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Olivia Morelli

Mrs. Naus

MYP Art 1

16 October 2018

Pop Art Still Life L.E.A.D. Reflection

Before this past month, and our most recent Art 1 unit, pop art, the extent of my

knowledge on this topic was limited to the trademark Campbell’s soup cans, and the bright,

flashy lettering of comics. However, pop art is much more than it seems, with many hidden

meanings and parallelism hidden between the polka dots and speech bubbles. Throughout our

classes, we focused on both the literal and symbolic aspects of artwork. I learned a lot about

different techniques to make pop art stand out with added textures, the importance of color, as

well as specific usage of colored pencils and watercolor paint. With colored pencils, I tried

burnishing, creating gradients, as well as scumbling. When practicing with watercolors, I learned

wet-on-wet, dry brush, and painting over pencil. While studying the figurative aspect of pop art,

I came to understand many of the meanings of pop art, and examples of why it was created.

There were many reasons, but pop art started as flashy advertisements for popular companies,

then quickly spread to a popular, new art form the reflected the common day for Americans

during the mid/late twentieth century. This art form quickly spread because it was relatable to the

common American family, while it also made household objects look appealing and seen in a

new way, since it was a new time and lifestyle. One example of a pop artist is television graphics

designer-turned-pop artist Burton Morris. He made a lot of his artwork off of pop cans and
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popular candies. I learned about him through our first pop art analysis. Through these lessons, I

learned how to analyze all art in general, not just pop art. I have done many literary and scientific

analyzations over my middle school years, but never an art analysis, so this was a new topic for

me, and it opened my mind to further observe the purpose, meaning, and techniques of artwork.

There are many aspects of pop art that I need to work on for the future, including color

choice and unity. I did not do as well as I had envisioned my piece to turn out, but this

assignment was a topic that I had never focused on before, so it took time for me to fully

understand the importance of planning colors that would compliment and/or contrast the other

colors in a unifying way. One aspect that I believe that I did better than I expected on was the

proportions of the different objects in the picture. Before this course, I had a very poor sense of

space while drawing, but after the helpful activities in class, I definitely improved my sizing

techniques. In my artwork, I chose to include flowers and a camera, paint brushes, pencils, and

ear buds. I chose these objects to represent the different types of art, and how they can all be

beautiful in their own ways, but how they can also unite to create the world. The camera and

flowers represent photography, the pencils and paintbrushes show drawing and painting, and the

earbuds showed music. All of these types of art are important to me, personally, and all of these

types of art have made a huge impact on the world, at large. Because of the fact that there are

many different types of art styles represented in my piece, I chose to use a few different

techniques in my final artwork. I used a mixture of both colored pencil and watercolors. I

implemented the different styles such as burnishing and gradients to add texture and feeling to

my piece, and I used triangular, diagonal angles through the objects to show how the different art

forms can intertwine.

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All pieces of art are made up of the basics- the Elements of Art and Principles of Design.

One particular element of art that I chose to focus on, was texture. Throughout this unit I learned

many ways to create texture in artwork using watercolor paint and colored pencils, and I tried

new techniques that I learned to utilized those tools to create the many different textures of the

many different objects. For example I created a replica of the bumpy surface of the old camera

using multiple light layers of black colored pencil. Another example of the texture was my use of

paper towels for the background of my project. I dipped a crumpled up paper towel in blue paint,

then I stamped it on the blank areas in my painting in order to create a textured background.

Texture is important to a piece of artwork because it adds depth, and makes the space more

visually appealing. The principle of design that was most prominent in my project is movement.

I implemented implied movement through triangular, or diagonal angles. I tried to manipulate

the audience to move through my project in a specific way based on the shapes that my objects

were forming together. This suggested to the symbolism that all of the different genres of art that

I emphasized in my project are all related and connected to make up something bigger than just

themselves. The flowers and camera were placed on an angle, and the paint brush, which was

also on and angle, was positioned so that it was pointing to the center of the diagonal created by

the flowers. Although there was not obvious literal implied movement of the objects in my

project, movement was evident in my project though the different forms and angles they created,

and the path that our eyes travel.

Although art is relaxing and interesting, the were many difficulties that arose during the

project. This project, overall, was fairly difficult for me for a few reasons, but the lessons were

well taught, and if I needed help, it was given to me. One challenge that arose for me was that I
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had never written an art analysis before, so following the new rubric was very hard for me. Once

I learn to be more specific with details such as describing the use of elements and principles,

describing the artist’s work will come more naturally. Another challenge that I faced was unity in

the respect of color. Through my mistake of not entirely planning my color scheme, I will learn

how to improve for the next assignment. The flowers and background complimented each other

nicely, however the pencils and earbuds did not unify the entire piece. Through both my

mistakes, and my successes, I have learned a lot from this project, and it gave me good insight to

what I can work on for our next project.