When I was picking my courses for grade 11 I knew that I wanted to take art in order to offset my heavy course load consisting of math, and science classes.  Taking grade 11 university level art has turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made as an artist yet.  I went into art this year with an open mind to try new mediums and techniques, however my main goal for this year was to find my distinctive style as an artist through creating unique pieces that show my interests.  I also intended for my pieces this year to be more meaningful and create conversation within my community.  I am happy to say that over the course of the semester I have been able to identify my strengths as an artist; these being pencil crayon and watercolour pieces.

             Throughout the year as a class we experimented with various mediums including printmaking, 3D acrylic painting, and plenty of mixed media projects.  As an individual artist my preferred mediums are watercolour paints and pencil crayons (preferably prisma colour pencil crayons).   Since I am the most comfortable with these mediums, the majority of my work from the semester showcases one of these mediums.  

                 Two of my most successful pieces that I created this semester were, "Oh Sugar, Sugar, and Look Into My Eyes, What Do You See".  Oh Sugar, Sugar was inspired by my love for using colour in my work.  Tjalf Sparnaay's work has greatly inspired me as an artist and lead to me creating Oh Sugar, Sugar.  Sparnaay is incredibly talented at painting in a style called; mega realism.  Too achieve a look similar to mega realism I made sure to be very careful with shadow placement, and also used a high degree of contrast throughout the piece making sure it stayed balanced.  As a developing artist I am hoping to someday be able to successfully produce mega realism pieces like Tjalf Sparnaay.  Look into my eyes, what do you see;  was one of my pieces which I had trouble deciding on which medium to use.  I went back and forth between using marker and watercolour paints for the biggest eye.  In the end I chose watercolour paints and marker to achieve the final product that I wanted.  By using watercolour paints and marker together I was able to manipualate the mediums to make the eye appear to look like it was all done with marker.  I think that this was a successful piece because of the line that flows from the black and white eyebrow to the watercolour eyebrow, the colour palette, and the realistic elements.  I think that by using these three elements and principles I was able to create a piece which flows nicely and has unity.  

              When I was creating my portfolio I decided to include a good variety of work that would showcase my abilities with different mediums as an artist.  As an artist I do not want to be identified as a 'one trick pony', because to make it in the art world versatility is key.  This is why I have included works which are made from a variety of mediums.   I have also included my preliminary work for many of my pieces because I think that it is really interesting to see how one achieves the final product, and the steps that they take to get there.

               Overall I think that this year has been a year of growth, and realization for me as an artist.  This year I have learned many important things through my work; 1) pieces do not always turn out as well as you expect them to, 2) push your artistic boundaries, 3) anything is possible if you try, and 4) practice makes perfect.  I learned that pieces do not always turn out as well as you expect them too in the process of creating my first studio piece,"Mother Nature".  Before I started this piece I was under the impression that it would be a fairly simplistic design that I could easily accomplish, turns out I was wrong about this.  The moment that I realized how difficult the hands were going to be to sculpt, I knew that I was going to have to make some changes to my design.  Even though I did not like the final product, I am still proud of how I developed as an artist during the creative process, and pushed my comfort zone as an artist.  When I was creating the man in the moon I learned that anything is possible if you try.  In order to carve out all of the windows in the buildings I had to use an exacto knife.  Not only was this difficult as the technique took a high degree of precision to complete, but was also very time consuming and got to a point where I did not think that it was going to be possible.  However I continued with this technique and my plate and print turned out better than I thought.  Since I had to do this technique for every single cut on my plate by the end I became very good at it; proof that practice makes perfect.

             I am still not quite sure of what I want to do in the future, however I do hope that art plays a role in my career as art holds a very special place in my heart.