Reflection Post

   At the beginning of the school year, I felt a bit lost art-wise and I didn't really know in what direction I was going. I was a little apprehensive about taking Creative arts, and I worried that I wasn't going to produce anything good.
   It was great to start out with coloring our book pages though, it wasn't a difficult or complicated task and it was a good way to get the creative ideas flowing. I think it was one of my favorite activities actually, it was relaxing to play around with the ink and water and see what designs I could make.
   After that I had confidence again that I could produce good art, and that's when we had our lantern project. I'm looking at my lantern right now and I still love it, I didn't think I would do well on paper cutting, but I learned that I really enjoy it, and now sometimes when I'm bored and at home, I'll borrow one of my mom's exacto-knives and make cool little designs.
    I also got to express my pro-choice views on abortion with my collage. Keeping abortion legal is something that's really important to me, and I'm proud of my collage and how aggressive and "loud" it turned out.
    Then with our artist projects, I found out that M.C Escher was a really cool guy and he's now one of my favorite artists. I honestly just picked him because his name sounded cool.
   I'm not the best with anything 3-dimensional, so the ceramic work was a bit of a challenge for me, but my tea set still came out nicely!
   And I'm absolutely in love with my book, I'm going to keep adding on to it all summer and maybe even into next school year. Over the summer I plan to add pictures of different doodles I do in the book. This book has helped me create a new style with my drawing that makes me feel like I'm expressing myself a lot more accurately, and it makes me feel really happy and comfortable.
   Overall, it was a good art year. I'm content with it, and I had fun sitting with Zach and Catie who are two super rad interesting and inspiring people.

Art Slideshow

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 Song: I Ate Your Soul//Grieves

Cactus Man (Writing Inspired by Images Project)

 

       (Top Left: My picture of my little Cactus, Bottom Left: Picture of a man standing amongst big cacti in a desert, Right: MC Eschers Self-Portrait)

   
       

George is 37, trying to get over a cigarette addiction, and is on a plane to Arizona from Vermont because his therapist told him that he needed to get out and see nature in a completely new place.

    George doesn’t think it will do too much to help him, but he has an inkling of hope that it might, so he went anyway.

    George has always liked plants secretly, (he’d be too afraid to be judged by anyone if he told them.) so he decided to go out to see the cacti in the desert. He didn’t want to do something too stereotypically tourist-y so he wouldn’t have to be around that many people.

    

    The woman who runs the Inn that he’s staying at has a hairless cat that looks angry all the time and it bothers George. He’s starting to take note of how weird everyone is, and it makes him a little less insecure about being himself and having little quirks. He’s starting to see how this trip is successful so far. Maybe he’ll call his mom later and tell her about it.

   

    The next day George goes out to the desert, and with the help of a few locals, gets directions for some good places for cacti and other desert plants. He finds himself amazed by the size of the plants, and appreciates them more. He loves the heat and feels good about himself. He’s having a good day.

    On the second day, he’s asking a man he met out in the desert about the plants. The man works with the local Horticulture club and they get in a surprisingly deep conversation about how George’s therapist was right about nature being therapeutic. The man invites George to stop by the nursery the next day to check out all the interesting plants. George agrees to go.

     The next day George has a lot of fun learning about all the different plants, how they can be used to help people, and how they’re grown. George has never felt so interested or passionate about anything in his life. The people who take care of the plants tell him he’s a natural when he helps plants a new baby Thyme plant, and he jokingly says “maybe this is my calling”, but it wasn’t really a joke at all. He feels like he belongs in this place. The environment makes him happy.

   A week later George has officially moved to Arizona. He’s slowly and successfully smoking less and less cigarettes. He loves himself and his life more and more every day. He has a job at the nursery’s store and even though he has to pay off a loan, he could care less about that as long as he’s happy.

   The little cactus in the picture is the first little plant he took home for himself after he went to Arizona and before he moved there. He plans to fill his new apartment with many more little plants. He’s so happy he went out in to nature to find himself.

Self-Portrait

Wack Blind Contour+Fun Colors+Cute, Kitschy Things=Correct

   We were given mirrors, paper, and fine-pointed black-ink pens, and told to do a blind contour of ourselves. A blind contour drawing, is when you draw without looking down at your paper, and usually using only one, long consistent line to create the image.
   Then, we were to embellish the drawing with different aspects of our personality. What we like, dislike, want to be, who we are.
   I decided to take my drawing home and work on the piece with my Faber Castell markers! They're my favorite markers in the world, and the India Ink makes the outcome really pigmented and bright.
  Here's the finished product! (in bad quality, thank you phone..)

  

Empty Bowls Dinner

HEY YOU, PERSON FROM NEW JERSEY AND/OR PHILADELPHIA AREA:

     If you have no plans for Saturday, February 9th from 5:30 pm to 8 pm, and $10 to spare, you should come down to the Haddon Township High School cafeteria to eat a whole bunch of soup/pasta for a good cause! You get your own handmade ceramic bowl to keep (Made by all the art class students) and you can get as much food as you want! All the proceeds go to the Food Bank of New Jersey, so pretty much you're eating so someone else can eat.

Season-Inspired Lantern

  Fall

   Fall actually isn't my favorite season; spring is. BUT, Autumn is my second favorite, for all the cliche reasons. Not super cold (perfect for tea), pretty colors, nice smells from those cute people who have potpourri everywhere around their house, cute, cuddly clothing, and over-dramatic scenes of dead leaves flying around people in sad movies.
   We were to create a cut-paper lantern inspired by a season! I thought of those sad-movie scenes with the leaves whipping around in the breeze, and decided to base my lantern's design around that scene.

This is probably 1/3rd of the way in! Some people asked me if it was difficult to make the lines smooth, but for some reason it was really easy and actually felt therapeutic to make nice, rounded lines with the Exacto-knife (fun fact..?).

Here are some pictures of the finished product, after all the pieces were cut out, and the paper was glued to thinner tissue-like paper!

  When the lights are out and a candle's inside, it looks super cool, but unfortunately I don't have a picture of that :\
    This would probably be a really fun project to do at home though, and since you'd have more time, one could get some wack detail and do something awesome.

Note Page

This is my "note page" for my M.C. Escher project! We had to take notes with drawings on the artist's work and style.