Butterfly Clay Relief Tile

 

           Here is the last project that our class did this year.  It is a clay relief tile. (I don't know why it's a 'relief' tile)  We started off with two sketches of what our tile would look like and chose one.  We took a thick square piece of clay on a wood board, and modeled other pieces to add onto it.  I made a rainforest scene with flowers and butterflies.  There were three flowers, lavender, pink, and orange, and two butterflies, blue and red.  The molding was pretty hard.  You had to make the right shapes and the soft clay didn't hold well, but I managed without ruining the thing.  I also make the clay look 3-D by propping up the wings of the butterfly and the petals on the pink flower.
        We let the clay dry for a few days, and it turned a light grey color.  Then our teacher fired them for us to paint. Unfortunately I didn't get to finish, there are still shadows to add and still a few mistakes for me to paint over, but it's pretty much done.  I had to be extra careful with the leaves on the edges of the tile because they are really really thin. I don't know how I'm going to be able to take this home. XD
         This project has been by far my favorite, it was interesting and really fun to work on.  The tile turned out well and looks even better when painted. I walked around and got to see the tile made by my classmates, and they looked really good too. Everyone enjoyed making these. I hope I will have the chance to do this again someday!

Monopoly Game Drawing

          This drawing was mainly to practice drawing scenes in perspective. I didn't like this project as much as some of the other ones that my class had done.  First our class took pictures of board games in interesting perspectives.  On a piece of paper, we sketched them out and started to watercolor them for a base.  That was the part I did not like.  I'm not good with watercolors because I haven't worked with them as much as other art tools.  The water  blended into each other and went out of the lines.  It was hard to get a continuous shade of a color too, depending on how much water or color was used.
          But the good things were that I managed to create the drawing in the right perspective, also that I was able to  cover the mistakes made with the watercolor.  Mostly.  I feel that the game piece Alice from, Alice in Wonderland, looks genuine. The cards sitting at the top of the drawing look realistic too.  Overall, not the best project, but not the worst either.

Stencils

1. Explain how you changed your photo in the lab to create a stencil.

To create our stencil, I chose a picture from the Internet, then in photoshop, changed the threshold.

Back in the classroom, we were creating collages for a background to the spray paint.

2. When creating the collage background explain your choices of colors, materials (magazine paper, books pages, etc), and placement. How does it relate to your topic? If no relation discuss general idea.

I was planning to do a clock tower of sorts, so I was thinking about England.  Lots of things came to mind so I just pasted random stuff from books and magazines to make my collage.  

3. Discuss the way positive and negative space was used to create your stencil.

I choose to spray paint int he negative space in black, you can't really see it in the picture, but the black and white created a really nice contrast.

4. When using the X-acto knife, explain the safety procedures, how to use the knife and any challenges you had to overcome while cutting.

The cutting part was really fun. When we used X-acto knives, we had to cut on a cutting board and cut it away from ourselves.

5. How was your experience with the spray paint? Discuss how color choice is important, placement of stencil, and any other concepts you noticed while creating this.

It was actually really really fun! You had to choose colors that wouldn't clash with each other and had enough contrast to the color of the collage so that the image could be seen.  I had to spray the edges and the little squares of the stencil in dark so it would show up.