Finishing What We've Begun

 (This is a left over post from 2020 L1Art)

My lord, it's been a year already. And what a year it's been. When I look at my board I think about how I did the majority of this stuff after lockdown and realise how big a mistake that was.

I'd like to say that my board is based on 'The hand life dealt' but I think that's just an excuse to put a pun into my work and paint a strange amount of hands.

It has improved my realism immensely so I think it's worth it.

Quick update:

This board got me an excellence, resulting in an excellence endorsement in L1 Art! 

The Beginning Of The End

The title makes me seem really melodramatic but it's true. The end of the year is nigh and exams are merely weeks away. Luckily for me and my mental health, art doesn't have an exam. We just have a really terrifying external in the form of a portfolio which is really intimidating for someone in level one. 

Speaking of my portfolio, I finished the first board today! It's actually kinda surreal but ya know. I'm really proud of how everything has turned out so far, all things considered. When I think about it, I've done a lot in a short period of time. But, yes, I finished first board after so long. It's the first portfolio board I have ever done. Like, ever. So, here it is.

Hehe, jk jk. That's actually the original layout I had for the first board, before I even finished half of my works. As you can see there was meant to be one large painting but instead I decided to do a bunch of tiny ones because I love putting myself through hell. :D

But actually, here is my first completed board.

My second(? I'm not sure what order I'm putting these in yet) board is well underway and I only have five more paintings to finish, all of which I've started and purely need to finish the backgrounds on. This is what it looks like so far :)

Ye that's it. Bye.

Down To The Wire

Entering term four of this year, we only have four weeks of class time left. This means that we do not have a lot of time left to finish our portfolios. The art department was open over the holidays but I was only able to make it to the first Monday due to prior commitments. However, I have done quite a bit of work since the last update considering it was almost exactly a month ago. 

Last time, I showed you my American flag and the portrait drawing of my friend Nadia. Since then, I have added the peace sign to the American flag and drawn/painted the paired portrait for that sequence series things. I have decided against putting blood on their faces for now because it took so long to paint the first one on it's own and I really don't want to mess it up.

I have also started two new sequence series things (that's my name for it now) and have 'completed' two extra little things I'm debating changing/putting on my portfolio. For the two new things, one is a series of complementary coloured snakes with hands. I currently have a green and pink snake, a purple and yellow snake, a blue and orange snake, and a grey and black snake. For the other thing, it's going to be similar to the snakes but with hands and books instead :D

Here are a couple of the things I've done:

Art Update

Okay, so. Apparently, I've completely given up even trying to come up with art-related puns.

In good news, I have an actual update!! With actual finished pieces!! Wow, Sam completing her artwork? Completely unheard of... nonetheless, in the past... 4 weeks (Damn, I'm really good at keeping up to date with my blog posts) I've done quite a bit of work. Relatively, at least. I have completed two more works and have 2 works in progress :D Alongside this I have been thinking about how I want to set up my artboard. 

So let's get started!

 With time slowly yet surely running out, it's time to think about how I was to layout my portfolio. I won't take credit for the one on the right, that was Mrs Clemance's doing. The one on the left was what I had in mind originally. There are pros and cons to both, in my opinion. With my idea, it's going to take up a lot of space, leaving less work to fit onto one board. With Mrs' it's a bit less cohesive (at least currently with the ideas I have in mind.) but it fits more onto one board and seems a little neater.

And now for what I've actually been working on! Here are my two "Finished" work.

This one is the one that inspired my art board's theme as a whole (The Hand Life Dealt). It's supposed to symbolise life as this kind of poker game, where those who are coloured are given a really sh***y hand of cards and those who are white have a much better chance at winning. 

This is my second. It's apart of my black lives matter fist series. I'm aware that the colour of the POC hand's palm is wrong but I'm not some Picasso and I'm very sorry. Anyway, I chose the colours because purple symbolises power (hence it being with the white fist), yellow is the complementary colour to purple and because dark skin always looks so good with yellow.

For my WIPs, one, apart of the same series as the one above, is currently just an American flag that is half pastel and half monochrome. I plan to draw a peace sign on it then paint it grey in the colour and brown in the monochrome.

This one is apart of the dripping blood series thingy. It's one half of a pair. This one will most likely be crying blood while the other will cry red white and blue. 

Okay, that's all. See you whenever!

Status Artdate: Week 4 Term 3

Okay, I need to stop forcing art puns into my titles because
they never work :(

Regardless, I haven't done too much this week, which I can not-so-proudly admit. However, I am on the track towards finishing that one TV I was working on. So far, I've given up on the small one and begun a larger version. It's not too much bigger but it's a lot easier to focus on the details within the hands I planned to have coming out of the tv. Speaking of, I actually have gotten to the point on this piece where I have finished the general base for the hands. From here, I'd like to add a bit more depth, colour, and tone before I'm happy with it. Hopefully, I will be able to put this piece on my folio :)

Here's what I've got so far :D

Status Update: Art Term 3 Week 3

This week we're focusing on series and sequences. I have actually been thinking about how I'd like to sort out and order my own folio, as most of my pieces at the moment are quite stand alone. However, I do have concepts that will (hopefully) work in sequences with each other.

Anyway, relating to any actual update, we did an activity that helped us see series within a portfolio. As pairs within the class on Monday afternoon, we were given a portfolio to study and cut into its series where we see fit. Casey and I worked together on this folio:

These were the series that we saw:

We actually got quite confused with some of these pieces. Those four in the bottom left corner? We were caught between whether they were one series with all four of them, or if they didn't actually go with each other at all. We were caught on this because while they're all (self?) portraits of who seems to be the same girl yet they are all different styles.

Finally, this is the sequence we believe the folio was made in:

Looking at it now, I'm not sure whether or not the black and white photos we put second are mean to be second but if you look back at the actual portfolio, if it were to be read left to right, that is where it would sit.

In regards to my own work, I don't have a lot of things to update there. So, I had this concept that is really hard to explain so I created an actual like photoshopped concept picture and now I've lost it. It's gone. :(. I have started that idea though, so far it's a weird bunch of boxes that slightly resembles an old tv. In other news, that 'The Creation of Adam' drawing I started? Yeah, I hate it. I do still like the concept though, so I want to go about it in a different way. Instead of having to draw the hand, I'd like to see if I could do a multi-media type of thing for it like mayhaps I could use some bible verses for the background or just straight up use the original piece for the hand. I want to draw the snake though. Because snakes aren't as hard as hands. 

So here's that tv resembling thing :)

I'd like to size it up for the actual thing but I could hopefully still use the smaller version on my folio.

Senior Art Term 3 Week 2

A new term and we're already far too close to the end of the year. My kaupapa is something along of the lines of the hand life dealt. So kind of like looking at the things people get stuck with just by living. This may change as I suck at commitment :)

In the last week or so, I've been working both on drawing from references and things from my mind, as you can see in the following.

 It's upside down :(

This is a piece I did on my own at home. I'm not really sure how to describe it. I would like to redo it at some point as I use my own paints and the proportions of the hand itself which makes it look quite strange. I originally had a different version of the hand which was drawn better but I messed up the painting :(

This is a work in progress that is kinda the basis of my main overall idea. You can't quite tell yet ut it's meant to be the idea of life is a game where a minority has a clear disadvantage. I'm trying to show this as it's like some people are given a deck, ridden with things like prejudice and brutality, that is worse than others. I honestly have forgotten what the other letters stand for.

                                                                     

(Rock hand, hanging hand) These are just some reference practices that I haven't really fully realised yet.  Also one is missing some fingers.

                This one's also upside down :(

(Adam's Creation) So this one is just a finger at the moment but I'm getting there. I had to start again as it didn't work the first time. What I'd like to do is take a hand like God's in Adam's Creation and have a snake biting the pointing finger and kinda like hanging off of it. I guess it's like the kind of backhanded nature of what religion can be.

This one's just a different piece I did but in watercolour and smaller.

This is my current checklist for the 1.2 (we've already achieved the 1.1) and where I think I am. However, I could be horribly wrong :)

More Art, but like, Out Of Isolation P2

This week in art, I've been working on using watercolour paints to create basic shapes. I did this for a couple of days with Jess, using various colours like red, purple, green, blue, and yellow. 

These are a few of my first attempts. I really like some of these. More so than some of my newer attempts. I'm not the est at like shadows 

Here's some more watercolour stuff :p

I also attempted working with charcoal too.
I tried to recreate the black lives matter fist
I did the other week in charcoal but I didn't have
room for the flowers and knife so it's
just a fist with "human" on it.

Currently, America is a mess, which is kind of what my work has been about recently. People are mad, as they should e, so some statues have been destroyed. not going to lie, I found this decapitated Christopher Columbus really funny. So I drew it and actually don't hate how it turned out for once.
Um, anyway, screw that guy. Racists shouldn't get statues.

More Art, but like, Out Of Isolation

As a good start to what I'd like my portfolio to look like, in my own time I created a mixed media piece in support of the black lives matter movement in progress in America at the moment. 

This is it :)

The text you can see is actually a doc of different articles about innocent black victims who died to the hands of police brutality and stereotyping. More accurately victims murdered by people who stood free due to systematic racism. These victims include but are sadly not limited to - 

George Floyd -  was suffocated by a cop kneeling on his neck for over 8 minutes despite a lack of struggle and continuously saying "I can't breathe." He was in the custody of the cop due to being arrested on suspicion of a forged $20 note. The note was later reported to be real.

Trayvon Martin - shot by a neighbourhood watch member while walking home from a convenience store and holding a bag of skittles. He was labelled a 'suspicious individual' and unknowingly had the cops called on him. Despite the warning from 911 operator to not do anything, George Zimmerman shot and killed an innocent 17 year old. Trayvon Martin was 17. Zimmerman had a gun, Martin had skittles.

Breonna Taylor - Stormed in her own apartment and shot 8 times. A police squad entered her house to see if two men had been receiving packages of drugs there. They had a warrant that allowed them to enter without warning and not identify themselves as officers. They say that they only fired shots towards Taylor because her boyfriend shot at and wounded one of their officers (He was charged with the attempted murder of an officer after shooting them in the leg, a wound that would quickly heal. The charges were dropped later.) While aggressive, not a reason to fire at someone who is unarmed, consequently killing her. 

Ahmaud Arbery - He was shot while jogging. That's it. Two white men shot him because he was jogging. It was months before they were arrested.

These are just some of the numerous cases.

To support the movement, please (safely) protest if possible or even just check out some of these articles - 

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/support-the-black-lives-matter-movement

https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/help-black-lives-matter-protests-donate-organisations/

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-you-can-help-black-lives-matter-protesters-if-you-cant-attend-in-person/

https://www.gq.com/gallery/ways-to-support-black-lives-matter

Art in Isolation

Alternative titles - Self Artsolation, Quartantine 

Yeah, no, I hate both of those.

So. The entirety of our school is in self-isolation due to COVID-19. Might have to clarify which virus because one day a kid might use this as a primary source in social studies in 60 years. If we manage to live that long- not funny? Oops.

Anyway, the point of this blog post is to share what I have been learning while at home. I'm taking NCEA level one art this year. The best part of art is the creativity, the--almost--complete freedom to do whatever. When you're at home without a teacher hanging over your shoulder, it is slightly more difficult but you probably have more freedom. I wanted to share what I have learnt through doing art while in self-isolation.

I am uptight. That is something that I'm fully aware of. I struggle to break the rules--though, I do believe rules may be broken if there is a reason for it--and I freak in chaos. I get insecure when people are better at me. More relevant, I struggle to accept failure. It's hard to tune out the little voices in your head that tells you that the idea of 'failing is learning' is bull- I'll stop there.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, I've been doing some art. Duh. And I got frustrated because I kept messing up. I ended up with a painting I didn't like. It didn't look anything like the sketch I drew beforehand.
But (there's always a but, isn't there?) I learnt from this. I learnt that I do like the way I painted the pants- the colour, the pockets, the belt. I didn't like how deep the neckline was or how the arms sit. The background sucks.

So I did it again.

I made a new painting. I made mistakes and I fixed what I could but Rome wasn't built in a day. I know I did things wrong.
There are gaps between the background and the figure. The 'Human' is difficult to read because of spacing. The arms aren't sitting equally. The hair is longer than I expected because the shirt sat weirdly. The belt and pants got worse, so did the pockets. The hair has little texture.
It's alright though. I got frustrated, anyone would. However, I kept going and I understand how to improve.

I was okay. 

I did freak though, at one point. I took a break, stepped away from what I was doing and did something I would be okay messing up. I painted my calculator. 

It looks like crap, I know. I do know that. It was my first time painting clouds like this and I winged it like crazy. I have painted better. The right image is a watercolour painting I did a while ago, yeah, the proportion is off, but I really like it anyway. 

So, yeah. I learnt a lot from doing this. I learnt you can make mistakes. I learnt that it's okay to mess up if you learn for next time.

Also, I really like gold paint? And yellow, too.

What is Your Why?

Barely two weeks in, we are hitting the ground running. Our main focus so far has been our 'Kaupapa' or our 'why.' Why have we made what we have made? What is the purpose, the concept? 

So, as level one students, we had to choose artists and themes from this matrix:

This year, I'd like to focus on...
From the first list - Shane Cotton & Lisa Reihana. 
From the second list - Roy Lichtenstein & Yoshitomo Nara
And from the last list, I'd like to focus on the sports design/photography line, inspired by artists like Rinko Kawauchi and the Photo Roman video I watched

These are my ideas!

    Sorry about my handwriting, but basically I'd like to use photography as the main medium but combine it with other mediums such as printing and painting.
     I'd like my subjects to be centred around people and dark figures, maybe combining them with other things to give more meaning. As a plan b, or something else, I'd like to incorporate things like cameras or very decade-base items.
     After some more thought, my kaupapa may be more around things such as equality, seeing things through others' perspectives, changes in point of views, changes in values etc. and I hope to use my medium and my subjects to present these ideas.