Wood

For my wood project, Julia, Liza, Sydney Allen and Sydney Gad made a house. At first I thought it would be really boring and we would just make a boring looking, original house. I missed a day of sculpture because I was doing the admissions thing. When I came bag, I saw how much work Julia and Liza had done, and I felt bad, and really wanted to be a strong part of the group. The next day of sculpture, Sydney Gad and I went outside, got mulch and got little rocks. We did this because we thought it would be a really cool idea to design the top of the house. We made a pool, grass and chairs. I made the pillows for the chairs. Then we made the inside of the house, which was painted and had little paper clips hanging down from it. Something I learned from this project is that art is never done until you want it to be. You can keep designing and adding to a project until you think it has enough. When we began this project, I thought we were going to keep it simple, but we did not. I also learned that things that seem so simple, require a lot of work. After we glued all the objects onto the top of the house, I saw things were loose. I then had to hot glue them all down, securely.

Plaster Pal

My plaster pal project did not turn out well in the beginning. I put the plaster on the balloon the first day like everyone else. I missed the next day which was a double block. When I came back the next week, my plaster covered balloon was gone. I had to make a whole new one, which took a class or two. I then painted it white. I really liked the idea of making a plain white egg that has not cracked at all yet. I put sponge around it to make a cool texture. I did not want to just leave it as that though, because it was boring. Zack Lacava said I should put a funny picture of him sticking out of it, like he was being hatched from the egg. I glued a hot glue gun stick to the inside of the plaster ball, sticking out. I then glued a picture of Zack onto it. Even though this was not my project and I didn't get very into it, I am still proud of it. I could have left it as a plain, boring white egg, but I added a new interesting aspect to it.

clay

for the plaster project:
-we could combine the glay and plaster - make something out of clay, let it dry, and put plaster around it
-make a very simple circle of plaster, and then chip away at it and see what it can become
-make a bowl
-make a circle, and then add to it, and see if the shape stays the same

Clay:
I made a bowl from the wheel, a cube sculpture, a ripped in half book and a block with many indents in it. I had a hard time with the wheel. It was very messy and I kept screwing up. As I was doing it, I tried to experiments with making the bowl into different shapes. At first, I slapped a piece down to the middle of the circle of the wheel, poured some water, and got going. A mistake I made was letting the clay get to a point of not being attached to the wheel anymore. I think that could have either been from being too wet or too dry. When I made the clay sculpture, it was not planned. I could not think of a project so I just started by making a cube. I then thought about attaching many different sized cubes on it and seeing how it turned out. Every time I was about to attach a new one on, I would slip and score. I was not planning on having the book in 2 halves originally. I carved a line into the middle of the book, hoping it make it so the book bent, like it was open. My piece of clay was too thick, though, so it would not work, so I just carved a deeper line in, so it split in half. I drew page numbers on each page and drew curvy lines, representing the words on the page. My last one was the piece of clay with many indents. I do not really like this one. I was going to make a dice, but it did not turn out well, so I destroyed it. After I did that, I used one of the carving tools and just kept carving random shapes into it. I scooped little chunks of clay out as I carved. I can't find that sculpture.

Making Paper

I really enjoyed making paper. I wasn't expecting it to be so interesting. I thought it was interesting to put all different kinds of paper in the blender and see how they could all combine. The process is to first put the ripped up paper in the blender and pour water in. Then you blend it. Then you pour it into the water and put the screen in then water with the cover on it so the paper is a rectangle and get a good amount of the mushed up paper onto it. Then you take it out and let some of the excess water pour out. Then you flip it onto the canvas and dry it with a sponge. My first paper was the most interesting to me. It was a light blue color. I put some type of weed that grew from the ground into it. It came out really well because it looks like there are little beads in it. My second one was a red color. My third one looked very similar to my first one. My last paper was a thick piece of orange paper. I think making paper is really interesting and i think it would be a really cool idea to make a collage with the different paper with different materials.

paper presentation summary

          In our presentation, we talked about paper. We used a coodie catcher so we could involve the audience and teach them more about paper. In our coodie catcher we talked about many things such as the history of paper, different projects for paper, and different uses of paper. I thought it was a good idea how we all took turns using the coodie catcher so we all were involved in presenting. I think we all talked an equal amount and we were all really into our presentation.
           In our presentation, we were all wearing paper, hats that we made. We talked about how paper can be used for many things. Almost all businesses use paper. Also, it can be used for origami, like our coodie catcher. We also taught the audience how to make paper hats. I thought that was a creative idea.

Nikki's sculpture of the window

          There are many differences between my sketch and my sculpture. My sketch looks very rough, while my sculpture looks more defined. In my sketch, the shape of the circle looked more like an oval, but in my sculpture it is more of a circle. My sculpture is 3d, while my sketch is 2d. I think my sculpture looks better than my sketch because the sketch is boring looking.
          My sculpture is going to be in some type of color, while my sketch is just in pencil. In my sketch, you can see the rim of the circle, from the angle that I was at. I am not putting that in my sculpture because I don't think it would look right. In my sketch, then middle square is shaded in, but I am not putting that on the sculpture. My sculpture is made of glue and cardboard, while my sketch is just on paper. Also, my sketch is smaller than my sculpture.

Looking forward

For my final project, I don't know exactly what I want to do. I think I would incorporate collages in it. Maybe I could think of a theme, or a general set of colors to base it off of, and go from there. I would also like to add other materials to it, too. I was thinking maybe I could glue beads on it. I could also use spray paint or a hot glue gun to emphasize certain things. The process I would use to pursue it would be to brainstorm many ideas in my sketchbook. I would write and draw all my ideas. 

Reflecting at the end of the year

I think I have developed greatly this year as an artist. I truly think this course has changed the way I feel about art completely. At the beginning of the year, I was not very proud of my work and I thought I was bad at art. I did not realize that if I kept practicing art everyday, my work would definitely improve. My artistic strengths are making collages and putting different materials together in unusual ways. One of my biggest challenges was the clay sculpture. Since we did not spend a lot of time with clay this year, it was very hard for me. I had a hard time making the shapes and at the end, making it all come together into one sculpture. Another challenge of mine this year was that I would think about my work too much when I was doing it. When I drew my crane on a piece of paper, I tried really hard not to stress about it, and just to do it. After I finished it, I realized that it came out really well. I will leave this class thinking about art more so then before. I would normally never think about art on a regular basis, but now I am always interested in how things are made. I see art influencing my life in the future because when I go places and I see something interesting, I always think about how I could make my own version of that, using many different shapes and materials.

Sketchbook Archeology

My first two pages is a big collage of random things I found in a magazine. I really think this sparked my interest in making collages, and I'm so glad that happened. When I filled the spread with circles, I tried to be really creative, but it didn't turn the way I wanted. I tried to combine all different shapes and colors of circles to make it look interesting. As I look back at the beginning of my sketchbook, I see that everything I have done is very rough looking, and it looks like I didn't have much familiarity with the art I was making. More towards the beginning, I realize that I used markers a lot more than I have been recently, because I think I use other materials better. I notice that I used tape a lot in my sketchbook. There are some pages that I used to just test out different materials and see how they would look together. I really like using the hot glue gun. I also liked using different colors to draw different shapes and patterns. Once my second term of art began, I think my sketchbook improved. I think it has played a big role in my artistic development because it allows me to be creative with art, using different materials, than I do when I am in class. Multiple times, I would get a picture to put in the middle of the page, and outside of that I would color the page or make different patterns with different colors. I think that I really tried to try new things and use different materials in my sketchbook. Something new that I tried that I really liked was using the spray paint.Materials:

• magazine paper
• marker
• ripped paper
• paint
• paint markers
• colored pencils
• duct tape
• pencil
• hot glue gun
• highlighter
• pens
• glitter
• sparkly paper
• tin foil
• bubble letters
• collage
• pastels
• charcoal
• watercolors
• construction paper
• nail polish
• spray paint

symbolic portrait clay sculpture

Tori
-she is short and wishes she was tall
-sticks to her decisions and has strong opinions
-nice and funny
I chose Tori because she is my best friend and I think she has an interesting personality that I could represent through an animal.

Animal: Zebra
-tall
-black and white
-harmless

 Environment
-on ballet shoes
-in front of trees (to represent camp)

symbolic portrait brainstorming

Zack- baseball, 16, JB, xbox, camp, music

• big baseball
• little boy and girl
• camp micah symbol or bridgton maine
• blue/green eyes
• xbox controller
• jb in backround
• Buddy
• needham high
• music symbol?
• green and blue
• treadmill?

Tori- dance, friends, lacrosse, field hockey, camp, best friends since 5th grade, inside jokes, Maine, Buddy

• dance shoes
• bunch of people or people holding hands
• lacrosse stick
• field hockey stick
• camp hayward
• outline of the state of Maine
• dog/Buddy
• zebras
• Needham high

Cranes for Japan

What I saw from the pictures was shocking. In the pictures from before the tsunami, Japan was very green. There were blue skies as well. Now after this tragedy, everything is dark.
Three wishes for the people in Japan:
1. everything to return to the way it used to be
2. happiness
3. for all the people of Japan to return there

Getting back to materials

I chose to use the red ribbon because I thought it would be very simple to use it to make my face. I thought that it was flexible, and all the other materials seemed too difficult. First, I made the outline of the head. This was the most difficult because the ribbon would not align with where I put the glue. Then I did the eyes, which were pretty difficult as well. I figured out that the easiest way to make a curve with the ribbon was to fold it. Then I did the mouth. After that, I did the hair, which was the easiest part. It was easy because I just cut a bunch of ribbon and put it over the glue. I feel that my finished product could have been better if I had more time, and if I used different material. If I had more time, I could have made the face look like my own, and added more details. I think if I used different materials, my work would have come out better.