Course: Honors 495 Critical Looking (Spring 2020)
I took the course Critical Looking in the 2020 Spring semester. I decided to take this course after taking Citizen 110: Ways of Seeing, because it was considered a more challenging follow up to that course. I really enjoyed the Citizen 110 course, and I wanted to continue learning more about art. This class was different than Ways of Seeing by challenging students to look even deeper into art and questioning it more.
Unlike the previous honors course where we did many photography projects, this course challenged us to do more projects involving drawing and painting. I found this very intimidating and challenging at first and I lacked confidence in my artistic abilities and my work. After being encouraged by my professor to keep trying, I ended up creating a piece of artwork I am extremely proud of. I was discouraged by comparing my work to others, but after creating many different projects during this course, I see how different everyone’s artistic styles are, and it does not mean that one is better than the other, they are just different pieces created by different people.
For this art piece, we had to trace an object or figure on plexiglass, and then find a way to transfer it into a larger image. My biggest challenge at first was overthinking about what I was drawing and creating. After practice and challenging myself to let go and try to focus less on making every line in the piece perfect, I created something I am still proud of.
Here is the photo of what I created. (Initially turned in black and white, then was encouraged to paint it)
