FINAL POST!

Don't wait until the last minute! That is probably the sole most inportant advise I can give. It is ok to be better at working under pressure and it helps you whip out an essay in max two hours the morning off the due date. But..... great and quality works of art are NOT created the night before - their are exceptions but even just thinknig ahead and planning it shows through - something you have worked hard on and not reushed to finish looks and feels so mcuh better in the end.

My favortie piece i created this year - although i really like ym houses for Haiti piece - was my Whisteling Season piece. I feel like technically this piece is one of my strongest, and although it is not very inoovative and different it has a voice. This was also my first ever encaustic piece - it took me FOREVER - but it was where i first realized to let go because now art kind of makes itself, before I concentrated so hard gettign every detail, trying to make it have a voice, and not having so much fun. However, this piece taught me how to flow through what i was doing and, it also thaugt me the techniqies of encaustic and how to love encaustic.

Oh gosh we did so much this year . . . I think I got the most out of the acctual showcase, just having my pieces up for show, having friends family, and strangers all appricate them, and even sellnig a few felt so good after all my work. Other activities i got a lot out of were the cow because it was a challenge and it gave em tons of hours!!!! as for everything else they were just really fun, liek the bbq. However I definitly would have liked a real retreat, i feel kind of like i missed out because i am not part of any other school groups so i have never had a school related retreat.

In ten years i see my self involoved with dance primarily, however this year i have realized that i do want to ocntinue to create art maybe not all the time but definitly continuing through my life. There is so mcuh dance can teach me about art and art can teach me about dance.

"Life can suck sometimes, but you can never suck at life" -Mark Dunlop

so...

houses for Haiti hmmm.... At first i wanted to do a stick house, but then abby also wanted to do one and her sis looking really nice and i think one stick house is enough, go abby :) then i wanted to do a snail but idk, kent gave me the idea of relating it to finland which i think is cute. i kind of want to do it realistic painting of Finland but then have it kind of in the style of the pettson books where there are so many hidden details and fun things to looks at. oh and the hide a snail in there somewhere :)

eeek....

well, let's just say i'm really glad the art showcase is in april because i am starting to feel the pressure of the end of the year.

I teach at my studio so not only do i have to prep for my own performances and such, but i have to make sure all of my classes look good ( if i can even finish by then ) and be there for all of their performances too. however, that's is in late may so i have some time and i wont have to worry about art because the show case is before that. In fact the showcase is.... in 11 days... hmmm ive got lots of work to do.

i have...

african

lyrical

broadway

tango

salsa

swing

contemporary

tap

hip hop

almost waltz

i need to make jazz and ballet!!!

then it's prom ! yay im excited.

Everything

I'm just going to do some venting of my own.

On saturday in my 6 year olds ballet class one of the girls started crying because she was scared she wasn't going to be seen in like a two second section of recital, so that basically ruined my morning because little kids should worry about that they should just have fun and dance. But i worked it off at the gym. On sunday ... i know we still have like half a month..... but..... i got my prom dress and i am absolutely in love with it : :) :) :) :) :) :).

art wise i am excited to get back to work because i was starting some stuff last week that was working nicely for me.

i have

african

lyrical

tap

modern

salsa

tango

waltz - still fixing

broadway

swing

jazz will be done this week, hopefully tomorrow

then i can do ballet on wednesday

something else on friday

and then i can fix everything !!! i want to play with everything a lot still.

i need to do some serious thinking right now.

So those were my march concentration pieces and i am very happy with the comments people gave me, people are so nice. But.. no i feel added pressure to keep up my new progression and not sink into and art overload rut. I have african, lyrical, tango, broadway, waltz, salsa, swing, modern.

i am working on the background for ballet, and tap will be done soon i hope. i need to really think about my last few so i can get them done super fast and well. Then i can have time to go back and add to african and my waltz one to make them really different. im also not totes happy with modern. its messy.

if ballet and tap get done soon / this week then istill have three weeks to do my next two

. I CAN DO IT!

March Concentration

This first piece represents broadway dance. It is sort of like a performer looking out at the audience from the stage, because i feel that on stage the audience is a big part of where the performer gets their energy.

This second one is Tango. It is warn colors of the dance and then there are two faces to represent the partnership and the change of emotions in tango.

Spring Break and Art

so.... i was not productive at all. I went to Los Angeles with a couple friends so during my visit i had absolutely no time to do art, however we drove all the way there and back, that is about 32 hours of car ride to do art or at least sketchbook stuff, but no. :( i have such a difficult time doing anything but talking and sleeping in cars so i didn't get anything done. I did however see two cool art things while i was in LA. The first was an arts and crafts museum gallery that we always drove past that had some kind of instillation on the outside that looked like rugs displayed like laundry in a Tibetan flag jumble kind of way. That makes absolutely no sense. The second is just a square full of light posts , i actually saw someone taking their engagement pictures there, who knew people took engagement pictures, not me. It was Located outside LACMA LA county museum of art. It is called "urban Light" by Chris Burden.

So encaustic wise... i have

african

lyrical

waltz

tango

broadway

modern

and im almost done with salsa

i need to do 5 in april and i believe i can, im going to work really hard and try to come up with my ideas before i work with the wax so i know exactly what i want, that is always how they go the fastest. I'm excited to get back in the art room and whip these out :)

Venting about encaustics

so.... here i go

i have finished my two pieces fo

r March and am very happy with them, broadway and tango. i played with texture, contrast, and colors more to make them differen

t than what i've done previously.

Right now i am playing with my contemporary and ballet one. Contemporary is becoming more like a redone modern so i hope that works because it has potential for being nice. I decided not to do the AP test , i didn't think it would be smart to pay for something that only gives me number and i can't really afford. Last year i would have done it for sure, but im not strongly pursuing art in the future, i am more focused on creating

art and discovering myself as an artist :). i feel less stress now even though i wasn't before haha. anyway i feel good about where i'm going especially since i am really behind in my art.

where i am right now.

lyrical : done

African : done

Broadway : done

Tango : done

modern : working on it

hopefully modern will get done this week

then i will have seven to do

oh gosh

wow

the good thing with that however is that me and Sarah have sorted ou

t the used wax and are going green with recycling the old wax, it's working really well. Hopefully this can conserve wax and i can continue doing wax without over paying way too much.

i will be in a car for 18 hours on sunday so i am bringing my sketchbook and coming up with all my ideas for my next pieces :)

in other words, this is form artist Ruth Gooch

it's encaustic :) :) :) ahmazing :)

This weekend

So this weekend I didn't do too much, i had a fun pot luck with a bunch of people and them we went to see a play. Then on Sunday i had a dance competition, the last competition that i will ever do as a group with LOAD, :( which is kinda sad to think about.

I finished an art piece last week. Fastest i have ever done one. I had sort of an idea going into it like a tangoy thing, but it didn't turn out how i intended, but i still like it. I'm hoping to do my next one fast too so i can spend time reworking my last two i turned in. I'm happy how everything is going.

My Haiti Cards!

progression of the sunset: So I had a few of these cards because i really felt like doing another watercolor sunset just because i've been working with wax and i need something to reassure me that i could do something i like that looked nice. But..... the water color completely destroyed the card! So i was all disappointed and sad but then on... friday I decided , hey! why not try my hand at some oil pastels. I've used them before but only for drawing pumpkins and stuff. sooo i was nervous . !!!! but. I think they turned out pretty nice and i got a few good hours of , well hours. I really want to do one of these with wax just to see. maybe ill do a really mini one the next time i have a brain freeze. That is what i did this weekend.

Oh and i saw St. Mary's Academy's Thoroughly Modern Millie.... sooooo funny. lots of tapping! lots of laughs :) and kent was in it which was fun :)

Critiques !!!

Hey so i just want to say i had a lot of fun critiquing and looking at everyones works (thats why i decided to just continue and do everyones) I just want to say thank you for all the amazing critiques and advice :) i am definitely taking everything into consideration to make my work better :) it feels like it's going to be a great week :)

IM TRYING NOT TO RELY ON THE MEDIUM ANYMORE

LYRICAL: So this one is done 100% i really like it, beneath it is a mixture of swirly colors and some stronger lines, it also has an etherial quality in the center which i love. the lines on top represent sheet music because lyrical is basically dancing to the words of a song. I like this piece and surprisingly it's the one that took least time. :)

AFRICAN! so this red one is my african piece and i like how the colors blend and how the thread comes through a little, the tree circle effect i wanted .... but this is no where near done!!!! this is like the epitome of relying on the medium!!!!!! I like the color and texture because it is warm and has a story esque feel but I always wanted to add a foot or something to this. I just ran out of time. I will definitely be adding some kind of foot element or feet to this. Not nice ballet shoes, but raw cracked feet. I may take away some of the built up wax and use that to make feet things. ya.

Ok so i had another wax thing, but I stole it back because I couldn't bear to look at it anymore. I thad a cool background but then these weird wire things that were trying to be gears, then i tried painting it FAIL. So i am not going to post my picture. i'm working on it next, basically its a cool background but more white. Then i am going to try and engrave gear images into the wax kinda like i did the top of my field for the whistling season thing , just small. then some kins of dancer image with oil staining so the imprint comes through. Hopefully i can "make it work" Tim Gunn anybody... anybody....

My other new piece is a nice colors background that reflects strength and softness then a dancer as part of it. then on top a corner of a room and yet another dancer on top of that. I like it so far.

So basically my concentration is how the dynamics of dance make each style unique and individual, such as a special feature that only that has (like the song sheet) or just the lines and how they reflects the dimensions and dynamics of the movement.

JUST FOR ME!

(twelve pieces right?)

1. Broadway : done but i can do better if there's time to spare.

2. Modern : done and like it , but i could do wax if that would make more sense.

3. Lyrical: done and i love it

4. African: not done

5. Ballet: will be done soon

6. Contemporary: will be done soon i hope

i need 6 more. lets see. those two done by wednesday maybe if i come in a lot i can do one every two weeks or one every week. I want time to fully evaluate my work as a whole and change the ones that could be better.

YO DUDESKIES

SO..... i just had an idea. for my contemporary piece i am going to work on my background and then make it a bit whiter because!!!! I wanted to incorporate both machinery and dancers into my piece but didn't know how!!!! ta da i think i want to engrave the cogs and stuff of machinery so it's just scratched into the surface and then i can do some cool dancer image with oil staining this way you get a peak of machinery through the dance image!!!!! i hope it works :) cecilia is happy

so.

So i had my dance audition for Chapman today, it went really well but I won't know how I did till April. The area is really nice and it's surrounded by and artist vibe, lots of theaters, museums, and galleries, which is a lot of fun.

Encaustic : Super cool video

Dance Auditions

So on monday the 15 i am going up to Seattle for a dance audition at Cornish College of the Arts im pretty relaxed about it because it is just a class so i feel confidant. The cool thing about Cornish is that i got a letter in the mail saying i had been recommended for their art program because of national portfolio day and i had to write back saying if i wanted to continue dance or switch to art so that was pretty cool. Then on that

saturday i am flying down to Chapman for a dance audition, which i am nervous about because i have to do two solos for them by myself. No pressure... :/. But i am excited to go back to Cali and be warm :) :) :).

Speaking of dance, in creative writing we did an activity where Mrs. Long turned on music and we had to draw along with the music and switch stokes and colors whenever the music changed and so on. There was some really cool results. So...... Cara gave me the brilliant idea of using this technique and incorporating it into my concentration, so I'm gonna try some stuff in my sketchbook today and see what happens :).

So...The Whistling Season. I Thought it went really well, i hadn't prepared anything to say because i didn't think it was such a huge deal but it turned ou

t that like 5o people were there including the mayor and the superintendent etc. and i had to use a microphone. But, it went well. The wagon wheels were s

oooooo good. And i had like three people come to me and tell me they really liked my piece including - Mrs Chrisman told me this - and art consultant was there before everyone arrived and she really really liked my piece :)

:) it went really w

ell.

Pervious two peices

i dont know if i am entirely happy with them. I am happy turning them in but i may want to play with them some more. Also i have a very clear idea of what i am doing for my next to. Not visually wise. But i know i am going to incorporate more drawing if I do more wax stuff. I can't see myself not doing wax. But idk we'll see.

My art

So I'm working on my African danc eencaustic and i like where it's goin gits just taking too long and i mgetting nervous about the due date because idk if my new and improved lyrical peice works counts as a re done on the old on or as one of my two new ones. eeek. I'm also spiffying up my ballerina life drawing so it can go in my breadth section.
ya thats it.
Oh i saw Avatar, very cool. Star Wars meets Pocahontas

WAX!

I was thinking about encaustics and all of a sudden i was reminded of Josh Simpson the glass artist. His big thing is layering and i love his glass work, it made me think if it was possible to do a similar type of thing with wax, thats would be soooooooo cool. It would be cloudier but it would still be layer and shiney. hmmmm.... i wonder. This is kins of my dream now, to see an encaustic that looks like his stuff. Not necessarily have me do it . I just wanna see it.
here's his stuff if you don't know who im talking about
Josh Simpson

I'm thinking...

! should probably spell check and proof read before I post stuff on my blog :)

National Portfolio Day!

So i arrived at national portfolio day at 11:30 with Lindsay and very glad i did because the lines were already growing. I went to the Cornish guy first - which was acctually the only one i really wanted to go to - He, really liked my art :) which is good because i am applying there for dance. It was also great because when i told the other schools tht i was acctually going into dance they were a bit taken aback and confused as to why i was there which was a tad akward. But anyway the Cornish guy gave me good ideas and advice. I espeically liked that he was used to the encaustics and told me how you can incorporate lots of thengs like beads which i now really want to try :) BEADS! in WAX!
I went to the Academy of Arts and the University of Arts - which has a good dance program - and they pretty much said the same stuff but the UA guy was a bit scary. They all told me that technically i was strong and they liked my thought process a lot they were also excited to see where i would go with my work because they could see it was random right now but had potential to becoming very whole this year. And as expected they told me to GO BIG and draw from OBSERVATION ( i hope your reading this Mrs McBride haha).
Another interesting this was the AA lady saw lots of small design inspiration in my work and pulled up concepts such as with the drawing in the back of my grandpas how i would seem like i owuld enjoy such things as even making the words part of the art by taking desgn and caligraphy classes. hmmm....
Oh and the Cornish guy was like "well seeing as you've applied and have an audition this takes care of your portfolio info we would need if your intrrested i ntaking art classes too" very cool :)
I have two audition ocming up :) :) nervous but excited.

This weekend i also helped to host a fun dance party asa going away fot my friend ashley, and MORP which was fun too :)

wow i wrote a lot.

FRUSTRATION TO THE MAX!

So i have had two paintings done for a while now and am happy with them. Today i spend 12 hours trying out different versions of my third everyhting has failed me and now i am just so frustrated and annoyed with it. I have a semi background left of the things that iwill let daylight see. I have decided that I really need help and advice for this from my fellow artitis during critics. I have decided that i would rather get a bad grad eon this one peice than put something i nmy concentration that i am not happy with. so there .... i feel better now

Two done!

I have two painting donzo - Modern and Broadway - I am working on my third right now but am having trouble because to put it plainly i don't know what to do. ya . I'm sure it will turn out ok in the end.