END OF YEAR THOUGHTS



i think that my greatest accomplishment would be either the collage or the block print. i think that the collage was the best because it came out really well and it looked just like i remember it and just like my pantry. i also think that the block print was the biggest accomplishment because i didnt have difficulty with it and there werent much mistakes and it looked good.



i think that some of my biggest struggles are taking a long time on things and having bigger expectations for what i am going to make. for example i had bigger expectations for the sculpture and ended up taking a long time on it. another thing that took me a long time was the family portrait. with the portrait it took me a long time to finish because i was nervous about making mistakes and would take a lot of practice drawings until i finally put it on the board and when i did i was very careful and that took up a lot of my time.



i think i made the most progress in drawing from observation. i think so because i didnt think that i was good at that and when we were drawing the things from nature and the geometric shapes i thought that they came out really well.

i am very happy with the outcome of my block print. at first i was nervous becauise i thought that i would mess it up and that i would carv away the wrong thing on the block but i didnt and it came out looking really good. another thing that i like about it is the texture that is on the feather area. when i was putting the color on some of the blue didnt get on all the way so there are small dots of the color that is under it which make it look like the wings arent one color.

some of the things that i think are the most succsesful parts of my sculpture would be the texture of the base which is supposed to be sand ands the color of the coral. i didnt think that it would be as bright and vivd as it came out and it looks like the real colors of coral. another thing that i thought worked was even though you cant see it there are little circles in the tentacles which gives it a rough texture which came out the way that i wanted it to look like. if i was to do something different the next time is i would make sure that there were no air bubbles in the clay so that it would not explode. this happened with the octopuss and i do not have a picture of it.

some decisions that i made was to have my sister be seperated from the rest of us because when we are all at home she stayes in her room and never comes out. another i choice i made was to have us standing infront of my house with the garden because that is something my mom and dad work on a lot and they are very proud of it. i think one of the bigest strengthsa of the portrait is my sister. i think she is because i worked long on it and it came out really well. her posture and everything is exactly her. another thing that i think would be is the house because it looks exactly like it.

i was trying to show a story about a farmer and a duck hunter. the duck hunter takes one of the farmers animals and kills it for his own. when the farmer finds this out he takes all of the hunters ducks and his dog. in the end the hunter apologizes and the two people become friends. we had to use as many copies as i needed of these two pictures and make the story. at times it was hard because there were so many that i got confused and jumbled. the principals of design can help tell a visual story because if you want all of the attention on one object you can use different methods to have your point of view be shown. for example, in my story i wanted all of the focus to be on one thing so i put the animal in the center of the page and didnt havew anything around it. i did this to show what was going on which was just a pig eating.

the story i am trying to show is a time when i was making a smoothie and i forgot to put the lid on the top and i turned it on and the smoothie exploded all over the place. some of the things that i did was i made the smoothie big and colorful all over the place and then me with my arms in the airt and my mouth in the form of a surprised face. principles of design can help tell a visual story because if you want all of the fucos of the picture to be on one object the you can use leading lines to lead you to the object.

the two aspects of myself i was trying to show in this portrait were mellow/relaxed and crazy/energetic. i chose blue for the mellow/rlaxed part of me because i picture blues in the catagory of not bright and in you r face and that is what i feel like when i see blue. i picked the color red for the crazy/energetic part of me because red is a very in your face color and that is sometimes what i am like when i get energetic. some of the dificulties i had when i was making this portrait was getting the colors to be different. for example, sometimes it was hard to get the hair and the skin color to look different and i would have to either add water to it or add white. also when i added white it got hard because sometimes i put to much white in and it would make the color to light and then i would have to mess around with the amount of color that i had to add to get it to be the right shade. another thing that was hard was getting the proportions of the mouth and the eyes and the placement of those things to be right. it was hard to make the eyes the same shape and in the same place on the side of the face. also it was hard to make the mouth the same length on each side of the face. the last thing that was hard was making the lines on the face so it didnt all look like the same color. if i could do something differently i would make the red side have darker colors so that you wouldnt be able to see the grid becuase it bothers me.


sculpture


to make the sculpture the i made i printed out a picture of a monkey. i look at the colors of it and the way that it was standing. once i saw that i got wire and shpaed it in the way that the picture was like. then i went in the box and looked for items that were the color black because that was the color of the monkey that i had printed out. the sculpture represents my uncle. i chose a monkey because monkeys like to play and have fun and arent very serious. that is just like my uncle he isnt very serious or matuer at times. the reason there is no picture is because i got frustrated with it and it wasnt working so i threw it away.

Patrick Pierce
metal/wood

Patrick Pierce relocated his studio to lowell massachusetts.
he has done one man shiws in and group shows in NYC venues.
he uses different textures to show what he is thinking of. this is
a sculpture of an upside down tree. the part with the jumble of
metal is the roots. he uses texture to show the roughness and
the wiggles of the roots. i think he used certain toosl like hole
punches and blowtorch to makle the piece dark and to bend
the metal into the shape he wanted it to be. in the sculpture
you can see he uses most of the texture at the top where the
roots would be.

A family
Fernando Botero
colombian

first impressions
when i first saw this i thought it was kind of
wierd because the way he made all of the people
very big and exagerated. i also thought it was
kind of starnge how the mothers back is turned
away from us.

what i have learned
Boteros work includes still lifes and landscapes but
he primarily does situational portraiture. his paintings
are nown for there large proportions. he says that
"An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without
knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later
do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it."

i think botero uses two principles of design to communicate
the view about the family. he uses grouping to show the
mother by having her be surrounded by her family. also
he uses leading lines to go to the mother because the nanny
and the boy or facing her. i think all this shows that he thinks
that the mother is the most important in the family and holds
everything together.

Edward Hopper
1942
oil on canvas

first impression
I like this picture because it has mellow colors that aren't
right in you face. in this picture you can see that it is night
time because the only light is coming from the bar and
everything is dark like the stores in the back ground.
by the colors that he uses in this painting you can tell that
it is a relaxed setting.

what i have learned
Hopper named this painting nighthawks because it was his
parody on the term night owl wich is someone who stays up
late. this painting was inspired by a diner in manhattan which
was hoppers home town. hopper painted this painting right after
the attack on pearl harbor and that is why the painting seems to
to have a sense gloomines.

how hopper creats unity
hopper creates unity in many ways. one thing that he does is have
the waitor and the two people at the bar all near each other which
is grouping. another thing that hopper does is uses repetition, he
uses repetition by having the windows lead to the bar plus the bar
stools lead to the man sitting by himself. another is the contrast of
color with the black from the store and the white of the light.

reflection

there were many things in art class that i enjoyed doing but one of my favorites was painting the two sides of our personalities. my favorite thing about this project was mixing the paints to try and get the right color and shade for the personality. another thing that i liked was that it was a very laid back time so we could talk and have fun but at the same time get work done.

one artist that i would like to study more on would be Andy Goldsworthy. i picked him because i really like his work. some of the things that i like about him is that he makes most of his stuff from stuff he finds out in nature. some of his art pieces that i like would be when he uses stones to make larger objects and when he uses different colors to make illusions.

works of art i know

Andy Goldsworthy
rock
british

my first impression:
when i first saw this sculpture the first thing
i noticed was that he was able to make something
look round with very rough surfaces. i like this
sculpture a lot because you can see how the shape
has been put together because of all the lines in it.
another thing that i liked about this was that all
the rocks were different sizes and that makes it
look a lot more interesting.

what i have learned:
Andy goldsworthy lives in a quarry. that is were
his house is located. he makes these egg shaped
sculptures with pieces of whinstone and sandstone
that have been left in the quarry. he is very interested
in the journey that the stone has been through.

Marcel Duchamp
nude descending a staircase no. 2
french
oil on canvas
1912

first impressions:
when i first saw this picture and read
the name i looked at it and tride to picture
a person coming down a flight of stairs. after
a while of looking at it i still couldnt see it but
i still like it because it seems random but i like
the colors that he choose

what i learned:
this painting is one of the first paintings Marcels
first peice of work. this painting is supposed to
show the movment of a nude walking down the
steps. he submitted this painting to the cubist
Salon des Indépendants. it is in the phildelphia
museum of art.

works of art i know

Frida kahlo
mexican
Autorretrato con Collar de Espinas y Colibrí
oil on canvas

first impressions:
when i first saw this painting i liked it because
of the colors in it. i like how she is in front of the
green leaves and there are two black animals in
the background. another thing that i like is the
flowers with the wings. at first i thought it was
wierd but after i looked at it for a while i started
to like them.

what i have learned:
Frida Kahlo relates the different animals and colors
to a perticular time in her life.

Henri Matisse
french
1905
oil on canvas

my first impressions
when i first saw this painting was drawn to
it because i liked how he used so many different
colors and shades of colors to make this person.
my favorite part of this painting is the background
because it has many light colors that look very calm.

what i learned
this was painted in 1905. it was beleived that the woman
in this painting is henri matisse's wife Amelie. it is in the
san fransisco museum of modern art.

I See The Light Drawing

midnight campfire

the story i am trying to tell in my drawing is a time i went camping and we rosted
marshmellows. i used value in my drawing to show the shadows from the fire. the
most challenging aspect of making this drawing was the shadows. the most succesful
aspect of the drawing was the shadows.

Story Collage

smoothie explosion

the story i am trying to tell in my collage is when i was making a smoothie and
i forgot to put the lid on and it exploded everywhere. the most challenging aspect
of making this collage was picking the four colors that i could use but it was a little
easier because we could use diferent shades of the color. in my opinion the most
succesful aspect of my collage was the glass. i wasn't sure at first but then i realized
that trasing paper would give it the see through part of the glass.

Works Of Art I Know

Edward Hopper
Nighthawks
1942

first impressions:
when I first saw this picture i liked it a lot because it had colors that were not

right in your face they were toned down a bit. I also liked the story that it makes
of some people at night in a bar/diner. I like how he uses value to show what time
of dayit is. if you look at the windows in the background you can just barly see the outline
of the stores and the lights are all turned off which shows that it is night time.

what I learned:
this painting is one of the most well known peice of art made by Edward Hopper.
he made this after the attack on pearl harbor. after this event there was a feeling
of gloominess which is portrayed in this painting.

Works Of Art I Know

Thomas Cole

romantic landscape with ruined tower 1832

first impression:

when i forst saw this painting i was confused

on whether it was a happy or sad picture.

I thought this because in the corner there is

a dark stormy cloud and under it there is a

a ruined tower which all seems a little depressing

but then on the other side of the painting there is

a spot of sun. I like this painting because there is a

contrast in it.

what I learned:

Thomas Cole mostly painted landscapes but sometimes

painted allegorical scenes. Thomas Cole is known as the

founder of the Hudson River School. he also tried a little

work as an architect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cole

Works Of Art I Know

Harriet Powers

Bible quilt 1898

first impressions:

when I first saw this the first thing that i noticed was the black

box up at the top. I like how Harriet Powers tells many stories

in one piece of art. one thing that i noticed was that she used

only a couple of colors and that they were colors that were not

bright and more grays and browns. i think she choose this because

colors like gray and black are drab colors and most of her stories are

about slavery and you wouldn't normally use happy colors in those

kinds of situations.

what I learned:

Harriet Powers was a black slave. she would use tradditional applique

techniques to show legends, bible stories, and astronomical events.

only two of her quilts have survived but are concodered some of the

finest examples of southern quilting. you can see the originals in The

National Museum of American History and the Museum of Fine Arts

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriet_Powers