Molds

For this mini lesson I practiced molding by using the snowflake molds and creating snowflakes of various sizes and shapes. In the long run I was going to use all of these and put them together to create a candle holder for my vessel piece, however this did not work because no matter how much I slipped and scored the snowflakes would not stay together. I was wrapping it around a cylinder to create the roundness of a candle holder but the clay just kept drying too fast and was not staying together to create the pattern and shape I wanted it to. I really liked the molding process because it created such beautiful snowflakes with such precise details and quickly too! I wish my candle holder idea could have worked out because once it had been finished the light patterns that would have shown through the sides would have been so beautiful. I do not have a picture of my actual piece in progress because it kept cracking and breaking so I threw it away :( however, here is a picture of the mold I used to create the snowflakes:

Origami Installation

This full class involved project was quite an enjoyable one! The process of making the cranes were surprisingly difficult at first (i thought i was a master of origami), but the few cranes I created turned out majestic after many trials and errors! I overcame my failures of wrong folds and edits and created my few single cranes and then moved to create a whole flock when putting the rest of the class' cranes together in the front lobby of the school. I learned a lot about origami as well as myself during this project such as learning patience and how origami is not as easy as it looks so it takes time to learn and succeed. The difference between the process and the finish product is that you start out with a piece of paper and fold it into something beautiful. The process takes time and patience and it has taught me to be patient with my artwork. The finished product gives such satisfaction and relief because of how tedious this process of origami is. The process of this specific finished product starts off with one finished crane to create a whole flock when putting everyone's cranes together. Looking at the finished product gives off such a calming and peaceful vibe, which is beautiful because of how much stress school puts on students and seeing that peaceful flock hanging over the front doors and lobby calms students and reminds them of peace and love and may even make everyone's day better. This tedious product created something beautiful and more than words can explain. I am happy that I was party in this finished product because you never know how a simple crane could change ones day.

Inspired Artist

My inspired artist is John Brown. As you can see in the pictures above, Brown creates insects, butterflies, and birds by welding scrap metal into these figures. Although the assemblages are formed from salvaged materials like nails and bicycle chains, the pieces somehow remain delicate, wings appearing just as thin as a butterfly’s own. After this he detail paints the exact patterns as the butterflies have and try's to make his work as realistic as possible with the scraps he has. The Wales-based sculptor has lived in the rural west of his country for the past eight years, inspired by the fauna-rich valleys that compose the region. You can see more of his metal insects and other welded figures on his facebook and etsy page. His work is very inspiring to me because of how unique his ideas are. He is taking something that is trash and making it into something beautiful and that is something that draws me in because instead of adding more trash away from this beautiful planet and making it into something majestic. I tried to find his history but nothing popped up on google so I assume he is a random artist who was appreciated for these specific pieces. This inspires me to take something as simple as a piece of trash to create it into something beautiful. I love his work!

Cup

Creating these hump mold products was a very cool experience. The process of creating this cup included creating a clay slab and wrapping it around a styrofoam cup, then slipping and scoring to make it stay. After this I wanted to add a little texture because the outside of the cup wasn't very even so I took a patterned roller to roll out lines around the cup. As you can see in the pictures my cup cracked in the kiln :( however before it went in I somewhat liked this product (and it was fun breaking). I did not use the underglaze on my piece which may have made a difference in the fact of it breaking in the kiln. My finished product was somewhat successful but I do think I could have taken more time to insure that it wouldn't break in the kiln. I also could have made the walls thicker so that it would have been able to be somewhat useful in either drinking or eating from it or just storing items in it. Overall this was a learning process, as is every art project, and I always enjoy learning from my mistakes! 

Vessel Project

 

     This was my beautiful vessel piece! This clay candle holder was slightly difficult to make, however I overcame many challenges including smoothing the sides to try and keep my piece even and straight, gently carving out the suns and other details on both sides, and carefully painting the pattern onto my piece after it had been fired. The outcome of my goals were mostly successful however I do believe I could have improved on making the sides completely even to create a straight, even piece. In the future I would spend more time on this specific thing as well as taking more time to make the details more percise and not as sloppy. I felt that my color choice was very wise and calming which goes with the candle holder because candles are warm and calming. I felt that my open sun design was very clean as well as in a good spot on my piece. As i stated before, my piece will function as a candle holder where as the candle will sit in tbe middle of it and will be shown through the open details on the sides of my piece. I am overall proud and feel sucessful about my vessel piece and I am excited to bring it home and try it out!

Relief Piece!

This piece was a very long, difficult process that i was glad to be apart of every step of the way. I started off trying to come up with ideas to make a relief piece, and as my teacher was explaining examples of artwork other students have done in the past she came across a project she found on pinterest as well as one she tried herself; multiple square tiles that fit together to create one picture. This got me thinking about designs and other ideas that i enjoyed as well as wanted to try. I started off with making 9 square 4x4 tiles and making sure they all fit together correctly. After this i sat down staring at the clay figuring out how to make relief out of these tiles. I thought of a certain design I have always had interest in and that was mandalas. I researched many differet complex designs and took bits and pieces from each one to create my own mandala design. After completing my madala design in my sketch book, i lightly drew my design on to my 9 clay tiles and made it the correct size. I chose which parts of the mandala would stick out or be carved out. After this i had so much relief and spaces that i thought about adding another material into my piece. I thought about something that was given to me as a present that i absolutely love. This was a glass skull in the picture above. So i decided to add glass to my piece and melt it in the kiln when my piece would be fired. The rest of the open space i painted using glaze, some of which also had broken pieces of glass mixed into the paint to create a different design compared to just a solid color. Overall i believe my piece turned out quite well! However, if i were to work with clay tiles again, i would be 100% sure that my tiles lined up perfectly to make sure the piece fit together. I also would choose my glaze colors a little more carefully, to make sure all of my colors work well together. This project was a very fun learning experience, even if the process did take an extensive amount of time. I love the way it turned out no matter how it looks because i put hard work into this and that is all that matters!

Final Exam Blog!

Oil pastels on canvas

Oil pastels on canvas

I create original art: 

I came up with the idea of creating these pieces when i was sitting in my room on a saturday night all alone. I was sad so i wanted to express it through art! The only materials i had were oil pastels and canvas. So i started smudging colors together to create a beautiful colorful background, then added small trees to the bottom of the canvas. Followed by this piece, i purchased a much larger canvas and did the same thing with brighter colors in class. However, on the larger canvas i wanted to create a one point perspective with the trees on the outside edges making it seem as if you were looking up at the sky. Originally i was trying to make the sky look like the northern lights, but it turned out more unrealistic and colorful than any normal sky. I like to think of it as my visual of life or earth, as so much more beautiful than it portrays itself to be! 

Text Art Project

Digging Deeper~~

Challenges~~

Final Project~

I want to spell out a word with string and nails. Like this but smaller:

Book Carving Project

This project was challenging but a very good learning experience. Coming up with what to carve into a book was difficult, but it made it easier to have categories to narrow it down. I chose the category simplicity. I chose this category because I think simple is beautiful. Coming up with simple things was not as difficult as I thought it would be. I came up with the idea to do a dream catcher. Dream catchers are very peaceful and they make me happy so I decided to do one. This project is very important to have a clear plan before starting because it requires you to plan out your layers and to draw out your design. You must do this before starting or else you will just mess up. I faced many challenges while doing this project such as cutting too far, or accidentally cutting something I didn't mean to. I struggled with using the xacto knife and keeping my lines fluid and steady. I overcame them with practice, and restarting. My design was just a simple dream catcher with a sun in the background and a couple triangles to add a design. I took many risks while doing this project, such as adding triangles at the last minute and gluing a couple pieces that ripped. Overall I think that my project turned out well even if I got a little frustrated with it. Struggling in art is what makes you an artist. Trying is all I can do to succeed!

Mixed Media- cigar box

For my mixed media project I came up with the idea to paste tissue paper on to a cigar box, and then do a collage on top of it. I couldn't come up with any ideas on what to do with the collage so I flipped through magazines and I kept seeing beautiful eyes on all of the models. It made me think about this quote that I liked; "the eyes are the windows to the soul." So I decided to make a sun out of eyes and put the quote in the middle. I showed variety in my piece by using tissue paper and cutting out pictures of magazines. I used different colors to draw attention to the piece along with different sized and shaped eyes. Ive experienced working with mixed media such as collages and other related things. I used to love journaling and collaging, so I have done all sorts of projects related to this project. I used a new technique, however, that I learned from my lovely teacher Mrs.Rossi. This technique is to make magazine photos transparent. If you can tell, the eyes on the outside of the sun, the rays, are transparent. Our lessons on visual journaling played a big part in my project. We practiced pasting the tissue paper into our notebooks, and it helped me get the right technique to do it well on my cigar box. For the most part this project was easy, but I did come across a couple of points that were difficult. For example when i was pasting the eyes down, I had trouble making the sun circular. I also had trouble opening the cigar box a couple times because the glue would make the box stick together. I over came these obstacles and I like the way it turned out. I liked this project and i hope i something similar soon.

Non-traditional Self Portrait~ tic-tac edition

When I heard that the theme was going to be self-portraits, not gonna lie I quivered. Then I heard that we could have partners, so I wasn't as upset. Me and my partner Connor sat there thinking of what we could do for the self-portrait, along with who. We decided to do a dog, and of course Connor insisted on it being his dog. We thought it would be fun if we posterized it on photo-shop and then did it with tic-tacs. We came up with tic-tacs because we wanted something small and round, and Connor came up with it right off the bat. I think that it makes the piece look better because it can be compared to the pixels in the printed picture. It makes it look even better, and it allows your senses to feel, see, and smell. I think the use of tic-tacs was an important part of the piece because i don't think any other material would have captured the picture better. We took the risks of choosing an edible material, for as it could have melted because we were using the hot glue gun. We also took the risk of spray painting some of the white tic-tacs black, when it could have just rubbed right off or spread to other colors. This piece draws you in with your senses, and it makes you want to touch and smell it. We most definitely thought outside of the box with this piece, and I think it turned out really well. 

Sticky Situation- Candy Road

When I heard the theme "Sticky Situation", it made me think about things that were sticky such as gum, glue, food, candy, etc. I liked the idea of candy, so I branched off of that idea and came up with Candy Land, the board game. I was originally going to do a candy land, but I just stuck to doing the paths. I was able to think outside the box with my ideas because the theme is so broad; although I suppose I could have stepped even more outside of the box. As you can see in the picture below there is a pattern of the repeating colors on the never ending path. The black background was painted black to make the path pop with color. Using acrylic paint as my medium was a very good choice in my opinion because I think it captures the colors better and dimension well. However, painting is not my choice of method; though the mini lessons did help me a little with my control of my brush and my precise lines. Overall I think that my painting turned out well, even if I do wish I had a little more time to work on it and make it look like a real Candy Land.  

Up Close and Personal

This drawing was for my up close and personal project, which took a lot of brainstorming and playing with ideas. I came up with many ideas for this project such as a bug on a leaf, a spider face, a hand, cupcakes, trees, etc. I chose to do lips because when I look at lips I think about how intricate they are. I emphasized the highlights by using white, and placing it where the light hits the lips. The medium I used for this is chalk pastels. I chose this medium over the others because I have never worked with them before, and I wanted to try new things. My medium emphasizes my piece because I can use more smearing techniques to help things blend, such as the red on the lips. I took many risks during this project such as using a new medium. You have to be really careful with the smearing with this medium because if i had smeared the red into the white teeth, then it would not look good. I encourage trying new things and risks in art because if you don't take risks how will you know what you are best at? By me including medium and technique in my final project, my final project was how I wanted it to turn out. 

What's The Point?

The "what's the point" theme sparked many ideas as to what i wanted to do my project on. I came up with many ideas for this project such as someone pointing, focus point, thorns on a rose, lion/tiger yawning, etc. I chose to do broken glass because it shows sharp ridges, also what's the point of a broken glass? I showed contrast in my work by using lights and darks in my shading, to give my glasses the object dimension. I chose to use pencil as my medium over pen or charcoal because I feel like I can get a lot of contrast and dimension out of pencil with lights and darks. In art you can make simple projects stand out by taking risks and thinking outside of the box. Don't be afraid to push your darks and think outside of the box. Trying new mediums to work with and get a feel for is always a good thing to do because you never know if you succeed better with other mediums. I can admit that I could have pushed my darks a little further, as well as try a new medium and take risks. The message that I am conveying is that broken glass can resemble a lot more than just a sharp object. You can relate it to many things related to life and feelings. Even if you feel broken like a broken glass, you can always be fixed, just as a broken glass can with glue. You may not be able to see this message in my drawing, but if you think about a deeper meaning than just broken glass, it can mean a lot more.

"The Hummingbird" Linoleum Project!

This is a picture of my hummingbird print. The process to get this print was quite interesting! First you must print pictures of the animal you chose(hummingbird), and also of the background or place. Then you must draw them together. Once you have a sketch of how you want it to look, you take a  rectangle of linoleum, and draw the same picture on it. After that you take a tool used to dig small areas, and you cut out all of the places you would like to be dark or not there. For example I cut out the lines in my bird to make it look like it has texture. Once you have what your carvings exactly how you want them, you take a paint roller and a flat piece of metal or plastic, and roll the paint onto your stamp nice and thick. Then you get a piece of paper(what ever color you would like), and place the linoleum face down softly. Making sure you don't slide the linoleum around on the paper, gently slide the linoleum into your hand and flip it over. Smooth out the paper to make sure all of the paint gets onto the paper, and ta-da! You have your print! In my opinion I think this project was very interesting. I do think I could have done a better job on the carving part of this project to make sure it showed all of the texture I wanted, but that was my only challenge! I have learned from my mistakes! Overall this project was very fun and cool, and I would love to do it again!

Frog Mouth! (Photo-shop)

This is a photo-shopped picutre of a frog extending from a tounge out of the mouth. As you can see the frog is the same color as the tounge. I did this by using the clone stamp tool on photo-shop. You may also notice that the back legs are missing from the frog. I used the eraser tool, put the opacity down so that the legs slowly disappered, and blended into the lips, face, and mouth. To get the shape and angle I wanted I used the transform tool to move it around to go with the curl of the tounge. To finish it up I used the layer drop shadow and played around to make it look realistic. This has been a very fun expierence and I love photo-shop! I have learned so much!

Angry Pancake! (Photo-shop)

This is my photo-shopped angry pancake! From this experience I learned very much about photo-shop and how to use it. What I did to create this end product is that I took a picture of pancakes, and a picture of a fish and combined them. I used the liquify and bloat tool first to open up a space in the pancakes to put the mouth. After that I used the polygonal lasso tool to cut the picture of the fish so that only the mouth was left. I played with the hue/saturation tool to find a color to match better with the pancakes. I also used the scale tool to make the mouth image fit into the hole I created for the mouth. Once I finished that I played around with the eraser tool to clean up the edges of the mouth and blend them with the pancakes. This expirence was very cool and I enjoyed it very much. The information I have learned was very helpful.

Spray-Paint Stencil!

This is my spray paint stencil. Many steps were taken to achieve this product, including finding a picture and photo-shopping it, tracing each color to a large piece of paper, cutting out the tracings to create stencils, and spray painting the stencils onto a piece of cardboard.

After photo-shopping the photo and printing it, i projected it onto a large piece of paper, I then traced each color onto separate pieces of paper. I struggled with this part of the project due to me being unable to match the picture up to the tracing the next day. I have learned my lesson of course, it was just very frustrating. This was not my best work, as you can see, only because of this silly mishap.

After cutting out my stencils, came the spray painting part(the fun part.) I learned that if you spray too close to the paper, then it creates puddles of paint, that can lead to the paint seeping under your stencil to places you did not plan on it going. I also learned that spray paint is very sticky and permanent(i am still trying to get it off.)

I know i could have done a better job if i had not messed up my stencils in the beginning of this project. It was not my best work, but it was a learning experience.

Contour Shoe Drawing!

This is a picture of a contour drawn shoe. You can see that it is a contour drawn shoe because it does not shoe any sign of me lifting up my pen. I practiced contour drawing before this shoe by drawing my hand in different position without lifting up my pen. I can admit that practicing contour drawings with my hand has made me better at contour drawings.Contour drawings in my opinion are smoother and not as sketchy. It is one fluid line, and it looks nicer. Contour drawings help your drawing skills and i can prove it!