Joshua Smith Q1 Project
For my quarter 1 art project, I did a self portrait of my mother. The portrait isn’t supposed to be her exactly. I replaced her facial features with symbols that mean how I feel, or what I see when I look at her. The portrait of my mother has a green rising arrow where her eyes would be. The arrow represents growth. I wanted to use growth as something I see when I look at my mother, because she came a long way in life. Not to get into details, my mother was into negative things and now she’s a pastor, who has a master’s degree in social work, and two other degrees in different fields. There is a half red, and half white heart in the portrait where my mother’s nose would be. The heart of course represents love. I chose to draw the heart big, to show how much my mother cares about everyone. She always puts people before herself out of love. The half white of the heart is to represent purity. My mom isn’t exactly pure, but seeing where she started and how she is now, she is pure in my eyes. There is a black drawing of a toned abdomen, to a neck, along with arms where her mouth would be to represent strength. My mother has 8 children. Most people can’t take care of that number. She not only took/takes care of my siblings and I, she takes care of a lot of other people. The skin color of the portrait is brown; with black hair. There is one ear, but the head looks as if it is turned to the side. The background of the portrait is blue.
For my personal experiences, this just shows the lady I grew up under. It was hard at times, because she didn’t have as much time for me as I wanted her to. I used colored pencils and carbon paper. I began drawing the head of my mother. I ran into a hiccup after this point. I didn’t know how to portray my idea. After getting help, I decided to use symbols instead of facial features to show meaning. Next I researched symbols that mean what I was feeling. I drew the symbols on the paper for the end of the first draft. Next I used the carbon paper to transfer the draft onto the paper for the final copy. The last thing I had to really do was add the color to it. I used colors that also backed up the meaning of the symbols. For the final step that I couldn’t really do, was adding more detail to the hair. I tried, but it didn’t work out. I don’t really know any artists and their work, so my work was only inspired by my mother.
A new technique that I learned through the process of making this work is using the carbon paper. I am most proud of my effort. I am not artistic at all, but I did have a good idea. It didn’t turn out the best visually, but I did try my best to make my idea transparent. If I could, there would be a lot of changes made to this project, but to start off, I would want to add more detail to the hair. I would also like to use paint.
Throughout the completion of this project, I have learned to take my time with the work. Perfection cannot be rushed; neither can good work. I feel like the meaning of my project was on point, but the drawing was not good. With explanation, my project is understandable but without, it will be very hard to know what’s going on. There are many artists whose work is impossible to understand, so I don’t think it’s a problem with that, but I can work on the detail more, like in the hair.
