16litsterp’s Blog

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Before starting the final painting, I researched about artists to look for some inspiration and to learn new techniques, which I could possibly apply to my own work. I was able to find an artist which I took interest in, named Maurice Prendergast. His painting “Franklin Park Boston” caught my interest due to its variety of bright colors which creates a positive mood for the composition. With the knowledge that I gained, I experimented with bright colors to see which ones can mix well together. I also checked to see which colors are able to paint over another, therefor I could decide on the color that I could use for the background.

I faced some difficulties during this unit, for an example whenever I made a color for an area of the painting, I would run out and would not be able to make the same color. As you can see in my painting, the water on the left side (vertically middle) and the water on the right side (surrounded by the walk way) is different, whilst they are supposed to be the same. I also struggled with time balancing/management. Personally I think the upper half of the painting is better than the lower half, and this is probably because I spent more time on the sky and the trees, than the lake. Thinking that I had a reasonably large amount of time, I took my time with the sky, which lead me with a small amount of time to complete the rest of my artwork. Next time I work on a composition, I need to be able to manage and balance my time well so I can equally spend the same amount of time for all areas of my composition.

One of the few strength that I had during the process of painting was expressing and creating a variety of textures. For the water (lake) I painted with one main color to create a smooth and clean texture. The texture, created a calm and soothing feeling which is exactly what I intended to create. Personally I think I was successfully able to paint the clouds expressively. With my paintbrush wet, I made little dots to create the clouds, as this creates a fuzzy like feeling and mood to the sky. Another strength was dedication. Towards the end of the unit, I spent most mornings at school painting, as well as I gave up my basketball time after school to improve on my composition even more.

I am reasonably proud of the piece of work I created, but to be honest there are still a lot of areas that I could improve in. As stated before I need to be able to manage and balance my time better, so I do not have to spend time out of class working on my composition towards the end of the unit in the first place. Next time I would like to research about more artists and focus on two or three artists for inspiration that I could use for my own work. By having a variety of inspiration and knowledge about different artists and their ways of painting, I can combine different techniques from different artists and apply them to my own work.

link to research document: https://docs.google.com/a/yis.ac.jp/document/d/1hri-f7JE95UeAzwXH8beqqPqHdHyslQFFDMV5wcP5E8/edit

For the second unit of this year’s art class (9^th grade), my classmates and I have been working with pastels, in order to create a composition. There are two types of pastels, soft and oil. Before deciding which type of pastel to use for my final composition, I researched and experimented with both types of pastels. Looking at the differences and the benefits to each type definitely help me with my understanding of the two types of pastels, for an example soft pastels have brighter colors and are easier to smudge and blend but unfortunately soft pastels cause a large amount of dust of be created (dangerous to breath in), while oil pastels are strong and vibrant and do not smudge but are difficult to blend.  They are thick and stick to the paper so there is no dust left behind. After practicing with both pastels in class, I definitely felt more confident with Oil pastels as they never smudged and I was able to mix colors freely. I learnt many techniques and was able to apply advises from YouTube videos and websites onto my final compositions for an example, some of the techniques that I learned and used were smudging (using finger), feathering and scumbling.

A major challenge for me during the process of the creation of the composition was time balancing. For the first few weeks since starting the actual and final composition, I was using a large amount of my time in working on the sky, which left me with a small amount of time for me to work on the mountains and the rest of the composition. In order to finish my work in time, I came to the art room almost every day after school, as well as I took my composition home to work on it during the weekends. Another problem that I faced during this unit was drawing the trees. Since I pressed to hard to draw the mountains, the pastels for the trees would not draw over, as the layer was too thick. I was able to find a solution to this by using darker colors for the trees as it allowed me to draw over the mountains.

Personally, I think I was able to successfully research about oil pastels and the techniques that could be used, in order for me to be able to use them for my final composition. My research allowed me to extend my knowledge and understanding about art with pastels. I had a reasonable picture to draw, as I was able to use the “composition” techniques and methods for taking or choosing a photo, from the last unit. As mentioned before, I spent too much time on the sky, which left me to struggle for finishing the composition in time and so balancing and planning about time could be an aspect that I could improve on, in order for me work on all the parts of the drawing in stead one specific area. I have definitely improved in creativity within art, as I added highlights and a variety of colors to my sky and mountains unlike the actual photo.

For the next unit, I would like to be able to manage and balance time for the benefits of my self and others. By resisting myself from talking to others, it will help me and those around me, to concentrate and by balancing the amount of effort I put in an area of a composition, I would not have to worry about working hard on the last minute for completion. Organization could be another aspect that I could improve in. At one point during this unit, we were set a task to take photos of landscapes and to bring them to class in order to use it as a practice picture or even as the model of the final composition. Unfortunately due to the lack of my organizational skills, I forgot to take pictures as I ended looking for pictures on the Internet, to use as a practice picture. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing and experimenting with pastels, as I never worked with them before my life since I did not like crayons or pastels as a young child. I hope I could apply the skills that I have learnt during this unit, for something in the future and hopefully I will be able to cover the improvement that I have mentioned above.

Depending on the surface and the speed of the vehicle (bike or car), the stopping distance will change and be different. The faster the vehicle is travelling, the larger the stopping distance will be, as it will take longer for the vehicle to stop. When the speed of the vehicle is doubled, the stopping distance will be 4 times the length. When people are driving (possibly on a highway), they must understand and realize that they must keep away 4 time the distance of the length of separation between the car infront. By knowing this, there will be less car accidents, at people will understand that they must stay further away from other cars when they are travelling quickly, in order to stop without swerving.

For the past few weeks we have been learning about a unit about drag, mass, weight, inertia, density. We did a experiment, where we dropped two ping pong balls that had a different mass. One ping pong ball contained clay in side, while the other ping pong ball had nothing in side. We dropped both balls at the same time from the roof of the school to see which one landed first. My prediction was right as the heavier ball hit the ground first. This is because the weight and the mass of the ping pong ball with the clay was larger. The lighter is able to accelerate quicker as it has less inertia but since it’s weight and mass is smaller and lighter, the drag/ wind resistance caused the ball to slow down. If the weight of the ping pong ball with the clay is heavier, then that means that gravitational force will be larger which means it will fall quicker.

1. Present Artists are now able to create sounds, songs, effects, using technology. Technology allows people to create music, videos, etcetera in different varieties, and in more creative ways. Artists are afraid of technology, because anyone can use technology and artists start to fade away as they are losing originality, and work that is made by artists can now easily be copied.

4. more people are able to create something such as music, or film, without the costing of more than $50 in order to create it. People can share thoughts, express ideas easier through the web, as well as all of us can be inspired by a piece of work created from others.

My best area in Health is probably my fitness. First of all I bike every day to school, as I have to go up and down steep hills which is not as easy as it sounds. I also play soccer every friday as well as the school team. I play basketball before I go home (on my bike) with my friends, and once I arrive home… I do 90 sit ups and 60 pushups before I go to sleep. All these actions that I take improve my fitness. My nutrition is reasonably well balanced as I do not eat junk food that often. I could be shy at times, but I am probably socially healthy. My mental health is not as good at my other qualities, as I sometimes get stressed at home with my mom. My spiritual health is the worst since I hardly go to church or even pray for God.

My first week in High School was reasonably fun. I was able to meet new people such as Lukas, aswel as I was able to meet my friends again. Some of my old friends had to leave over the summer to another school, but personally I am not as sad as before since I have met new people. I went to soccer practice one-day after school, and I have certainly realized that sports are much harder in high school, than it is in middle school, as every body else is bigger, stronger, faster, and skilled.

For today’s class we were suppose to create an advertisement for a restaurant that is hosting a band. The purpose of the experience was to have a correct function for the advertisement. I thought that we were going go learn how to be better with technology and learn about the techniques with using the computer, but instead, we learned about planning ahead and getting the right information. First of all, we were assigned to create an advertisement for a restaurant that was hosting a internationally well known band “The Blue Notes”. Pretty much all of us students went on an made up the information, while we were expected to ask Mr. Pitter for the information and facts about the event.

one of the groups added this picture/ logo of a lobster as the logo of the restaurant whilst the logo was suppose to be something extremely different. From this experience, I learned that designing for advertisements is not always about how neat and pretty the paper looks, but it is also important that you must plan ahead and have the right information for the advertisement, in order for the poster or flyer to be correct. Next time, the first thing I would do is to ask the person who assigned the task for me, about the information, based on the event. example, who? what? when? where? why? how?

Our task for today was to make a sculpture that symbolizes physics. So my partner (Sean) and I, created a plane. A plane uses air and gravity to balance and fly through the air… they also use the engine for take off.