This art project we were given a paper bag full of objects and scraps such as rubber bands, paper clips, popsicle sticks, a small paper cup, and a mat board. We were supposed to build a story based on an event in your life. My story was the time that I was in the pool on a floaty and my brother was on the wall of the pool with a paddle. I asked him to pass me the paddle he had and he threw it to me. The paddle swiftly flew and bonked me on the head. I originally thought that it just hit my head, no damage done, until I looked down at my now blood covered body. 

For this art project, we were given lots of practice sheets with different shading activities and "double-it" papers, where we had to take a sheet of paper and use it to measure and double the shape on the paper. We grabbed a tool when we were finished with all of the practice and took a picture of our hand holding the tool we grabbed. The photo was printed out and we had to double it onto a piece of paper. We then used our new and improved shading skills from the activites to make it look as real as possible. I learned to perservere and that this is much easier said than done. I very much enjoyed the end result however. 

For the Landscape painting project in Intro to Art we were supposed to find a picture that we like either that we took or that we got from google. The picture that we chose was taken and printed out so that we could use it as a reference to paint an abstract, expressive painting. The painting is meant to be expressive in that it shouldn't take too long you should be able to see paint strokes and I learned that when doing this you're not supposed to be making things with the paint but rather simply making shapes of color. 

For this project we were told to make a shape out of clay, cut off the top, and hollow out the center. We were also told not to make it look like anything. A "nothing" jar. Not a specific theme just a random pattern and shape. I was so stumped on ideas because I had so many to make it look like something but I couldn't do any of those. I ended up coming in during a focus and made my design by just doing things without thinking about it too much. I loved mine until I had to come up with a color design. I got stumped again. I started with pink, green, and teal but didn't really like it. I ended up with two shades of green. When my jar came out of the kiln I was kind of disappointed because the two shades of green melted together and the color was really splotchy and uneven. I learned a lot of stuff about the kiln through this project like the color change and the brightness the color gains. 

For this project we were supposed to make a whistle first out of clay which was very challenging. I got it to whistle after a few trials and I came back the next day and it didn't whistle. I was so disappointed and it took me even longer to get it to whistle the second time around. Then after we got them to whistle, we had to make them something. It took me a little bit to come up with an idea but I eventually thought that a dinosaur would be fun. I unfortunately left my bag open and the whistle dried in a very spherical form so I just had to make a fat dinosaur. I then had trouble with colors because my original plan was to do pink and dark pink but I had to use red. I really like how it turned out and it still whistles!

For this art project we were supposed to make a bowl completely out of coils we made by extruding clay. I saw so many ideas that would have been fabulous and I was so stumped on what to do because the possibilities seemed endless. I was inspired by a spider web when I started drawing my second idea and I also loved the idea of somehow incorporating dots into the design. When I was making my design on the bowl with clay I was getting super scared and frustrated because where the clay joined it kept cracking from the clay getting too dry and I was super afraid it would just crumble before my eyes the second it came out of the kiln. I loved how it turned out and I think that the glaze could have turned out a little better but my mom uses which I didn't think would happen and I love the look of it.      

For this assignment we were supposed to find a picture of a sea animal to trace onto a paper and water color it. I didn't want to do something that everyone else would do so I chose a narwhal. I started out thinking it was going to be so easy and totally messed it up by doing too much. I went into my second attempt knowing it was going to be a little bit of a challenge and added more layers and shading. I didn't know how to add the trademark speckles so i covered up the background and flicked my paintbrush with a paint that I mixed with a little less water. I love how to affect turned out and it gives it a different texture. I think that overall my second attempt went much better because I didn't go in head on and was more gentle and light.

For this project we worked with oil pastels to make an insect and the goal was to make it look like a picture where everything on the actual insect is sharp and everything in the background is blurred. when I started this project I was thinking it was going to be so hard to work with oil pastels but once I got going and found out that I could use baby oil to blend the background and make it have kind of a vintage painting texture. I got really frustrated with the white pen on the wings because the pen ink would not come out consistently. I really love how it turned out and I would love to do this project again. 

In this project we were supposed to find a picture of a bird (I chose a duck) and put it into a special editing website where we inverted the picture in black and white in order to meet the certain specifications for the making of the stamp. Once the inverted bird pictures were printed we scribbled all over the picture and flipped the picture onto the "plate". We then scribbled on the back of the picture so that the pencil scribbles on the white part would transfer but the pencil on the black ink parts of the picture didn't so that now we had something to trace on our stamp. Next, we took sharpies and traced the parts where the pencil transferred. This part was very therapeutic to me and after that was done we carved out everywhere on the actual bird where there was no sharpie. On the background we carved in straight horizontal lines. This part was a little frustrating to me but once I tested my stamp I loved how it turned out. Then we learned about the actual printing part where we printed in different colors, styles, and techniques. I thought this part was so much fun and really brought out my creativity. I love how my project turned out and would love to do this project again however I think that I would tweek the prints a little bit so that they go together a little more style and color-wise.