End of the Year

Well.....I have to say this year has been fun. The projects my art class has done have been so much fun. I have made some close friends and let my creativity grow, not to mention how proud I am of the things i have accomplished. My favorite project we have done definitely has to be the metal work. Though the work to make it was hard it was completely worth it in the end. I am very much looking forward to coming back next year for another great art class, but for now au revoir! 

My Slideshow

my slideshow - slideshow

Unicorns for Audrey

Audrey was always a special little girl. Ever since she could remember, she had been able to see things other people couldn’t.  She could see faeries, gnomes, dwarves- you name it! She made friends with most of these creatures, but her absolute favorite and best friend had always been a young unicorn named Arthur. Most other people never seemed to notice Audrey’s friends, which got her in trouble quite often. Something would happen around the house or at school which was so obviously caused by a sprite and Audrey would get blamed for it! Her parents said it was her overactive imagination, her teachers said she was just trouble. The only one who seemed to understand (other than her faerie friends) was here cat Tiffany, and even she ignored the sprites that came to visit unless they were small enough to chase.  Audrey lived in a small cottage in the English countryside adjacent to a rather large pond, where she spent most of her time. This was where she had met the mermaid with whom she had become very good friends. It was also the place where she had first met Arthur. She still remembered how beautiful he had looked, standing at the edge of the pond in all his grace and majesty. Just like out of an Arthurian Tales book.  He was her best friend not only because he was kind and loving, but because he accepted her and all her oddity. And because he let her ride on him every so often but that is beside the point. Her parents tried to be accepting of her friends when she was younger, but when she turned ten they began to grow worried that her imaginary friends would get in the way of her succeeding in life. They even tried sending her to a psychiatrist. So she had no choice but to lie. She said she could no longer see the magical beings, and eventually that came to be. She stopped noticing the little sprites that flitted around her room every now and again, the little faeries that flew with the fireflies on summer nights, she even forgot about the sweet mermaid in her pond. However, even to this day she never forgot Arthur. Not only because he was her best friend growing up, or even the fact that he still visited her and her family, but because he was a piece of her life, and a piece of her. She moved into the same house she grew up in when her parents died along with her husband and son, who she named Arthur. Arthur oddly enough had the same friends she had had, remarking every so often of the new ones he has met. Audrey every so often will see a little flit of light around a flower pot or up a staircase and she will stop and smile at her old dear friends.

The Year So Far...

Greetings once again! I am here to tell you about the wonderful wrold of Art Class! To start off we are doing a really cool thing called Empty Bowls. Baisically, we arfe making bowls to be used on February 9 for a special dinner. It is a benefit for The Food Bank of South Jersey which means all capital that is made goes towards their funding. It really is a great cause and it was a lot of fun making the bowls and plates. We made each one ourselves and hand painted them. These are some finished bowls. The molds we used to make them are the odd, white objects behind the shiny,pretty ones.

The next subject that we did was paper lanterns. We practiced cutting paper into cool shapes. It was really painstaking at times, but all of the lanterns turned out looking really nince. The theme for all of the lanterns was the four seasons. My season was fall. They are made out of a thick paper and could be backed with either a sort of tracing paper or another, softer, more fabric-like paper. Mine was backed with the tracing paper on account of the thin, flimsy shapes.



The latest project i have been working on is a blind contour self-portrait. Basically, a blind contour is when the artist does not look at the paper they are drawing on and only at the object they are drawing, in this case a mirror. The artist is also not supposed to lift the pencil while drawing so as not to loose where the line ended. We were also supposed to answer questions about ourselves such as "I am....." "I dream..." "I like...." and so on so the reciever of the art has an idea of who the artist is. Mine is not quite finished yet but the picture below is how it looks so far.






 

The Great Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was an impressionest paintere of the 1800s into the early 1900s. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania in 1844. She was first exposed to French artists at the 1855 Pasris World's Fair. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, against the wishes of her family, and had her mind set on becoming a professional artist. Her femminest views were shared with such controversial male students such as Thomas Eakins. She later quit the Acadamey because women were looked down upon as artists and were not allowed to use nude or live models. Consequently, they could not learn proper anatomy. Mary Cassatt was highly influenced by Degas on her Impressionism work. She died on June 14, 1926 and is still heralded as one of the greatest woman artists in our time.

My interst in Mary Cassatt started one day in a previous art class a few years back. My interest was captured when I found out about her femminest views towards the Acadamey and how she was a great woman artist. I liked that she was able to make her way as aprofessional artist in a male artist's world. I loved the way she was able to make such beautiful paintings and capture the actions of a model. She painted the


One of my favorite paintings is the first one of her's I learned about: Mother and Child XI. As you can see, she painted a LOT of women with children. The woman appears to be tenderly holding the child as they get their portrait painted, but if you look closely at her left hand on the child's thigh, you can see that her grip is a death grip that lets the child know that there will be heck to pay if he acts up during the painting. It appears unfinished, but that is the beauty of it. It makes the observer think.

















This painting, which apparently was not named, stood out to me because it once again has has a woman with a child, except this one is finished. In it, the woman is washing her child, but still has an almost death grip so the child doesn't move or squirm. I found this one interesting because of the way Cassatt captured the light and the pudgy rolls of skin on the child.

This painting, known as Young Mother Sewing, captured my eye because of the simplicity of the figures in the painting. The woman is simply sewing a new dress while her daughter watches Cassatt paint them both. Again, a mother depicted with a child, but the child is old enough that she does not need to be made still. I like this particular piece of hers because the observer, well I can anyway, imagine the warmth and time of that afternoon or morning that this was painted.


As you can see Mary Cassatt is a very notable artist and one I am proud to call one of my favorites. Her paintings are beautiful and she herself was an exquisite person.



 

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.