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Kashia Moua
March 10, 2016
Art 135
Amber Ward
Written Reflection: The Souvenir
The Souvenir is a studio project that is intended to inspire the artist to be attentive to their
own thinking and as they engage in the act of drawing. The key concepts of this project are
inspired by celebration which can be defined as the act of showing pleasure at a significant event
by doing an enjoyable activity. Some attributes that can be assigned to the concept of celebration
are that it highlights personal, social, and cultural events, milestones, and experiences in peoples
lives; it communicates identity and relationships; it conveys personal, social, and cultural
meanings; it reveals what people value; and it is communicated through many art forms.
For our Art 135 class, the subject of our Parade project was our self. Essential questions
such as what kinds of personal, social, and cultural events and milestones do people celebrate?,
how do celebrations communicate identity and relationships?, what kinds of personal, social,
and cultural meanings are communicated through celebrations?, how do celebrations reveal
values held by individuals and/or groups?, and how have artists expressed celebration in their
art? prompted us to think about how celebrations reflect the celebrator, their life, and their
experiences. We also read from Michael Birds (2012) 100 Ideas that Changed Art and John
Parks (2015) Universal principles of art: 100 key concepts for understanding, analyzing, and
practicing art to learn some concepts and principles that could be applied to the project. From
Bird, we learned about portrait, anatomy, and still life. From Parks we learned about area of

competence, boundaries, drawing language, and quoting. These concepts and principles all have
the common theme of making meaning through art by drawing to convey likeliness using
models, imagination, experiences, and other artwork.
Before we were introduced to the project, we were given limited information on it. All we
knew about this project was that it was titled The Parade and that the readings about portrait,
anatomy, and still life were relevant ideas to the project. Just from this information, I inferred
that we may be making art that is subjective since portraits and still life are supposed to resemble
real things. I could not see how Parks principles were relevant but I did not know what the
project would have us do so I kept my mind open. On the day that we started, the professor
hinted that we could find some clues about the project if we looked at the materials that were set
out. There were pencils, pens, markers, paints, and colored pencils as well as various articles of
clothing and plastic accessories. I deduced from this that the project may have us dress in funky
costumes and then draw or paint each other. It turned out I was not far off; the clothing was
intended for us to wear but temporarily as we paraded as a class out in the hall and through the
art department building. This garnered a mixed reaction from the class which was a mix of
enthusiasm and embarrassment but the entire class participated even if some were reluctant. The
professor instructed us to pay attention to how we marched in the parade and how our peers
looked marching with us and be mindful of the costumes and expressions. I ended up getting
absorbed in my own march so I did not pay attention to my peers. I would have liked to see what
some of my more enthusiastic peers walked their walk for reference. After we returned to the
classroom, we put away the costumes and returned to our seats to begin creating our project.
The project itself has us draw a parade on multiple sheets of long paper which will
eventually be joined together and read like a scrolling colored illustration. The format for this

project is straightforward and heavily instructed so when we are done with our parades, the entire
class should have similarly formatted illustration scrolls. The subjects of the parade would be
given to us in the form of verbal and written prompts which were projected on the screen and
read to us by the professor. We were not given instructions to look at but we were given a list of
drawing strategies that would be used to draw each subject of the parade. The strategies listed so
far were: draw from memory, draw from pre-visualization, draw verbal to visual, and draw visual
to visual. The first prompt and subject leading the parade would be our self holding a flag with
our name on it. We had to draw from the memory of us marching just a few minutes ago. The
second prompt was an imaginary creature that we had to visualize in our mind then draw. The
third prompt was to draw three creatures based only on written descriptions which were
projected on a screen. The last prompt we had time for was to draw a creature inspired by
Maurice Sendaks style and using references from his book Where the Wild Things Are. It is
important to note that the professor actually read the book to us rather than just handed us the
book to look at for reference because we needed the narrative of Max and the wild parties he had
with the wild things in order to grasp the meaning behind the monsters jovial movements and
posture which are characteristic of Sendaks unique style. We worked on as much as we could
before studio time ran out but it seems like we will have a few more studio days to work on this.
As a potential art project for high school students, I believe it will be an interesting
project to try with students especially in an introductory art class. Drawing is one of the first
technical skills that art students learn and it will be a project that students may not be intimidated
by as opposed to making a book like our first project. Some of my peers expressed concern about
their lack of drawing skill and were not as enthusiastic about the project as others because of it
and I am sure that this will also be a concern of students in high school. To alleviate this concern,

I may give my class technical lessons on drawing from observation and give them a few
exercises to build their confidence before I give them this project which will require them to
draw over ten characters. I would also provide magazines, photographs, poseable toy figures, and
various other models that they can use as reference for their drawing if they need it. I would also
encourage the class to try modeling for each other if they need references for poses and action
which may help both the models and the artist think about anatomy, posture, and motion.
I also mentioned earlier that the professor kept us in the dark about the project until we
started it. I think this sense of mystery is significant to the process of creating the parade. Not
knowing what the project will require, slowly revealing the subjects of the parade, and changing
the drawing strategy with each subject has the students stop to think frequently which may help
them acknowledge their thinking to creating process which they may not notice when they are so
engrossed in a project that they already have all the information about. I would not change the
way the parade is instructed to the class but I would explain to the students at the beginning why
I am purposefully not giving them all the information at once and prompt them to thinking about
how they think as they make their art. I am excited to see how these parades will look once we
are done and when I teach this project to my own class I am also looking forward to seeing how
my very creative students will interpret the subjects of their own parades.

Bird, M. (2012). 100 Ideas that changed art. London, England: Laurence King.
Parks, J.A. (2015). Universal principles of art: 100 key concepts for understanding, analyzing,
and practicing art. Beverly, MA: Rockport.
Sendak, M., & Sendak, M. (1963). Where the wild things are. New York: Harper & Row.