Ceramics

A while ago we made ceramic bowls, shaping slabs of clay around a mold and then decorating them with red clay. I tried to make a beautiful bowl with pretty patterns, but it kind of ended up a blob...but I still really like it.

I feel somewhat successful about this project. It didn't break and I could eat stuff out of it if I really wanted to. The only problem was trying to make the edges even and using the red clay. The edges turned out to be crooked; higher on one end and lower on the other. If I had cut off anymore of the edges, I wouldn't have a bowl. The red clay didn't work, even though I put many, many coats on, but I like it better this way, it has a cool pattern to it. Speaking of pattern, the spiral on the inside didn't turn out how I imagined, but the clay blocks I put in look good. I did learn a lot of new sculpting techniques from this project, and working with clay is always a good time. If I could redo it I would put more effort into smoothing out the clay (I have a bunch of crumbs and stuff on my bowl after I glazed it...) and also to even out the edges more. Overall, though, I am happy with this project.

Photoshop

Yesterday and today we learned the basics of Photoshop. Today we altered a tongue to be in the shape of a frog. I was really happy about this project because I love using Photoshop, but I've never had anybody teach me how to use the tools. My picture I think looks pretty good and a bit realistic. I feel very successful about this project. The hardest part was cloning the tongue and making sure it looks realistic. I learned a lot of new ways to use Photoshop after doing this project and can't wait to apply these new skills at home doing other projects.

Pastel Still Life

What we had to do for this project was to create a still life portrait using pastels. Pastels were pretty difficult for me to use, especially blending and making sure everything is in the right place. I think this project was successful in the sense that I had not used pastels since elementary school. But if you look at how well the portrait is done overall, its not that great.

What worked about the project was way I blended the green bottle and how the flowers came out. what didn't work about this project was that the white lamp turned out crooked and there wasn't much I could do to fix it. If I had to do this project over again, I would plan out the layout of the items more before using the pastels. The most difficult thing about this project was blending and fixing any mistakes that you would make using the pastels. What I learned from this project was how to properly use pastels and also the importance of using many colors in one item and also how to highlight.

I had a fun time doing this project and I'll try using pastels better in the future.

Gesture Painting

I really liked doing this assaignment. Working with paint was a nice change to what we had been doing. First we chose partners; my partner was Logan. We taped a long strip of white paper to the wall and then painted out partners using proportions. After that we painted with funky colors to really make it pop. I really, really, really like my painting. :) I think I got the proportions correct and the paint made it look really cool. Overall, it was very successful.

The only thing that didn't work was that I made my painting too big and didn't have enough room for the feet. If I were to do it over I would start higher on the paper and make it a bit smaller. The most difficult part of the painting was the hands. I'm terrible at hands! So I kind of made them stumps instead. I learned from this piece how to correctly do proportions and improved my painting skills.

Monsters

This project is probably one of my favorites so far. What we did was take drawings of monsters made by kindergartners and bring them to life, sculpting them from clay. First I chose a monster, than drew what I interpreted it to look like. Then I sculpted the monster out of clay and painted it. Lastly, we hot glued it into a "toy" package to send back to the kindergartners.

I think that my monster was a success. There were no problems and I sculpted pretty well, even though I am usually not very handy with clay. Everything worked with this project, the only thing that didn't was that we had to find a deeper container because my monster was slightly to big. The only changes I would make to my monster would be to make it a bit smaller. The part that was most difficult was attaching the smaller parts of the monster in a way that they would not break off while in the kiln. I learned more techniques in working with clay.

Light Drawings

This project was a nice relaxing project that was both fun and cool. What we did was turn off all the lights and used glow sticks to draw pictures while the camera captured the light. Ours turned out okay, but our pictures were not as vibrant as other groups (probably because of the glow stick brand or the settings of out camera). Everyone in our group participated by either drawing the pictures or taking the pictures with the camera. There really is no way to go wrong with this project, so I think that it was very successful.

At first I was skeptical on how this project worked, but after a few tries I got the hang of it. What didn't really work with this project was the brightness of our pictures. The light from the glow sticks was way too dull. If I could change how we did this project, I would use higher quality glow sticks or a little flashlight/laser pointer. The most difficult part of this project was drawing the picture with the glow stick before the time ran out and the camera finished capturing. What I learned from this picture is that cameras can actually capture the lights; I thought that it would turn out to be just a giant blur.

Stencil Art

Over the past couple of weeks we have been working on a project that involves making a stencil and then spray painting the image.

We started off by finding a picture that related to our theme, the beach. I chose a lobster. I used Photoshop to change the coloring to black and white. I projected the image onto the white board and traced it onto a poster board then cut out the traced image. After completing my stencil, I painted a wooden frame and spray painted a large piece of cardboard. I placed the stencil on the painted cardboard and spray painted the image onto the cardboard. I stapled the cardboard onto the frame to complete the project.

I really liked how this project came out. It was fun and a change of pace to what we had been doing. What I don't like about my project is the stencil. It could have been better and have more detail. In some places the legs are to attached and just look like a blob. Overall, this project came out really well.