Leave Your Mark

This project took the longest out of all the others I have worked on before. My plan for this initially was carbon-footprint theme. Then it changed to poverty. Seems like an opposite theme, but they are very much connected. I wanted to get the point across of what we [developed countries] do, will indirectly affect others in developing countries in our food choices, and other choices we make daily without thinking of the consequences. The main point of my piece was expressing food security. Many countries are having issues with it, because the population is growing to exponential that the soil is deprived of nutrients. Al Gore, environmental scientist, made a documentary explaining how the commercial industry for meat is accounting for a large percent of greenhouse emissions, as to 51%; pollution wise= 20%. He even explained that global warming would greatly slow down if more people turned vegetarian. Sadly, the meat companies have a firm grip on society. People do want to hear the facts, because of selfish reasons. There are many books, studies, and documentaries stating these facts, but go here for a deeper explanation: http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/global-warming/

Lakes, seas, and other bodies of water are drying out, and its estimated that by the time I am old and have grandchildren, poverty and starvation will take the lives of many more. Farmers will not be able to feed 10 billion people in 2050, because of the depleted nutrients in the soil, and arid climate. While many people ignore the ugly side of their actions as to where their trash goes, where their food is and comes from, and how much CO2 is emitting from their cars; the truth is landfills, slaughterhouses, and cancer are not pretty topics yet they are all becoming increasingly larger and harmful.

My ideas  continued to evolve, because it is a broad topic...

The beginning: The first step was making the canvas. This took approximately 2 days, because it was my first time using a staple gun, and the frame was large. I intentionally wanted a larger canvas to represent the world. Then coating it with gesso took about 3 days for the 2 coats [above picture]. The gesso was bumpy, but I did not mind the texture, so I chose not to sand it down. During this step I had time to think of ideas while I was painting.

Middle: Next I found magazine cutouts all from National Geographic. These pictures are classics, such as the one of a refugee girl from Iran, back from the 1980s. *in progress shown above* I did not want pictures to be so graphic, yet I wanted to display poverty and starvation as real as it is. I loved seeing the good and bad of cultures, and exotic places all together.

End: Meanwhile, I painted a large white foot on the bottom right corner. Then made a stamp of a banana, because it represents me. This was my favorite part of the piece, because I felt that it tied the whole theme together of making my mark on the world.

I hope that it will shed more light on the reality that many ignore, and someone will begin to see how their trivial actions on the world do matter. I turned in my piece to the Halle Cultural Arts Center, and I am selling it at an unlimited price. I am planning to auction it to the highest bid, where 20% will go to the Halle, and 80% to UNICEF. This will provide children with food and water. I like this idea so much, that I am most likely going to donate the money with every piece I make! Everyone has a talent, and gift, and their purpose is to help the world, and leave our positive marks.

Final Piece--->

Perspective: art 3

 

For this project my group and I collaborated on making a perspective mural. We thought about placing words that would attract attention, such as words in different languages. We even thought about strange phrase like 'the whole enchilada' to 'no dating in highschool'. We wanted it to be a word that could only be read at one angle. This was inspired by the Incredibles (yes the litte-kid disney movie), in the scene were the main character (the dad) is in an underwater cave and sees a word on the walls revealing a hidden message.

For materials we first thoughts about using chalk, but faced some challenges with the janitors. It all worked out, because we thought of duct-tape. It was a great medium and very simple. Since the farther wall is smaller than the one closer to us we needed to place more tape to make the lines thicker, in order to be the same size as the letters closer to us. To have this word projected and know where exactly to place the tape, someone would stand behind a card-board poster that had the word PRIDE cut out. We would then use the bricks as measurements. This was the hardest part about this project, since we are all different heights we will see the projection differently. This caused a lot of confusion and mis-communication. After realizing this we then tried a lazer-pointer, but it was so hard to see. Then we just resorted to imaging where the lines would be and then go from there (yes, basically winging it). 

I really liked how it came out. We bought over 10 rolls of duct-tape. We wanted to fill it in with white, but that would cost more money. I would definitely try this same concept again in the future. To finish off the project we then taped down cougar (school mascot) paw prints on the floor to show where to stand to see the word.

*The first 3 pictures is the in progress phrase, but the video is the final outcome.

Art 3: News Reports

Years ago I heard about a mother who drowned her young children in the bathtub. This story has always made me so upset so channeling it into an art project would be perfect. I want to branch out and really capture this murder through video. My idea is to have a clean/empty bathroom and have the camera slowly come to the bathtub, but as it comes closer video clips from old videos of mothers with their children inspired by Flowers in the Attic. 3 rubber ducks {representing the children who died} are floating, but someone will be laying at the bottom and will grab them squeezing the air out. I want to background music to be the first 60 secs of "Carmen" by Lana del Rey [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6K8Uq88BEQ], which the lyrics representing the mother's point of view.
My video will be less than 1 min, and my purpose is to express the sadness and grief of the unstable household and mental problems.

Watercolor

I have always painted with acrylic, but recently I have tried out watercolor.

I need more practice on showing texture, and using less water. On some parts I mudded the colors, because I either blended too much or added too much water. Hannah and I added our paintings next to each others in the art journal that is sent around the country (and Australia I think). Maybe someone that sees it will understand what FullyRaw is. 

My inspiration to do this was when I saw a painting of just a hummingbird, but I put my own twist with the bananas which are a very important part of FullyRaw. I also added a branch just to breakup the composition.

Art 3: Update on Time Project

Final Outcome:

acrylic painting (no transparency) --->

1. When did you step back and analyze you work during this project? 

I did 2 practice runs so that I would get the real feel of what the end product would look like. This helps to leave room for error before continuing onto the final piece (final piece above pics). With my rough-drafts I would see what I did and didn't like. I didn't like the original color scheme, because the colors where not contrasting as much as I wanted. The colors where also smearing on the papers. I realize these flaws and was able to do a second practice to fix them. When it came to starting the final I was aware of the problems I had to be cautious of.

2. Did you use technology as a tool?

I used the elmo projector to adjust the size of the projection to fit the size of the paper. I was able to line up the lines from both the young and old face so that the face size was similar. This helped the process of overlapping them so that the lines were aligned. 

Art 3: Perspective Project

Idea: Spelling "Pride" at a slanted angle which can be seen and read when standing at a certain point.
We will then color it in using diy chalk paint in school colors, and make the outline and letter shape in the letter style from the school logo. The diy chalk paint is simply cornstarch, food coloring, and water all mixed together. This way we can paint the letters, making it faster [unlike using chalk], and be able to customize the colors how we want.

Team: Michelle, Marissa, Madison, Ryn, and Rocio

Examples: This link shows perspective drawings, with the same concept we are doing:

http://weburbanist.com/2009/08/28/amazing-designer-plays-with-perspective-for-decades

Pictures: coming soon.

art 3: Time

using the projector to get a bigger picture-->

Practice test -->

young, old, and the mix-->

layered on top. warm=baby cool=older-->

I tried something that I wasn't sure was going to work. At first I wanted to make the faces next to each other, but when Mr.Sands got an idea that maybe I could put them on top of one another, I tried it out and it worked. It didn't occur to me that I could use transparencies. I have been used to always going to a medium of paper, but never plastic! This project helped me take a risk and branch away from using paper. I learned that acrylics do adhere to transparencies, and that when using contrast colors (warm v. cool) to show several images in one it can give great shading effects.

I did use a source but then made it my own. Printed pics from online of a baby and an old man to really get different variety within the ages. Then using the paints, transparencies, and the projector I was able to change the pictures and give it a new meaning that represents time. I only traced the outlines of the online pics, but when in and did my own shading to bring the two paintings together.

I will come back to this project and make an actual mix of both, because after doing further evaluation I think I can actually make a middle aged person by mixing the very old and young features together, so on a 3rd transparency I will paint a mix of all the areas with color, leaving me with a face with an in-between age. I would like to try this out using pictures of myself and seeing the physical change between younger and present time me.