sculptures reflections cont...

This lesson I got straight to doing my doll! I scruntched up the news paper for my muscles like I had planned to do and I am nearly 3/4 done with my doll - I wonder what we will use to make our face into the dolls? newspaper? anyway, at the end of this lesson I hoped to finish the newspaper and sticky tape part of my dolls next lesson and then finally move onto the paper mache stage.

Today I did complete the sticky tape stage of my doll as I had planned, but unfortunately I only had 10 minutes of paper mache time since it took a while to finish with the sticky tape. At least next lesson I will have the whole lesson with the paper mache and hopefully the glue (paper mache) will help me bond the newspaper together more tightly so it is not as floppy!!

Today I spet the whole time with the paper mache and it did bind the newspaper together more firmly, making my doll look lots better. Apart from building up my doll's limbs and muscle more with the paper mache I am practically done!I think I will finish next lesson - I really hope so!!!

I finished my paper mache today in the middle of the lesson but I couldn't start with the painting and the gesso yet as it was still drying. I don't think I'm up to that stage anyway - I have to let Mrs vincent check it first. My friends are nearly finished theirs aswell so I am comparing ours and theirs is really good - so many unique and different poses, but I'm happy with mine.

I showed mrs Vincent my doll today she told me a few places to fix it up but she said I could go on to gesso as soon as that was done. so I built up the arms more, gave it more of a bottom and she cut down my head a bit and I let it dry and will start my gesso next lesson.

This lesson I did start with my gesso - I nearly finished it actually, nearly because i couldn't paint the bottom of my body as my doll is in a lying position and if I painted the whole thing when I placed it on the drying rack it would stick to the newspaper it would be laid on. I will, however, paint the second half next lesson - and I found out today - 1 lesson to late - that the other class covered their doll with paper towel before painting on the gesso but as mrs vincent didn't know this last lesson she told me today that I would have to paint 2 coats of gesso onto my doll.

Today I painted the other half of my doll and left it to dry upside down and with 10 minutes to go my doll was dry so I painted the top half with the second layer of gesso. next lesson I will be finished with gesso and I will start on the paper clay for my face - that should be a challenge well, I'll deal with it next week.

Sure enough - I did finish with the gesso this lesson but there was one small problem - my neck had cracked - on my doll I mean - so Mrs Vincent gave me some PVA glue to fix it (luckily I found out now and not next lesson when it would have likely fallen off!!!) I started with my paper clay face but I didn't get much right - in fact everything I did seemed wrong. Better luck next lesson.

This lesson Mrs vincent helped me with my face although, I thought the nose was a little too big so changed it to a smaller size. I started thinking about what colour I should paint my doll... most people I have talked to said they just painted theirs their favourite colour but I wanted mine to show my history - like mrs vincent said so I decided on light blue as my mum and grandma are both germans and in germany they have beautiful snow!!and my mum and dad both love to travel (they are flight attendants) and their favourite places are where there is snow (apart from our favourite place - Fiji) , I painted half my body light blue this lesson.

I finished painting my body today but I decided it was too dark a blue so I painted over it with a really light blue and it looks much better - much more like snow! I sat with new people today in art and they inspired me - so, I thought - instead of just my doll reading a random book on the floor I could make a beach towel and put her in a bikini and she could be on a holiday to fiji!! much more exciting and I could put her in a bright orange bikini to contrast with the light blue and I could mabye give her a yellow straw hat! wow I am going to sit with them all the time if they inspire me like this.

Today was the last lesson of the term and I didn't know what to do (I didn't know how to make a bikini out of paper towel!) so I made my beach towel instead - I made it out of 6 types of pink, going from a scale of lightest to darkest and gave it wavy edges - I can't wait to finish my doll next term!

Wow, the holidays were great! But am really excited to be getting back into art. I have changed my mind on the skin colour of my doll and wish to paint it purple to contrast with my pink towel (which is now dry and looking fantastic). so I made some purple today, I mixed together purple and white to get a lilac colour - I painted half my doll this lesson but I feel something is lacking in my doll, mabye I need to add more textures. Next lesson I hope to finish painting my doll so I can get into making my bikini.

Today I found my doll completely different to what I had last seen it as - the lilac I had used to paint my doll last lesson had darkened dramatically. I asked Mrs Vincent what I should do as I do not like this colour on my doll and I do not want to paint it again just to change it next lesson! Mrs vincent gave me the idea of adding texture and pattern into my doll by going from a light purple at my head to a dark purple at my feet - a scale. I thought this is a perfect idea but this time I managed to paint everything lighter than I actually wanted it because i know from experience that it will dry much, much darker! I finished painting my doll this lesson - well nearly.

Today I finished painting my doll and it looks great! I started on my bikini today by painting a sheet of paper towel lilac to be analogous with my skin colour. I also made a sun umbrella to be stuck onto my towel to enhance to beach atmosphere. Next lesson I hope to cut out and make my bikini.

I started cutting out my bikini from the purple paper today and I successfully made my bikini top but I am unconvinced with the idea of bikini bottoms so I decided to make a mini skirt to go over the top. I didn't have time to make the skirt this lesson but hopefully next lesson I will have it done.

This lesson I did finish my skirt and I think it looks adorable and I not only used the painted side of the paper towel but the unpainted aswell!! I did this as it made a blotchy tye-dye like pattern which I really love I also think this makes my doll look less plain. For the remainder of the lesson I painted a piece of paper towel the colour of my hair so that next lesson I can cut it up to make hair. I also tried to make (paint) my eyes this lesson, it really didn't workout - better luck next time.

I tried again and again to make eyes this lessonand I just couldn't do it, another unforttunate event that happend was that I could not find my paper towel which I painted blonde. Well, I guess it was for the best as trying to roll u painted paper toel is not such good idea - it will be too hard to roll up. I started making my hat this lesson and I am very pleased with it but I am also nervous as next lesson I will have to hand it in and I still haven't finished my hair or started it really. I am going to take my doll homeand hopefully I will finish it there.

Semester 2 sculptures

This lesson we started on a new topic - making sculptures of ourselves! It sounded like so much fun and i couldn't wait to start. We got given a template of how to make the "skeleton of our sculpture (made of wire). It took me a few tries but in the end i came up with a skeleton that i was happy with and I helped a few girls with theirs also.After that we had to move the skeleton of our sculpture into a pose that we are happy to base our work on - my pose is of me lying down on my belly reading a book. I look forward to creating the limbs next lesson.

Today we started building up our scultpture with newspaper and sticky tape. for this lesson i wrapped the newspaper in thin strips around the frame and then stuck them down. Just nearing the end of the lesson, however, Mrs Vincent explained to us that we were not to wrap the newspaper but actually scrunch it up to form the mucles more efficiently.Next lesson I will make sure i scrunt up larger pieces of newspaper the correct way.

I started off scruntching the newspaper and taping it to the places where needed, eg. arms, legs and belly. But in the middle of the lesson the class was stopped for mrs Vincent to explain how to rip newspaper correctly, along the grain. after this I went back to my work and continued scruntching until the end of the lesson. Next time I wish to build up the muscles more.

Reflections cont...

Reflection 4
I did finish my outline this lesson, with the help from my teacher, and I went on to drawing the details inside it just to help me when i start painting.

Reflection 5
I started painting my legs today but it was really challenging to find the right colours to mix to replicate my skin colour. I also had to add some black to some of the paint to help with the shadier areas near the insides of my legs.

Reflection 6
This lesson i painted my uniform on my painitng a dark navy colour and i included the badges, I also started painting my left arm but it was difficult to make the same colour skin colour that I used on my legs.

Reflection 7
I had saved the skin colour I managed to make last week and kept it in a safe place in the art room so that I wouldn't have to go to the trouble of making it again this lesson. By the end of art today I had successfully painted both my arms and drawn, with pencil, more detail on my face.

My reflections leadin up to final prodct

Reflection 1
Last lesson we had a talk with Aunty Sally and she explained to us about up side down drawing and the left side of our brains, we also had the opportunity to see her work and make a dot painting which was amazing! Today the class did a pose whilst Mrs Vincent took our picture, she said we would need that photo for our project this term. I can't wait untill next lesson to see what we are going to do with our pictures.

Reflection 2
Today Mrs Vincent revealed what we will be doing this term, and it is very similar to the work of aunty sally. This lesson Mrs Vincent gave us the pictures she took last lesson and told us to trace around the outline of our body and shade with black the negative shapes around us. We also got to paint a large piece of cardboard either blue, red or black (i painted mine black).

Aunty Sally

In the last few weeks St Hildas got the privellage of having a famous artist come to our school and help us with our work, her name was Aunty Sally. For afew lessons she showed us how well she could paint using a variety of techniquessuch as dot painting, and my favourite one - drawing a replica of another picture turned upside down. This was my favourite as it fascinates me that if you turn the object or photo you are painting upside down and only focus on the negative shapes it lets the right side of your brain "free" as it is not controled by your left side of your brain if you do this. Mrs Vincent got us to use the same tecnique as Aunty Sally and draw a picture of a photo of us. I was really excited to do this and am not finished quite yet, but I think I am doing a pretty good job.I loved having Aunty Sally here for a few weeks and we were all sad to see her leave.