In this section it covers the art pieces I did in high school from freshman year to senior year.
Title: Radiant Eagle
Medium: Soft Pastel Drawing
This project was that we had to find an image in a book and draw it and try to mimic how the artist painted it using pastel. I chose to create a pastel drawing of this eagle. This project was a pretty straight forward project but since it was in pastel we made it our own; while trying to maintain the feeling and energy that the original artist intended.
Title: A Warrior’s Memorial
Material: Pringle can, cardboard, paper, tape, helmet
For this project, we had to create a sculpture using a Pringle can. The blade is the Pringle can. the edge of the cross guard is cardboard and tape to hold everything together. The grip is a paper towel roll. The pommel is a ball made of paper and tape. The rocks is a lot of paper wrapped together with tape and the helmet is resting on the rocks and hot glued onto it.
With this piece, I wanted to create a sculpture that was in the medieval time frame. A burial for the fallen warrior’s final resting place. On the helmet I painted a zig-zag line representing the killing blow. the rocks were spray painted with a grainy grey to give it the texture and roughness of a rock.
Title: Knight in Shining Armor
Materials: Can tabs, yarn, laundry detergent bottle, plaster, cardboard, soda bottles
This project we had to create a chess piece sculpture. I chose to do a knight of a knight. The reason behind that is out of all the chess pieces the knight is my favorite piece, great for crossing the board quickly and swiftly gaining control of the board. This was my first project where I incorporated can tabs into my projects. I was trying to figure out a way to make chainmail and one of my friends gave me a suggestion for using can tabs and making it into chainmail. I liked that idea and started collecting as many as I could to make it happen.
A laundry detergent bottle was the body of the knight and of course the can tabs are the chainmail, the snout is made out of soda bottles, the ears are made out of cardboard and the mane is brown and black yarn. It was plastered and then painted. The gold represents a golden plate to protect the horse.
Title: Mosaic Howling Wolf
This is a project I did using tiny tiles. My classmates and I were provided with a couple of containers of tiles. It was up to us to figure out what we were wanting to do and what tile colors that best matched with our design. I chose to do a howling wolf. I wanted to do a wolf with a moon behind it, so I made the background a dark blue. I decided to do a white and black wolf to represent the back and front of the fur. I wanted the eye to pop out so I made that a yellow tile. The moon was a little bit of a struggle. I tried to do a solid light blue but there weren’t enough of the tiles to make it work then I decided to combine it with a teal color and interchange them to give it an interesting pattern
Title: Majestic String Eagle
Material: Nails, String, Board
This was an interesting project. We were all given a board at the beginning of the project. The teacher had some preprinted designs that we could choose from. After we chose our image we needed to trace the image on a carbon tracing paper and then transfer the image onto the board. Then we needed to nail the nails in the board. After that we needed to find the color string that we will be using and start weaving them into the nails to make one cohesive image
Title: Dreamcatcher Wolf
This project we had creative freedom on what it would be about; however, the one thing that it had to have was a 3D element. So I decided to make a dreamcatcher and have a howling wolf inside it. The three-dimensional items were something that went well with the theme and that was using Turkey feathers and some white feathers that was in a pack of feathers from the art store.
I painted the canvas the brown color and I used pen and Ink to transfer it onto the canvas and make it stand out. Then since the drawing had three feathers on the bottom I figured continue the pattern by adding the two turkey feathers dropping down. However, I felt like it needed more than just the turkey feathers so I put white feathers on both sides to give it more of a dreamcatcher feeling to it.
Title: Chained to Society
8 X 11 Canvas
This was a project for the “Globalize 13” to abolish slavery. Kenneth B. Morris Jr. was at my High School, which he is the great-great-great grandson to Fredrick Douglass and he is also the great-great grandson of Booker T. Washington. His goal was to try and abolish modern slavery and make people more aware that this is still happening today.
This piece is simple but gets the point across. I wanted to create a piece that represented the chains that bind us and keep us down. Whether it is the literal aspect of entrapping someone and forcing them to work or the societal approach with economical slavery. Working a job that you absolutely hate and drains everything out of you just because it pays well. Another instance is perhaps not able to get a job that pays well and only able to get a job that pays the bare minimum. It really takes a new spin to the saying, living to work and working to live. Always reaching for something better or something not as taxing but unable to escape the hole you have dug and just looking for a helping hand up desperately searching for a way out. One of two options occur: you are able to escape this nightmare or you suffer silently and accept that this is your new reality.
Title: Soul Bound
This was a project for the “Globalize 13” to abolish slavery. Kenneth B. Morris Jr. was at my High School, which he is the great-great-great grandson to Fredrick Douglass and he is also the great-great grandson of Booker T. Washington. His goal was to try and abolish modern slavery and make people more aware that this is still happening today.
This piece I wanted to display that our entire essence might be trapped. The quote is from the song 16 tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford. I encompassed the heart with chains tied tightly around someone’s heart and locked in place. The feeling of hope still making your heart pump but you can’t break through because you owe your soul to the company store. As the song says, “You load 16 tons and what do you get another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peters don’t call me because I can’t go.”
We might feel like that we are trapped in our job or that we owe them something and stick around. However, we choose our own destiny and we hold the key to our cell. I wanted to show that we can make a change and choose our path but we need to be willing to unlock those chains that keep us there.
Title: Can Tab Belt
Material: Can tabs, yarn and clip
I started getting more interested with can tabs and this was my third project that I used them for. I knew with this one I had to do another technique then my previous attempts. The first one with the chain mail was a success and turned out really well; however, the second attempt as a necklace worked more as a temporary aspect. So with this one I researched a different method and found this method of using yarn. It turned out really well and I liked how it stretches a bit and is not super rigid, I would continue using this technique for future projects. The problem I ran into was the buckle part. I didn’t know what would make a good buckle, where you can clip it onto different links in the chain other than the end. I decided to go with the idea of using a clip as the buckle, its small enough to fit through the hole and you can clip it to one as far back as you need to go. Plus usually if the buckle of a belt gives, it makes the belt useless. In this case if the buckle breaks you can just simply replace the clip and good as new.
Title: Wolf Head Mantel
Material: Paper, Tape, Cardboard, Plaster, Paint
This project we had to create an animal head, like we were hanging it on a mantel. I chose to do a wolf head and I wanted to do the wolf in attack mode. So first we had to do a rough sketch of how the animal head was going to be, a side profile and a front profile. Once we created that then it was the challenging part, creating it from nothing but paper and tape. This was done my senior year and was also the first time building the entire structure out of paper, while maintaining the symmetry of the figure. With this project I had to think spatially and look at every side to make sure that I had the figure proportionally correct. The ears I used cardboard to create the shape of the ear I wanted and then built it with paper and tape. After it was built up, I plastered it and let it dried. Once it was dried, I drew how I wanted it and then painted accordingly.
Title: Aquarius: The Water Barrier
Media: Paint and A Ceiling Tile
This was done during my senior year of high school. My art teacher had us do anything we would like to do on a ceiling tile and have it displayed in the classroom ceiling.
I chose to do Aquarius: the water barrier. A couple of reasons why I chose to do this. First is that Aquarius is my zodiac sign and I figured it would be interesting to paint it on a ceiling tile. Another reason is that this was to challenge myself artistically, I had never done a humanoid figure before and I wanted to push myself. I did use an image I found on the internet as my reference.
The challenging part was the fragility of the tiles. If you put some pressure on the tile it would crumble. Another challenging part of this was pencil pressure and trying to draw on it while not just simply stabbing through it. Once I got it drawn it was painting time, which for the most part was pretty simple. It gives me more of a Greek mythology vibe about it.