A Blue Paradise

Portia Munson has inspired our class to create a pile of blue items.  Students brought two blue items to contribute towards the pile on the table in the center of the room.  Compared to Portia Munson's, our pile was not as substantial.  In the pictures below you can see the difference.

Portia Munson

Our Creative Arts Class

However, it is easy to wonder what all of these items are.  Some might just say that there is a hat, pillow, and a phone case.  What these items can really be expressed as are memories.  Each item on the table is its own moment in time.  Everyone might not be able to connect a memory to a specific item on the table, but the student who brought it in, most likely, can.  These are pieces of us, whether big or small, and even if we sometimes forget they will always be there.  This is what I see when I look at this table:  memories piled together.

Hat, Hats, Hats!

Andy Warhol saved an impressive amount of time capsules; over six hundred.  In fact, there are many  artists famous for their collections.  Some of these collecting artists include:  Andy Warhol, Portia Munson, Joseph Cornell, and Karsten Bott.  Seeing pictures of these artists collections showed the time and energy that went into gathering all of those specific items.

Andy Warhol

Portia Munson

Joseph Cornell

Karsten Bott

After hearing and seeing the different forms of collections from the artists above I started to wonder about the collections that I have.  Instantly the baseball hat collection piled up in my brothers trash can came to mind.  Every time we travel, go to an event, or go to a sports game we always buy a baseball cap.  They fill up an entire trashcan, and there are more scattered around our house.  Even if we have plenty of hats we always buy more.  We even buy more than one of the same hat, so that we each get one.  It has become a hobby of ours to buy hats to remember the memories we have had.  These are some of the very few baseball caps we own:

Drawing and Shading and Coloring, Oh My!

This past month I have been challenged with tasks that I thought I could never accomplish.  With a little push and confidence I found that I was capable of what my teacher, Mrs. Kiick, assured me I could do.  I tested myself and made a lot of progress.  It was still difficult reaching my required goal regardless of how well my pieces may have turned out.  Between the two tasks we received, the jar was, and currently still is, the more complicated to create.  Even looking at the two pictures, it shows the level of difficulty between each work of art.

Coloring

Candy is colorful and fun, but the act if drawing it is a challenge.  A jar full of candy sits on the table in front of me with wrappers and more candy spread around it.  Our task is to draw the outlines of the jar, the candy inside of it, and the candy around it.  Then, when wee are done drawing the outlines, we are given colored pencils to make the picture come to life.  This is by far more difficult than it was to draw the bike.  Coloring in the jar is not as simple as coloring in a coloring book.  The reflections coming off of the jar create shapes and patterns of color that we must capture in our drawings.  Fortunately, Mrs. Kiick gave us a worksheet where we could see what certain colors do to each other.  When it was finished it looked like this:

After some time working on the handed out worksheet, I had more understanding with the correct way to shade with colored pencils.  My knowledge, however, wasn't enough for me to feel content with coloring my jar.  I took my time to work on some tracing paper until I was comfortable with jumping into my drawing.  I practiced twice before Mrs. Kiick suggested I dive into the real thing.  My two practice papers turned out looking like this:

I finally began my final drawing and am still only starting.  After many classes of anguish this is the completed product:

Shading

Coming in to art class one day, I was surprised with a bike.  The bike stood on a table in the middle of the room with its front wheel slightly turned to the left.  Instantly I thought, I can not do this.  However, after a few practice rounds I was feeling more confident in myself.  My practice drawings ended up looking like this:

After seeing how I improved from the first drawing to the second, I gained a little more confidence with the bike.  We began the final drawing of the bike I got the hang of it.  My mind went from 'I can't do this' to 'I am doing this'.  After sketching out the lines, I filled in the space with different shades of pencil.  Using the 2H, HB, and 6B pencils I was given, I was able to make the bike jump out a little.  The pencils helped darken while my eraser and the sticky grey eraser allowed me to bring light to where it hit.  In the end my final drawing looked like this:

The Beginning Of The End

It's that time of the year.  School started and, so far, this has been the best year I've had.  It may be a little too early to make this year my favorite, but somehow I already know that this one is a winner.  Instead of dreading waking up in the morning, I embrace it.  Maybe I am just cherishing my last year in Haddon Township.  I am ready to move on into the next step:  college.

After taking art during my sophomore year of high school, I am finally back.  This year will be the year I try and expand my creative ability.  Unlike the way I played it safe last year, I am going to push myself over my comfort zone to create something I would have never thought I could make.  I can't wait to start, and end, this year off with a bang!