Fresh from collage at age 18, I decided to continue my studies at NMIT and pursue my interests of art and design. I’ve only been here for 2 weeks, and I already really enjoy my classes, although they are very full on!
Growing up, I always enjoyed drawing on paper, but I was never confident or happy with how it turned out. I loved wanting to make something, but could never understand how to make it look ‘right‘.
One day during the start of college, I was inspired to try and draw a cat. Instead of how I would normally try to draw something, from imagination, I actually considered how someone else I looked up to would draw it. Keeping their style in mind, I ended up with something I was extremely proud of. It looked similar in a cartoon style, but I could tell it was still uniquely my own. This was the moment I realised that hey, I can actually draw something and it’s not too shabby!
I knew it still wasn’t the best but for me the drawing of the cat was a huge leap. From here, I really started to understand art and continued to have the moments of realisation throughout the years and are still having them today.
I started to draw more often, and eventually during my senior years ended up drawing on hundreds of pieces of scrap paper that I collected, and getting multiple tiny note books that would only live in my pencil case for doodles during class. Occasionally, I look back at these and realise how far I’ve come, even though sometimes it feels like I’m still going backwards.
During college, I took Level 1 Painting, Level 2 Design, Level 3 Painting and Level 3 Design. When deciding subjects for Year 13, I was extremely upset when my favourite class Digital Technology Medias would be canceled due to not enough students choosing it. I was distraught, and ended up replacing it with Painting. Although I’m still sad to think I never got to do Level 3 DTM, I’m also thankful for the opportunity it gave me to take Painting, where I learnt to better my skills in art.
Today I still love drawing, painting, and recently became passionate about taking photos. It’s also quite interesting when random ideas pop into my head, telling me to try this or do that.
From this course, I want to build my foundations as a creative person. I want to better my techniques and thinking abilities when it comes to art and design so I can more practically engage in these activities for my future.
I’m yet to discover my full creative voice and path in life. I’m still trying out different things to find which will work best for me, and I hope this course can help with that. I really like doing different creative activities and exploring the different realms of art and design. Sometimes it can feel intimidating knowing that others know exactly what skills they have, exactly what they like to make, and exactly where they’re going to go and what they’re going to do. For me, I’m still testing the waters in different coloured puddles around the city.
In my future, I want to be able to use this course and arts and design in my career. Again, I am not sure yet where this will take me but I’m excited to find out. So far, I think photography is looking promising as I find it enjoyable and a more practical style of art for my future.
Maybe this blog will also help me to understand where I’m going with arts and design, as it seems very self directed unlike class essays where you have to write in a certain way and research specific things.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to where this year takes me and the new techniques I’ll learn! 🙂