In art we are starting our final project of the year where we get a subway map of New York City and we have to change it some way to show our unique experience of the city. I have chosen to cut up my map into strips so that I can paper mache them around a balloon, so it turns into kind of a globe shape thing. Then once it dries I will take pieces of string cut at random lengths and glue them on in random patterns across the “globe” to represent people’s paths crossing through life. I hope that when people look at my piece they will take away the fact that if our paths cross, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are the paths will cross anyway. I am really excited to get to create a project that has almost no guidelines and I am curious to see how my plan changes as I go along.

My piece is named Grid Portrait Drawing. I created this work of art by drawing lines over a picture to create a grid. Then, I copied the grid onto a different piece of paper and drew the picture like I saw it, then I chose different techniques to use to color it in. I used ink and brush, colored pencils and watercolor. One thing I learned during this was that even if all your pictures look exactly the same, it makes the picture look completely different depending on what materials you use. My favorite part is the one that I made with watercolor. If I could change one thing about it would be to make all my noses look alike. While making it I was surprised that if you put a time limit on your drawings, they actually come out better because you can’t spend forever making it look super perfect. Something else I want to share about this piece is that even though this project took a long time I really liked working with new materials.