The First Days of a New Life

photo coming soon....

End of Term 1 Reflection.

I think some of the elements of art class are to go beyond your comfort level and just be you and have fun with what your doing. We make all different kinds of art and different pieces that create a bigger picture in the end. Like drop everything and draw. We draw different objects every week but we are always using the same elements and thinking the same way.
I feel like this term has been really fun and a great learning experience for me. I really enjoyed learning new ways to make my art look better and ways to make things I never even thought of.  I think I learned the most from drop everything and draw. I don't really like just standing there on Tuesdays and drawing but I think I learned the most from it in terms of making objects look real. I can make them look like they are in front or behind or darker or lighter. I can make objects look different from each other even though they have the same shape a size and are almost identical by color and material I use. I think I have grown by learning how to use different materials in all of my art work and not just using a pencil or marker. Like using oil pastels or cutting paper in to collages to make the same picture but in a different way.
I think I have been able to let myself go and think outside of the box on each of our projects and my biggest success so far has been the oil pastel that I did at the beginning of the term. I learned so much about how to use that certain material and used it to my full advantage. I really really like the picture I did and my parents want me to take it home so they can frame it! My biggest challenge I think has been some of the drop everything and draw pictures we were drawing and the found object sculpture. The drawings have been hard because I don't feel like I am the best drawer and so I kinda gave up sometimes and the found object sculpture was hard because I didn't really like my ending product and it didn't really come out how I wanted.
I think I still need to work on drawing and not getting frustrated with myself and also just keep thinking outside of the box and being creative. Other wise I really enjoyed art this term and thank you for your help with everything and I cant wait for the spring to come!
P.S. Make sure Emily is going to be helping out and teaching MY class because I really want to do stuff with pictures and photo shop like she does.

What money can do and cant: Glass Half Full

 The concept of my work was to show the good and bad of having a lot of money. I talked to Emily for a while because I was kinda stuck on an idea of what to do and we were talking about being hurt and then how much it costs for surgery if needed. And then we got on to the subject of money and how it can be really good and buy you a lot of things but the bad side where money cant buy you happiness.  I had a little bit of trouble making the man that was sitting on the bench and making him proportional to everything else in the picture. Its easy to draw objects in parts and then add them together so that they look like they are all attached. I didn't get much feedback from anyone really. I mean I talked to Ms. Roberts but she only helped me with drawing the man.

Chair With Coat

I felt like today's still life was harder. I had to be more precises and there was a specific way to draw the chair with the coat over it. I thought that it was harder also because there was less in the still life itself. More detailed but less objects. I dont think I used any of the skills I learned in the past couple of weeks. I got really tense and wanted to draw everything perfect. Once I got to the coat I used the fabric as help and was more flowy but other than that I didnt use any skills that I have.

Fabric Drawings.

Today's drawing was hard. I thought that it was harder than the other ones that we have done. It felt really hard to get the fabric right and to make it have curves and the way that it folded I couldnt get it right. I dont really like how my drawing came out in the end for many reasons but mostly because I cant get the fold or crease or anything right. It was really different from last week because the sticks each had a specific shape but if you didnt get it perfect and drew a thick line with a little round tip it still looked like a stick.

Principles of Design Research

Frida Self-Portrait on the Border between Mexico and the United States".  In this picture the artist used many Principles of Design in many different ways and had so much detail in every inch of the picture.
This artist used asymmetry for balance. For example, she has America on one side and Mexico on the other, which are very different. She used Placement and Contrast for Emphasizes because the woman is very big so you notice her but there is so much detail in the picture that you notice everything in the back of her as well. Repetition and leading lines for Rhythm and Movement. I think this because there are lots of lines and shapes that lead you to another shape or another line which then leads you to another place. So it just all adds up. And lastly, the woman is big and the buildings are small so it shows distance, which is proportion. 

Found Object Sculpture Reflection Discussions.

Mine:

• Change eyes from acorns to googaaly eyes
• Put the ears on hinges so that they flap
• Put felt or fluffy stiff all over the elephant so that it makes is more 3D

Liza and Sydneys Camara:

• Shinny
• Flash
• Really nice
• Lots of glue

Pile of sticks

Today was ok. I kind of just drew up a bunch of lines and then tried to make sticks out of them. And as I was going I added more lines and erased some that didn't go anywhere. I didnt feel great about the drawing just because I thought nothing really looked like sticks and it just looked like a bunch of lines even at the end. I think the outside sticks that were by themselves looked really good because they had the most detail.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection

Name: Elephant Man


Liza took apart an answering machine during class and I saw a old telephone that I thought looked like a trunk. The answering machine was shaped as an elephants head and so I got my idea from those two peices. I really enjoyed making my object by I got frustrated because I felt like it didnt look like an elephant for most of the time until it was all the way done. I discovered that you have to wait till your completely done to see your finale good results and almost all the time the way you want it to look it will but you have to be patience and work.

Mid-Term Reflection

I always go to my work ready to start something new or continue on whats already there with a good attitude and to do hard work. I do get frustrated sometime but I usually just call Ms. Robberts over and ask for help. I am always ready to work and I think that I have an open mind all the time so Im open to all the work that is put in front of me. I am really happy and excited about the work I have done so far in class. My favoriet piece that I have made so far is the one of the pond with the reflections on the water. It is all out of pastel and I really liked working with that type of crayon. I think it came out better than I had imagined because I thought it was going to be a big mess of colors but it actually turned out really well and I like it a lot. I think I have done really good on the projects that we have had. I always try my hardest to get them to perfection and I think I have done that with all my projects so far. The work I have done outside of the class room has also been really cool. I am trying to be creative and work with different materials and make different pictures. My favoiret is one that I just made and its just little pieces of paper from magazines but they are all different shades of colors and I put them together as a collage and by color/shade. The drop everything and draw Tuesdays have been up and down for me. I have gotten frustrated most of the time because I dont feel like my looks right or i dont get to finish or just something goes wrong. But I am getting through it and I think I have gotten better since day 2 of Tuesday drawing. 

The Changing Still Life

I didn't really like today's activity because everything kept changing and I was getting frustrated with myself and my drawing. I think to accomplish this project you have to keep your drawing light and simple. You cant try to do all the detail and make everything perfect which I did and didn't work out well in the end. Looking back on it I would move faster also becauae Ms. Roberts would add something and I would take my time and then she would add something else and I would still be in the other object so I then had to rush on to the next one and then the next one.

Im Done, What Do I Do

I think that this project is some of my best work. I really like the Idea I came up with and how I organized and did my final piece. I did and met all the parameters of this project and finished kinda early. I took my time though and make a good connection between 2 really different object/things in the world. My class mates said a lot of good things about my project and they really liked it. They liked all the colors and the contrast that I had in it, between the nature and the city.

Nature Vs. City
The concept of y project was to capture nature at its closest basically. I took a bunch of cut outs of objects in nature really close up and then on top i put a city. It is opposites from close and far away. I didn't really struggle while making the project because it was easy to find pictures the hardest part was at the very begging when I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do and how I wanted everything to be laid out. I think collage and colors were the most successful parts of my art piece.

Feedback on Collage Project

• Put a big picture right in the middle over the other pictures
• anti-nature-city
• liked it and liked the shape
• big picture be black maybe??

three forms drawing

Today while I was drawing I learned that you can do a lot more with just white and black than most people think you can. You can make different shades and colors and can make something look realistic with out a bright color. While I was drawing I felt good about it. I thought that I made the shades and object shapes very well. The hardest part was the pine cone. I was making small round/long shapes and trying to make the bottom black and the top more whitish black but it didn't look like a pine cone to me. I thought that my picture was very successful in the end though and I thought I did a good job.

Extending our findings from The Pour Paintings.

My Idea is to make a close up of a pond. There was a lot of different shades of blue and green in my pour painting so that reminded me of a pond with trees and shrubs all around it. The feed back I got back from my class mates was that I should make a sky and a sun. Liza told me ideas on how to make the sun and make it reflecting and make sun beams down on the trees and flowers. They also really liked my willow tree!! (Thanks to Ms. Roberts)

Pour Paintings

It felt good to let the paint and paper do the work. I thought it was really neat to see how the shapes and lines formed on a big white piece of paper. I was surprised by how the colors mixed together and formed like a puddle of mixed colors and not just a puddle of brown or black. Most of the colors stayed separate. When I came back to my pour the colors had gotten darker and lighter and most of the puddles had diapered in to blobs or just mixes. So what I saw in the pour at first was the opposite at the end when it was dry. I am just drawing small things all over the painting and there is no story or idea in my head that I have right now.

Collaborative Drawings

I enjoyed working with only black and white colors today because it gave me a challenge because I always draw with colors. I think that having some one else draw on my drawing was a little wired. I havent really ever had a teacher tell me to go over to someones paper and draw on it. So for me if was kinda scary having someone draw on my paper and me having to draw on someone elses. When I returned to my drawing I didnt really see much of a difference except a white heart and waves. I liked the waves but didnt really get what the white heart was for. It was fine though and I didnt mind any of it.

Talk and Draw

What was challenging about this experience? What would you do differently if you had to do this activity again?
The most challenging thing about this experience was that when you were the talker you couldn't say what the object was. You had to say multiple different shapes and try to say like which way they were connected and where exactly they were on the page. I think the most challenging thing to do when you were the drawer was not look behind you. I always wanted to look behind me because my partner would say like a triangle on top of a circle and I was like What?? But I didnt! I think if I had to do this activity again I would try to move stuff a long faster and not say o thats not right or that doesnt look right erase it.

Pours: the potential of "accidents"

I really like the process in which we mixed paint and water together to make like water colors but not really. Once you poured your paint out it was out and you just had to use what you did and make the best of it. If felt kinda weird to just make lines or create a big blob of colors and have a teacher say wow that is great! But it also felt good and really cool to see the shapes and the way the paint moved on the paper. There really were no surprises. I mean other than the fact that our colors always looked and came out really well there was nothing that surprised me.

Thinking About the Artist

Anyone is an Artist. Anyone who wants to be can be an artist. To be creative means to do what you like and like what you do. It also means to think outside the box and to be stylish and unique.. I think for an artist to be creative and productive you have to find what you like best and then do it all the time. They have to come up with new ideas or see something that strikes an idea and then make your own.

Reflecting on blocks, play dough, and finger paint

Today when I heard what we were going to do I got really excited! There are not many times when people say just be a kid and have fun so I really took this time to just have fun a be a kid again. When I first touched the materials the first thing I grabbed was the play dough. I used to love to play with play dough and pretend I was   chef and cook all these little dishes for my mom and my little brother. But this time I just rolled the play dough around and made it in to different shapes and then moved on to the painting. I painted for most of the class period. I mixed colors together and when I got a cool color I just threw my hands in to it. I made about 3 hand prints and then just put the colors on the paper and swished my hands around in circles to make a big blob of yellow with red dots. I also threw in a lot of blue finger prints all around the paper. I really didn't know what to do with the materials I had so I just started going with nothing on my mind except to get my hands dirty. I felt really good with the materials I was using today I felt like nothing really mattered. Like no one was grading me on how i finger painted so I just went in a did it.

Reflecting on Picasso Quote

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." -Pablo Picasso

I think Pablo Picasso meant many different thing when he said this. I think one major thing he meant was that when we are young and a child they have big imaginations and draw anything the teacher says. But when you grow up you don't have a teacher anymore so you don't know what to draw. I think he also meant that it is easier to be a kid and want to be an artist then it is to be an adult and an artist. It is harder to be an adult because you have to make a living off of your painting and drawing and you have to worry about what your going to make and if people will like it and ever buy it.