Intro:
I took visual arts at school in grade ten. Being honest, neither i was very sincere about it nor did i work a lot with colors and just made sketches with some color from color pencils. I will be straight to the point where I got my inspiration for doing\following bob ross tutorials inspired artwork, the internet and pop culture on reddit. While i’ve taken VA once again this year, there isn’t much certainty when school will reopen. So to keep my skills practiced I decided to do it at home. However i didn’t feel like investing in oil colors and an easel this early, therefore i decided to go with digital painting. I used an open source windows application called Mypaint.

LO 1
A strength I identified in the first painting was that I could paint the sky really well because I could blend colors well. I also found that it was much easier to blend pinks and blues. The oranges and yellows were a little difficult as it was difficult to perceive the blend easily. However that might be something only I feel.

LO 2
I really struggled painting trees. But that’s maybe because Mypaint did not have a fan brush and the painting knife was a little tricky to use. I skipped most of the trees in the foreground. I mostly overcame this challenge by focusing more on the background and the skies. This is despite the fact that ross is known for happy little trees. I practiced some pine trees even though it didn’t seem to help.

LO 4
While I wasn’t very sure if I would even like it I committed to 5 paintings. At the 3rd painting I started losing interest so I took a break for about a week and then it was fun again. I found committing to the paintings a little difficult towards the end of it and finishing. I skipped out nearly all of the finer details and many many trees. However it made it even more important to commit towards it and show perseverance, as this will help me further, especially in university where even though the career may interest me, the assignments in university wont.

LO 7
An ethical consideration I can think of is that digital painting is more ethically responsible than the physical counterpart. Because it only uses electricity to run the device, and nothing else it’s really less expensive on the environment. Oil paint is made by using pigments and oils such as linseed. To grow plants for industrial purposes, forests are cleared and monoculture is practiced, both of which are unsustainable.

Takeaway:

This experience will help me further in my career of architecture albeit, it’s loosely related to this experience as I’ve got a better understanding of colors and positioning. A thing that I took away is that sometimes it is better to not plan some things and just let it flow. Another quick hack I learnt is that leave an activity or a task away for a while and it becomes more interesting.

Learner profiles

Balanced: I keep playing video games and do study for some time but what i miss is getting my creative juices flowing. So this experience was a good activity for me to do the same.

Reflective: After completing each of my artworks, I evaluated and compared mine with the original piece. Also as I mentioned, I reflected on my skills and practiced painting trees.

Risk Taker: I wasn’t afraid to modify the art with my own touches like mildly changing the color palette, adding a cow, doing grass, etc.