Second project

I actually had thought about doing my second project based on a photo my friend sent of me. Charcoal and all that. But... I had forgotten how much I really did enjoy clay when it didn't fall apart on me/hate me/destroy my life. So... I figured I'd make something functional. Something that I'd actually use or at least place somewhere I could see. So. I'm going to make a vase based on the Maori pottery and design that shows up often in their culture. It's going to be a vase with a wide middle, and long, thin neck. Similar to the one in this picture, with all the carved designs and whatnot. I'm most likely going to carve leaves similar to the ones already on the vase and in the picture below it. Also. As far as the steps to accomplishing my goal... I found two bowls in the room that could create it... A wide, short bowl to be the base half of the vase, and another bowl of the same width, but taller to be the top half. The rest is also explained in the other picture below.... My designs. 

Maori Hei-Tiki #2

For my hei-tiki project I had decided to do a set of necklaces. Only two. All was going well. I finished over spring break. I was really proud of the second one I had made. I liked it a lot better than the person one.

And of course. With my luck. It broke. But it was fixable. So I took it home, reconstituted it, and reattached it to the best of my ability. It was still spring break, so I figured I'd relax for the rest of the week, and bring it to school on Monday to fire it. Again, my luck struck me. It broke again, but this time, beyond repair. Just into tons and tons of pieces. So. I had to remake the entire thing that night. I don't have a finished picture of it, but it looked like the picture below at one point, and I have yet to take it out of the kiln. What I've learned from this oh too wonderful experience is to be more careful with my transportation of artwork, and make doubly sure that all containers, boxes, etc., won't smash or scratch or deface your artwork.

Maori Hei-Tiki

Just a little bit of background on what I'm doing.
The Maori Tiki that I'm creating in class is very important to the New Zealand culture that it's from. It's... I would guess the equivalence (as far as importance)... of us at our 18th or 21st birthday. Except, to the Maori, it's a coming of age type of deal. It's extremely important to their culture. It signifies childhood and fertility, along with strength of character and individualism.

I started out with a block of clay I would guess about a half inch thick, and then just start carving out and shaping it to look like this picture above.  This is actually my friend from New Zealand. It's her personal hei-tiki.  Anywho. I started out by carving the holes where the arms and legs are, and shaping the clay with a needle tool and exacto blade to fit the curvature of the actual piece. At this point, the picture to the left is what it looked like. I felt like the arms and legs were the hardest part, and after I had those done, it was simple to finish the rest of the piece, or so I'd thought. Where the line is around the mouth area, I had carved out to make a negative space and put a raised platform of clay around it to make it look like "lips" and then I just carved out the eyes by carving a circle.




I'm having trouble positioning the pictures so please just bear with me. Then I had realized I needed to create a bail from which the hemp necklace I'm making could hold the piece. I tried just attaching a long, flattened out strip to the front and bending it to the back, but it would've been too fragile, so I had to create a ring out of clay before I attached it to the top of the tiki. I don't have a finished picture yet, because it hasn't been fired, but I will after break! :)

Pictures. Pictures? PICTURES?!!?!!?!?!!?!

Welp my little followers, the title says it all. PICTURES. TONS AND TONS OF PICTURES. (A side note for Stamper. I took the ACT with Alec today and we discussed arts beforehand. Be proud!!) Anyhow. I'm not entirely sure about this whole media exploration blog thing. But I'm pretty sure I've already been doing that in my sketches. First offff. Let me note that my concentration is based off Mauri Islanders (New Zealand) so I'm trying to incorporate that into everything as much as possible. My first pictures doesn't really have much to do with media exploration, but I'm interested in seeing how it turns out once we actually start to work with clay.

If you look really close, you can notice all these weird little men-looking creatures. They're called hei tikis, and are given to Mauri children by their parents as... Let's say... A 16th, 18th, or 21st birthday gift. It's a sign they're growing up, basically. I have all these different designs/looks for it, and it's going to have a green glaze, as most actually hei tikis are made from a substance called taonga (greenstone).






My second "media exploration" was the watercoloring. I'm sure you've already seen it, but I'm going to put another picture up to jog your memory. :P

I'm not sure exactly what project I'm going to incorporate these watercolored faces into, but I'm going to do it in something we do. We're kindof transitioning into 3d elements in the second semester, or at least right now, so I'm just waiting to be able to use it. I've really taken a fancy to watercolor this past year; and I really will enjoy watercoloring faces. It will seriously help me with my issues with human anatomy since I'm having to draw a different ethnicity and make the features shape accordingly. Overall, I feel successful with this medium. :)



Then there's the last one, and the first project we really did. The whole carving out lithography stuff. And that woman.

These four are in order of how I practiced printing. The pencil (design), checking to make sure everything was carved out correctly and exploring rainbow rolls, checking once again that I carved correctly, and then an actual print I was trying to make.
I really wanted to find some project to incorporate this into, but when I tried it with the mixed media project, it turned out horribly. I attempted to print ontop of what I had already made (it seemed awesome in my head) but it just didn't work out at all. It smudged and was horrible. HORRIBLE. But... That doesn't mean I can't keep on using it for printmaking by itself.


Well.... THAT'S ALL FOR RIGHT NOW....
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Here are some random pictures.

Berea College

Ever since I talked with Mr.Whitley about it, and how much he seemed to enjoy it (given that was... more than a few years ago), I started researching it. And the prospect of not paying for ANYTHING except room and board when I go to college seems so amazing. I could end up going to grad school and having half the debt I would if I went to, let's say, Murray State, UK, or anywhere else. Of course, since the college is free, the admissions rate is very low. One of the most difficult colleges in Kentucky to apply to. The acceptance rate is around 19%. However, the requirements for acceptance are very limited, and luckily for me, I believe I have all of those requirements. Here they are:
http://www.berea.edu/admissions/admissioninformation/admission-requirements.asp
I find it interesting that 2 years of laboratory science is required by this college. That makes me feel extremely confident, because as of right now, I know about only about 20 students at Lone Oak High School of the 1,200 that go here that have 2 years of actual laboratory science. Berea is one of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States. I find it amazing the diversity in classes, people, ethnicity, and majors that keeps on popping up in reviews I've read. Another thing I find interesting is that the deadline for applications is on April 30th, a lot later than other colleges or universities.
The arts department is very well-focused and formed at Berea because of the fact it is a liberal arts college. It doesn't say exactly what the portfolio requirements are, but it does recommend an AP studio course, and a recent portfolio from that. The portfolio will be judged by the ENTIRE art faculty, which is kind of nerve-wracking, and they will determine whether your concentration best be fit in Studio, General, or Art History. It seems like they take their "arting" seriously, and I'm glad they do. :)
Here's the link to the art department.
http://www.berea.edu/cataloghandbook/dpc/art-prg.asp
Here's the link to the general website.
http://www.berea.edu/

"Lady with an Ermine" ? ? ?

This is an odd painting by Leonardo da Vinci, circa. 1490. It's entitled "Lady with an Ermine". I don't know what attracted me to feature this as one of my own "oh so elaborate, in-depth, life-changing elaborate art evaluations". Perhaps it's that I feel as if Leonardo had a sense of a humor whilst commissioning this piece. I like to imagine him painting this and thinking "Maiiiinnnn. This woman be crazy, holdin a ermine and makin me paint her and dat nasty thang."----- What even is an ermine? Google time. Oh. It's a weasel. Why is she holding a weasel? 15th century women are crazy. Oh. Now to get to the elements and principles of art hidden within this exhilarating portrait. Oh, they're in there, hiding in the ermine's eyes, no doubt.. Just look in those eyes... Gaze deep... Deeper... Deeper. Ah. There's that life-changing experience. Now you can go around and tell people you've stared into the eyes of an ermine.... Let's study little leo's painting now! Okay, here's the analysis of the principles and elements. So one thing that I've noticed and am surprised immensely by... is Leonardo's use of line, shape/form, space/perspective, or rather, lack thereof. He seems to do quite well, no surprise there, on the colors and values of the woman's clothes. He follows the contours and records them very well... Every shadow, every crevice of them, recorded with the need of a shadow or highlight. He clearly understands how to paint a value scale. Notice how he paints her skin, and how he also tries to apply this process to it as well. It's not as detailed and precise as the clothing, though. Now notice how he applies this detail on the ermine as well.  However... Look at the woman again. There are some trivial details that I deem... Unexpected... from Da Vinci. First, look at her headband. There is no use of perspective there. It is simply a straight line across her forehead and her hair. It doesn't follow her head, or curve to imply that her head is round. IT ISN'T FLAT, LEO! While you're near her head, also, notice the unibrow looking thing. (What?) Second, notice her hair. He uses the correct value on it, yes, but THERE'S NO LINE. It simply looks like a giant blob to me. If he had used line on her hair with that use of value, it would have created a wonderful example of implied texture. Another thing I noticed... He didn't use perspective or form/shape on her necklace correctly, either. It looks like he simply painted circles on her neck. There isn't enough emphasis on the value to manipulate it to look like a sphere. While we're at it, look at the background. Black? Feeling depressed today, Da Vinci?
All in all, I think leo coulda stepped up his game on this a bit. Come on leo. Get serious, bruh. I don't care if she's holding an ermine and you can't help from laughing.

Bucknell University ( and maybe a few others :3 )

Let me introduce you to the private, non-profit Bucknell University, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. You may be like "Clayton. You is crazy. Why PA, bruh?" I don't know. Shut up and listen to me talk about it. Get out of my life if you don't want to listen. :) I really have no idea why I'm so intensely drawn toward schools in Pennsylvania. This is legitimately the 4th college there that I've been considering. Possibly due to my ability to make things more difficult than they're supposed to be, of no surprise, all of these colleges are difficult to get into to, or extremely expensive. This one is no exception. The minimum ACT scores required by the college are a 27-31. Wowowowoww! So obviously chock full of smart people.... Good. That's what I enjoy.... Let's see the out of state tuition... *scrolly scrolly... lookie lookie...* OH MY GOD. WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN... $50,000 tuition. Screw life. Although, there is an average $23,000 scholarship/ financial aid. Let's see admission rate.... *hesitantly scrolly... sad face* 30% acceptance. PENNSYLVANIA, Y U NO MAKE MY LIFE EASY? I'll link the website that I find all of this on at the very end of this. In fact, let's just ALL THE LINKS at the bottom. Alas, tiempo to get serious for a second. I really enjoy this college. It seems very successful with all of these benefits: 1:10 teacher/student ratio, 97% of professors have the highest degree in their field, 67% of students say they have manageable workload, students are teachers are friendly, 93% of students come back after their first year, gives credit for AP CLASSES... It seems fun! Most popular majors are Social Sciences & Liberal Arts, and Language & Literature. My kindof school. :333 I explored the website of the actual University for a while, and it seems quite interesting. I am legitimately considering this school now for my higher education after my basics here in Kentucky. I just hope that my debt won't be too large. It sucks that the school is so expensive. But I'm extremely drawn towards it. I couldn't really find a specific application process for the arts department, however, I saved a few links that are helpful. Here they are. :)) 

Summarized info about Bucknell: http://collegeprowler.com/bucknell-university/

School website: http://www.bucknell.edu/

Admissions (application) website: http://www.bucknell.edu/x68.xml#

Arts scholarships: http://www.bucknell.edu/x67410.xml

Art department: http://www.bucknell.edu/x722.xml