Wow, it's been so long I'm not even sure where to begin. Sorry, but this will probably be a bit of a more pell-mell post, I suppose.
This is Bengta (or Marie Antoinette, if you're my dad). I made her as one of my art dolls for my AP concentration. If you can't tell, she's a marionette. I had loads of fun making her. I started with the arms and legs. I had been attempting to make a stop-motion armature using all these wooden dowels, but it kind of failed, so, rather than wasting all the wood I had already cut, I decided to re-purpose some of it into a marionette. The arms and legs were already cut to the right size and had little holes drilled in them, so they were perfect. I painted each member of her body black, and then painted grey over it. Her torso is stuffed fabric with a dowel inserted at the top for the neck. The head is a wooden ball I acquired from Hobby Lobby, painted to match the rest of the body, with a tassel glued to her head which is also attached to the main string supporting her. I sewed a simple skirt and glued it to her torso and embellished it with a lovely yellow ribbon. Her hands and feet I sculpted from polymer clay and then painted. At the moment, the strings controlling her hands are not very efficient as the hands don't weigh them down enough, so I may change that in the future. She really isn't the most versatile of marionettes, but for the most part, she's at least functional.
My dad and I made the stand out of a board I got at Hobby Lobby and various parts found in our garage. Overall, I think she might be one of the most professional looking things I've done. There are some problems with it, though, like the strings aren't quite right and you can see some of the glue from her hair on her forehead, and she isn't weighted quite properly, but other than that, I really like her.
This was one of my last Breadth pieces for my portfolio. My concept was sort of a quilt and a stuffed animal all rolled in to one. I wanted it to radiate comfort. I don't really know whether I succeeded or not, but for the most part, I'm happy with how he turned out. Although, one of his legs is rather loose at the moment 'cause some of my friends decided to throw him around at lunch the other day. I don't mind though, it was a good test to see how durable my sewing was. I was going to count how many little squares I ended up using, but I lost count, just know that it was a lot.
As far as drawing is concerned, I've been somewhat disappointed with myself. I really enjoy the stuff I've been doing in AP Art. But I miss having a 2 Dimensional art class. However, I haven't been completely neglecting my drawing. I still doodle on just about every piece of paper I can lay my hands on at school, but I'd rather not take the time to post all that. This drawing is just something I thought up recently after I found out I got admitted to BYU. I decided to draw a sort of evolution picture of Amanda throughout her education. It was all for fun and I just did it on a whim. It's not really meant to be taken seriously or anything. I'll see if I can quickly run through each picture. First, I went to a daycare-school-thing (it was sort of my proxy kindergarten, since New Hampshire doesn't do kindergarten for public schools) at Colby-Sawyer College called Windy Hill. I have some really great memories of that place - like the first boy I thought I was in love with telling me that I had too many A's in my name (we were like, 4, okay?), and I discovered my joy for building things when I made a sailboat out of stuff we found on a nature walk and when my best friend and I built wooden castles for all the plastic animals in the toy room. (How'm I doing on the whole 'quickly' thing). Next we moved to Utah and I started first grade at Northridge Elementary where the mascot was the Nighthawks. I have absolutely no good memories of that school. I remember having to walk home by myself one day because my English teacher (yes, we had different teachers for different subjects like you do in high school) kept me after school because I was too slow at copying down a poem (and so the pain of having neat handwriting began). Halfway through first grade my brother and I transferred schools to where my dad was working; Manila Elementary, home of the Mustangs. These were the golden years of my childhood. In fifth grade I moved schools again to be in the ALL program at Barratt Elementary (we were bobcats, there). Fifth and sixth grade were not so golden. I thought I was cooler than an ice box and no one else mattered. Not a time of life I particularly enjoy looking back on. Then came the ever-awkward years of junior high. I had braces, my hair was terrifying, and my personality was stagnant. Moving on. High school has been pretty great; I've done a lot of growing and I'm extremely proud to be a caveman. And now, in just a few months, I'm gonna be a cougar! Yep, like I said, this is really just the product of being bored on a Sunday afternoon, nothing big and meaningful.
Okay, so it looks like I've been doing a lot more than I think I've been doing, but I still feel like I haven't been drawing enough. These two pictures are the results of a project in this really cool book that I have called 52 Drawing Labs for Mixed Media Artists or something like that. It's the coolest art book I have ever had the pleasure of owning. For this project you had to take clay creations done by a child and draw them however you wanted to, but in a way that still captured the childlike innocence of the original creation. Like I said, really cool art book. The first is a watercolor and gold gel pen painting of a squid/octopus thing that was either made by my dad or one of my older siblings. I recently got my nice watercolors back from my art teacher and I was itching to use them again, so I did this one first. Second, I drew, first in pencil and then outlined in pen, this interesting clay creation that my oldest sister made (you'll have to tell me what it is, Addie). I don't know exactly what it's supposed to be, but I really loved the look of it, and then I turned it into a floating rock. The last one I did was an owl that my brother made in a Ceramics class. I used my set of acrylics and painted it with my fingers. Finger painting sounds all fine and dandy, but you really can't load paint on your fingers like you can in a brush. It doesn't smooth the same way and the paint dries a lot faster, but still, I like how the owl turned out.
My recommendation for the month would be to check out that book I just mentioned. It's really creative and you really don't have to have any drawing experience/skills to create some really cool-looking things with it.
And my monthly tip? Ugh, this is this the hard part. Take some time to get to know some basic power tools. I've always been kind of afraid to touch anything in our garage (and not just because they're covered in spider webs) but lately I've been using a Dremel my dad recently gave me and our power drill a lot. They are so handy for small projects, especially when dealing with wood. And now I have two new soldering irons from my neighbor to learn how to use. I'm really starting to fall in love with tools and woodworking machines. They're so nifty!
