"What is Art?"
To me, Art is something creative that an artist creates and also uses their imagination. For example, someone might like to paint to draw, these are both examples of Art. Art can also be music poetry or even dance. I think that Art can be considered anything that expresses the artists thoughts and emotions. Personally I like to express Art through drawing and painting.
This picture is one of my projects I made in Art class. It is an example of Art, and is a simple piece. I like this one because it is simple and clean looking.
"List some reasons that an artist would need to use observation when making artwork."
When people are making Art, it is often hard to come up with an idea. Personally I always have a hard time coming up with ideas for my own Art work. Artists need to make observations so they can get some ideas for their own pieces, and put their own spin on them. Also they might really like a piece and would want to recreate it. Those are the reasons why artists would make observations.
This is a picture of one of my art projects. It is a cross between a girl and a tiger. For this project I had to look at a picture for inspiration, but overall the outcome was pretty good.
"Is copying always plagiarism or is there a gray area?"
I think that if you take someone's Art piece and you say that it's yours, I don't think that's right, and I would consider that plagiarism. But many artists will try to recreate a work of art, which I think is perfectly fine. As long as the person makes the Art work their own, it is totally fine. An example of this is when people recreate the famous painting "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh. This is fine because they make it their own, and make it different than the original.
This is a picture I drew of a girl holding a Polaroid. For this project I recreated someone's artwork, but made it my own. For example, the original was colored with colored pencils, but for mine I decided just to draw it with pencil.
"What is artistic style?"
Artist style is something that is consistent in an artist's work. Style is a characteristic or characteristics that can be used to describe a painting. For example, someone might use a lot of dark colors in their artwork, or might use different textures. This would be displayed in their artwork, and would be easy to point out.
This is a picture of one of my projects I did. Our job was to make an Art piece that displayed the Style of the Impressionism movent. During this time, Art consisted of pictures where you paint dots or lines that in the end blended together to make a picture. My painting displays this movement well because I used dots and lines to create my picture.