Me and My Sister - The day my life changed

End of term 1 reflection

Art Principles this term has been great. I have learned so many new things from the principles of design, to drawing still lives. At the beginning of the term I did not think I was artistic or creative at all, but now I realize that I really love art and want to keep going with it through out high school. The one thing I will take with me is to just relax when working on art, I do not need to be so stressed out and tight. When I just relax my work comes out a lot better. I learned to relax while drawing the still lives. When I first started drawing all the different objects I would just be so stressed out about them and over think the object too much. I learned to look more at the object than my paper. Another thing I learned while drawing still lives is the shading and contrast between making something have flow and making something look straight. The objects that helped me with that was drawing a pile of sticks and drawing different cloths hanging from the ceiling. Everything I did this term surprised me, I never thought I could be good at art, and to see my finishing touches on some of my work was crazy. I really loved how my pour painting came out and the camera I made with Liza. The poor painting project was really fun because I really got to look into my own painting and decide what images were in it. The first thing I saw in it was a skull, so I just went with it. My finishing work on it was great, it really looks like a skull and I love it! Making the camera with Liza was one of my favorite projects this term. It was so fun finding all different random objects to use and making them into something. The end product is so cool, it looks so realistic and is so detailed. Looking ahead to the next term I would really love to get better at my drawing still life objects because I love doing that. Art this term was so amazing and I can not wait for the spring,

Chair With Coat.

Today in class we had to draw a chair with a coat on it. It looked very easy when I first looked at it, but actually it is very difficult. Most of the time my hand was very tense and I kept think in my mind chair, chair, chair or coat, coat, coat. This activity was different than the other because you needed to make straight lines and loose lines. It was like the fabric and the sticks drawing combined. I tried to look a lot at the object more than my paper and really thought which lines go were and were it should flow or straight.

Summer and School

The concept of my drawings is the good and bad aspects of coming back to school. First I drew a girl sitting at a desk in all black, grey, and white. My second picture is of the same girl sitting in a hammock with two palm trees next to her. The drawing has very bright colors in it. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to draw about, but once I figured out my topic the whole drawing just came to me. Drawing these two picture made me realize how hard it is to draw a person. In the drawings I found contrast between the two drawings and proportions in each drawing. I really like the back to school picture the most because it just describes what the picture is trying to say. I love how the desk is overpowering her.

Fabric Drawings.

Today in class we drew a sculpture of fabric. It went okay, I kept erasing my drawings and starting over. It was very hard getting the shape for me and making it flow. It took me a while to really get used to drawing the fabric. I think my end result turned out to be good, a lot better than I thought. This drawing was a lot harder than drawing the sticks because you needed to use movement in it and a lot more shading.

Principles of Design Research

The work of art I looked at today was a self portrait on the Border between mexico and the United states by Frida Kahlo. The artist's use of The Principles of Design supports the story because Frida Kahlo is trying to describe the difference between America and Mexico. She uses contrast very well because she made the doll very light and everything else very dark. The painting looked as if it was split in two with an invisible line. She tried to explain different situation or cultures in the picture. For example the American flag with smoke around it resembled how America is so polluted from Industrialization.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection Discussions.

• beautiful
• flash
• shiny
• The Flash caught my eyes
• The lens and button makes it obvious 
• the glue is shown too much 

The other person in our group was maddie and she made an elephant head. I really loved it because she used random objects that really worked together.

pile of sticks.

I thought this activity went really well. In the beginning I was really nervous and I did not even know were to start, but when Ms. Roberts said to calm down I just took a deep breath and started to draw what I see. After I just did the bases of the shape I started to be more detailed and that is when it came to life. I tried to put a lot of detail in the middle of it and used many different shades of pencils. It felt so cool drawing this because every detail you put in on the sticks it makes it look more and more realistic. I really loved the outcome of my project, I think it is great and am really happy with it.

Found Object Sculpture Reflection.

 FLASH- By Sydney Gad and Liza Howard

This was definitely my favorite project so far. It was so much fun working with liza, we worked very well together. We had to think a lot to figure out what pieces work together and what to use to build the camera. We did not know what to do for the flash but after some thinking we decided to make it stand out a lot so we cut out a lot of silver fabric and gems. The hardest thing to do was get out the lens from my other camera to put on this one. It took me almost two classes to get it out. I now know how to successfully smash a camera apart. I love how their is a picture of Liza and I on the screen, I think it really pulls it all together and makes it unique. 

Mid-term Reflection

I love art class so much, it is definitely my favorite class this term. I think my art skills have improved so much just in the last two months of school. I think my engagement in class is very good, I usually ask questions if I have any and I pay attention in class. I always hand in my sketchbook on time and the blog posts. I am pretty happy with all the art work I have done so far. The one that got me thinking a lot and got me frustrated was the Found Images Collage. I changed my mind a lot on that project, but the end result was great. My favorite project I have done so far are either the pour paintings or the sculpture. Drawing in the sketchbook is really fun for me. It gives me a time to just put anything I want on the paper and be as creative as I want to be. I think I could take more time in the sketchbooks though and put even more effort in it. Every Tuesday we do Drop Everything and Draw and I have to admit it is not my favorite day, but it has definitely helped me so much over the past two months in school. Drawing those random objects taught me that everything does not need to be perfect and I should not stress about the drawing so much. I am very excited to do more projects in art and expand my creativity more.

Found images collage reflection

The title for my artwork is "Eye Spy". My art work is a big eye shaped piece of paper and an eye that I put together with all different color papers. Around the blue eye I made are all different sizes of eyes I cut out from magazines. The process of this project was very difficult. I kept changing my idea. At first I had the eye in the middle of a square piece of paper with pink and purple flowers around. Then I added different shapes and sizes of crystals. Then I decided to add eyes. When I came back the next day I decided I HATED what I just did, so I started over. I love how my artwork came out in the end because even though it took forever to add those small eyes I think it is really cool to look at and it is a very interesting design. I love my big eye in the middle because I am just shocked I could do something like that. I took all different colors of blue from magazines and put them together so they made the eye color and all went together. Then I took a picture of snow from a magazine and put at the edges of the blue and put a black circle for the pupal.  During this project I discovered that I change my mind a lot!

changing still life

The activity we just did was very interesting. Looking back on it, I am laughing because I kept adding and erasing things. If I did this again I would make the box bigger, so it covered the whole page. I would also not color things in so darkly like I did. I also would not stress so much about it and just have fun with it. I also would not worry about making everything perfect because that was not the point of the activity. Even though this project was stressful and hard, I liked it because I really learned a lot.

Feedback on collage project

• It is really cool
• maybe put a crystal on the pupal 
• put eyelashes 
• They like all the different colors of blue in the eye 
• I was really happy with this feedback because it gave me more ideas

three forms drawing

I liked this activity. I thought it was difficult but it brought me out of my comfort zone and made me try something new. For some reason it was hard for me to draw the cup and the block, but I had no problem drawing the pine cone. I was so surprised when I saw the result of my drawing of the pine cone, I didn't think I did it. I never thought I had it in me to draw that. From this activity I learned that I am way better at observation drawing than I thought I was, and I should never doubt myself before I even start something. Drawing the cup and block was hard for me because I didn't really know were to draw different lines and were to shade it dark or light. Also I kept trying to make it perfect and that was not what we were supposed to do. When I started drawing the pine cone I just eased up a lot and tried not to care if it was perfect, I just drew what I saw and it turned out really good.

Extending our findings from The Pour Paintings.

My pour painting turned out to be a skeleton. I couldn't think of anything that relates to a skeleton to draw so I used the colors in the pour painting to make a new piece of art. I painted red, silver, and white stars with a black back round. One really good feedback I got was that I should put small little stars over the black so it can pop out more. I really liked that idea because it would bring a lot more to my painting and make it stand out.

Pour Paintings

I thought the Pour Painting activity was so much fun. I liked how we did not know what the painting were going to turn out like, and we just let the paint go wherever. At first when you finished it just looked like a giant blob but when it started to dry I could see different shapes and images in the painting. The picture I picked to go further with was the one that I thought looked like a skeleton. I started going over the shape with oil pastels and made it a lot more detailed. Now My painting is a skeleton head with a sword going through it. It has a big mouth with many teeth and black eyes. The colors I used in this painting are black, white, and grey.

Collaborative Drawings

I really like doing the black and white drawings but when I found out people were going to draw on it I got a little scared what they were going to do. It was a little nerve racking having someone else draw on my painting but I got used to it. When I returned to my drawing I was like oh my god what happened because I thought it was so good when I left it and when other people started to draw on it they kind of messed up my vision of the drawing. It wasnt such a big deal because I was able to fix it but I don't know if I liked that activity so much.

Talk and Draw

I really liked this activity today, I thought it was really fun. It was definitely hard having to describe the different shapes and having to be so detailed. For example when I was trying to explain to my partner how to draw this 3D triangle block she did not know what I was talking about and that at the end it was an ice cream cone. The most challenging part was not being able to tell my partner what object to draw and when I was drawing I always had the urge to look behind me. If I did this activity again I would probably try to be more detailed in how I describe the objects.

Thinking about the Artist

I think it is hard to categorize an artist. I don't think you can put an artist in one category because art is everywhere. Being creative means doing something that makes you stand out from the rest. For an artist to be productive or creative he/she needs to do something different and out of the ordinary. Art should have some sort of your own personality in it to make it different, because each individual is different in their own way.

Reflecting on blocks, play dough, and finger paint.

I really liked today's class, I thought it was really fun. I started with finger painting and I thought it was so cool to just do whatever you want and just act like a little kid. While I was finger painting I felt free and so relaxed. I liked how we had no boundaries, were nothing was wrong. I felt like I was in preschool again in art class. After the finger painting I started playing around with the play dough. It brought back memories of how I used to play with play dough when I was little and make pretend food.

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 means every child is creative in their own way, but as people grow up and become grownups their creativity can change. When you are a child you want to explore and your imagination is so big. One day you might want to be a pirate or one day you might want to be a princess. As you grow older and become an adult you become wiser and have other ambitions than becoming a pirate or princess.