Marble Drop

My theme is...  Cats.  I came up with the theme because cats are my favorite animals.  The ideas were things that cats do, like sleep, fight, eat, play, and just sit there.   I think cutting out all the pieces and painting each and every one was the hardest part of making it.  Then glueing all of it together.  The marble travels downwards.  I don't really know how to explain it otherwise.  Yeah, I made the path.  Cut each piece out of cardboard.  If I could change anything (im not finished yet ill edit this later).  I'm most proud of all the stuff I had to do and how it wasn't just three slopes back and forth.

Repetition

I undertook the word repitition as a repeating object, which is why I made a few whistles.  Only half of them work.  So I had been making a pinchpot, and thought about making it into a whistle.  I spent the longest on the turtle whistle (which doesn't work)  and then about one day on all the others.  After looking up a few videos and experimenting, I made whistles.  They're fairly simple to make.  I think I was successful in the fact that at least some of them work.

Pressure

The word "pressure" made me think of the pressure of metamorphosis.  I had planned to make a caterpillar, too, but it didn't work.  I used a photo of a moth as a reference.   The front legs (yes, those are legs) have texture.  (Also, the end of the body has the wings folded over it.)  The one thing I feel like I did successfully was making the front legs, because those are cool and have texture.  If I could change something about this piece, it would be to make more of them... And to make it look less like a piece of poop.

Mixed Media

My mediums for this project were watercolor pencils, tissue paper, photo transfer(tape) and pen.  The theme was Amusement.  I came up with this idea because I find cats playing with toys amusing.  Originally I had planned to put a piece of fabric looking like a cat toy in it's mouth, but that proved too hard to do.  A friend suggested polka dots when I was at a loss for the bacground- "Dots are amusing, right?"  I think the spotted background was the hardest to make.  I had to cut out little circles of tissue paper and then wet them down.  I'm proud of the cat, though it's way unproportional.  Front leg too low, neck too long- that kind of stuff.  I think if I could change something, it would be the cat.  However, I do like the markings.

Non-Traditional Portrait

       I chose to do a portrait of my cat, Juneau.  My medium was pine needles (and glue?).  I've had pets all my life, and most of them were cats.  So why not do one of my cats?  They're important to me.  I wanted to do footprints at first, but that would take too long and be too big of a scale.  The idea was rejected.  So I was thinking of materials that were easy to get and that are abundant.  My backyard has a forest.  There are tons of pine needles, and I decided that's what I was gonna do.  No shortage of pine needles here.  It was a good decision to use pine needles for my cat because it emphasizes the fur.  Animals are furry.  Well, some of them.  It was a little hard to break up every pine needle cluster and then glue every little piece down.  Looks like it was worth it, though.  One of the risks was the challenge of time.  Sticking every little piece down one-by-one is time consuming.  I've never made a cat with non-traditional materials before, either.  I think I like my choices.  Pine needles made a good medium, and shows the fur well.  I guess I can connect the materials to my cat.  I want to take him outside eventually, but he's a little eager to go outside and we might not be able to trust him.  Anyways, this project was pretty fun and I liked it.

Nature Art

Land art is a time-limited piece of art.  Made out of the land.  It will dissapear over time.  Not designed to be long-lasting, they are supposed to dissapear eventually.  After all, that's usually what theyre made to do.  Unless you use glue .  I didn't use glue.  Just leaves.  And also a spider.  My medium was leaves, and I used a picture of a moth on my hand as a reference.  I chose this piece because it sounded like a good idea.  Also because I love moths.  Expected it to come out a little different, but this is fine too.  I'm proud of it.  Next time I'd probably have more time and more leaves.  Then it might be better.  I was inspired by the fluffy moths I found while I was at the mountain on vacation during the summer.  And red is my favorite color.  So those are the reasons and stuff.  This was rather easy to make. 

Sticky Situation

  My ideas for Sticky Situation began with thinking of various situations without a good ending one could get into.  For example, having a pencil with no erasor during a test, stepping on a tack, animals stuck in honey- anything like that.  Yes, I was able to think outside the immediate box.  When you hear "sticky", most people think a fluid or something that is adhesive, but this project was trying to get you to focus on a more wide range of options.  Or so I thought.  Who knows.  I put repetition and pattern in the picture by having a striped wallpaper in the background, stairs, and railings.  Repeating, sort of.  It was a little annoying to shade the railings.  I kept messing up on them, and it'll still never be perfect, but I tried.  Using tape to reinforce the lines was a good idea.  I chose paint.  Acrylic paint?  Yeah, I'm just going to call it paint.  I preferred using it as well because I could layer things without the previous layer being too visible- unlike watercolor.  Haha.  I layered a lot and the amount of paint caked onto my canvas is probably an inch wide.  Bet you could crack it off and get a panel of just paint.  (not really).  Mini lessons?  We had those?  Well, my dad told me that holding the paintbrush near the bottom gave you the most control, but I already knew that.  I don't really remember doing any mini lessons.  This project was pretty interesting and fun to do.

Vessel

My idea for a vessel was a snake mug.  You know, with the snake coiled around it, squeezing.  Or something along those lines.  I wanted the snake to be coiled closer with itself, but that didn't work out.  It's still pretty heavy anyways.  The underbelly of the snake was carved out- something I didn't want to do and made it more likely to explode due to my bad craftsmanship.  There were probably a ton of air bubbles, but there were even more holes poked into it.  I really didn't want it to explode.  My medium was red clay, and I wanted to paint the underside with white clay so that it would appear to have a white belly.  That didn't happen and it wouldn't have mattered since it was glazed over with dark blue glaze, blue glaze, and red glaze for the eyes.  My vessel is supposed to hold water, or any liquid deemed nonlethal.  Preferrably liquid that won't harm, in any case.  You want to hear my process?  Well..  First off, I took a great lump of clay.  Flattened that flatter than a pancake.  Cut out a circle, cut a rectangle out.  Rolled up the rectangle into a cylinder and stuck the circle onto the bottom, sticking them together like you would if you dropped a banana onto the floor from 20ft in the air.  The tail was supposed to be the handle, though it doesn't work too well.  Then guess what I got.  Clay.  Rolled it out into a giant noodle or worm.  Then I got more clay.  Rolled that out, too.  Stuck them together.  They still weren't that long.  In the middle of that, somewhere, I crafted the head of the snake onto the end(front) piece.  Ms. Sudkamp thought, rightfully so, that it would be dumb to just keep doing it like that so I had to chop up the snake into itty bitty pieces.  Snake sushi.  Then I carved out the belly -guts- and it was ready to eat.  That snake sure was delicious.  Anyways,  I scored and slipped so much trying to put that snake onto the mug.  More than half of it didn't even get put on.  Wow, that was a waste of time.  Making the parts that didn't go on, that is.  Then I used a sponge or something and tried to smooth it out.  "Tried" being the key phrase there.  After, it got tossed into the kiln and burnt to a crisp.  Then  I glazed it.  Another trip to the clay oven.  That's pretty much it.  I took it home, but I haven't taken a drink from it yet.

Up Close and Personal

The theme was up close and personal.  My media was/were colored pencils.  Chose a rabbit because there had been lots of rabbits over the past few days and I wanted to see how well I could draw fur.  It was fun.  I emphasized the rabbit.  Maybe the eggs, too.  They all stand out.  Due to their bright colors, of course.  I chose colored pencils over the others because it seemed like a good idea, and the most interesting one.  It did not dissapoint.  Well, "interesting" might not be the key word.  Probably more "familiar" or "good to draw animals with".  The colored pencils enhance my piece by being my piece.  They make it colorful, give it contrast.  The background is uneven.  That's what I get for not wanting to accidently color the bunny's head.  Oops.  Ok, so you encourage risk taking.  That wasn't a question, though.  Yes, I took risks.  Almost messed up the eggs completely.  Thanks to the Primacolors for being able to layer.  Also I have never drawn an animal like this.  I don't mean rabbit.  Well, I haven't drawn a rabbit before like this.  But what I meant was that I haven't drawn an animal in this style before.  It doesn't even have outlines.  The rabbit looks like an alien.  I included technique, concept, and medium.  Who doesn't include medium?  Besides those people who make those blank canvases and sell them for tons of money.  I guess you could also say this is new.  Maybe emotion, too.  Maybe.  Probably not.  It was meant to be an easter bunny, but a normal bunny with eggs is fine too.  And that's pretty much it.

Relief in progress

I used clay and cutting tools and carving tools and stuff for my medium.  Clay seemed like a better option for my project than the bookstuff, and so I chose that.  What amazing intelligence.  So, my subject was a bunny in a box.  I thought a bunny would be better to carve and/or easier, but the popping out of the box was a little harder.  With straight edges the box was a little tough to cut but it was done.  I don't know if you expect me to put more than this with four short questions. 

Van Gogh Painting

Sarah Jakubowski
9/21/13
Sudkamp Kimberly, Period 4 Sculpture and Ceramics
Discovered Van Gogh Painting Hiding in Norweigan Attic for a Long Time
    The painting is of some bunch of trees and a river.  Is it popular because it was drawn by Van Gogh?  I don't know yet.  How did they know it was Van Gogh's painting?  Maybe I'll find out as I read.  They call it "absolutely sensational" or a "once in a lifetime experience".  I'm not really one for paintings.  It just looks like a forest that was smeared in some places to me.  This painting had been twice rejected as a Van Gogh painting, once by the Van Gogh museum itself.  This humors me.  The evidence of this being Van Gogh's painting was a letter to his brother, in which he gets all lengthy with his words.  He talked of the amazing sunshine - "absolutely a shower of gold" - and some other stuff that doesn't seem related to this picture.  "The field seems purple, the distances blue" ninety percent of this picture is green.  Was Van Gogh really off his rocker?  "You wouldn't have been at all surprised to see knights and ladies suddenly appear, returning from hunting with hawks, or to hear the voice of an old provençal troubadour."  I have no idea what the last two words mean.  But this seems unlikely, due to the fact that this is a forest, and there is no civilization in sight.  Why would knights be returning to a forest with a hawk?  Not to hunt.  Maybe to store their hawk in some cage which it will probably be found by a bear and devoured.  This will be displayed from September 24th and onwards.  I see what you did, Ms.  Sudkamp.  I see very well now.  Well, not very well.  My sight isn't 6/6.  I think.   Been a while since my last eye checkup thing.  Anyways, I'm very skeptical of this Van Gogh painting.  Not that I'm into what Van Gogh does.  Did he not sign any of his paintings?  How odd.    Resources:  http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/09/van-gogh-painting-discovered

What's the Point

Most of my solutions to "What's the Point?" were hands, since that's what I naturally think of.  I don't really understand what you mean by solution, though.  It's an abstract question based around drawing, and having a solution for it just confuses me.  This solution is what I chose.  It consists of birds migrating and hands pointing them to where they are going.  The contrast was showed in the feathers, and the hands in the shading.  On the background there is also contrast due to the sudden dark and light colors.  I chose pencil, not pen.  Pencil is much easier to use because you can actually erase it when you make mistakes, as I often do.  Pen was out of the question.  I didn't want to crosshatch or shade in pen, either.  Shading with pencil is simpler and to me, better.  The shade scale is somewhat easier to make in it.  I used tracing, of sorts.  I was looking at my hand when I transferred it from sight to paper.  Contrast is another technique I used, as well as lining.  Outlining.  Whatever that's called.  I didn't take many risks on this, besides actually drawing the feathers on the bird completely.  The body especially looks bad to me, and drawing the feathers on a bird is a foreign thought as I never see a bird with outlined feathers on it's body.  Nor do I do that outline and shading stuff on the wings.  There isn't really some deep meaning to this.  It's literally just birds and hands.  The birds are migrating and the hands are pointing to where they are heading.  The hands are also a pit stop for the birds.  There was supposed to be a meaning?  I didn't really know that.  This just complicates it more.

  I conveyed the migrating thing a little with the birds going in the same direction, and the hands pointing that way.  It isn't really that recognizable, though.  Don't think anyone would know what I meant for it to be if they just looked at it.  Maybe some kind of messed up drawing with hands for trees and birds sitting on the hand-trees and/or flying.

Botched Restoration

Sarah Jakubowski
9/3/13
Period 4 Sculpture and Ceramics
    This piece of art used to be Ecce Homo, "Behold the Man".  At least it was, until 81 year old widow Cecilia Giménez painted over it.  Now it is known by Ecce Mono, "Behold the Monkey".  There are a few nicknames for this select piece of art.  I'm not going to list them, though.  The authorities of Borja had claimed to believe it was vandalism at first, even though Cecilia claims she worked on it during the day, in broad daylight, with approval from the local clergy.  The church claims she did not have permission.  I'm not too sure what she thought she could do to it, since she was obviously not too good at art stuff.  Now that it's famous, the people who once thought about inforcing legal charges on her might be thankful instead.  Because of her odd recreation on the painting.  Personally I think it's a funny image.  I also think that this topic is really abstract.  Write what we feel about this piece of art?  A while from now it might be worth some money, but I'd think not.  The church announced that they would hire a professional or pay them to come and fix it up.  Following the press coverage, Cecilia had been reported to be suffering of terrible anxiety attacks and being reluctant to eat and/or leave her house.  A year after, the Misericordia hypothesized that about 57,000 guests and tourists from all over Europe, Latin America, Japan, and China went to see the fresco and among all those dropped somewhere around €50,000 in the collection box.  Just to see this "failed" recreation.  It's getting more profit than it probably would have had it stayed the same as the original.  All in all, wouldn't you say this was a success and not a failure?  Cecilia has not seen penny nor dime of the donations her creation has wrought.  She is working towards a copyright deal over her painting.  Through this(or maybe after), Cecilia said, "I couldn't understand why everyone was talking about me.  I only tried to stop the fresco succumbing to damp, as it so often had."  She wanted 49 percent of the money at the sanctuary to go towards people suffering due to the same degenerative sickness as her biological offspring. 



Citations:  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/so-bad-it-was-brilliant-botched-fresco-restoration-answers-spanish-towns-prayers-with-tourism-boom-8762069.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/europe/botched-restoration-of-ecce-homo-fresco-shocks-spain.html?_r=0
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/botched-ecce-homo-painting