Time capsule!

   Recently we had a project where we had to make a time capsule for ourselves out of a cardboard box! We were supposed to put meaningful things inside that would be seen by our future selves 20 or so years from now. In my time capsule I mostly put things from my hobbies such as anime logos, pressed flowers, and old drawings inside as well as a letter to myself. I put these inside because I want my future self to remember who and what I was in high school and be happy. The decorations I did on the outside of he box are leaves, a snake, and some spiders. It was supposed to "be" me so I made it me: kind of odd and pretty to look at on the outside, with some of the inner weirdness creeping through, but so much more when you open it up.
 

This year

  I feel as though I have accomplished many things during this year: I grew in my art skills, became more confident, and produced beautiful works of art (if I do say so myself).  I really enjoyed the projects we had done in my art class, and am quite proud of how they all turned out.  I remember where I was as a freshman and I have really grown, not only in my artings but also in my interactions. I am particularly proud of my book, as I was finally able to get the outside stitch right! Yay! I remember my first book was stitched pretty badly because I panicked and messed up. This year however I was able to understand how to do it! This year was great for my development as an artist both in school and out of it which makes me feel as though it was a success.

Story Time!

Eli looked around, trying to process her surroundings but failing. "......Where......where am I?" A male voice answered her with a chuckle. "Why, you're no where my dear. And everywhere." Eli looked at him blankly and responded with an eloquent: "Huh?" The man chuckled and stepped out of the darkness that seemed to surround them. He was tall, with bright blue hair and red rimmed glasses. "Oh don't worry my dear Aires, you'll grow accustomed to it soon enough." This just confused the poor girl even more and she just sat, hopelessly trying to process what he meant through her clouded mind. The man patiently waited for her to respond but she just sat there mutely. "Are you quite alright?" he asked. "Would you like a glass of water?" Eli shook her head, both as an answer and to try and clear it. The man crouched down next to her and examined her face. "Hmm......you have no idea what's going on do you? Do you know your name? Anything about your past? Anything about who you are?" Eli was frightened to find she only knew the answer to one of these questions. "M-my name is Eli," she said, "Who are you?" The man smiled and stood up, offering his hand to her as he did so. "My name is Aquarius, the water bearer, but you may call me Rei. Come, and I'll show you to the others." She accepted his hand and shakily got to her feet, deciding not to ask about who the "others" were as she would find out soon enough. Rei steadied her and led her to a light brown door, the only thing standing out in the darkness, and into a room with four other doors and exotic decorations on the walls: some bright, full, green leaves, others bare, withered branches and the rest in between. "It's like the four seasons," she commented, surprising herself by her sudden knowledge. "Very good!" Rei exclaimed. "It appears you are getting some of your memory back!" One of the doors opened and two identical heads poked out- at least, Eli thought it was two, her head was still foggy and swimming. The two heads asked in unison: "Is this the new Aries?"  "Yes, Gemini," Rei responded, "come say hello." It was in fact a set of twins, and as they bounded up to her Eli couldn't help but smile at their eagerness. Nevertheless something they said stood out in the young girl's mind. "Wait," she interjected. "you're the second, er, third, person-people- uhm-.....why did you guys call me 'Aires'?" The two girls turned their attention to Rei, suddenly more serious. "She doesn't know?" They said, once again in unison. Rei sighed. "I figured I would explain it when everyone else arrived. Incidentally, where is everyone?" Just then, a large, muscular man with cropped red hair and a strange nose ring entered the room from the same door the twins had just come from. Eli regarded him with interest then looked at Rei for an introduction. "All introductions will come in due time my dear, spoilers just take the fun of surprise away." She was disappointed by this but nevertheless decided to wait as other people entered the room from the other three doors until there was a total of eleven people in the room. A man with medium length black hair took a head count. "Eight, nine, ten, eleven...where is Leo?" Rei spoke up with a tone of apathy. "Does it really matter? Can't we just continue without him?" Everyone gave a collective sigh and the muscular man gave a response to Eli's confused look. "Leo and Rei don't exactly get along." Just then, a tall man with shoulder length golden hair enters the room and gives a loud yawn. Rei's annoyed look at that moment confirmed what the muscular man had said. The dark haired man spoke in slightly impatient manner. "Now that we have all finally showed up, I believe introductions are in order." He gestured first to a girl with hair that was a lighter shade of blue than Rei's. "This is Pisces, the fish." The girl smiled at Eli kindly and waved. "Next are you, Aires, and then Taurus, the bull-" He gestures to the muscular man who also waves. "-Gemini, the twins-" The two girls wave in unison. "-Cancer, the crab-" Another man gives her a brief nod. "- Leo, the lion-" The man with golden hair became more attentive and seemed o notice Eli for the first time. He smiled and walked over to here, bowed, and kissed her hand. "My dear Aires," he said with a slight purr, "I am delighted to be in your presence." She drew her hand back slightly, though she couldn't hide the amused smile that was growing on her face. " Th-thank you?" she said. The black haired man rolled his eyes, as did several others in the room, and continued with the introductions. "And these are Virgo, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, and you know Aquarius." He gestures to a woman in a green dress, a devilish looking young man, a tall man with a bow and quiver slung across his back, a young woman with blonde hair, and Rei respectively. "And I am Libra, the balancer. We all welcome you into the Zodiac my dear." Eli took all this in and decided to believe them. "Whoa," she murmured. "That's amazing. Wait how am I a part of the zodiac?" She still wasn't sure why she was in this place or how she got there, but something was compelling her to want to jump into what these strangers were saying. Rei took her hand. "Come, let's take a walk. I will explain on the way." She accepted, glad she was finally getting answers, and followed as he led her through the spring-adorned door and into bright sunlight. "To start off, how much can you remember from your old life?" This startled and confused Eli even further, but she shook her head. "Not much of anything," she replied, "Just my name and something about the seasons and the zodiac." "That was how it was for the rest of us," he said, "when we first arrived here. You see each of us was another person before coming here. The trouble is, we cant remember anything about the persons we used to be, only the persons we are and will become. We do know parts of why we were brought here, however." "Why?" Eli asked eagerly. "Because one of the  old zodiac signs had died, and a new one was needed as a replacement." Her face fell a little at this morbid detail, but he continued on. "Each replacement is chosen from the souls of the dead that exemplified the traits of that zodiac symbol and given a new life." She allowed this to sink in. "So," she started, "I'm...dead?" Rei looked at her with a thoughtful look, "In a sense, yes. But don't worry, you will make friends here, as well as enemies." He began walking through the flowers again. "The world is bright and young with spring Aires," he turned to her while speaking. "Are you ready for it?" She followed him and somehow felt confident in her answer. "Yes," she replied wholeheartedly, and the two continued walking through the flowers in the bright spring sunlight.

                                                                                    END

Fotune Cookies

My teacher distributed fortune cookies to the class and we were told to interpret them into art. After some thought, I decided to go for an almost direct approach, meaning I tried to draw representations of the fortunes. I wrote the fortunes on the paper and drew pictures to represent each one. I know it may sound odd but the thing I am most proud of in this piece is the way the ribbons with the fortunes on them are drawn. This was a nice project and despite my fortunes having pretty much nothing in common,  I was able to represent them in some way.

3 Artists, 1 Painting

So there's this interesting new project my teacher introduced to us: Art x3! It's where one person starts a piece of art, another one continues it, and a third person finishes it. The theme for this art endeavor was "celebrity," and we were allowed to interpret that how we wanted. It was really interesting to see how other people took your art and changed it to fit their ideas. The above picture was fairly sparse but still really good when I got it and I had no idea how to "make it my own." However, with guidance from my teacher I was able to turn it into the piece you see right here. I had worked on two other pieces before this one and had to let both of them go. It was not an easy experience, especially since I had just thought of where to go with each of the pieces when Poof! they went onto the next person. I have to say I am rather proud of the final result of this one. It took a lot of time and effort but I was able to "make it my own."

Pop Art Stamps

What's fun and kooky and can be used over and over again? Stamps! This marking period we made stamps of our own in pop art style! As you can see, the subject for my stamp is and/or was a globe. I chose it because I have been into geography and history of late thanks to this show I've been watching. Anyway, I thought the globe would be a nice challenge for my artistic skill and it really was. I first had to envision what the stamp would look like then draw the globe on a small piece of paper. Then I darkened the lines so the pencil was nice and thick and then printed it onto a rubber stamp. I then spent several days cutting it out using various tools and eventually viola! It was finished! Next came the really fun part: the printing. I made several different prints other than the ones in the above picture but these were some of my favorites out of all of them. I am really quite proud of how these turned out and the way they are situated really gives them that "Andy Warsaw-mass production" type feeling.

None of these things are just like the other, but all of these things really belong!

What do all of these items have in common? They're all blue! That's right, my art class began collecting these blue items in response to being shown pictures of Portia Munson's work. Portia Munson is an artist who makes color coded collections of cool stuff. I personally think the above collection is pretty cool, especially the globe and the hat. This collection really says a lot about our class as a whole. We were asked to bring in blue things and some people really put effort into it while some other people just brought in a pencil they found in their bag the second before class started (and yes, by that comment I do mean myself.) But other than that, this collection really tells a lot about each of us as individuals, what we think of when we hear the color blue, and what things pique our interests. For instance, one person has an amazing blue top hat, which could mean they like cool hats. Another example is the paint bottle, which would lead one to believe that person enjoys painting. This collection not only tells of our interests, but the time period as well. There are things on that table that could only be found in this era, such as the Angry Birds card in the bottom right of the picture. In Portia Munson's work, there were things that mostly consisted of toys from the 90's and earlier, which is a time stamp of when the collection was created. The time stamp on this collection would be in the 2000's just going based on this picture. And so, collections of all types can tell a lot about a person, not just their personality, but their time period as well.