Assignment 1 Questions

1. Write a minimum of a paragraph explaining your interpretation of the music and lyrics.  Explain how you used certain elements or principles of design to describe the selected piece of music.

To describe the music, I used used different brush techniques and different brush strokes.  For example, when listening to the music I thought that it was very slow, clam, steady, original, and interesting.  I tried to make my brush strokes give off the same feel.  I wanted each individual brush stroke to be shown because I think that symbolizes the slow, calm, steady, and interesting part of the song.  The image created in the painting is the way I portrayed the "different" aspect of the painting.  The image is very complex and just by glancing at it one would not understand the meaning of the design, I think that this made it different.  In general, to transfer the music and beat to the painting I took time to analyze it and then brainstorm ways I could transfer the feelings I got from analyzing the music to the painting.

When transferring the lyrics onto the painting the translations were much more literal.  For example, the phrase "wavin' flag" is repeated multiple times, so I used the flags to represent the two land masses in my painting.  I also used quotes like "not far away" from the song and showed them in my image by making the North America side and the Africa side very close in proximity.  Some key themes from the song, like poverty and struggle are also shown in my piece through the collage.

2. What discoveries or techniques did you find helpful through the process?

I found that incorporating a collage into the painting was very helpful for getting detail into smaller spaces.  I could get more images into my painting with the collage than I would have by only painting.  Also, even though I didn't use it, the matte medium technique of moving the paint to the dried matte medium was very innovative and very interesting, it took the collage aspect to the next level.  The last technique I really liked was incorporating the sides of the board into the master piece.  I think it gave the assignment a 3-D effect and provided more opportunities to explore with painting and designs.

3. What are two skills that you learnt and what is one that you feel you worked on to improve your skills?

While working on this project I learnt dry brushing and using matte medium to transfer ink from the paper to dry layers of matte medium.  During the process of creating my painting I also improved my skills of mixing colors.  Before this project I didn't really spend much time on mixing color or care too much about it, but because of this project I improved my skills and realized that I had to be more exact when mixing colors.