Done?

We're done!  Almost!  Congratulations everyone for getting through the year and making great art along the way.  It will be cool to see everyone's hard work displayed on Thursday, so enjoy it.  I'm still trying to get stuff glued onto the back of canvas board, touch up some of my pieces, and make some of my pieces not look like complete crap.  Balancing these three things is a unique talent, which I have perfected.  Basically I'm just going to hope that "The best art project ever" distracts everyone from the rest of my pieces.

Wrapping up

This 3-D thingy is turning out to be a lot of work.  Especially working in black and white, making sure everything is distinct is a challenge, plus working at an angle can be hard.  I think it will turn out fine and i am having fun working on it, but it is harder than i thought it was going to be.  I am still drafting an idea for my last piece.  It was kind of a short month, so gotta get it done and get ready for the showcase.

uhhh

The 3D canvas project is rolling finally.  I"M MAKING IT HAPPEN.  I decided just to do a single scene with a bulge near the center.  The scene, a riot/protesters, kind of brings elements of my other pieces together (fist expressions, facial expressions, etc) which I think is a nice way to wrap up the year.

I matriculated today, woo.

I also had the strangest revelation in my dream a couple nights ago.  I tell you about it if you are interested.

MARCH

SO, i have to live in an apartment for the next week because the people who are doing our floors messed up.  Living in an apartment in your hometown is stupid if you ask me.

THE 3D CANVAS IS COMPLETE.  I worked on it after school and it is awesome.  Now I just need to figure out what to paint on it (minor details).  Expressions - I need something with duplicity, so I can use the two sides of the canvas to express the two different sides of the expression (Really corny, but like happy face sad face - I'm not actually doing that, but something more creative).

Spring Break

I am incredibly tired.  I spent a majority of my spring break at a five day interviewing process in Charlottesville, Virginia.  It was a good experience, but when every hour of your day is planned out and you are constantly trying to impress a panel of unidentified judges that could be anywhere secretly observing you, it gets pretty tiring.  Unfortunately, I did not enjoy doing concentration pieces at all.  I usually like them, but they just feel like tasks now, not a lot of fun.  I think it stems from a lack of ideas coupled with spending 2 weeks out of town this month and lots of other work to be done.  Hopefully I can get through this check because I think next month will be a lot better

Mid March

I just got back from a five day swim meet in Washington and am feeling pretty terrible.  The meet went really well, but I'm tired, irritated, and behind on everything ... can't say I didn't warn you.

I'm going back to plain old acrylic on canvas this time around.  I'm trying to get away from facial expressions, but it's harder than I thought.  Hands also can being very expressive, but it is challenging to find some hand expressions that aren't completely tacky or really inappropriate.  I'm sure I will figure it out sooner or later.

Feb-March

This month I have been messing around with different ways to add depth to my work.  I never really liked using flat canvasses.  Last time I used the molding paste, and this time I tried layering actual pieces of paper.  One trick I discovered is using acrylic paint over sandpaper.  I don't know if this is a tried technique, but it really helps colors and lines blend easily and is fun to paint on.  I would like to do something with wire next month, but haven figured it out yet.  I'm not quite done with both pieces yet, but I think they are due on Wednesday, so I have a couple more days to finish them.

In other news, Lakeridge Swimming placed very well.  I have another swim meet in Washington in a couple weeks, which should be fun.  We are tapering right now, which basically means I am not allowed to do anything physical outside of swim practice.  It really helps fuel the senioritis!

Tired

I'm finding that the hardest part about the concentrations isn't doing them, but coming up with an idea.  I want to do something in physical raised layers, but I'm not sure how I want to use that idea in an actual piece.  I liked using the light molding paste as an understructure for my last two pieces because it gave both pieces more depth, even if the structure wasn't perfectly contoured to the lines of the face.  I would like to achieve a similar effect with much more defined layers.  This could lead to a more cartoony / abstract representation I suppose.

In other news, the Lakeridge swim team did really well at districts this weekend.  We put a bunch of people through to states, so that should be fun next weekend.  I'm just kind of tired and unmotivated right now, kind of ready for school to be done.

Concentration

They are both acrylic over the light molding paste.  Concentration = expression

Home Stretch

SO, finals are almost here, which means all the seniors will be entering there final semester of highschool.  Kind of scary to think about, but at least most of us are looking forward to college in some capacity.

I was finally able to start a concentration piece early this month.  I had this whole idea for a raised painting using the light molding paste, so we will see how that turns out.  Molding paste is much harder to manipulate than I anticipated, so I cant really make the smooth surfaces I wanted to.  It is kind of fun and challenging to paint over the stuff once it dries.

I wanted to put some more photos from the 100 photos project up, so here are some of those...

Intense Color

Tells a Story

Tells a Story

Taken at Night

Winter Break

So, I had a pretty good winter break.  I didn't do much (which is a change for me) so it ended up being pretty relaxing.  I saw my grandma, swam, and ate a lot of food.

I also spent a lot of time on art.  I tried to space the completion of the projects out over the two weeks so i would do better work, and i think it worked out.  For the concentration pieces, I kept working on expressions, but i still don't really like the idea.  I feel like i'm forcing everything to fit the concentration and consequently, everything becomes more of a task (less enjoyable).  I like drawing/painting because its fun, not because I have to, so i'm going to try and mix it up, try some new things, and not worry as much about the final product.  I started this be doing a piece in color pastel (which i never use).  The piece wasn't great, but I had way more fun on it than I do on usual pieces.  Hopefully improvement will come.

When I started working on the photos project, I thought it was going to be really laborious and boring, but as I worked on it, I enjoyed it more than I expected.  Yes, some of the catogories where tough, I did them at the last minute, and the quality sucks, but more often then not, I got pictures that I actually liked.  Not all of them perfectly match the descriptions, but I still like the photos.  Below are some of my favorites.

Happy 2011!

Intense Color

Simple Shapes

Tells a Story

Old, Rusty, Falling Apart

we tried...

Settling In

After working on art over the six day weekend, I think I came closer to finding a suitable concentration.  I was doing movement, but I realized that everything I liked or was tending to paint was movement in the face.  Expression seems to fit what I'm leaning towards.  The two pieces I did for this concentration check were more about deciding if "expression" is what I want to be doing.  They aren't my best pieces of work, but I think they convinced me that this is what I should be doing.

Now focusing on expression, I enjoy doing large faces.  I want to work with contortions some and get away from just smiles.  I do not want it to turn into an emotion concentration, so sticking with funnier expressions is probably a smart idea.

I started working on the pictures work of art project.  It felt like everything I took was posed to fit the prompts.  I would like to have a majority of the pictures be sparatic, so I might have to carry a camera on me more often.  I'm going to Atlanta in a week for a swim meet, so I think I will have some good photo opportunities there - I have a lot of time and can easily carry a camera on me.

Concentration Change

So, what I wanted to do before, contradiction, turned out to be way too complicated.  There is no way that I can think of 12 pieces that would be interesting enough and tie together.  McBride convinced me to just pick one of the principles of art to focus on, so I chose motion.  I have been looking through my Mom's photos (she is a rather avid photographer) and she has done a lot of stuff with motion that I would like to use - swimming / running shots of family and friends.  This topic is much more practical, and I they will all fit together well.

I fear the 100 photos woa.  That is a lot of photos to take, so I have already started messing around with a few of them.

Concentration

I want to do a concentration on contradictions.  I kind of explored this with my two of my projects this year (smiling while being slapped, crying while everyone else is happy).  Monet said I should do a little kid in a business suit holding a briefcase.  I think that would be cool, but I want to make sure all of my projects flow together (thought about just doing emotional contradictions, but need ideas).  Ideas???

New Dog

We got a new dog.  Her name is Britta.  She is a german shorthaired pointer.  She sits in my room and inspires me to do art

art trip

I like the shadowing on the bridge caused by the standing water

The sun created a cool outline of the trees.  the red sun spot needs to go though

The texture makes the close up of the leaf work

mcbride liked this one more because of the three leaves pulling your eye back.  I like how only one of the leaves is in focus

i dont know

good foreground v background action going on here

"sweet" texture

Family Portrait

I was trying to get some inspiration for my family portrait, so i started going through some google images and found some pretty weird ones.  I want to incorporate all six members of my family in some unique way.  I was thinking about using young heads on old bodies or doing some mashup of photos we already have.  Another idea is to have everyone mad and my brother laughing because he is always joking around.  I don't really have inspiration for this project yet.

This is the photo i was referencing above:

this is a piece that i did from art 3-4.  i like it

I am excited for art this year.  go art