What did you learn about your subject? Skill set? Yourself?

This capstone project was very stressful itself and it rushed me to finish my project. As I
was doing my project, I was stressed and felt a lot of pressure. I rushed through my projects to
hurry up the process because the due date was getting closer and closer than ever. I learned
that if we want to make something perfect, we should not rush into it, otherwise we’re bound
to make mistakes. I made countless mistakes and learned so many new things about glass
painting that I never knew before. I learned that I get stressed very easily, and it prevents me
from taking care of myself. Due to stress, I didn’t get much sleep, overthinking and had
countless headaches but I managed to finish my project and I’m satisfied. I learned throughout
my painting journey; it is not recommended to rush through your paintings. Rushing through
the painting, made me make countless mistakes. One of them being is painting too hard and
the tiny black outline shades or gets distorted, I got the wrong paint brushes and I had to go
buy new ones and I didn’t have the correct colours so I had to improvise and try to mix colours
to match. My skill sets were having the responsibility to complete my project, adaptability
because I was new to glass painting and I had to adapt to the new environment and creativity
because I had to come up with plans on how to fix my errors or brainstorm what I’m going to
do. I was able to work under a lot of pressure and it did give me a lot of stress, but it gave me
the motivation and determination to complete my project even though I was not doing so well
with my overall health.

How is your project relevant to you?

This project was relevant to me because it helped me finish my artwork. I do draw and
paint a lot but most of the times, I don’t finish it due to the lack of motivation and laziness. The
capstone made me excited to see the end result of my painting and I was looking forward to
seeing it become a beautiful art piece. I’ll display one of my paintings in my room and when I
look at it, it makes me feel proud of myself that I was able to do that. I was able to create
something so beautiful and under a lot of pressure. It turned out beautiful and that’s something
I’m proud of.

How did you demonstrate the six Core Competencies through the project?
I demonstrated self-determination because I was personally responsible for finishing my
project and can express my needs and help when needed. I asked the teacher for help when I
was confused about something or just needed reassurance on an assignment or about the
capstone. Self-regulation because I can set goals, regulate my emotions and persevere in
difficult situations. I told myself I wanted to finish my art project even if my teacher told
everybody that we don’t have to finish our project, what matters is the journey and growth. I
still decided that I wanted to finish painting because it’s something that I’m passionate about. I
was in a lot of stress and pressure, so I pushed through my struggles to finish my project and
my health is probably not in a good condition due to stress, but I pulled through because I was
determined to finish it in time. Develop and design because I can explore and create new ways
to represent my learning around a variety of problems, events, issues and needs. It was my
first-time painting on glass, so I explored a variety of ways to create my project. Developing
ideas because I can persevere and understand that failure can be productive. I made countless
mistakes on my project, but I managed to push through my mistakes, acknowledged that every
artist makes mistakes and it’s something that I can’t control. Personal values and choices
because I understand how what I value has and will shape my choices. I valued my project and I
wanted to see the final product so because of that, it helped motivate me and it also shaped my
choices on how to make the product better and fix my mistakes.

What impact did your capstone have?

The capstone project took a toll on me with stress and pressure. It was painful because
we only had a couple of weeks to do it when this project is a yearlong project. It impacted my
overall health, I had trouble sleeping, had headaches, overthink but the project itself is very
rewarding. The journey it took me was stressful, but it was also worthwhile. The capstone
project impacted me as an artist which is the journey that makes art fun and worthwhile. I
forgot that art is fun during the process and it’s not all about the finishing art and the finished
product.

Thinking about the whole process and your finished product, what are you most proud
of?
What I enjoyed about the project was that I could work on something that I’m
passionate about and have experience in but also learned something new. What I’m proud of
the most was that I was able to pull through all the stress and pressure to finish my product. I
saw people doing this type of glass painting on social media and it inspired me and made me
want to try. I never tried it due to laziness and I had no art motivation, but this gave me an
excuse to do something I really want to try, and I did it. I learned through videos and I did it on
my own with no help and that’s what I’m proud of.

What was a difficulty you encountered and how did you solve the problem?
I encountered numerous of difficulties and mistakes. One of them being is that I didn’t
have a black marker that is meant for glass. All my markers were not meant for glass and was
easily wiped off. I decided to paint it instead. I decided to trace the characters with a small
paintbrush and black paint. It was effective but I didn’t have the correct paintbrush. All my
paintbrushes were too big for making a small black line. Everything was going well until I finally
started painting. The paint would look transparent and wasn’t dark enough. I concluded that I
would have to paint over the small lines over and over until it’s dark enough for it not to be see
through. I constantly make mistakes with the lines because they’re so small and I must be
precise. I would sometimes go over the line by accident and I found that using a cardboard
cutter to be effective for fixing small mistakes. I would scrape the area and the paint would
come off easily, but it left pieces of paint everywhere, so I used a Q-Tip to clean the area. The
lines were so fragile that when I painted over them, sometimes they would smudge or
disappear. I can’t go back in time and fix it because it’s glass and I already painted over it, so I
had to leave it. I decided to prevent that from happening, I would carefully paint over the lines
that are fragile and leave it to dry. After it finished drying, I would go over the paint normally, so
it doesn’t smudge. I didn’t have the colours that are needed for the characters, so I decided to
use what I had and mix different colours to create a similar colour according to the character.
The downside is, once I got the colour correct, it would run out of paint and I would have to
start over and mix a bunch of colours. The thing is, it’s hard to mix colours to get the exact
colour you just made so there’s a little bit of a colour difference on one of them. I only have one
palette where you put your paint and mix. When I was dipping in some paint, I would
accidentally touch another paint that’s fresh and accidentally painted it on the painting. I tried
fixing it by covering it with the original paint as much as possible and mix the two colours
together.

What is one thing about your finished project you wish you could change? Why?
I wish I could’ve been more careful and patient with my project but instead I rushed
through everything and I tried to be as fast as possible, but I ended up making mistakes along
the way. It turned out great, but I think I was stressing over it way too much than I should be. It
took a toll on my overall health and I should’ve taken more care about my health rather than
just completing the assignment no matter what. I was thinking about my project constantly on
how and when to do my project that I forgot that there’s also more important things other than
the project which is myself.

What advice would you give to a student who will be completing their Capstone
project next year?
Time is precious and you shouldn’t waste your time. Yes, you may have a couple of
weeks or a year maybe but every minute, every hour counts. The sooner you work on it, the
less stress you’ll get. It may be a lot of work and pressure but if you just think about doing your
capstone project and enjoying it then there’s not a lot of pressure or stress. If there’s
something that you don’t understand, immediately ask instead of waiting it for later because
that’ll just add more to your work and cause you stress because you’re not using your time
wisely.

What source from your research helped you the most? (or least?)
I watched a lot of TikTok videos on people making the same thing and honestly that
helped me the most because I can see their process even though it’s only a 15 second video.
Although they seemed like it was easy and there were no mistakes involved, it was difficult, and
I kept making mistakes. Sometimes you can’t trust the internet if it’s too good to be true. The
least was when we had to do research for our project, and I learned nothing from them. The
things I’ve researched was the things I already knew and discovered a long time ago. The
research didn't help me at all for my project.

What is one thing about your approach to your project that you wish you could
change? Why?
When I took on this painting challenge, I thought to myself, “this is going to be easy!”
Oh, how I was wrong. I had so much confidence in myself and all the video’s I’ve seen made it
look so easy. The painting was so time-consuming and needed patience, motivation,
consistency and brainstorming. I shouldn’t have judged a book by its cover, thinking it was
super easy, but it turned out to be difficult in the end. One thing I wish I could’ve changed was
the number of paintings I was doing. I took on the challenge and decided to do 5 paintings
because I thought it was fast, easy and pretty. I never painted on glass before, so it was my first
time. As a beginner, I should’ve started out small and when I was confident enough and more
experienced, I could’ve added more.