The End

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley

It is the end of the year and I am very excited to go off to college and start my own adventure. take my life into my own hands and become responsible for my actions and all that good stuff. Although High School has been great I am ready to leave. But I do know that because I am going to a college and NOT majoring in art, my painting and or drawing will be down to a minimum. I do not see myself as an artist in 10 years, although that would be pretty cool. In all honesty I have NOOOO idea what i will be doing in ten years. I would like to have had a kid by that point, but otherwise I dont really know. Right now I would like to be a baker or chef when I grow up, but I could also go into advertising or maybe anthropology, or archeology. It just all depends on what appeals to me as I grow up, and what doors I shut along the way.
I dearly love this class and don't really want to leave it, because I love to paint and to draw, and hopefully I will continue to, but not as often as I am now. I have learned so much from art this year, about myself as an artist. I have learned that if I just try I can improve quickly. I feel like from the beginning of the year up until now there has been a great change in my skill as an artist. I have also learned that I love to paint with wild colors and large brushes, anything with texture appeals to me. something abstract but recognizable is absolutely beautiful to me. My favorite piece this year I think was my last. It was a picture of a man and a women, naked (of course) standing in a bare room. but they were very abstract yet identifiable, which is why i liked it. But i also like my self portrait and the donuts i did at the beginning of the year.

I wish to tell incoming AP-2D people to appreciate this class, because it is the one class where you know you can do well in. you can relax here and let your imagination run wild. don't be afraid to awaken your imagination. stretch your brain a bit and start to think about what means something to you. Always paint something that is meaningful to you because if you like it others will like it too.
The thing that I like the best about this year was Scholastic art awards. I had so much fun there. going and setting up was interesting and then actually going to the show and seeing what Oregon can do is inspirational. I think submitting something is always a good idea even if you don't make it in. But definitely go to the show and see all of the people's works. You can really see what other people your age can do, meaning that you can do it too if you just try. it can either be a serious confidence booster or it can fuel you to compete. But definitely submit something, and DEFINITELY go.

FIN

Well it's the end of the year and i am very happy about that. I will finally have some time to really get down and dirty in the kitchen. I intend to make so many cakes I will not be able to find people to take them all. I think i am done with my houses for haiti project so i want to start something else before the end of the year. Don't know what yet, but i would like to try. oh and a side note I am writing this right now surrounded by 5 adorable kittens. they are about 5 weeks old and oh so cute.

i am done

i am so done with everything. I am done with high school and I am done with studying, I just want to stay home and read. But alas, I still have a month and a half left, darn. But I think I can make it, or at least I hope, can't give up yet, not yet not yet not yet.

so tired

these past two weekends have just been non stop stuff. my college list has been shortened to about 6, i have worked on APUS for more than 24 hours all put together (which sucks) but i did get to work on art. I was able to work for like 6 hours on 3 different pieces. one is a lady in a donut, floating out to sea. another is a women on a couch with licorice lining and another is a women (of course) in a Victorian dress surrounded by a cande coated landscap, so it's pretty interesting. I have been watching buffy while painting. i like that show. I really hope i am able to finish these three paintings as well as the fourth one at school. But we'll see, everything is on a timeline and everything is going so hard so fast. we'll see how well this works out. i just would like to rest.

HMMM

nobody actually reads this do they? well that's fine i guess. But this weekend has been a really tough weekend. my only time to work on art was friday. I did spend a good 6 hours working on 3 different paintings. I just painted over a couple I didn't really like that much. so yes, i am working on 3 at home and 1 at school. I want to see if I will be able to finish all of them by the end of this month. i am betting no, but we'll see. 2 of them are oils, and one is acrylic. I think i should really look into other techniques you can use with oils, because I feel like I am not getting as much depth as I could. I think maybe I will call my grandma and ask for some advice. I have also noticed it is much harder to get really bright vibrant colors with oils, or maybe that's just because my colors aren't that intense. We shall see. But one is a victorian lady with food everywhere, the other is going to be a woman on a couch surrounded by food, and then the third is someone floating in a donut and someone else on a cupcake. I am such a girl, obsessed with pastries and bright colors. Just show my something shiny and I will follow. Oh well, I can't help it that I am a walking cliche, well I could but whatever, I like pastries and bright colors.

Spring Break

I went to the coast and did nothing but then I came home and painted so much that I started seeing brush strokes behind my eyelids. I am almost done with my 2 paintings, but I have been working very hard at it. My self portrait looks like me, but only kind of like me. The thing is I dont think that there is anything else I can do to make it much better, because it wont ever be perfect, but i guess that's ok. I also am almost done with my ring fingers one. I also bought a tub of licorice and I am going to make a self portrait again out of licorice. I just need a photo to base it off of. But otherwise I am out of ideas, which is not good.

eat me concentration

hopefully kirstin wont kill me for this but here is the before and after pics for her lovely painting. it kinda looks like her. and then the curly one is my self portrait, which kinda looks like me. my concentration has somethis to do with women and food. so... ya. hope all y'all like it.

Van Gogh art

Vincent Willem Van Gogh, such a well known and respected artist now that he's dead. In french class we are doing a project on impressionist and post impressionist painters. Van Gogh is one such painter. We are also required to make a painting that somehow reflects their specific style of painting. so I was thinking I would be able to do a self portrait in a Van gogh style like this painting to the left. my hope is that it will have the same feel, in terms of texture and painting technique, but be a picture of myself. and in order to associate it with my concentration I was thinking I would make my hair into food again. just an Idea.

Artist's Statement

My Concentration focuses on exploring the relationship between people and food. It displays how food effects people and what roles food plays in the lives of people. A key aspect of this concentration is texture, and using actual foods to create a unique depth.

It's BS but it sounds nice

Pieces of Pictures

The Donut hand I actually started over winter vacation, but did not actually finish until recently. I really like texture and because my concentration is focused around food and people, specifically women and pastries, I thought about doing something like this. I was intending to do something like the sistine by Michelangelo where god almost touches man. I dont think that that completely came across in this painting, but that is what i was trying to do.

For this one I wanted to actually use a face in an attempt to display greed in some way. and i did not know how to exaclty display that so i decided to start with a face in the center flowing from a hand. the face is to show all of the greed that people feel for certain items, such as donuts.there is a light in the background to highlight the greed and to show the darkness, but the darkness is still surrounded by light.

dearth?

so... didn't have a whole lotta time this weekend to do anything artistic. well i mean in terms of me actually painting something considering I left at 12:30 on friday and got home oh... 15 minutes ago. But i did get to go to canada and that was really cool. alot of the stuff up in canada is focusing on the first people and their art, because that is what the opening ceremonies at the olympics wanted to focus on too. and i was looking at all of these gorgeous totem poles and thinking about that. and although it wouldn't be part of my concentration what if i did something american, but truly native american. or maybe not that, but something that would just break it down and get to the core of art. like what exactly makes something art? i donno, just get rid of the 12 principles and see what is left. and then maybe for something else i can combine all of the 12 principles and see what happens. but i wonder what is left of art if you take away all of the things that make art? would it just be white? would there still be art without rules? art is not supposed to have rules but it does in fact art is probably one of the only things that has to have rules to exist. but what if you took away all of the rules then what? can you take away all of the rules? how? hmm.... i think i am going crazy. *sigh* and i still have a chem lab to finish. i wish i could do art instead.
GO CANADA! eh?

work

well with finals finally done i basically spent this whole weekend painting and watching tv. which was really nice. i am working on a self portrait right now, and i just need to figure out how to incorporate food into it somehow. but i will figure that out later. and i have an idea for my next piece as well. i was thinking black and white with a piece of food as the only thing that was in color. i think i want it to be a close up of someones face, specifically a mouth, with one of those fruity ring things on and they are eating it. maybe a candy necklace too, but i dont know if i want to have both of those things in there. and i also want to do something where the person is made out of food, but i need to figure out how.

influences

while at portfolio day i was forced to reflect a bit about what was really important to me and what i really wanted to portray in my work, and in all honesty i dont really know. i like the idea of portraying women somehow, but where does the food come in? why are any of my pieces even mildly interesting? are any of them interesting? i think that i need to rethink my idea and think about what really matters to me and what i really would like to display in my art, but i need to think about that a bit more before i can really change and define the parameters of my concentration. because if i am going to box myself in, i want to place myself in a box that i think i could last in for the rest of the year.

winter vacation

It has been a good two weeks just sitting around trying to do as little as possible. But all good things must come to an end. in terms of art i have been playing around with oil paints this week, so that is what i have been doing most of the time. I think they are fun to work with but a pain because they dry so slow which is good and bad. i have been working on four and am finished with none. meaning today i will have to work work work away on art and chem. and i just found out that i received a gold key for my cardboard dress!!!! soooooo awesome!