End of Form 3 Test!

G'day fellow bloggers......

I didn't post much, this term because of the burden of both the NCSE exam and End of Term exams on my shoulders. But you know, when I do post, it's usually for something important. And indeed this post is for something important; the end of Form 3 exams.

After Form 3, things will be immensely different; no more time to waste, no time for Facebook and friends; it's really two full years of work, work, WORK!!! Of course there will be some time for fun, I  suppose, but sacrifices will have to be made! It's going to be even more difficult for me since I'll be doing 11 subjects instead of the traditional 8 that is required. I can only hope that I can cope with this.........

Anyways....today I'm here to discuss the out come of the final art test for Form 3! As always, these exams never come easy, but I feel as though this was the hardest exam yet; we had to paint a picture of a landscape in acrylics on watercolour, then create a MOSAIC on top of it. To make our lives harder, were had a perfectly generous time limit, of TWO HOURS!!!    

You might ask yourself' "What is a Mosaic?"

I never did a post explaining the complexities of the Mosaic, but there's no time like the present.
A Mosaic according to Wikipedia is,"the art of creating images with an assemblage of small pieces of coloured glass, stone, or other materials." Basically what that means is sticking stuff together to form an image!

Mosaics are one of the most difficult and time consuming branches of visual art, which are two of the reasons why I hate it! Don't get me wrong, I like how the end result  looks, but doing it take a lot of time and effort and frankly, it can become frustrating if you're not good at it (like me). Let's address my selection of painting before we get into the Mosaic.

I did some brain storming to come up with my image. I wanted do something that was simple enough (because in theory, I only had about an hour to paint, minus the remaining hour to do the mosaic), yet pretty enough, (because I would never willingly substitute speed for precision).

After much internal debate and brain-wracking, I came up with this image:-

Now the above image was a practice run I had done prior to the official exam. I really like this painting because of the rawness of the complementary colours. This was how the Painting was supposed to look in the Art Exam.

Here's a picture of the attempt of the same painting (with the Mosaic this time,) that I did in the exam:-
Please bear in mind that this was the first time I ever did a Mosaic in my life!!

 Admittedly, the mosaic piece looks worse than the first painting, due to the inconsistencies in the spaces between tiles, and the wild assortment of various shades of blue. However while I was doing it, the student around me, and even some of the teachers were very impressed by my piece.

This marks the end of Form 3, but more importantly the beginning of preparation for CSEC, only two years away. It sounds far, but it frightening how time can slip away (something that I have learnt the hard way). One of the things I have to improve is my time management, since I always seem to be doing things at the last minute.

On a brighter note, I have two full months of vacating to rest up for Form 4!

During the vacation, I will be working on some new pieces for CSEC and I'll try to keep you as updated as possible!

Until next post.......

More Painting........

G'day..fellow bloggers....

As you are aware, I've done some paintings in the past, everyother better than the last, but still none was really 'great'.

But now I do feel as though I have outdone myself in my latest painting yet!

This is a painting of the Honeymoon Grounds Savannah, adjacent to Hillview College.

I think its safe to say; I getting better at this. But this won't be the last painting....there's lots more where this came from, and I promise that you'll get to see them all....in due time.....


Until them fellow bloggers......

Term 3....

G'day fellow bloggers.....

This post commemorates the start of Term 3 but more importantly, the start of my official preparation for the CSEC exams which I'll be doing a year earlier than usual.

As usual Miss laid out the topics for the term as follows:-

1st TOPIC:-
Painting - (landscape) - (2 to 3 weeks)

and.........

2ND TOPIC:-
The Mosaic

Now I have had some 'experience' in the Painting criteria, but I've never even heard the word Mosaic in my entire life!

I guess I have to do some extra research on that.

Now I can really feel the pressure on me as I have fully committed myself to do Art at more than just a mediocre level.

I know that the road ahead me is rough, but lets hope that I can 'smoothen' it out to the best of my ability.

The next post will be an account of my painting of the landscape.

Until then fellow bloggers...........

Test Time!

G'day fellow bloggers...

It's that time of the year again...End of Term Test!

Not to be boastful, but even though I usually fare well in these tests, I still dread these days of exams and evaluations. Nobody likes tests, not even those who do well!

The art exams are usually the most taxing, because you have a strict time limit in which to draw, paint or sculpt something that you really have to pray, happens to look good in the end. Art requires skill, unlike stupid subjects like Maths which you can easily copy the answers from your adjacent friend.

But onto the topic at hand; this time for art exam, we were asked to make  a Passport holder of specific dimensions out of leatherette. To make it even more challenging, we were not allowed to sew. We had to craft an authentic looking passport sleeve from scratch, using the technique of punching and lacing!

Now you readers might not know this, but it is incredibly difficult to punch through leatherette, and for this assignment, we had to punch through two layers of material at the same time!

Furthermore we were assigned a time limit, of three hours. Was it even possible? Let's find out:-

To make our jobs easier, were were allowed to carry a template with us into the exam room. The template was a basic out line of the 'net' of the passport, make out of Bristol board:-

From here, all you have to do is use the template to cut out the net of the Passport holder, then fold along the lines of the template, gluing the overlapping corners. You should end up with something like this:-








































As you can see in the pictures, I incorporated the punching and lacing technique on the edges of the item.
This is not only intended to hold the Passport holder together, but also to enhance its visual elegance.

I was very pleased with myself to accomplish this over a 3 hour time period  and needless to say, I got full marks for it! Maybe I might try doing some more leather work in the future.

Until then fellow bloggers......

Batik!

G'day fellow bloggers....

This post is about a Textile design technique that I had never even heard of before now, i.e. :- 'Batik".

Very simply, batik is a cloth that is traditionally made using a manual wax resisting dye technique. - Wikipedia.org

The theory behind this technique is that wax, even ordinary candler wax, repels dye when it is applied onto cloth.

The wax is applied using a specialized tool known as a 'tjantin':-

The tjantin has a needle size hole at the end from which the wax pours out.


The following is the most basic procedure when performing this technique:-


STEP 1
Obtain a reasonable sized piece of fabric, (ideally about 20" x 24" for beginners) leaving a one inch boarder hem and another inch for stretching over a wooden frame.

STEP 2
Obtain a wooden frame of dimensions 16" x 20" to complement the dimensions of the piece of fabric.

STEP 3
Wash the fabric to remove the sizing.

STEP 4
Stretch and staple the fabric onto the frame.

STEP 5
Draw your design in pencil onto the fabric.

STEP 6
Melt the candle wax in a DOUBLE BOILER.
A double boiler consists of a pot within a pot, as shown in the picture below. If the candle wax was melted directly over a flame, it would burn and turn black. Instead, the wax is placed in the top pot and the water is placed in the bottom pot. Them the entire assemble is placed on the stove. The heat of the boiling water will then melt the wax, without burning it.

STEP 7
Dip the tjanting in the wax while it is still boiling, (the wax will harden very quickly if you stop boiling at this stage). Apply the wax to the lines that you have drawn on the fabric, ensuring that the wax seeps through onto the other side of the fabric. Everywhere you apply the wax will resist colour. Ensure to apply the wax to small areas at a time.

STEP 8
Remove the fabric from the frame

STEP 9
Mix your dye bath using cold water and salt.

STEP 10
Crumple the fabric (giving it a crackled look)  and place it to soak in the dye bath for at least 40 minutes.

STEP 11
Remove the fabric and rinse it under running water.



If you used a pure white piece of fabric for the batik, then you will realise that the places where you put the wax would have remained white!

You will be left with a lot of candle wax still attached to the fabric which, unfortunately, you will have to remove by hand.

I advise for beginners to use a simple pattern to start with, just as I did:-

I wasn't too enthusiastic at first, but now having completed the batik, I can truly say that i found it to be an enjoyable experience, particularly because it was something new in my monotonous routine.

I don't plan on doing any more batik pieces anytime soon, but I feel very accomplished to know that I can do it if I wanted to!

Until the next post fellow bloggers.........

Drama!

G'day fellow bloggers......

My art teachers is also my theatrical arts teacher and she tries to incorporate our art and drama sessions so that it is easier on our very primitive minds. This term our drama assignment was to make a shot sketch for a film depicting a traditional carnival character. I chose the Midnight Robber; a classic carnival character. Basically he is an ancient evil entity who finds pleasure in terrorising his weak helpless victims with elaborate, often verbose monologues depicting there inevitable and inhumane death. His black attire, complete with a human skull tattooed onto his cape is designed to strike fear into his prey and his signature high pitched whistle marks both his entrance and exit off the stage.

I have written and performed a few midnight robber speeches in the past and can I truly appreciate his misanthropic disposition.

My comic sketch featured a young school bully by the name of Bob, whose close encounter with our favourite fiendish foe of the night, causes him to come to a realisation of his own bad ways and stop his terrorism of the innocent school children:-

It was a really simple sketch with not much attention paid to detail, but the lack of detail gives it a nice 'cartoonish' look. I enjoyed putting this story together and I hope you have just as much fun reading it!

Until then fellow bloggers.......

Leather craft!

G'day fellow Bloggers....

Nb - This post is on work that was covered from January 2012 in my Term 2 of Form 3......

Alright, so now we move into a very exciting area, i.e. leather craft. As you may have guessed leather craft involves crafting various items out of leather. Now, I best say before-hand that this topic rightfully requires genuine leather for one to call it LEATHER craft. However I was not fortunate enough to get my hands on any leather, and as such Mrs. Davis allowed me and those who were equally unfortunate, to replace the leather, with leatherette (artificial leather).

What do you ask that I crafted out of leather? there were actually a variety of options to chose, from simple purses, to leather handbags and everything in between. However i finally decided to make a wallet for my piece. So too did many other students, if not all. Mrs. Davis, having understood that it was a unanimous decision, she decides that she would instruct us all on exactly how to make the wallet:-

To get started, I'll explain the various techniques associated with leather craft, or leatherette craft for that matter:-

1. Punching - this techniques involves using a simple leather punch, to bore holes through sheets of leather for either lacing or decoration.
2. Lacing - using laces to bind individual parts of an item
3. Carving - using a template and swivel knife to crate embossed patterns in the leather
4. Stamping - involves the use of shaped stamps to create an imprint onto a leather surface, often by striking the stamps with a mallet.
5. Appliqué - Sticking or stitching smaller ornaments onto the already made item.

The first step in making the wallet, is to make a template out of normal A4 paper. The out-line of the template should look something like the below picture:-

Just fold on the dotted lines.

You may notice that the corners and edges of the template are spliced. This technique is known as mitering. Mitering is simply cutting the corners of a medium at a 45 degree angle. In this case we have mitered the edges of the paper so that when they fold, they don't lap over each other.


If you want to add additional pockets to the inside of the wallet you will have to cut out more templates like the pictures shown below, and stitch them onto the wallet before you stitch up the sides.

Again, just fold on the dotted lines.

Now, use your templates to cut out the individual pieces of your wallet from the sheet of leatherette.

Before you begin to sew, you may want to attach a piece of velvet to the raw inside of the wallet to cover it up. It makes it look more professional.

Time to sew up the wallet. Sewing is rather tedious, and, if your are doing this for the first time (like i did) you are bound to stick your fingers with the needles a what lot (and potentially get blood poisoning in the process). I advise you to practise a bit before you attempt sewing the wallet.

There are many differed types of stitches and I also advise that you try them all. here are a few commonly used stitches:-

Choose which stitch you want to use and sew the wallet together. First sew the inner pockets (if you have any), then sew the sides up after folding them inwards where the dotted lines would be.

Nb- You can also punch holes with a leather puncher (or even a paper puncher) and lace the wallet together! This is a faster process, but must be done neatly if you want it to come out good.

And that is pretty much it! I did the exact same thing as stated above and it came out rather well:-

Despite the holes that these hours of stitching put into my fingers,  it was really fun to do something like this for the first time, (and hopefully the last).

Leather craft isn't my speciality, but it's never bad to try new things once in a while!

Until next time fellow bloggers..........