Giving Back: Gingerbread Cookies

Since its already December, and almost Christmas Break, we're a little pressed for time this year to do all the ideas I had posted about in my previous blog post, but they are still ideas to keep in mind for next year.

However, me and my friends are going to do something that we hope will get our school a bit more excited for Christmas, and maybe lift some of there spirits.  We are going to make gingerbread cookies, like I suggested in my last blog post, but instead of just handing them out at peoples houses, we are going to decorate them, put them in little baggies, and hide them all over the school for the students to find.

This is something that I wish the older grades would have thought of when I was in gr.9 and 10, because it really is a great way to liven up the school a bit and get everyone excited about a common thing.  It shows that it is nice to be a part of a small school, where we can do personal, fun, co-operative things like this.

 I'm hoping that students will not be greedy and take all the gingerbread cookies they can find, but maybe just take one and leave the rest for other students to find, of tell a student who hasn't found one yet where to look, or even take 2 and give one to another student, after all, isn't giving to those who don't have what you have a part of the spirit of Christmas?

Me and my friends made the mix today, our art teacher gave us a recipe that she likes to use so we spent the class doing that.  I think that the mix looks good, and it smells even better!

We are planning on baking and decorating the cookies on Tuesday.  We were thinking of making them into traditional gingerbread cookie shapes, star shapes, and reindeer shapes.  And then make them look really good and appetizing by decorating them with icing and sprinkles.

I then want to hide them around the school during my art class on Wednesday, I think that this will work out well because most of the school is gone on a ski trip that day, so I wouldn't really have to worry about that many people finding the cookies before they are supposed to.  Also, art is my last period class, so I would literally be hiding them right before everyone goes home.

Thursday will be scavenger hunt day!  I want the office to announce it first thing in the morning so that people know right away why there are gingerbread cookies all around the school, and that they are safe to eat.  I really hope that we can follow this plan, and that everything works out  accordingly.

This will be a great way to kick off Christmas Break and get everyone in the giving spirit!

Here is a link to both of my friends blogs if anyone is interested in what they are saying about our little project.
http://kylieperala.blogspot.ca/
http://www.oliviazeleny.blogspot.ca/

Giving Back

The theme for this month that my art class will be focusing on giving back.  It seems appropriate considering the time of the year.  Our focus as an art class is to give back through art.  I want to come up with some unique, creative ways to give back this Christmas season locally, and through our school.

There are many people that would benefit from having something brighten there day over this Christmas season, and if our class can do even one thing to put a smile on someones face than we have succeeded.

How can one give back through art?

For me, it seems kind of hard to think about ways to give back through art, after all, art has always seemed more like something you do on a personal level, or to gain personal achievement.  This month we will be focusing on how we can use our artistic abilities to give back to our communities.

We started off this project by watching a video, it was actually kind of interesting to learn about how this artist gave back to her community, and other communities, and the ideas she came up with.  I appreciated her thought process.


I think that this artists style of art is revolutionary, she not only has her name out there for everyone to know, and practically created a brand for herself (swoon), AND her art is always on display for the world to see, but she helps people in the process.  Whether she gives people a conversation piece, brightens peoples day by showing them something spectacular, of actually builds a community for the less fortunate, she is always helping other people.  She is basing her style of art on other people needs/happiness and that's really cool.

Obviously my art class can't do anything to that extent.  But that also doesn't mean we can't do anything.  We just have to come up with ideas that are more within our reach.

I did a bit of research, and brainstorming on the topic.  How can we give back to our communities through art?  It took me a while to come up with any ideas at all, but once I started thinking of ideas, more just kept coming.  Now a few of these thoughts may still be out of reach, or unlikely to happen, but not impossible.

We could raise money.

This is a pretty general and common thought when thinking about giving back for Christmas, but we could fund raise through art.
We could use our individual artistic skills and have an art show where we would auction off our pieces, and use the money to buy gifts for kids that won't have any. This Christmas, we could buy gifts like art sets, pencils, sketch paper, paint, something that would get other kids interested in art, so they can maybe do the same one day for someone else.

We could offer art classes.

Being grade 11-12 students, most of us have a general idea how to do art.  We could offer Christmas craft classes or basic art classes before Christmas and try and bring the community together and get kinds out doing something instead of sitting at home watching tv.

We could paint windows.

Everyone is my art class could be responsible for asking a certain local business if it would be okay to have them paint/decorate there window for Christmas.  I think that this would be a really good idea, it would increase the amount of Christmas spirit in the town, and hopefully lift someones spirits walking bay the store/building.  (It would also be good to do this at the hospital)

We could make Christmas cards.

I think that it would be nice if everyone made a few Christmas card, we brought them to the post office, and just asked the people to put them into random peoples mailboxes.  It would be like a nice little surprise when someone opened up there mailbox, and who knows, that may be the only Christmas card they'll get.

We could make a mural in the snow.

One day in art class, we could all head down to the marina or something with a plan of what we wanted to do with the snow.  We could spray paint some Christmas design into it, or build it up if there's enough snow and make a snow sculpture, either way would work.

We could handout cookies.

During art we could bake and decorate cookies really pretty, and then hand them out after school for free.  We wouldn't hit every house, but I'm sure we could get a few.

We could paint the fire hydrants.

I'm not exactly sure what the regulations are for fire hydrants, but how cute would it be if we painted Santa and his Reindeer on them all over town!

We could get the community involved in a project.

What if we had a co-operative town project? Say a brick wall or something, anyone who wanted to paint on it would have to pay 1$ per brick, or a food donation per brick.  Everyone could paint something that was special to them, or write what they thought when they heard the phrase 'give back'.  Obviously, if people did not have the money or food donations they would not have to donate, but it would be a nice way to involve the community in a project while giving back to the community. (A brick wall is just a basic suggestion, really it could be anything)

We could incorporate nature.

We could paint little squirrels crawling up trees, or butterflies, or rabbits, on trees close to town so everyone could enjoy them.

Anyways, these are just a few ideas I have that could let my class give back through art, suggestions are welcome and would be appreciated, after all, we will be working on this all month.

Painting People with the Idea of #YouCanLearnAnything

Today in class we earned about the idea of not being naturally good at something, or having a bit of talent, but working and practicing at it to become better.  This can really relate to anything in life, classes of all types, jobs, the list goes on and on.

I decided to relate this idea to something I've been working on lately.

I'm not really good at art like some people are, I think that I'm decent and that I have potential, but I do have to work harder at it. I've been interested in drawing and/or painting people lately.  I want to get better at this.  So I took what I knew, and researched different ways to display proportions, and different techniques to draw people.  I then took this research and tried a few basic sketches.

Here is what I came up with.

(About 1-2 months ago)

I then began working with pencils because I realized that it is very easy to make a mistake when drawing people and I wanted to keep the option of erasing open. I also by this point found a technique that I liked to work with.

Here is my pencil drawings, and the ones I did just before.

(From first to last)

I wanted to try painting people this time, I found a picture online that I liked, and I worked on it for a few days.  I worked on the shading a lot, and I tried to get the body shapes right.  It took me a few days to complete it.  I did it on a very small scale, so it was kind of tricky to do certain parts, I want to try doing the same painting on a bigger canvas later.

Here is what I have so far.

As you can see I don't have any faces, I tried with one but it was to small to make them look good, which is actually the main reason I want to try it on a bigger scale next time.

But in the mean time, I have decided to try working on face so I can be come more familiar with them.

Here is what I have so far.

Anyways, relating this back to what we learned today, I defiantly think that if someone keeps working at something it can help expand that persons knowledge, understanding, and skill of the thing they want to learn more about.

This is just one example of it, I know there are many more in my life and in everyone's lives actually.

If I would've just stuck with my original skill level, I never would have gotten any better, you do have to learn from your mistakes to make neurological connections and improve the outcome of your work.

If you find yourself stuck in a fixed mindset, you have to find some way to break free of it.  Whether you try really hard to push yourself out or it by believing you can do better, or by finding something that your really passionate about to help you escape mindset you've become accustomed to.

Good things come to people who work with what they have, people who don't take take there abilities for granted, and people who try and improve upon there skills.  All in all, by doing this they will they will be helping themselves out in life.  These videos really show that anyone can do anything, some might have to work harder than others at it, but the ones who work harder are the ones who benefit more in the end.

I would consider myself to have a growth mindset, so I can't really say much for people who don't.  Whenever I struggle, I push through it and try to understand everything to the best of my ability. It's been working out for me pretty good, and I think it can work for everyone, as long as people do not allow there failures to break them, but make them stronger. This will result in a new way of thinking, that will let everyone have a growth mindset.

Final Product of Cross Curricular Art Project

I was able to work on my cross curricular art project over this weekend, and finish it.  I decided to go with this picture, because I though that it would be fun to paint in watercolors.

I haven't used watercolors in a while, and I got some new watercolor paper, so I thought that it would be fun to experiment with, while painting this fun colorful picture!

The paper I used was relatively thin, so it was kind of tricky because if you went over it more than once it got soggy and looked sloppy.  Also I obviously could not put as much detail in because of my choice of materials, and that it would take me forever to make something look that good.  But, I am however still happy with the outcome.

To do this piece, I started off by drawing a simple outline of this picture in black pen on the watercolor paper that I wanted to follow.  After that I painted in the lines similar colors to what they are in the picture.  I wanted it to be really bright because that is what stood out to me about this particular picture and made me choose to do it in the first place.

Here is the final outcome of what I did :)

I really like the contrast in this painting, and the different tones of blue.  However, I wish my colors turned out to be a little brighter.

Cross Curricular Art Project

We were given a new task in my art class this week.  A cross curricular art project.  A cross curricular art project is meant to relate art class to one of your other classes.  We can also relate it to something that we really like to do if we can't think of anything school based.  This project is also meant to change the way we do art, so we can see if we can be creative enough to think of something unique.

I've had a bit of time to think about this project since it was given to us, and I talked to my art teacher about possible ideas.  It was hard for me because my classes are chemistry, physics, and functions.  But my teacher actually suggested the idea to do something under a microscope. I've looked under microscope before so I know how interesting things can look from under them.


I have decided that I will do this, but I still have yet to decide what I will do, and what I will do it with.

Here are a few ideas that I found on Pinterest.

I like both of these because the are really colorful and interesting.  I don't know which one I like better though. 

Learning about Japan

Last week, Kyoko came into our classroom and taught us a little bit about Japan culture.  Kyoko originally came from Japan, so she knows a bit about it.

It was actually pretty cool to get to know a little bit more about the place that we are going to be trading art with.

Kyoko taught us lots of interesting and interactive things!

We began the day by looking at some of her origami, and then she taught us how to make a simple origami ball, the whole class participated and succeeded.  I didn't find that one too hard, but I can see how some of the complicated ones would be really difficult, and take a lot of determination to complete. Here is a picture of mine!

After this, Kyoko showed us how to use chopsticks, and she brought a pair for each of us to have.  She also brought in some Japanese snacks, and candies for us to try using.  It was really neat, even though I couldn't hold the chop sticks right.

She then made us traditional loose leaf green tea. It was really good actually, I usually don't like green tea.  She told us if you get a stem floating up straight that means you have good luck.  And I did get one! So that was pretty cool.

Before she left, she showed us some different kinds of traditional Japanese writing, she wrote, Summer, Spring, Autumn, and Winter.  It looked beautiful!  Also, she wrote a few students names.

And, sometime in between all of this going on, she showed us traditional sculptures, and books.  It was a really fun and educational day!

The Last Supper

I've mentioned 'The Last Supper' in one of my previous posts, but I have chosen to focus on this on for my renaissance artwork.

This is the original art work by Leonardo DaVinci. There are many conspiracy theory's about "The Last Supper", there have even been movies made about it, (The DaVinci Code).  This is why I have chosen to focus in this painting for my art piece that we will be making a postcard out of.

I have decided to try and replicate this painting for my postcard, But, like I said in my previous post about changing something about it, I have decided to 'vamp' up the colors a bit, make them a bit brighter then they are in the original.  Also, I wanted to focus on the part of the painting that was the cause of many conspiracy theory's. That would be the part that focuses on Jesus and John. Or at least it is said to be John, many people believe that it is actually Mary Magdalene.  Which doesn't make sense because she was not one of the 12 disciples.  But if you look at the persons features, they look very feminine. 

Also, the triangle shape between Jesus and John/Mary, is said to represent either a wine glass or a womb, symbolizing that Mary may have been pregnant with Jesus' child.  This is all a theory, but I find it kind of interesting.  

These are the reasons I choose to do this painting on my postcard.

Here is what my post card looks like.

I used acrylic paint to make my  postcard, I hope everyone likes it:)

We were also asked to write a small message on one half of the back side to the people we are sending it to and let them know what we are working on in our art class, on the other half we were asked to gave a brief explanation of why we choose to paint what we did.  Here is what I wrote.

I'm pretty sure that were sending out the post cards soon, I hope whoever gets mine likes it!!

Renaissance Art Work

At first my class was told that we were just going to do an art piece based on the Renaissance era, and although this still applies, we were offered another similar option, that most of us choose to do.

We can now do a postcard, based on the Renaissance ear, that we will be trading with North Carolina!  This is cool because then we get something back too.  Plus, post cards are small, so we get to spend more time working on something that is smaller.

I haven't decided exactly what I am going to do on my post card, I think that I will probably paint it.  I like working with paint.  I am planning on basing my painting on a specific painting of the renaissance (I have yet to choose  what that painting is)  but I want to change it somehow.  Whether I change the color scheme, or the perspective of the painting, or I could even change the setting.  It would just be like putting my own personal touch on the Renaissance era.

I will do another blog post once I have a better idea about what I want to do with my post card:)

Japan Video Finished!

Here is the welcome video to Japan that I promised to post, I think that it turned out pretty well.  Cant wait till we get the mural after Christmas break!!

Italian Renaissance

We are starting a new unit in art class about the Italian Renaissance, my art teacher is really excited to start this unit!  She says its some of the best art to have ever been created, I hope that I have the same enthusiasm about it:)

Last Wednesday, we watched 2 videos about the renaissance era, one about the early time, when it first began, and one when it was in it's prime.  We took lots of notes and were asked to answer a few questions and dive into the meaning of art behind this era!

The topic of this unit is very broad, so it gives me lots to work with, I will be expanding on a few of the questions we were asked to consider, and just basically be talking about development of art.

The Renaissance occurred after the dark times in Italian history, (the plague/the black death), so basically everyone was thriving with life and talent.  This was an awesome time for artists!

According to my research, the Renaissance is considered to have started in about 1350-1400's, in Florence, Italy. (The end of the Middle Ages) 

The major change that happened in the renaissance era was in the basic way people thought about things. This was a change from the previous years (middle ages) because in the middle ages people had a mind set that life was supposed to be hard, they were raised thinking that all they had to look forward to in life was hard work and war. 

Luckily, in the early 1300's people in Florence, Italy began to think about life in a whole new and exciting way!  The people of Florence studied the writings and works of the Greeks and the Romans and realized that the way they were living was not the only way, the earlier civilizations had lived much differently. 

The way of thinking that the people of Florence brought up was called Humanism. 

Many people called Francesco Petrarch the "Father of Humanism".  They called him this because he was a scholar and a poet who lived in Florence in the 1300s, right around the time the Renaissance began, also, he studied poets and philosophers from Ancient Rome such as Cicero and Virgil. Petrarch's ideas and poetry became an inspiration to many writers and poets throughout all of Europe as the Renaissance spread, throughout Italy.

Francesco Petrarch

Because of humanism, people were beginning to think that that life was more than just hard work and war, and that it could actually be enjoyable and they could have many comforts. 

They believed that it was important for people to be educated, and that it was necessary to study things like art, music, and science, and that this alone could make life better for everyone. 

Giotto was a painter in Florence. Giotto was actually the first known  painter to break away from the usual style painting of the Middle Ages and try something new. 

Giotto painted objects and people as they actually looked in nature. Before Giotto, many artist had only painted abstract paintings that didn't really look real. Giotto is said to have been one of the founding fathers of the Renaissance in the 'art department' with his new style of realistic painting. 

A few of Giotto's Painting's

When the Renaissance began, Italy was divided into many powerful cities/states.  Each city/state had its own government. One of the major states was Florence. The government that ran Florence was a republic. Which worked out well for the state of Florence because this meant that the citizens elected their own leaders, the were not chosen according to who had the most power. 

This also benefited Florence because they had a greater decision in what they wanted to do with their future, instead of being pushed into what was done in the past.

As the 1300's continued, Florence had become a rich flourishing city, housing wealthy merchants and businessmen that had the money to hire artisans and craftspeople.

This change inspired competitions among artists and thinkers, which further developed the Renaissance.  Art truly began to flourish and new thoughts began to emerge out of the people in Italy. 

The Medici Family was also a very powerful aspect to be considered in Florence during the Renaissance.

The Medici family came into power in Florence in the 1400's. They were a family of wealthy bankers and helped the art aspect of the renaissance along by sponsoring many artists, AND using their personal funds to further the humanist movement.  Thanks to them, the Renaissance got alot further along!

Medici Family Tree

There were other major contributors to the Renaissance aswell, for example. another major contributor was Dante Alighieri. Dante lived in Florence and wrote the 'Devine Comedy' in the early 1300s. The book that Dante wrote is considered by some to have been the greatest literary work ever written in the Italian language. 

The Renaissance era spread very quickly.  This new way of thinking (humanism) and style of art spread to many other wealthy Italian city/states such as Rome, Venice, and Milan, and these are just a few, there were so many more!  Italy became a wealthy, rich country through trade and their new ideas soon spread throughout all of Europe!

**I am planning on making another post later on in the week about actual art pieces in the Renaissance era!**

Painting!

So I finally took a picture of my painting! Here it is :)

I really like mixing common colours together, but making them more vibrant, to give my paintings a mystical sense.  I like the way this one looks better in person then it does right here, but I still like it. I like how the edges are darker and how I focused it in the middle, also I like the combination of orange and blue together, I wasn't sure how I would feel about that one, but I thought it turned out really good!

I've never been a big fan of outlining my paintings, so they always look kinda blurry per-say, theirs no real definition, they look kind of abstract but not enough that people can't understand them.

I feel like some improvements could be made to this painting, but I am a big fan of the strokes in the sky.

I would really like to explore different painting techniques throughout this year!!

Henna

First of all, in respond to my last post, I did paint something, but I don't have a pic of it, so I will post either tonight or tomorrow.

But the focus of this post is on the Henna tattoos I've been working on in class.

I love Henna tattoos because they give you a chance to explore art beyond the page, and be creative in decorating your body, and they last for a few days, so you get to wear your own artwork!

We did this for the first time back in gr. 9, but unfortunately were unable to find it last year, but now that we have it back this year I would like to experiment with it some more.

With Henna tattoos, you can do modern, or traditional designs, I do like both, but the traditional designs looks awesome!!

Here is the first one I did, Its pretty basic, and when peeled off didnt turn out really dark because I didnt let it set for long enough.

Here is the one I am wearing right now! I came up with the design all on my own and it's a bit more traditional.

If anyone has any ideas that I could try, please feel free to leave pictures or suggestions in the comment section below! :)

Painting Thoughts

I've been thinking of pulling out some old painting tools from my basement, and maybe trying to paint a little something tonight.  Usually I just choose a picture off my phone and go off that, but not having access to my phone is going to  make me widen my horizons.  Instead I am going to try painting something from memory, I am going to try and take in the colours of the sky and ground on my walk home today and I want to paint based on that.

I want to do a mountain picture with a sunset in the back round, and I want the colours to look nice together, so I will analyse the world around me in order to determine what colours really go together and what I like.

I have an idea in my head of the painting I want to do, but I'm not really sure where it came from, maybe its something I see everyday and don't recognise, or maybe it's something I saw a while ago and it's just kind of coming back to me now.

Either way, this will be a different kind of painting than just copying an image, it will really let my mind wander and hopefully I will be able to experiment with colours.

I'm assuming that the colours may be a bit more extravagant then those in real life because you see things in your head the way you want to see them, not the way they really are, but maybe it will turn out better in the end for this.

Photography

I think photography can be really awesome if the photos are properly taken and edited, I think it is a great skill to be able to ake nice pictures, and it is something I would love to learn a little bit about.


It is so beautiful this time of the year! And I usually find myself taking pictures on my phone and uploading them to instagram, but I figured this year I would try taking a few better quality pictures.

I'm really lucky, and I have lots of trees behind my house, so I always get to see the colours change, and I get to see how the trees look under different lighting at different points in the day.  While walking home today, I realised how nice it was, a little cloudy, but mostly sunny, and really warm.  So I went outside for a bit and took some picture.  I came inside, uploaded them to my computer and edited them.  I really like the outcome of them! I used http://www.befunky.com/ it's a really great site! It's actually the same app that I always use on my phone so I was familiar with it as well.  Anyways here are my edited pictures.

 I really love the look of the tops of trees with the sky as the background, it will become more clear as you scroll down because I have quite a few of these.

 Im really a big fan of a focus point, it makes one part look really clear and awesome! Also, I put an effect in the backround to make it look kind of mystical.

 I liked the look of this one, I blurred the backround on high, the middle ground on medium, and right in front of the front on low.  It really puts the focus at the front of the picture.

I edited this picture three different times because I wasn't sure which way I liked it best.  It looked really lame before I edited it because there was a fence right in front of the trees, after I edited it looked so much better! Kind of like a panorama I thought.

 I love how bright this one is in the front and how dark it is the back.  But there both different shades of green, awesome contrast!

Video Update

My class JUST finished the taping of our introduction video.  I taped all of the scenes.  It was hard to get a lot of my class to participate, but the ones who did, did an awesome job!

Here are a few 'sneak peak' videos, before any editing has touched them.

Here is a video our our Canadian flag, I decided to film this because our Canadian culture greatly effects our artwork.  Also, depending on what Olivia decides to do, there could be something like the anthem playing in the back round.  I think that would be pretty cool!

Here is our whole class saying Hi to Japan! I'm so glad that the class came together to film this, even though I know some people felt uncomfortable.  But it looks so much better with everyone in it.

Video Time!

Its video time today!  We are taping our video for Japan Art Miles today. I just taped a few outside scenes, we got lucky it was such a nice day! It will really be able to show Japan how and where we live.

After this post I am going to be taping my little individual clip, to be able to tell Japan how excited I am to be working with them!

Hopefully the video will be edited and posted to Youtube by the end of this week so I can post a link to my blog.  If not then the beginning of next week.

I'm not entirely sure if we get a return video from Japan, but it would be pretty awesome if we did!

I took quite a lot of shots outside, so Olivia (who is editing the video) will have lots of options while editing.  Can't wait to see the outcome and share it on here!

Japan Art Miles

On the project we are doing, we will first be shooting an introduction video.  In this video we are going to be taping our school and community, then our classroom, so the people we are working with can get a general idea of where we are from and where we work, then we will be taping students maybe saying a bit about our art, the way we live, or how we are looking forward to working with Japan co-operativly.

I will post a link to the video or the video itself on my blog once it is taped, which will hopefully be soon.

The sooner the better!

I've been thinking of some ideas about what the students being taped can say, I don't think it should be too lengthy, short and sweet is the way to go because we have many students in our class, unless of course, the students think of there own thing to say in the video, and if it is relevant to what we are talking about.

Some ideas I thought that the students could say include:
1. We are SO happy to be able to be a part of this, it is a once in a life time opportunity.
2. It will be really interesting to see what Japan's legacy is compare to ours.
3. It's rare to have opportunities like these considering we come from a small town.
4. Living in a small town is great! But it is awesome to know that there is more to the world, and through Japan Art Miles, we are able to experience it.
5.  I've done many co-operative art pieces before, but not with another country.
6.  I love trying new things, and this has given me the opportunity.

Those are just some broad statements as to what some student could say.

Also at the beginning of the video, when we are taping the school and art class room , I think that it would be good to include some quiet music in the backround, introduce more of our modern culture to theres!

Anyone else with ideas, please feel free to comment! :)

Pottery Update

My cup just came out of the kiln yesterday! I was really happy to discover that it didn't crack.  I wiped it down to get all the dust off it so I could start painting it.  Since my lines are so small I found that it was really hard to paint, and my art teacher told me that I should have 2-3 coats.. so I'm just trying to put on the paint really thick.

So far, I have painted probably about 1/10 of it and it took me 30mins.  This cup is defiantly going to test my patience.  I just hope it will be worth it in the end.

The stains are really weird colours because the true colours come out the next time it goes in the kiln.  So really I don't get to see what it looks like until the very end.  I cant wait! 

I will post a picture once I get some more stain on it:)

Co-operative Art Work with Japan

A few weeks ago my class talked about doing a co-operative artwork with Japan.  Just yesterday my art teacher brought it up again.  The 'idea'  or 'theme' of the art work is 'your legacy'.  The word legacy has many different meanings, and Ive personally never been a fan of it, but Japan picked it, so our school is just kinda going along with it because it is such an awesome opportunity.  But anyways, back to legacy.  We are supposed to be doing some quick sketches or/and jotting down some points as to what we think 'our legacy' is or should be represented by.

Before I start this, I would like to get a better idea as to what legacy is, so I've found a few definitions to help better my understanding.
1. Legacy: (an amount of money or property left to someone in a will.)
2: Legacy: (anything handed down from the past, as from an ancestor or predecessor)

I also looked at the synonyms and I thought that that was pretty helpful as well.
1. Legacy: (inheritance)

I think that it is really important to understand the word before I start thinking about what I would like to paint/draw to demonstrate it.

Basically, what I have gathered from my research, it the legacy is what change you make in the world.  Now that's a pretty broad statement because when working with Japan, we could be talking about Canadian legacy, Nipigon (small town) legacy, or your own legacy.  My idea of legacy would greatly vary depending on with path I/my class decided to take with this art piece.

Maybe I'll do a few sketches or points for each, if I can come up for good ideas for all of them.

Japan gets the art piece first, then they are sending it to us and we will be receiving it after Christmas Break in December.  Which leaves our class with a pretty small window to finish the art piece, considering we go into semester 2 about 3 weeks after Christmas Break.  But I think we can do it! :)

Working with Contrasting Colors

*This post was made on Wednesday but I was unable to post due to technical difficulties*

A few days ago I wanted to try painting a picture with just one colour, but different shades of the same colour.  I didn't really have an image I was trying to copy, I just started painting and kinda went from there.  But I wanted to see how far I could push one colour with dimension and depth.

Here is what it looks like, I used a deep blue acrylic paint.  On the sections that are really dark i mixed no water at all with my paint, but on the sections that are really light, its pretty much all water, like the sky, it is probably 90% water and 10% paint.  I really liked doing this painting because it tested my painting ability, being restricted to only one colour pushed my limits.

My next step would be to try adding some more colours to this painting and seeing if I prefer the original to the newer version.  I would like to take the same painting and maybe add some red to it and see what kind of dimension it gives the painting.

Also: I just found out my cup is going in be put in the kiln today, so I will post a picture once it comes out and I have had the chance to paint it.

My Pottery

Here's just a little progress post on how my pottery's going, I JUST finished carving my designs into my cup, and its going into the kiln a little later today! I cant wait to see how it looks when it comes out, I really am hoping that it doesn't crack because it is fairly thin.

 

Here is what it looks like now. After it comes out of the kiln, I am hoping to paint the carvings white, and the rest black. I just want to go very basic and classy with this cup.

 

After this project is done, I want to try a similar shaped cup, but make the designs all weird and loopy and the colours really crazy and vibrant, then sit them next to each other, kind of like a set. Its just an idea I have and i hope it will work out and look the way i want it to. :)