Dead Things

It was a fairly hot summer day and I was going to go on a walk. That's all we did in summer, we walked. 

We reached the train tracks and decided to walk alongside them. Where the train tracks were the rocky land was raised. Down on the sides were puddles, trash, plants and dirt. We talked and pointed out the things that we liked; bottles, chunks of pastic, weeds.

Eventually we came across the small skeleton of some animal. It was twisted and there were parts that were obviously broken or missing. It was brown and for the most part the flesh was decomposed. I found a large leaf to wrap around it, I used it to pick the skeleton up. I wanted to clean and identify and keep it. It was beautiful. 

We walked back to my house and placed the skeleton in the grass of my backyard. I would clean it later. We went inside. 

The next day we found a dead cicada, which I also kept.

The next day we walked again. 

Art x 3

By the time I was on my final piece, the one I would keep, I had seen my first one and it looked almost the same as when I had worked on it. I was very upset because it would be like someone else had taken my work. I was also having a hard time turning my final piece into something that I liked. It was really selfish of me. When it was finished it turned out well and deviated from what I would have done, which was good. And I ended up creating my own into something that I liked. I needed to learn how to be willing to give things up and be okay with it and I did through this project.

Pop Art Print

For this project we made stamps depicting everyday things. I chose a clifbar for my stamp because I eat them every day and many people know of them. For this print I used a paint brush and layered many colors onto my stamp. When it dried I used colored pencil to brighten it and make it "pop" more. Being able to experiment and make many prints was interesting and fun.

Fortune Cookie Inspired Mixed Media Collage

I had a difficult time with this, I just wanted it to look good and adding a meaning to it made it difficult. I honestly got frustrated and decided to settle on this, the more I look at it though, the more I like it. The numbers are some "lucky numbers" found on the cookies. The orchid I drew in the bottom represents the fortune telling me that I am hospitable, cheerful, and well liked. I think that plants can represent hospitality and they make me cheerful. The figure over the water who's face isn't showing represents the fortune that told me to keep things secret, as well as the face with holes where eyes should be (This could also represent a liar, I also got a fortune about liars). 

What Does Our Cellection Reveal About Us?

 There are pens, soap, hats, toys, containers, trash; our collection depicts that amount of different types of everyday things that are blue or can be blue. We got the idea from artist, Portia Munson (http://portiamunson.com/home.html). The collection is made up of things that we need, want, or are interested in, and shows how many things people have in their possession. Many of the things are not even necessary, people just have them. Besides the pens, salt, and my own clifbar wrapper, my own personal tastes are not reflected at all.

What do you collect? Why?

I have two collections, neither began just because I decided to start collecting the items in them, but they kind of came upon me.
The first is a collection of my drawings that had accumulated in my backpack, under my bed, around my house. Most are doodles and sketches but for some reason I can't let myself get rid of them. Recently I gathered all of them, some are from elementary school, some are from middle school, and some are recent; some I drew myself, and some I drew with friends, and put them in a folder. It's great looking back on what I've drawn in the past, it tells me what I was thinking or interested in.
The second collection is my dead insect collection. I have a frame that I so far have a large moth, a cicada, and a dragonfly in. All of the insects have been found (already dead) by friends and family and given to me because they know of my interest in them.

Cookie Decorating

We decorated cookies using icing mixed with food coloring as paint! I really liked how small the space to paint on was, for whatever reason, and I like painting a lot in general so it was really fun.