Introduction

"If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic bean buyer, if you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for i have some flax golden tales to spin. Come in, Come in." -Shel Sylverstien, Where the Sidewalk Ends

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

A Reflection



      The marking period went b very fast; it seems as if only last week school began. I do not believe i have changed much at all over this forst marking period, my drawing skill may have improved slightly but it mostly stayed the same. I do, however, fell I will change in skill by the end of the year, or even by the end of the next marking period, but for now I am at my current level and will probab;y remain here for a while. As I learn to draw things as I see them and understand values and contrasts more, I can advance. If my friends need help getting values or understanding a method, I'm there since I took this class before. Also because I'm a good friend. The marking period has gone so fast, but I am anxious to get on to the next one where new interests await!

The Next President


     After the show drawing, my art clas worked on collages on who the next president would be. We chose topics on which to base our collage, mostly issues such as health care, cay rights, abortion, ect. I chose enviroment, since it is an issue that really interests me. I could have gone several ways, but some of the material I was going to use dis not fit so I was forced to leave it out. For instance, I had a picture of a kitten behind bars to symbolize animal rights, but the picture was to big in contrast with the other things I wanted ot put down. The materials I used were mosly from magazines and print outs but I also used tissue paper and paint to bring some things forward and make others stand out.  I used pictures of endangered species but they were covered by the tissue paper so one would have to look very hard to make them out. My collage is all about the problems and what the candidates plan to do about them.

The Drawing of the Shoe



        For the forst marking period in my art clas, we drew shoes. It is honostly not as boring as it sounds. There wa a lot of hard work and effort put into every part of it.
First I used a cut piece of paper to look though, in order to get the proportions. Once it looked the way I wanted it, I could start drawing the outline and then work on the details. The nig problem for me was making sure the shoes were lined up properly in proportion to what I had drawn, and for some reason the shoes kept moving each day. (Another class? or a ghost, mabye?) Either way I was eventually able to move on to the details which weren't that hard suprisingly. Another thing that tripped me up for a while was the shading. For some reason I just could not get that darkness on the bottom of the left shoe! However, I managed it well enough and this is how it turned out:
 
The darkeness on the side is the value scale to help me get the darkness correct as well as showing me how to blend. 
 
 
 

Monday, September 10, 2012

New Year, New Possibilities

I'm back! For another year of blogging, art, and fun. No longer a freshman, I shall shoot for the stars (not literally of course because that would just look silly) and try to achieve better this year than ever before! I have returned not only for the fun of art class but for the new possibilities that await. New projects, new friends, and most of all, new art! It also doesn't hurt that my friends are in this class. And to the new bloggers and new art class students I wish you all a very happy New Year! (of art class)

Friday, June 8, 2012

The End

It's hard to believe the year went by so fast. My art class helped me meet new friends and get better at art. It is hard to choose my favorite thing this year since there are so many, but one would have to be making the coptic books. I love it because it's just so adorable. It was really fun to make it if not a little frustrating. I know that next year will be just as fun and enjoyable. I met new freinds and discovered new ways to expand my creativity so that I am not just confined withing a frame, I can paint a beautiful painting outside of it.

Friday, January 20, 2012

End of the 2nd Marking Period


At the beginning of the year, my art class began a project. This project was to draw and paint a self portrait and then practically and intentionally ruined it. This is the finished project. I colored in the eyes and mouth alone with colored pencil. I didn't color in the rest of it because I liked how they popped out of the darkness of the rest of the peice. My smaller portrait looked interesting, but I think I may have ruined it by adding too much colored pencil. It may not look finished, but I like just the way it is at the moment. This portrait project was hard work but it looks great.





 This is my collage. I just recently finished this project and i like how this turned out. I started with a tree and put tissue paper on it. I then traced over the shape of the tree and painted it. I had a little trouble with coming up with an idea, but I eventually came up with something. I put my favorite poem on this collage. I wrote it in pencil and went over some of the words in gold paint. The strange animals in the top left and bottom right of the collage are echidnas. They are one of my favorite animals and they are just adorable.






 My class has just recently started this new project, a metal panel. I have made paper prototypes of the metal panels I want to make. The fist one is halfway between a fish skeleton and a beautiful butterfly. The next design is supposed to be some kind of celestial owl. The last one is going to be a clasp for my book. It was hard making the small peices, especially for the fish butterfly. This is still a work in progress, so there isn't much to talk about.I hope this will turn out good, since I am better and more used to works on paper. I hope my designs will turn out the way I want them to when they are finished.



























Friday, January 13, 2012

Norman Rockwell




 I grew up looking at Rockwell's varius
paintings. My mother had a book of them my grandfather used to own. Rockwell's paintings remind me of my childhood and of the happier, simpler, more content times of American history. Most of his paintings made me feel like I wanted to stay a kid forever.

Norman Rockwell was born in 1894 in New York. He wanted to be an artist since he was very young. He even left highschool to attend an art school. He became an illustrator soon after graduating and in 1916 created the first of his famous Saturday Evening Post pictures. He also created pictures for the Boy Scouts of America calander. In 1942, He painted the Four Freedoms in response to sa speech by President FDR. He began to paint less of utopian society and more of realistic concerns. He painted the picture of an African American girl being escorted by four saftey officers to school with tomatoes smeared on the wall after being thrown at the girl. It was titled "The Problem We All Live With". He died in 1978 and til that day he still painted.

Norman Rockwell is still being recognized today. The picture called "The Problem We All Live With" is even hanging outside the Oval Office.  He painted of the sweet and simple times as well as
 realistic times. He gave many people the idea of what things were like during tht time.

 This picture is one for Norman Rockwell's Boy Scouts of America calander. This has always been my favorite peice of his because I thinks it depicts nature and the boy scout and American spirit. I think this is a beautiful and expressive picture.

This peice, the Yarn Spinner, is my second favorite piece of his. This picture makes me think of old, classic pirate tales. I sometimes find my mind drifitng to think of what tales this man could tell when I look at this picture. I enjoy looking at this and all of Norman Rockwell's paintings.