Reflection

          This year in art I have learned many skills I never thought I'd have. I never thought when I was joining art that I would be able to transfer ink, sew a book, saw and solder medal, mold and glaze a tea set, or create a whole work of art based on a famous artist. Not only have I gained skills in this art class, but I have learned more about myself personally. I've learned how I like to express myself through visual arts. I'm very proud of some of  my pieces that I have created during this year. Just some of my water color book pages are some of my favorites. Also, I am very proud of some of my assignments for example, my election piece. I did Freedom of Speech and I was very proud of the overall outcome of that. Lastly, I would just like to say I am very glad that I took Art this year. It was a great start to my day everyday. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with my peers and am very pleased with what I got out of it. 

Thank you for a great year!

Nora

My Slideshow

This slideshow presents many pieces of art that I worked on this year in class. Although not all are shown, this gives an idea of my themes and skills that I learned in art.

Art Pieces - slideshow

Art Inspired Story

Once upon a time, there lived a zebra. This zebra's name was Hogan. Hogan was a lovely zebra. He loved running, jumping, dancing, doing all the normal zebra things and his favorite activity was playing Monopoly. But, there was one different thing about Hogan that made him especially special. Hogan was the only ever rainbow striped zebra! You may not know this, but normally zebras have a black and white striped pattern on their coat. The fact that Hogan was not born this way, made him very different from all the other zebras at Central Park Zoo where he lives. 
One day, Hogan went up to a few zebra-kids who were in his class at school and said to them, "Hi Corey! Hi Brez! Hi LaVon! Would you all like to play a game of monopoly with me!?"
The 3 other zebra-kids replied, "With you!?!? No way!"
"Why not?" Hogan said, feeling a bit upset.
"Because," LaVon sassed back, "You are WEIRD! Just look at your coat! It's all different colors, not nice and plain like our beautiful coats!"
Hogan was very upset! He always thought his rainbow coat was special in a beautiful way! Hogan ran far away from the other zebra-kids, looking for his mother. When he finally found her, he said to her, "Mom! The mean kids made fun of my stripes! You always told me my stripes were beautiful, but you were wrong!" Hogan cried and cried. 
"They ARE beautiful, Hogan! Yes, they are different but that's what makes you special. That's what makes you who you are! Everyone has something different about themselves, Hogie. Your special trait just happens to be the beautiful colors of your stripes!" Hogan's mother assured, "And I wouldn't change it if I could." 
With a new confidence thanks to his mother, Hogan decided to confront his schoolmates. Hogan approached the zebra-kids, "Listen you guys, I know you think I'm weird because I have rainbow stripes, but I've got something to tell you about that," Hogan went on, "My stripes are what make me who I am. And I know all of you guys must have a special trait that makes you who you are too! We all have a little something different in us." 
"One of my hooves is crooked!" Corey shouted, "Hey, that makes me different too!"
"My mom still has to tell me a story before I go to bed!" LaVon yelled.
"I like to free-style rap!!!" Brez joined in.
"You see!" Hogan concluded, "We all have things that make us special!"
And with that, all the zebra-kids apologized to Hogan for making fun of his stripes and asked if they could be friends.
"Of course!" Hogan replied.
"Oh, and about that monopoly game," LaVon said, "Can we sti-..."
"LET'S PLAY!" Hogan exclaimed.
And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END.

Post #8 - Empty Bowls

     At HTHS, a super awesome event is held called the Empty Bowls dinner. This dinner is an event where many people come together at the HTHS cafeteria and eat delicious soups and pastas. The best thing and main idea about this event is that all the proceeds go to the Food Bank of South Jersey.
     In preparation for Empty Bowls, the art classes make beautiful bowls that we mold and glaze ourselves to sell at the dinner. I personally had never done this before and it was honestly SO FUN! I loved making the bowls with the clay and creating cool imprints and feet and stands for the bowls. I also really liked painting and glazing the bowls with any design I wanted to. This project has been my favorite so far this year!

Empty Bowls is February 9th at HTHS!

Post #7 - Lantern

     For our lantern project, I chose to make my lantern into a winter scene. Instead of going with snowflakes or sleigh rides, I decided to depict a scene in the Nutcracker Ballet. In the image below you can see that I used the paper-cutting technique to create a the huge Christmas tree, stars, "sugarplums", ballerinas, and of course nutcrackers. I really enjoyed making this lantern. I am a dancer and the Nutcracker is one of my favorite ballets and Christmas traditions. I'd also never used the paper-cutting technique before and i am very satisfied with the result of my first try.

Post #6 - Blind Drawing

     The blind self-portrait was an interesting and fun project. in previous art classes we had done similar projects, but we just simply drew ourselves blindly then. This time, we drew a portrait of ourselves without looking and after the simple drawing was done, we added a different aspect.
     We filled out a sheet of statements like, "I am...", "I do..." "I like..." and then added them in a creative way to out blind contour. I wrote my statements around the edges of my portrait and highlighted with different colors, the words that meant most me me in each statement. I also colored with colored pencils a rainbow background.
     I enjoyed writing the statements as well as doing the portrait. It really made us students think about who we are.

Picture below.

Post #5 - Artist

     The artist I've chosen for my research project is Any Warhol. Andy Warhol was born on August 6, 1928 and he attended Carnegie Mellon University (which, ironically, I would love to attend). He started out as an advertising illustrator but is most famous for his ‘pop art’. This art form was new and exciting when he presented it. Many artists have similar styles to one another but no one can come close to matching the style of Andy Warhol. I like Warhol’s art because like I said, it is exciting and interesting.  I like that he uses many different forms of media to create his art.

One piece I particularly like is the one shown below.

I like this because it was the first print that was really done this way and I think it is very interesting. I like the way the color is added to Marilyn Monroe's face.

This next piece is also one that is very famous.

Warhol was very famous for creating the Campbell’s Soup can image. This was used for advertising and was also a famous work of art. I like the fact that this is admired for both things.

This last image is a very iconic figure.

This was a print of Mickey Mouse, similarly done to the Marilyn Monroe print, but different yet. Warhol was said to admired Mickey Mouse. I this is probably my favorite Warhol work. Mickey Mouse is one of my favorite characters and I love comedy of the piece.