Culminating Part 2

What was your most successful artwork from this semester?

I believe my most successful artwork from this semester was the "You Are a Book" assignment. What I liked most about this project was how I got to practice my sketching and shading skills. Even though I didn't do many sketches, I am pleased with the ones that I did do. The most challenging part of this project for me was drawing the hands pulling apart. I would erase the page so much that I would eventually just have to restart. I like my drawing of the mask the most because that's where I got to practice my shading skills the most. I definitely would like to continue practicing my shading skills in the future because it's something I enjoy doing. I liked this project the most because it was a great way to express myself through art. I liked that I didn't have to explain what each drawing meant; it was only for me to know.

What was your least successful artwork from this semester?

I believe my least successful artwork from this semester was the poetry assignment. I feel like I could have done much better on my painting skills, but you can only learn from your mistakes. I feel that if I would have taken my time more, the man in my painting would have looked much better & not like a deformed body. Although this was my least successful artwork, I still had fun practicing my blending skills and enhancing  my painting skills.

Final Culminating Part 1

Our culminating this year is in the theme of "artists support other artists". Basically, Mrs. Rose created a blog post explaining our task by creating a web diagram of how artists support other artists. She then inserted links to support each idea of how artists support each other. This helped a lot because I was able to go through all the links and get a better understanding of each topic. 

Here is what the web diagram looks like:

Studio Work:

There are many ways of how studio work contributes to artists supporting other artists. For example, Mrs. Rose showed us a video about someone who used a 3D printer to create glass art. Without the invention of the 3D printer, this artist would have never gotten the opportunity to create such unique and beautiful glass pieces. This is basically a form of collaboration. Another example of collaboration when artists support other artists in the studio is by working with one another. By working with someone else, traditions, themes and techniques can be shared, which can spark new ideas. Also, there is plenty of support when artists join together. If one doesn't feel like working on their share of the project or is falling behind, the other will simply push the them to continue and finish. If artists don't support each other, there wouldn't be a point in creating an art piece because it would be poorly done, or not done at all.

Social Media:

Social media plays a huge role in our lives today. One moment you could be sharing something, then the next moment it could have gone viral. This has been the case for many artists today, but unfortunately, not all artists get credited for their work. Sometimes people forget that there was a real person who worked really hard on that painting, that they now just shared on Instagram without giving credit. This can be extremely frustrating for the artist, so that is why it is important for artists to support other artists by crediting each other after they share a picture of someone else's work. For example, when the tragic terrorist attack happened in Paris a few months ago, French artist, Jean Jullien, posted a photo to his Instagram of a painting he made of the Eiffel Tower in a peace sign. Within minutes, his photo was shared all over the internet, and sadly not many people gave credit. So this makes it hard for an artist to gain recognition when people don't acknowledge the artist.

Community:

Street art is a great example of how artists support artists in a community. If one artist decides to create a mural on the side of a building wall, and another street artist(s) likes what the first artist has done, the next artist(s) may expand on it and create an even larger mural. By collaborating, they are supporting each other by contributing to each others art works. Without these street artists, there wouldn't be beautiful murals for us to look at.

3 Series Project

For my three series art project, I've decided to draw three different animals, and use geometric shapes to fill them in. I first started by picking an animal, then googling a silhouette of the animal then i would do a rough sketch of the silhouette. Once my rough sketch of the silhouette was done, I would alter the outline to make it have more of an edge and less of a curve. This helped with creating the geometric shapes inside the animal. I would use permanent markers to fill the shapes in. The first animal I chose to create was an elephant. 

Here's how it turned out:

The second animal I chose to draw was a rhino:

Lastly, I chose a squirrel for the final animal:

I am very please with how all the geometric animals turned out. One thing that I liked most about doing this project was how surprisingly calming it was to draw all the shapes then colour them in. One struggle that I had while doing this project was that the permanent markers would sometimes bleed into the shape beside the one I was currently working on. I had to restart the elephant twice because of this struggle. In the end, all the animals turned about pretty well, and I am happy with the finished look.

Poetry Assignment

Mrs. Rose assigned us a task to find a poem and interpret the poem through a piece of art work. For this project, I have decided to use the poem "A Touch, a Tear, a Tempest", written by Sanober Khan.

Here is the poem:

“I do not want to sleep
for fear I might miss the twinkle of the brightest star

for fear I may never know
how the moon glimmers, in the darkest hour.” 
― Sanober Khan

After reading this poem, I envisioned someone sitting outside during the night and gazing up at the stars, not wanting to go to sleep. So, I have decided to paint my interpretation of this poem.

Firstly, I started by painting a night sky, and added stars. I also decided that I wanted this painting to be a silhouette.

Next, I painted a tree.

 

Lastly, I painted a person sitting against the tree looking at the stars. Unfortunately, the person did not turn out the way I planned in my head. I forgot to paint neck, and his body does not look normal.

The most challenging part of this project for me was blending the sky. There were many times where I just wanted to add water to my paintbrush to help with blending the colours, but that is a no-no when using acrylic paint. The number of times I restarted painting the sky is frustratingly high. And to be honest, I'm still not quite happy with the blending. I also feel like I maybe should have gone lighter as I reached the ground. What I like most about my painting is how the tree and stars turned out. To create the stars, I simple dipped a toothbrush in white paint & flicked the paint at the canvas. At one point, I got a bit too carried away doing this, and accidentally flicked a blob oh white paint on my canvas. I had to restart from the beginning. Overall, this painting looks very simple, but for me it was pretty challenging. I am happy with the outcome.

Ai Wei Wei Art Response

Ai Wei Wei is a  Chinese contemporary artist and activist. He uses his art to inform people about many of the problems within our society. For example, Ai Wei Wei, has created a series of pixelated artworks showing people who have been convicted by the government/state officials for expressing themselves by using their rights to speak freely.

Here are a couple of examples:

Zhu Yufu is also a Chinese activist. He was arrested in 2012 after being accused for "supervision and power" because he simply wrote a poem called, "It's Time". He wrote the poem urging the people of China to gather in support of freedom and take part in a pro-democracy protest. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for standing up against the government for what he believes in.

Shawo Tashi is a Tibetan singer who was arrested for "antistate activities including distributing photographs of self-immolation protesters; writing last notes left by self-immolation protesters on these photographs; participating in protest against Chinese government; and singing patriotic Tibetan songs." - Ai Wei Wei's Instagram. In 2013, he was sentenced to five years in prison for being the person who he is.

Fade to Black Video Response

Fade to Black is a stop motion video that was created by, Amer Al Barzawi. This short film focuses on a Syrian woman who grew up happily in Syria but later shows how drastically her life changes for the worse. In the beginning of the video, the woman is wearing brightly coloured clothes and looks joyful. Behind her is a background of a bright blue sky, sun, clouds and birds.There is also happy music and birds chirping being played. Everything seems to be going great until suddenly it starts thundering and dark clouds appear. Quickly, the sun and birds disappear and the background turns completely black. The video goes from being bright and happy, to dark and depressing. 

At one point in the video, there is a clip showing the woman being yelled at by a man, and what appears to be broken pieces leaving her. I believe this is a symbol showing that this woman's dreams, hopes, and freedom are now being taken away from her; leaving her to be controlled by the man. Later, another mean looking man puts a niqab on her, which she's struggling to get out of, and tries reaching out for help, but no one is there for her. She is now forced to obey their rules. The happy woman at the beginning of the video is now a terrified and helpless woman with no individuality or identity. Unfortunately, there's not much we can do except welcome the Syrian refugees to our country, and send out help. It's truly sad.