Criterion D Design

The creating part of this project is to make a mixed media self portrait. In art class we are making the piece of art. First we project the picture out to a wall and trace it on a big sheet of paper. Then we start putting color into it. We can use anything to decorate it. We had to bring our materials in from home and use something from home but there are also things in the art room. There are a lot of things in the art room. The way we use our materials have to mean something to us. It can show our interests or express ourselves etc. For example if I like to read, I can stick ripped up books on the paper as my face.This is my favorite part of the project. It is my favorite part of the project because I like to create. I like to get my hands dirty. I like looking at the outcome of my art. Even if it is not that good, I like the feeling of creating something.To make my portrait I used many different materials. I tried to show a wide variety of me by using many different materials. Yesterday, I finished doing the art. It took me a long time but I got it done and I am proud of it. I used a few different colors of paint, chalk, magazine pieces, feathers, lip gloss, facial cream, little soft pom poms, cloth, pieces of stars, and a piece of jewelry. All of these materials each have a meaning.
-Paint is used for most pieces of art, and I love art. If there was no art in the world, it would be very different from how it is today. I painted the sky, mountains, heart and bars. The blue skie symbolizes the clear blue skies of Mongolia. Mongolia has a beautiful sky and I love it. The green mountain also represents Mongolia.
-Chalk represents my childhood. When I was a little girl, I used to play outside all the time, every chance I got, I would play outside. I played many different kinds of games but the one I liked best is hopscotch, and you draw a hopscotch game with a chalk on the ground. That is why I used the chalk for the cement behind me.
-For the magazine pieces, there is a lot of meanings. For the border, I cut out pieces of eyes and lips. I love looking at people’s faces, and it also stands for seeing and talking. People love to talk about other people like what they saw and what they heard. And it sometimes is a good thing and sometimes is a bad thing, so to let other people not talk bad things about me, I have to behave. Another thing for the eyes and mouths, all of the pieces I cut out from are people that inspire me. They are mostly actresses and models. I like acting, and models and actresses both act.
-For my face, neck and chest, I used magazine pieces too. I cut out very little pieces of skin mostly form advertisements and stick it on. That symbolizes that I want to have skin like those people in the magazines. They are soft, smooth, clear skins. I cut out pieces of magazines
-The feather represents birds. Birds can fly, and I want to fly. I have always wished that I could fly, that I could see the world from above. I look at something and wonder what it looks like from above. That is why I like going in airplanes. And I also want to feel the wind in my face like in those movies. Another reason why I want to fly is to get to places quicker. Sometimes going in car seems to take ages. But at least we don’t have to walk nowadays. I got the feathers from the art room and used it as a decoration for my collar for my shirt.
-I love make-up. My hobby is to decorate myself. So I used lip-gloss and facial make-up. I applied the lip gloss to my lips and the make-up to my arms. Even though I don’t apply make-up to my arms, I just used it.
-Pom poms are nice and soft and round. I like those kinds of things. For some reason, I feel that puppies are like those pom poms, and I love puppies. I also got it from the art room and also I used it for the collar of my shirt.
-Like I said, my hobby is to decorate myself. Clothing and jewelry is a big part of decorating myself, so I used cloth for my clothes. If clothing wasn’t important I would have just painted my clothes on my portrait. I love to go shopping and buy clothes. I used a broken piece of my jewelry.
-Stars make the night sky look very pretty. I like to look at the stars at night and wonder. Wonder what is out there in the universe. I believe that there are aliens out there and wonder when they will come to our planet. I got the stars from the art room and stuck it on the cement part because there was no other space to stick it.
My art work is very colorful so it is different from many other students’ work. I unconsciously made it colorful, and I realized the colorfulness represents something. I like all the colors in the world. The colors are what makes the world beautiful so I don’t have a favorite color.
I don’t think I made much mistakes. Once, I spilled a lot of liquid glue right on my art work. I spill half of the big bottle and it took me a long time to clean it all up. I was so angry at myself, so I learned that I should not leave an open glue right beside the art work. Another mistake I made was that I colored the arms with markers. After I finished coloring it, I looked at it and it looked very bad. So I glued white paper over it and colored it with make-up. My friend gave me the idea of coloring it with make-up.
If I would do this project again, I would think about how I am exactly going to do it. Even though I think my art work turned out good, I would plan everything very good. I worked on the art work 2 times a week for 2 periods each for 3 weeks. I used my time wisely. People did not really tell me anything about the art work. Not many people saw it.
The hardest part of making this mixed media portrait was making the skin. I did not know how to make the right colors. I first though of making all of the skin with cut out pieces but it took very long so I decided to use something else for the arms. Making the face and neck with very small pieces of magazines was very hard. Finding the right skin color was very hard too. The easiest part was to paint.
I think the strength of my piece is the way I express myself. I did not put or use anything that does not represent me. I think the weakest part of my piece is my face. People said I look like I put on a lot of make-up. I don’t want to look like I put on a lot of make-up and that might throw some of the meaning off.
Technology helped me a lot to make a better art work. Editing the picture first gave many ideas and really gave a head start to make the art piece. If I did not have an edited picture I would have not known what to do.
I learn a lot from doing this project. I learned more about me and about how to make a mixed media art. I did not know was mixed media was before I did this project. I also realized about the things I liked and felt.