Arts Explorer #10 - Community Arts Project

Community Art Project: Animal Cruelty

Line "is something we use to make letters, words, numbers, symbols and signs" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 135). This element was represented in our presentation display, with coloured boarders, cut-out letters, alignment of the pictures and information.

In our group community arts project, our focus was on animal cruelty. This issue can be easily overlooked because it often occurs in farms or industries and we wouldn't see it in our neighborhood as often (hopefully not as all!). However, it is important for us to protect these animals, to raise awareness, to make contributions, and discourage it by STOP buying real fur products. Organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has recently did a campaign in Toronto, where people stood in the middle of the street naked, and holding a sign saying "I'd rather go naked than wear fur". Moreover, there are also celebrity supporters such as Anjelica Huston, Iggy Pop and Fred Willard. Bringing awareness through these campaign, as well as visually is extremely important. Visual communication would include posters, websites, videos and pins to inform everyone the reality of this issue and not be oblivious of it. The involvement of EVERYONE who are living and breathing and has the power to make a change, will give us the opportunity to save these animals from being slaughtered for our humanly selfish reasons. Like every human being, animals has every right to live and not be killed or tortured.

My dog <3

Just thinking about this issue saddens me because I have a dog of my own and the thought of her being tortured is unbearable. Furthermore, I have had my dog my whole life, she is 16 years old now and we all treat her as family, without her is like a incomplete family. All animals should be treated with care and love, providing them safety and proper shelter. It is so frightening to know that this is happening even right now, at this moment. This has brought me the attention of what I should and shouldn't eat and buy.

Overall, our presentation went well because we got our message across and brought the reality into everyone's awareness. However, I did wanted more interactions with the audience. Although this project was long and consumed a lot of time, I really enjoyed learning about this issue and putting everything altogether. It was a great bonding time with my group as well.

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #9 - Guerilla Art

In the glossary, space is "the total area defined by the size of the artist's paper or canvas" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 368)

For my Guerilla art, I have decided to a mini appreciation post-it notes for my friend. To do so, I prepared a list of words that describes her and wrote it on small post-its. With it, I formed a shape of a rectangle on the wall, where it will be visible for her to see. At first, when she walked into the room, she didn't notice it because she wasn't look at that direction. It took a minute or two until she noticed it. She turned to me and smiled and gave me a hug! We both laughed about how it was so apparent and yet she didn't notice it. It was a fun process for me, to make and see the result of it!

The arrangement of this Guerilla art is associated with the element of space. Schirrmacher & Fox (2009) defines space as two types, positive and negative. Positive space is where it is occupied by shapes, forms, colour and lines (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). Negative space is the leftover of what is occupied, the blank spaces. In my art, the rectangle post-it notes is the positive space and the green wall is the negative space.

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #8 - Pretend Play & Magical Thinking

Design/Composition "as in overall mark of success, the standard of achievement, and the frosting on the cake" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 142).


I'd like to introduce you to Timmy Clock. Timmy here is 6 year old student at Cool Meadow P.S. He is a quiet boy who enjoys playing by himself. His teacher would often complain how he always sleeps in class, during circle time and activities. The teacher was told that he does not have a regular nap time at home and just sleeps whenever he is tired. However, he often sleeps right after school or while he watches TV and wakes up at night. His mom, Wakey Watch is a single mother and always so busy with work. At home, if she isn't working, she'll be cooking and cleaning, leaving Timmy alone, doing whatever he likes. Furthermore, with her busy schedule, Timmy barely spends much time with her, although he always wanted to. Timmy's teacher has informed her about his sleeping habits at school, but it still continued. Timmy doesn't have much friends because he can be grumpy at times and don't cooperate with other children. He loves legos and playing with cars. Couple days ago, he even searched around the classroom and collected all the cars. He sure loves them!

In relation to the element, I believe it is successful in the sense that he is the character whom I have in mind and described. Timmy Clock is a good student but can be misbehaving due to his lack of sleep. When I first thought of this story, it reminded me of a child I've worked with, who has similar behaviour at school, but with minor changes in the story, of course. The idea of choosing a (digital) clock came from the fact that I, myself, enjoys sleep, especially at times of stress and sleeping-in is a dream come true. Overall, I really enjoyed the process of this blog and creating a character out of a object. Our creativity is overflowing when we enjoy something such as this.

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer # 7 - Grocery Shopping with a Twist

Texture "refers to the surface quality of a work of art" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 144). The food category that I will be focusing on is fruits. Every type of fruits has different textures to it. The following is a list of fruits and the comparison/description of each:

1. apple - smooth, round, red/green
2. orange - round, orange colour
3. grapes - small, green/black/red, round
4. banana - crescent, yellow/black
5. kiwi - fuzzy, small, brown
6. strawberry - red, small, rough
7. lemon - small, yellow, rough
8. lime - small, round, green
9. pineapple - rough, brown-yellow
10. nectarine - small, round, red-yellow
11. peach - fuzzy, round, small
12. cherry - small, red, smooth
13. watermelon - big, green-black, hard
14. papaya - yellow-orange, big
15. pomegranate - round, red, hard

 The three fruits I chose to sketch was orange, strawberry and watermelon (though it doesn't look like it!).

When I was young, I use to love apples and the reason for it is a little silly. I use to love this cartoon show and one of the character is a mini yellow "floating" pig and he was adorable. His favourite fruit was apple because he would always be eating one every so often. Since then, apple was my favourite fruit, but it wasn't until high school that I preferred juicy fruits (not the gum!), such as orange, grapes, watermelon.

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #6 - Painting with Scissors

Painting with Scissors

Shape "is defined by a line or outline, or by contrasting color or texture in the surrounding area" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 140).

In a class exercise that we did, we were told to create a art activity using any materials. As I was searching through the cabins, I saw pairs of chopsticks and it caught my attention, because it is commonly used for meals and not art. With that in mind, I thought of using marbles as a painting tool, but instead I found pom poms. Having our materials, chopsticks and pom poms, our group played around with it. To my surprise, it was not as easy as it appears to be painting with pom poms using chopsticks. It allows children to practice their fine motor skills, by simply keeping the pom poms between the chopsticks is a major challenge, even for us. However, the different textures formed using pom poms was definitely a joy to experiment with.



The paintings that our group produced was full of colours and shapes. There are shapes of circles, swirls, semi-circles, dots and curves, etc. The combination of these shapes allowed us to create a abstract painting and a way for us to be creative in our imagination. Hence, this would be a suitable for everyone, children and adults to experiment and communicate their personal identity and understanding of the world.

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #5 - Art Film

Movie Watched: Eternal Sunshine 

http://www.celluloidheroreviews.com/2006/01/12/eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind-2004/

Me: So, what did you think of the movie?

Cheryl: i personally didn't like the movie

Me: why is that?

Cheryl: I thought it was going to be a romantic movie from the cover but it turned out it wasn't.

Me: did you like the plot of the movie?

Cheryl: i guess its a good story line but it feels like its all over the place. bc it kept switching from Joel's reality and memory.

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/?p=6070

Me: that's true but its good how it made connections, like how it showed Joel's nervous moment in the car, then it showed why he acted that way throughout the movie and the story line made more sense
it's one of those movies where it seems confusing at first, but it makes sense at the end

Cheryl: it's like the movie....I..

http://www.friesian.com/sunshine.htm

Me: Inception?

Cheryl: Inception!

Me: yeah because it both deals with memories/dreams

Cheryl: right!

Me: what did you think of the actors/actresses

Cheryl: I cannot take Jim Carey seriously. Kate Witlin was kind of cute

Me: that's true. I always thought of Jim as a comedian, but overall I enjoyed the movie! It was better than I expected!

Arts Explorer #4 - Looking for Patterns in Urban Settings & Nature

Pattern "can be made with forms, shapes, lines, colours, textures or symbols that move across a surface in a recurring sequence" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 142). Pattern can be seen everywhere we go, from buildings to furnitures, even pavements.

As I walked around my neighborhood, I witnessed various kinds of patterns, which I've taken some photos to share with you.

Picture #1

Picture #1
I've came across this pattern when I went to check the mail. This is a photo of the malbox. The individual boxes and the similarities of each forms this pattern.This pattern consists of squares, circles, rectangles and lines.


Picture #2

Picture #2

I'm sure everyone have seen the different floor patterns that are out there. This is the one that I have chosen, which was taken outside my doorstep. The squares and rectangles was positioned horizontally and vertically
to form the pattern that is shown and it repeats throughout.

Schirrmacher, R. , & Englebright Fox, J. (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, California : Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #3 - Fine Art Critique

Colour "is based on the passage of light...as light changes, so does the colour" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 136). It consists of different level of hue and lightness and such differences expresses the thoughts and feelings of people, particularly artists, however, everyone may portray it in various ways.

http://www.groupofsevenart.com/Harris/Lawren_Harris_3.html

Lawren Harris from the Group of Seven is one of the few artists that I love. I particularly admire his mountain paintings because of his use of bold colour, which makes it stand out. The painting that I've chosen is called "Lake and Mountain" (1927). In this painting, Harris only used three colours, white, blue, and black, but consists of the different shades of these colours. Instead of blending the colours of blue (e.g. sky and mountain), he made it visible of the two or three shades of blue that he used, which gives viewers a strong sense of colour. The mood of the colour blue gives the viewers the feel of cold and windy, because the clouds and sky is painted horizontally, pointing in one direction, as well as the overwhelming colour of blue. What stood out to me was the openness of the light colours, which is mostly used in the sky/clouds and mountain. Moreover, the thickness of each shades highlights this painting.

Schirrmacher, R. , & Englebright Fox, J. (2009). Art & creative development for young children. Belmont, California : Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #2 - Instant Sculpture with Found Objects

Mass/Volume element describes the width, height and length of a structure (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009). The sculpture that I assembled for this blog illustrates the following:
heavy, light, stationary, angular, solid, opaque, hard 

Back-angle

In the beginning, I had some diffculty of the design of the sculpture - what
should I use? How many items? How big/small? Abstract or not. I didn't know what direction to take, so I decided to go with the flow and pick whatever objects I find helpful and decide later what to do with it. As I walked around each room of my house, looking at every object there is, I picked up the following items in each room:



Wooden clothing clips (master bedroom)
Cardboard toilet paper roll (bathroom)
Plastic lid (computer room)
Steel fork (kitchen)
Eyeglasses cleaning cloth (living room)
Small box (my bedroom)

The assembling process was hard as I tried to think of a different way of using these objects. However, I played around with it and tried a couple of models prior to what it is now. Starting from the bottom of the sculpture is the box that serves as a stand/base that holds up everything, although it is light and not very

Side-angle

strong, the angle of the fork, which is the bone of the sculpture, is important to maintain the position of it,

Top-angle

along with the clip that holds the paper roll and fork together. The paper roll is then covered with the cloth to add a smooth texture to it and again, a clip was used to secure it. Finally, the paper roll was placed through a plastic cover to add more dimension to the overall look of the structure.

Front-angle

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J.E. (2009). Art & creative development for young children (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Delmar Cengage Learning.

Arts Explorer #1 - My Creative Inspiration

source: http://qwickstep.com/search/how-to-teach-kids-respect.html

Creativity is most evident through children - in their work, actions, thoughts, behaviour, interaction with others, etc. When viewing a child, you can see so much potential and creativity in them, just waiting to be explored. Children's learning starts with creative imagination. What and how they interpret an idea shows their uniqueness of creativity. Constantly, I am baffled by how they view an object so differently from me. For example, how they continually build imaginative structures with Legos and all I can do is randomly stack the pieces. Children is one of my main inspirations in life. Their simplicity and unique personalities spreads happiness and love to those around them. That's the joy of learning from these children.