it’s great moments too. These collaborative pattern paintings are teaching me that it’s okay to not be entirely in control all the time; in fact great work can happen when you let someone else take the reins. Shoutout to whoever made this pattern for 1) giving me the opportunity to make something I’m really proud of and 2) opening my eyes to how fun and exciting collaboration can be.

For our first in class activity we had to create our own drawings based only on what we felt. Initially, I had a pretty difficult time figuring out what was in my bag because everything was so tangled together. The first object I identified was a piece of yarn, and I tried my best to emulate it on my paper, using parallel lines to give off the illusion of it being wound together. Afterwards, I slowly starting figuring out what was in my bag. I ultimately decided I wanted the objects to overlap, since when I first began sifting through my bag everything was a tangled mess.

After we created our individual drawings, we had to create a collaborative drawing with our classmates. I was put in a group with Lily and Ash. At first, I think we all had a pretty difficult time figuring out how to lay out our individual drawings so they would flow into one cohesive image, but I think we were ultimately successful. Personally, I struggled a lot with trying to adapt to everyone’s different drawing styles. Eventually I began to loosen up, and it became a little easier.

Once we thought we were finished, we hung our piece up on the wall and began to take a look around the room. We noticed that a majority of the other groups had utilized a lot of white and it made their images pop more. Unanimously, we decided to add more white into our images in the forms of blobs and squiggles, which I think strengthened our piece.

Ultimately, I had a lot of fun with this assignment. While I can see how a collaborative assignment like this can be successful in K-12 schools, I can also see it’s downfalls. For example, when I was in high school my graphic design class participated in the Vans project, where you had to design 4 different vans for different categories. One of my shoes was picked to get recreated for a chance to win the contest and we had to get put in small groups (4-5 students) where we would then recreate the design on an actual pair of Vans. Unfortunately no one else in my group actually did any work and my shoes suffered as a consequence. So yeah, collaborative artwork has it’s ups and downs in my opinion.