WEEK 4: Activity Post

 I was assigned the 2012 Bridges Conference, and I decided to choose John Hiigli's Piece, shown below. 

I really enjoyed this piece, and honestly felt that it was within my abilities to recreate with the tools that I had. I read the excerpt that went with this piece, it mentioned how the artist started "with the surfaces farthest from the observer, working [their] way forward to the front surfaces". I though that this would help me when drawing the Hypercross II. I attempted to start at the back, but then got so confused that i figured I would start at the top instead. 

After several minutes of attempting this, I was getting so beyond lost in all the lines. I was showing colleagues and they were laughing at me as some choice words may or may not have been coming out of my mouth as I struggled my was through the chaos of lines. After a while, I was able to get a good enough sketch of the Hypercross II. It was far from perfect, but it was the best I was able to do. 

Since this original piece was done with paint, I thought I would use markers, as that was the closest thing I had available to me. I was really nervous to start as this had taken me close to an hour to create. So in the nature of "I don't trust myself" I photocopied my piece a few times to be able to test out colors and markers overlapping before committing to finishing my piece. Thank goodness I did. The markers ruined this piece. I quickly decided to switch over to pencils. 

This piece was so frustrating but fun to create. I realized that it was not perfect and that eye-balling parallel lines was not my best choice. After walking into the grade 11 art class and realizing that they are currently working on a 2-point perspective project, I realized that the technique to create those masterpieces would have really helped me for mine. Attempting to have all the same angles in the same places of each cube was really hard considering I was doing it all by eye. The more I looked at it the more I realized that there were small imperfections. It was also interesting that the more lines I got on the page, the easier it became. Was this because I was getting use to it, or was it because there was actually a picture being created? 

Regardless, back to the pencils. When I started coloring, I was now at home at my kitchen table, that is made out of wood, therefore has a texture to it. This would not seem relevant to my art piece, except i quickly realized that it textured my coloring. 

At first I thought I better find a smoother surface to work on, but I quickly began to admire the "rougher" look and decided to carry on. As soon as I started coloring all the tops of the cubes green, and all the right sides red, it was getting easier and easier to see what was being created. 

I must say, that I was proud when this product was complete. I am friends with the art teacher at school who lent my fancy pencils to help make my final product better. When I was done, I sent him my project and he told me I could have gotten a 90%. I know that the point of this activity was not to create a beautiful piece of art, it was more to reflect on the process, but the fact that my art did turn out to be something that gave me pride, I think is a bonus. This feeling also allows me to realize and reflect on why we should link art and math more often, students can learn to appreciate the math behind art, while gaining a deeper understanding od mathematical concepts and creating something to be proud of.