Russ 1

Sarah Russ Rebecca Agosta English 1103 9 February 2014 Where to Draw the Line

I have had a love of art forever or at least as far back as I can remember; preschool and I can still remember when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would always comment with artist. Ballerina and zookeeper were also desirable but artist was just as important. I will commend my parents for being the first sponsors to encourage my desire to be an artist as they both were very skilled in the areas of drawing, design, painting, and sculpture. I would consider my parents to be my first role models.

My art teachers have also always been sponsors for my literacy in art as they have always encouraged me to continue drawing as they saw my potential. Even my elementary school, my art teacher understood my enjoyment of her class and encouraged me to try to further progress my talents by pointing out things in my class assignments that I did not understand at the time, but would make sense to me later as I began to learn about color placement and application. We had one assignment in her class where we were to paint a self-portrait using either a warm or cool color scheme. I chose a warm color scheme going with the colors of red, orange, and yellow. Now, I thought my color selection for this project had been mostly random but my teacher commented that my color placement was similar to the appropriate lightness and darkness that comes from natural or realistic color. This was quite a compliment to me as this

Russ 2

teacher was someone I respected very much and as an adult compared to a child, a compliment from them must be very special.

One characteristic of drawing is the materials that go into the process. The choices are endless as there are hundreds of different selections of paper to choose to be used for its respective medium. For example, when using graphite, a smooth paper with minimal tooth would be most appropriate as opposed to using charcoal which would preferably accept more tooth to the paper. The tooth of the paper could be related to the texture of the paper as a paper with more tooth would be much more texted compared to the texture of a paper with a minimal tooth. There is also the weight of the paper to take into consideration; the heavier the paper, the better the quality. Paper is made in rolls. The weight of the paper comes from the weight of each role. For example, the weight of the paper in my sketchbook is fifty lbs so this would be an average paper weight.

Surrealism as defined by google a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature that sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images. Surrealism is the marriage between realistic and unrealistic themes. I would consider surrealism to possess a dream like quality making it my favorite type of art and I try to incorporate this into as much of my work as possible. Part of this incorporation went into the main theme of my AP drawing project as I combined images of myself, strange fashions, and juxtaposed items to create a surrealistic composition. My art teacher for that class is another person that I would consider to be one of the sponsors for my literacy in drawing as she helped develop the concept for my AP drawing project by introducing me to several fashion

Russ 3

models of strange styles and the styles of art nouveau and the Rococo era which all had some influence over my project.

I was with one of my friends at RDH eating dinner and he asked me what I had left to do for the day. I answered that I had to buy a specific type of drawing paper due to the medium that I would be using in my drawing class the next day. Apparently, I had stated this with more enthusiasm than I thought as he commented, you know, most people dont get that excited over buying paper. It was then that I realized just how important art was to me. Even though this event was recent, it was still eye opening for me. I had never really had anyone point out to me before something so insignificant yet so relevant.

I lived in Canada for a time and during my freshman year of high school, I attended an art school and I needed a portfolio to get into that school. This would include a group interview as our skills were assessed and possibly what actually went into the portfolio. The portfolio included in different mediums for the portfolio, an entire sketchbook of work, and a 3D piece for the portfolio, and several specific works; self-portrait wearing a hat, view through a window, a still life composed of five objects of my choice, as well as several other pieces that I cannot recall. The in-person interview was a day where part of the students trying to get into the school were gathered together in the same room for an assessment, this included creating a drawing that gave emotion to inanimate objects and showing our technical skills in shading and rendering objects from a still life that was placed in the middle of the room. I was extremely nervous through the entire process as I really wanted to attend this art school. I can remember one of the guys sitting next to me chuckled for seemingly no reason during the interview process and out of

Russ 4

my nervousness, I thought he was laughing at what I had drawn but to this day I am still unsure of why he laughed.

Although not directly related to drawing, one of the required courses in order to obtain my degree is a foundations course known as Concepts, which is basically a class that focuses more on how the artist creates a concept in their work more than anything else. For this specific project for the class we were to create a project focusing on identity. The teacher encouraged going out of our comfort zones for the sake of the project. So I decided I would be naked for this project and have my boyfriend film my actions. So I first wrote down all of my regrets, which amounted to forty, then, placed each regret into a separate balloon. The balloons symbolized regret. The balloons were then taped onto my body to symbolize the regrets that I carry with me. Then I ripped off the balloons to symbolize myself becoming a better person as I leave my regrets behind. The naked body symbolized freedom and acceptance of my identity by finding out new things about myself as I do things that I have never done before. Before this semester, that would have been something completely unthinkable for me to do but as I learn more about what other artists create, I become more open to new forms of expressing artwork as innovation are important to every artist.

Even though I have always wanted to be an artist, I have never known specifically what I wanted to do with that so I first considered interior design. I decided to revise my decision after taking an Interior Design course at my high school. Interior Design focuses more on shapes, measurements, and structure while I prefer more freedom in what I design.

Russ 5

My next exploration of a possible career was in graphic design. I again decided against this after visiting Appalachian University and having one of the professors there explain to me what a job was like under graphic design. Graphic Design focused mostly on the use of computers while I prefer a more simple approach of just pencil to paper; so how could anything be a better fit than Illustration?