CAS Reflection: Creativity

HS Arts Club

Reflection 3

Learning Outcome(s):

5. Demonstrate the skills and recognise the benefits of working collaboratively.

For our final project, we planned to create a mural which incorporated all of our art styles to represent the HS Arts Club, and at the same time we had a baby dragon looking up at countries dangling from the top of the painting, each of which is a host country to a different UWC campus. As I mentioned in my last reflection, the planning process really needed to involve everybody working together in order to reach the final plan of what we were going to do.

Then, once we came up with the plan, each of us designed a possible draft for our countries. We showed each other our draft and we were allowed to give feedback to each other on what was good and what we could do to improve it for the final piece. Working together like that was insightful to me as it allowed me to see the different range of perspectives of other artists rather than someone who will just tell me that “it’s good” or that “it’s bad”. We did this previously when we were brainstorming ideas and it was by using everyone’s ideas that we were able to create a whole piece.

CAS Reflection: Creativity

HS Arts Club

Reflection 2

Learning Outcome(s):

3. Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience.

I spent several sessions all the way until before the December break completing the painting I was working on previously as well as working on several sketches which allowed me to improve on my own skills as an artist.

I had to finish all of this before the break because we had began to plan a group project that involved every member of the HS Arts Club. Before we broke up for the break, we were planning by brainstorming ideas and synthesising ideas from every member. We knew we wanted to do something that involved a representation of our school, however we couldn’t come to a consensus without everyone contributing their ideas and votes.

Of course our final plan kept undergoing changes because everybody had different ideas and I felt as though it was important that we did that, including myself, because at the end of it we do want to create a final piece that encapsulates our skills as well as represents our school. We decided finally on representing all of the UWCs around the world and their respective countries. We also wanted to incorporate a dragon and also key landmarks of those countries; so each of us was assigned a country and I took on Japan because it is a culture mildly foreign to me and the landmarks I chose would be a little tricky to draw so this way I could push myself.

From this planning experience, I definitely realised how important it was to really give your own input in group discussions. There were times when nobody said anything in the discussion and it would be difficult for the leaders of the HS Arts Club to gather everyone’s opinion on what we should do, which is why I tried to contribute as much as I could. Contributing sparked further discussion and also more group involvement which allowed us to come to a final plan and I think that’s pretty cool.

CAS Reflection: Creativity

HS Arts Club

Reflection 1

Learning Outcome(s):

1. Identifying strengths and develop areas for personal growth.

Since I chose to take two sciences for IB, I had to drop Visual Arts. I’ve been doing art as a hobby since I was very young, and I even took it as my art subject for my (I)GCSEs. Due to the fact that I had to choose double science over it this year, I still wanted to find a way to keep up with doing art because it’s still an activity that I find relaxing yet challenging. Therefore, I think that joining the high school Arts Club this year will allow me to do so.

As I’ve been involving myself in art for such a long time now, I tend to be comfortable with trying new mediums or working to try new things in the mediums I know how to work with. I tend to draw portraits mostly which doesn’t really give me much practice with other things that I could possibly draw. Another common painting style for me to do is to not play much with how the background colour affects the foreground objects, so I feel that by picking a specific sort of theme or aesthetic preference I can use that to try and make the piece look a little more put together. These were just points that I noticed after painting my first piece in the club which also served as a gift for a friend.

I do think that overall I have a handle on how to paint faces in a way that’s catered towards my own stylistic preference, yet as I mentioned before, there are several steps I feel as though I could take in order to improve my watercolour skills further.

For my second piece that I’m working from a photo. Though it does involve painting a portrait, it incorporates a rose in it. With that idea, I sketched several roses so this way I’ll get practice with painting something that isn’t a human face.This is just the beginning of the painting, and I decided to try mapping out the shading first with the colour that I want to portray as the main one (being pink because of the roses) which isn’t something I normally do. Usually I paint the base colours and then add shadows and tints, so I would like to see how this will cause the painting to turn out. This was actually my second attempt, as in the previous one I ended up messing up the shading on the shirt (which I haven’t done here). Clothing is probably another area which I need to work on, as I tend to put so much detail in the faces that the rest of the painting often doesn’t hold the same amount of detail (as seen in the prior photo of the first painting).