Coming into this Senior Project, I changed my essential question to “how can I respond to a global pandemic through art?”. Acknowledging there are histories of artists responding to the health crises and politics of their times, I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to learn how to make art that represents something bigger than me. While that intent remained present throughout the duration of the six weeks, I feel that the outcome reflected more of a mythological story of mine that I had fun exploring. Perhaps viewers may not connect my art with my intent, but at the very least I hope the emotion shows through. In reality, any art that I make right now would, intentionally or not, respond to this pandemic. However, my essential question may have changed to “how can I tell a story through art”.

I also had a secondary question during the project, which was “how can I expand my anatomical knowledge?”. I answered this question by gesture drawing for an hour and a half and doing anatomy studies for hours more each day. I am still working my way down the body—I am currently on the thighs—, but lately I have decided to extend this educational endeavor, moving on to different fundamentals of art in the coming months. I have prepared exercises to do for the other fundamentals—perspective, value, color, composition—, so at this point my secondary question is “how can I come closer to mastering the fundamentals?”.

I expected to learn how to use the elements of design to evoke emotions which correlate with my message. If my art successfully transfers such emotions to my viewers, then I have successfully learned this skill. Besides that, I also learned how to use anatomical forms to enhance gesture, and to use gesture to enhance the composition. I further learned how intricate composition can be—especially with several equally prominent characters. And I also learned how important of a role value plays in guiding the eye. I learned how to organize my values into five distinct value groups, and I learned the value of simplicity. I also learned how to use watercolor and charcoal in the same piece.

This experience has allowed me to return to the basics of Western art making. By stripping away the styles and motifs I have enjoyed utilizing in my previous pieces, I have learned how to better utilize these basics. And I hope to return to my previous conceptual pieces with a higher skill set. I hope to add better gesture, attentional detail, and compositions to my Fauna series after this. I also plan to repeatedly study the fundamentals in the near future. Additionally, I have pondered how I can make more art that stands for something bigger than me. Perhaps depicting emotions, stories, and the human experience is already big enough. However, I want to test my conceptual range. I want others to understand that my senior project, while heavily conceptual, was mainly an opportunity to expand my technical abilities.