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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

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.

I used different tones from about 5 to 6 in order to show a contrast between the dark and light and to show gradation. For the actual still life drawing, I used different pencils with different darknesses (HB – 6B) in order to create various tones and values. The tortillon helped me a lot during this unit as the wonderful tool can create effects and improve the drawing within tones, values and shading/ smoothing. The tortillons helped the tones to blend and created smudge marks on the composition. For the top side of the tape rolls, I created light lines in stead of ordinary shading by using a sharpened pencil and drawing in a up and down motion. I left the background of the composition, blank/white in order to emphasize the contrast between the light/medium shading and the background.

One of the difficulties that I had earlier in the unit, was picking the right photo for my self to draw. I couldn’t make my mind up as I wasted a lot of my time trying to decide my photo as i could of had been spending that time working on my final drawing. Another difficulty that I went through was shading the darkest parts of the composition, as I used a 6B pencil and was pressing quite hard. Since I’m sitting quite close to the paper whilst drawing, I do not notice the darker patches, areas even if it is suppose to be the same tone, until I get up and look at the drawing from a distance. In order to overcome this conflict, I got up and observed the drawing from about a 2 meter distance, every 15 minutes to make sure the same tone is equal. The final and main problem that I had was time. For the last week of the due date for this artwork, I worked extremely hard every night to finish my work as well as to make improvements. I started running out of time and worked on my drawing until late at night. The main reason for this was because I often got distracted from other students during class time, and so music was the key to increase working time in class. Whenever I listen to music, I feel as if I’m in a different world from everybody else as I become anti-social and become more focused.

During this unit, I have learn’t that still life drawings are not all about how good the composition looks, or how realistic it is, but the proportions, values, tone, graduation, light – shadow are all very important within the final composition. Before this unit, I did not even know what a tortillon was. Now, not only I know what a tortillon is but I also know how to create certain effects and use it wisely in order to sooth the shading and to blend tones. We were able to learn about proportions and measurements without using a ruler and that if you hold your pencil as if you hold your knife, straighter lines can be drawn. Composition is also a large aspect to still life drawing, as we learnt how to create a successful compositions using rule of thirds, golden rectangle, etcetera.

If I were to create this composition again, I would try and balance my time between home work and school work. Since I was not as productive at school than I was at home, I ended up working on my art work for a long time at home. And so I would sit away from people that I would often talk to in order to avoid this problem. I would also like to be more careful with the drawing, as I have a bending line on the bottom right corner of the paper due to my carelessness, whilst taking the artwork home. I felt as if I could of had used the tortillon earlier as I just realized the brilliance of the tool until I was halfway done through my work. Overall I am proud of what my final work has come to and I think I have achieved a reasonable grade for this unit.

Mr. Jones informed me that other problems were caused by human actions. There are many tourists that visit this area to see the coral reefs, often having barbeques or eating food on the boat while resting and viewing the corals. Many people dump their food remains into the ocean, causing the fishes to change their diet, by eating this food rather than the coral reefs, that is dependent on marine life to thrive.

After the first sighting, we left to go and see some other coral reefs, about 30 minutes away. When we finally got there, I instantly realized that the reefs were much cleaner, as all of the coral had a beautiful and clear color. This was because fewer people visited this and it was not inhabited. The visual appeal was much better than the first site due to lack of human interference. After a while we returned to the boat and headed back to the harbor, and took the bus home.

From today’s experience I realized how important it is to consider the consequences of our own actions. The ocean can be a very delicate place as a little thing can create a large problem, such as someone throwing his or her food remains into the sea. We must be careful about the environment, as it is our planet that we are destroying.

The day after we arrived in Phuket our whole grade was split into two groups, A and B. I was in-group B for all activities. For the first of these we headed for the trees, embarking on a four-hour trek in the rainforest. I had gone hiking before, but this was a new experience for myself, and most of the group. For the first hour the trek seemed easy, but as time passed the hills grew steeper and the weather hotter. The girls ahead of me would scream every time something brushed against them, as they were paranoid about spiders, leeches, centipedes, and many other organisms. I too was feeling uncomfortable, though not screaming and shouting. As minutes passed, everybody seemed to get used to the rainforest, as the screams and screeches died down.

After the tiring four-hour trek, we stopped at the gibbon’s sanctuary. These gibbons had clearly been mistreated. I even spotted a gibbon that had a foot, hand and a few fingers on her remaining hand amputated. In Thailand, due to poverty, people attempt to make money by any means possible. This includes taking baby gibbons from the wild by killing it’s mother, and using the baby to attract tourist who pay for photos taken with the baby gibbons. Therefore the tourists un-knowingly become part of the problem, by paying for these photos.

Most of the time, the baby dies with the mother, when she is shot since some cannot survive the fall from the tree. This is a very depressing concept as many gibbons are pointlessly killed. I decided to donate some money (about 100 baht), and our grade considered adopting a gibbon. This is where you provide on going support for a chosen gibbon, and receive updates from the sanctuary.

Soon after visiting the gibbon’s sanctuary we quickly had a light lunch and headed for the next activity, mangrove planting. We learnt that mangroves could be helpful in different ways. First of all, they can act as nurseries for young and small fishes, protecting them from large fishes that cannot swing amongst the mangroves.

Mangroves can also help during tsunamis by providing a natural barrier before the water can reach buildings and people, as the mangroves weaken the waves and protect the land. We were able to help Thailand’s society by planting more mangroves near the beach. I am glad that I was able to experience different activities, as I was not used to the conditions, since I live in a well-populated city (Yokohama, Japan). I am looking forward to the other activities that are waiting in the future.

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.