Introduction

“How can you find, explore, and/or expand your passion?”

The Explorations unit in Freestyle allows us to explore our own personal interests and passions. In Design, I chose to explore acrylic painting of still life. I chose this because I have always been interested in acrylic painting but have never had the opportunity to truly explore it. I wanted to paint a still life because I also really wanted to work on my observation skills, and depict what I see instead of what I think I see.

Process

My process began by choosing what exactly I wanted to paint. I decided that I would do the same painting multiple times, as a way to track my progess and learn from my mistakes. This project was largely about the process for me, and not as much as the end result. That helped me take more risks and not be as stressed about getting everything exactly right.

Above is the process of creating my first painting. I starting with an underpainting to set a warmer undertone to the painting. Then, I moved on to the background, and finally painted the apple itself. Below is my final product for each painting.

Overall, this project was really beneficial in affecting how I mentally approach art. It was refreshing to be completely focused on the process instead of the outcome, and it allowed me to take risks and be outgoing in a way that I normally am not when creating art.

Lyrical Essay

The lyrical essay was our explorations project for English class. A lyrical essay is a form of non-traditional essay writing that has more poetic qualities and language. For my lyrical essay, I chose to write about my feelings and how they affect me. This is something that has been on my mind a lot recently because I have been under a lot of stress which exacerbates my emotions. It was a very therapeutic writing process, and although the final product is not really what I anticipated it to look like, I am happy with how it ended up.