Blind Contour

                                                                                           We recently started drawing blind contours in art. This is cool and different because we haven't done anything like this yet. It was also really funny to see what you drew, and some of the pictures didn't even look human. When we drew a blind contour that we liked, we used it and wrote "I am" statements on it. This really made me thing about what I am, and it was really cool to write these things about myself alongside an abstract drawing of myself. I felt like it showed a completely different part of me and it went a lot deeper than I had originally expected. It took me a long time to decide what to write, and while some of them are silly, (like I am 24601) most of them are really true and not things I parade about myself. it will be really cool to put in my art book at the end of the year and I'm excited to showcase that part of me as well. This project wasn't about how well you draw, it was about how you wrote, and how you presented yourself. Doing something like that was a different experience and I'm really happy we did it.

"Empty Bowls Dinner" Bowl making

                                              

              My school holds a fundraiser called the Empty Bowls Dinner. Once every other year. People donate soup and food and a lot of people from the town come. The special part is, they sell the bowls that you eat out of and you take it home when you're done, and the bowls are made by the high school students. I have made bowls before in 8th grade art, but I got to again and I realized how much I loved it. Not only making the bowls out of clay and deciding the size and design, but also glazing it. I loved experimenting and mixing colors and glazes in interesting ways to see what would happen. The cool thing is, you don't know what it will look like until after it is fired. I almost never used the same color twice while glazing the bowls, I layered and did a different inside and a different outside. I chose colors that I thought would mix nicely together and would be interesting. I almost always had a color scheme to my bowl but had no idea how it would turn out. I lost track of how many I made and what they looked like, and I really did like the freedom of the project. I put my heart into it and had a lot of fun. It was always exciting when a bowl came out of the kilm that ended up being really interesting, and I'm not sure if one of mine were, but at least I know I tried.

"Seasons in Light" Lantern Making

                           
                  For one of the projects that we worked on in class, we made paper cut lanterns. The theme was seasons, and it could be anything we wanted about that season. I chose winter because winter is my favorite season and I based it around New York city during Christmastime. My goal was to show the skyline and also show the tree in Rockefeller Center. 
                  When we first started this project I was excited, but also a little scared about doing the cuts with an exacto knife. It was intimidating, especially after we saw so man amazing cut paper designs. I practiced a lot before I started because it really does take some getting used to. It was a completely different kind of art that I had never approached. It wasn't easy, but I did realize when i was working on the project that I hadn't given myself enough credit. I got the hang of it and it was better than I expected. I also wanted to make my lantern a little different then just what I had planned. I ended up making it 3 sided, with a skyline on two and the tree on one. I decided I wanted to cut out spots for Christmas lights on the tree and fill them in with individually cut colored tissue paper. Since this wasn't something conventional, it took a little bit of experimenting and a lot of tedious work. After two class periods of cutting and gluing, I had finished the final touch on my lantern that set it apart. I greatly enjoyed the experience and, although there were certainly better lanterns than mine, I was happy with the final product.

Artist Research Post

                 
       I picked Georgia O'Keefe for my artist to research. Georgia O'Keefe was born on November 15, 1887 in Wisconsin. In the early 1900s she attended the Art Institute of Chicago. She married Alfred Stieglitz in 1924. He was a photographer and her works were first featured at his gallery. Their partnership lasted until his death in 1946. O'Keefe moved to Santa Fe after her husband's death and was inspired by the desert landscapes and scenes. She continued to paint until her death on March 6, 1986, but most of her well known works were from earlier in her life.
        Georgia O'Keefe's works greatly interest me, especially her flower paintings, and they always have. I have known her art since I was young and that is the main reason I chose her. I also like the fact that she is a woman, and there are very few famous women artists on the list. I think she set a sort of trend with her popularity and work and I imagine she inspired many aspiring women artists. Her work is also very iconic and original and she inspired a certain style of art. My three favorite paintings of hers are shown below.
Apple Blossoms Flowers of Life Red poppy
These paintings interest me because the colors and the usage of the colors are really beautiful. I had a hard time picking my three favorites, but it came down to these because the angles and beauty of the flowers alone caught my eye. Also the vividness and realness of the flowers in these particular paintings are what I really love about Georgia O'Keefe's work, and I felt that they were good representations of what I like aboutn her work.

Marking Period One-Reflection

            Overall, for the first marking period, I feel that I have improved more than I thought I ever could. Before this, I never considered myself to be an artist, but now that I am more familiar with artistic ways to express yourself, I believe that everyone can be an artist. I have learned more about materials, how they work, and how to manipulate them to make something that I could have never imagined or made purposely. I learned about happy accidents and I figured out that art is all about taking risks. You may fail greatly if you take a huge risk, but you will never greatly succeed if you don't take a huge risk, either.

The Next President Collage- Civil Rights

          In contrast to how I felt about my shoe drawing assignment, I was much less nervous about the nest president collage. I was firm in where I stood towards the candidates, and I had my whole project mapped out. Then I realized that my ideas might be outdated towards civil rights, and I also realized I was not as firm on my view as I thought I was. This project made me think much more than I expected, but honestly I appreciate what it did for me. I made a lot of mistakes (or things that I thought were mistakes) during this project, but there wasn't as much pressure as a drawing. If you messed up, you could cover it up easily, something I did quite a bit of. But in the end, I was happy with my final product and I think it is interesting to view and gets my ideas and opinions across artistically. Like I said in my last post, It isn't the best in the class, but it is unique to me and that makes it more impressive. 

My Shoe Drawing

                  I love art, all kinds of art too. I love looking at certain types more than I like actually executing, and drawing is one of those. I never felt that drawing was my strongest point. When I found out that we were drawing shoes, I was a little cautious. I had never tried to draw shoes before, and I thought my drawing skills were nothing special. With the help of my teacher, my table mates, and just the confidence that I could draw better than I believed, I managed to create artwork that I was proud of. I am happy with my final product, and even though it definitely was not the best drawing, it was the best I could do, and that's all I can ask for.