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!!