When I first heard about the idea of solving problems my mind went to problems in general, people not throwing away their trash or just little things like that. As this unit progressed, I learned that the problems could mean more, it could be a limitation that you may have. An example is bad eyesight, shaky hand, or possibly only having a certain amount of material to work with. We were challenged as a warm up to use free items, that is a problem because you are limited to resources. I found old sneakers that I wore in middle school, they didn't fit and were really dirty, I could have thrown them away but that is wasteful. Instead, I decided to recycle by using them in the art challenge. I scavenged for flowers and I was surprised what I found, I planted them into the sneakers, since this was only a one class period kind of project I made a "model". If I had more time I would have planted flower seeds so they could grow, I am using a old shoe for a flower pot, less waste in the junk yard and prettier flowers.
I liked the idea of working with limitation, it makes you think differently about art, it makes your mind expand in creative ways you never thought possible. For my limitation I decided to use a different method of painting, instead of using a paintbrush, I decided to use dandelions. To be honest, I have no idea how I got that idea, it just came to me, but anyways I loved the idea of painting with dandelions. I hate paint brushes you have to wash them and then dry them, as well, I feel like it is harder to paint with a paint brush. I chose the dandelion because it is going to die anyways, (faster than most flowers), so might as well let it show it's beauty one last time. I ran into a few nerve racking problems with this project, first I had to make brown and that was so hard. After a few dozen flowers later I finally got the perfect sandy brown, then I had to find a way to blend the colors of the ocean and the sky so they won't clash together to badly. Then there is the fact that once I used one flower to mix one color I couldn't wash it off and use it again, I had to ration the flowers I used per day. The end result is below, it turned out pretty well, but I knew that something was missing.
It didn't look like a beach, at least not a realistic beach, the horizon was not straight and the ocean was to calm, one thing I admire about the ocean is the rage that it gives off. Also the colors for the ocean were to blue for a ocean, I had to do more but I didn't know what it was. So I got some advice as well and annoying voice saying "I smell fear," every time I was afraid to just art, and it was true, I didn't want to mess it up. In the end I fixed the problems, by adding more colors into the ocean and of course making the horizon straight. The biggest problem I had out of this project was afraid of messing up or making things worse than they already were.
When I did the first limitation I just threw it together, threw it over a tree and called it a day, this one I had to give more thought and do it more carefully. In the end I learned how to face the problems head on instead of giving up, I could very well see myself doing another limitation project again if I had the choice.