Intelligence
The thoughts behind the design of my portrait surprisingly did not take long. The idea was simple: myself in the foreground with faint outlines of art equipment in the background to demonstrate my quiet nature and uncertainty towards the subject of art. In the beginning, I planned to make this piece with pencil; however, because of my new found interest in watercolor, I decided to take a risk with this new media.
Investment
Although I honestly have no attachment to the piece other than understanding that it is a project grade, I do devote a lot of time, whether it is in class or at home, in creating this self-portrait. After all, I believe that everyone is obligated to finish what they have started. It is worth noting that I progressed rather slowly in class, especially when I was using the unforgiving watercolor which made cleaning up mistakes drastically harder, so I had to bring the work home to finish it over break. In the future, I hope that I would increase my efficiency: just pick up the brush, make a mark -- regardless of the risks or consequences, and just let thing go.
Difficulty
The biggest obstacle I have faced throughout was controlling the marks of watercolor to reach the desired hazy effect. The water soaked the paper fairly quickly and the color simply spills according to the curves, essentially ruining the clear outlines on the figures. Thus, I am rather disappointed with watercolor, and for future projects I would revert to the safer graphite or charcoal as they can correct mistakes easily. Or, perhaps I could blend the two media together. What would that look like?
Self Assessment
I would give myself a 90 for effort, but the design and final product could definitely be more polished. I invested almost equal time as the past projects, yet the result was disappointing. For example, the technical control was lacking compared to the Old Masters drawing that I did for MP1, possibly because of my inexperience with watercolor or my indifference to merely a "project." In addition, this is the first assignment of the year where we have to design and create, not just imitate what people had already done. I didn't waste much time outlining my piece then, but perhaps I should take it more as a challenge. Now despite all that happened, I felt the same after completing this project like any other --- meh, it's Ok.