My Artwork

Last week, I re-decorated my walls in artwork. After a few hours of hammering my task was complete. And now I give you pictures of the 20 pieces of art on my walls. I apologize for the poor lighting in some of the pictures, but my room doesn't get much natural light after 9 AM and my lamps emit a very yellowish light that isn't much good for this sort of thing. I have presented them in the order in which they were created.

This is one of the few with a title. I call it Orange Pangea. It was made either during the summer before ninth grade or the summer before eighth grade. Technically, it's made out of trash, but as an artist I can do pretty much anything I want in the name of art. I peeled an orange, tore the peel into little pieces, pressed them for a few weeks, and then glued the pieces onto a cardboard square painted with interesting watercolor effects. The green sepals at the top were painted on with acrylics.

This was my first real project of my high school career. Really, it's more of an exercise in the use of line, but I like how it turned out. The assignment was to trace the outlines of a picture given to us by the teacher and fill it in with various types of line using Sharpies. It's hard to see all the detail in this photo, but it's interesting close up.

This was called The Lip Dude by my classmates, and the name stuck. For this we had to pick a 9x12 picture from the teacher's stack and draw it double the size using a grid for guidelines. The medium was ebony pencil.

This was also done my freshman year. The assignment was to demonstrate understanding of perspective in some way using colored pencil. The only evidence of actual technical one-point perspective in mine is the alternating black and white rectangular planes and the block letters on either side of the tree, so this wasn't exactly what the teacher had in mind, but she liked how I changed it to be more unique. I could have gotten away with murder in that class if it was artistically and originally done. It's hard to see it in this picture, but I'm really proud of how the sun turned out.

This was simply a study in color theory using tempera paints. We could divide our matboard however we wanted as long as we had four equal sized pieces: one in a monochromatic color scheme, one in a complementary color scheme, one in cool colors, and one in warm colors. I didn't like how choppy the other students' looked, so I went an extra step and tried to unify the four parts - thus the greyscale, dark, light, and black-and-white strips across the painting. At one point I named it, but I've forgotten its name. It had something to do with lava lamps, I believe.

This little fellow was my first experience with linoleum printing. I have mixed feeling about this medium. I love the carving process, but I don't like the texture of the finished product. It really aggravates me for some reason. It's kind of gritty and just... weird and aggravating.

This is the actual linoleum print that made the armadillo. I painted it with acrylics. It's mounted on plywood to make the printing process easier, but it likes to fall off of the wall due to its thickness.

This was the final project of my freshman year: an imitation of a painting using acrylic paints. I chose one of van Gogh's early pieces. I have no idea what it's called. It ended up looking very similar considering that I was only fourteen, but I was pressed for time so I had to let some things slide.

This is from last year. It's simply a negative space drawing of a fake palm with the negative space shaded in with pastel. If you were to look at the original, you would observe a speckled appearance to the pastel. This is how I learned that you really need to use aerosol hair spray - not spray hair gel - as a fixative. The top right corner of the picture is actually what I made up in my mind the night before the assignment was due. My teacher said time was up and put the tree back in the closet, but I wasn't done, so I had to use my imagination for the rest. It shows.

There's not much to talk about here. We took five pieces of watercolor paper and painted each a different shade of one color and then ripped them up to use as mosaic pieces to make a self-portrait. This one has a name too. It's called Mosaic Me.

This is called I hate you Ms. Althoff because I put hours upon hours of work into this beautiful landscape but I can't do anything with it but look at it because you had us using copyrighted images. Actually, pretty much everything I did my freshman year along with this piece from my sophomore year can't be entered in most contests because the picture we were working from were all copyrighted images. Thanks Ms. Althoff. This is a 9x12 colored pencil landscape made from a 1.5x2 snippet from another picture. The background is my favorite part color-wise, but it's all black in this photo.

This is my hand drawn with four different objects, each shaded a different way. There's the whelk shaded with inks using the hatching technique, the doorknob drawn in ink with a weighted contour line, the skateboard axle in normal pencil, and the pencil sharpener stippled with ink.

This is a white skull wearing a light tan hat against a white box, all shaded with various ink strokes. I had some serious issues bringing the darks into my composition because of the reality of the still life, but I may go come back to it and pretend it was a dark hat. It will work nicely as a portfolio piece if I take AP Portfolio next year. This was actually done based on a fully shaded graphite drawing of the same thing, but I gave that to my mom because she wanted to hang it, but I'm not sure where it is now.

This medium is one of my favorites: scratchboard. I find it to be extremely easy and fast, and it can also be used to do interesting things with movement, expression, and the like. After I finished this, I realized the eye was lacking eyelashes, but my teacher told me to forget about it since it was just an extra credit assignment and we had to move on. The "actual" project I turned in for that unit was a scratchboard of an orange daylily. I have no pictures of it because it is currently on display in the office of a company that sponsors a contest I entered it in.

For this, we used white colored pencil on black paper and drew a still life of shiny objects. I came in countless hours after school to work on mine, and I'm proud of the results. It could definitely be lighter. I tend to have this issue a lot. If the paper starts out white, the end result is a project that's too light; if the the paper starts dark, the end result is too dark; you'll see later that if the paper starts grey, the end result is too grey.

This was my first homework assignment this year. As advanced drawing and painting students, we get biweekly homework projects. At the beginning of the semester we get a sheet of topics such as close-up of an insect, potted plant, or self-portrait in harsh lighting (that's what this one is). Every two weeks we turn in our sketchbooks with a fully developed piece on one of those topics. Graphite is the most common medium, but I've used colored pencils and torn paper before, and one guy used markers once. My teachers chose this as one of the pieces from my school to be entered into a student exhibition at a local college during the winter.

This is a contour line drawing of some shoes that we did at the beginning of this year as an exercise. My table-mates and I decided that the fringe on the boot was satanic fringe straight from the pits of hell. It liked to move when we weren't watching it. At one point, we all decided that we were just going to put the fringe wherever we wanted instead of drawing strictly from the actual shoe, much to the amusement of the other art teacher.

This project is how I got tendonitis in my wrist, which I neglected for weeks until the swelling caused some carpal tunnel and the pain became so excruciating that I cried when I moved my wrist. If I'm forced to tears because of physical pain, something is drastically wrong. If I were smarter, I probably should have done something before it got to that point, but I have inherited from my grandpa the philosophy that if I ignore pain long enough it will go away. We shaded the paper entirely grey first (I used the blending stump improperly and with far too much pressure during this stage, which is how I hurt myself) and then made it darker and lighter to form the still life. The glare in the corner kind of messes up the overall effect, but it was a boring corner so you're not missing much action. I definitely used a full range of values, but it would not have hurt to have more extreme lights and darks.

This is the most recent full project that I have at home. My teacher has one on display and one in storage for our spring art show, and I have one in progress at school and one that was due in January, but I turned it in incomplete to be graded and now I can work on it for however long I like. This was a really fun, non-objective project. At first I flipped out because we weren't allowed to plan it in advance (I did to some extent anyway), we had to work with it as we went. I ended up really loving the fact that I didn't have a specific end goal. It's really hard to explain without showing the steps, so I won't do so at this time. Maybe I will later.

Le Printemps Est Ici!

Spring is here. It officially started yesterday, so I turned in all my papers with a note stating that it was the first day of spring. I even sang it as I walked into my final bell of my final day of school before the break. It actually feels like springtime outside, too. That's impressive considering how confused Cincinnati weather has been. There are signs everywhere in the great outdoors where I spent three or four splendid hours earlier. Unfortunately, my camera is a battery-devouring villain. I had only taken two pictures when it exclaimed "les piles sont faibles" (the batteries are weak) and turned itself off, and we're out of batteries.

I don't have much homework to do over break, and I don't really have any actual plans, so I can get ahead and do things I haven't done in a while. Yesterday I played the piano for roughly a half hour, which I haven't done in ages. After I finish this, I'm going to do some drawing that's not for art class, which I haven't done since the summer. Even more importantly, I slept like a normal person, which I haven't done in far too long. I actually slept for eleven hours last night! That's almost double my normal dose of sleep.

Spring cleaning started yesterday as well. I cleaned my room completely for once. After that was done, I noticed that I had taken most of my artwork off of my walls several months ago in hopes of rearranging it, but I had never finished. I proceeded to take the rest of it down and hang some of it back up along with several pieces that I've made in the past few months. This late morning/afternoon the entire family helped clean up the yard and gardens. During all this, our lovely little mutt decided she wanted to go for a run without us, so we had to chase her. In doing so, I discovered that I really need to get in shape. I had hardly run a quarter of a mile when I started huffing and puffing.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I started to write this yesterday, as you can probably deduce, but it's not too late to wish you all a happy St. Patrick's Day (or happy Irish Day, as I accidentally said at one point yesterday). I have absolutely nothing of real import to ramble about today. Even less so than normal. But I haven't posted much this month, and I really just feel like rambling on and on right now*. I'll keep my wanderings somewhat concise. And yes, I think that was an oxymoron. Feel free to give up at any point.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's day. Hopefully you already knew that, if for no other reason than the fact that I just wrote it a few sentences ago. I wore green, but that was the extent of my celebration. On this day in seventh grade, one of my friends put a sign on my back that read "kick me I'm Irish" and eventually someone did. I kicked the guilty friend back because I had some anger issues in seventh grade. I liked to cause my friends pain. I don't do that anymore. In biology, we played a game as a method of covering two chapters in one day (I'll cover biology insanity at some other point), and my team had a St. Patrick related name, but I forget what it was. We vanquished our foes, for the topic was biomes, and biomes are near and dear to my heart.

In orchestra, my teacher finally called it quits on our improvisation unit (if you could even call it that) and gave us new music for the next concert. One possibility is a selection of snippets from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, and I would completely geek out if we got to play it. Two out of the three scenes are deeply interwoven into my childhood memories, and Tchaikovsky is just fantastic in general. One year we played a watered down version of "Waltz of the Flowers" from The Nutcracker, and it was great fun even in its watered down form. I inevitably move with the music, but during that song I pretty much subconsciously waltzed in my seat.

Wow, I just discovered a forum dedicated to freshwater crayfish while doing some taxonomy research for biology in conjunction with rambling (hurrah for quasi-multi-tasking). I had no idea they had such a following. There are 318 members of the crayfish forum. I thought about joining it, but then I reconsidered after realizing how incredibly ignorant I am about freshwater crayfish.

Anyway, I think I'm done rambling about yesterday like an ADD five-year old after his/her first day in preschool (you can only stand it for so long, I've tried). Just a few notes about today.

I'm now part of a select septet of band and orchestra members that will be performing a song at the final orchestra concert... that is if we can pull it off. We're playing "Introduction et Allegro" by Ravel. It's freaking insane, but it sounds neato. I'll probably end up having to simplify parts of it. We practiced today, and the second violin quite frankly admitted that there was no way he could play part of the beginning until he dedicated a lot of practice to it, and he's quite the talented individual. Of course we'll get something to work, and it will sound nice. However, we probably won't be quite up to tempo for the Allegro portion, and most of us will end up having to simplify our parts in a few places.

In English, we started reading The Crucible. Nobody wanted the part of Abigail Williams since she's kind of a harlot, so I took the role. I typically end up taking the part that nobody else wants, and the part normally fits me worse than it could fit anyone else. That's the fun of it. Last year I was Mama in A Raisin in the Sun, and I'm not exactly a big black grandmother. This year I'm Abigail, but I'm not exactly a seductress. I love playing the roles that nobody would expect out of me. And I pull them off pretty well too. I'm proof that type casting isn't always necessary.

I think that's just about it for now. I have an obscene amount of homework to do, thanks to the fact that I lost my USB drive today. It had a math project on it... and that project is supposed to be due tomorrow... and I haven't restarted it yet. Plus, I have to finish my biology outline, biology worksheets, and French packet, and it would be nice to work on the art project, physics lab, physics homework, and additional biology homework that are due on Thursday. For consolation I get to remind myself that I have only two more days until spring "break"! Hip, hip, hurrah for sleep!

Monikers

I've accumulated quite a few nicknames over the years. Some of them died right away (fortunately this includes the two that really needed to go), but a great many have lasted for at least several weeks. Here they are in the order in which they came to be:

Ria Roo (before I can remember): This one came from my dad. I don't remember getting it, but it has stuck with me for many years. In second grade, I had my name changed to Ria at school, so some of my friends from elementary school still call me Ria. In third grade, I went back to my real name.

Snuffy (7th grade): One day in Mrs. Reichert's seventh grade English class, Layla and I were both very congested and very tired. We kept snuffling and making slap-happy comments. At one point, I said "You're sniffy today," and she replied "You're snuffy today," and we thought it was outrageously funny. So she became Sniffy and I became Snuffy.

Missy (summer after 8th grade): We went on vacation with the Corbins (a family from church) one summer, and through a long-ish story, their daughter earned the nickname Sissy. Later on in the summer, we ended up matching one day, so Ronda decided that my nickname should be like Kate's. And thus Missy joined the ranks of my monikers.

Fooseba (summer after 9th grade): This one is kind of embarrassing. On the way back from the canoe trip two years ago, we were playing some game (I can't recall its name) wherein we were trying to spell words. Each person would add a letter to whatever the previous people had said in order to spell a word, but you didn't want to be the person to add the last letter. If you had to end the word, you lost. So people would constantly try to redirect the word so that they wouldn't have to finish it or the next person would. Someone started a word with "f". The next two people added an "o" each. I thought the next person was doomed to end up spelling a word, but instead they added an "s" after much deliberation. I was completely baffled. What word could possibly start with "f-o-o-s"? The next three people added an "e", a "b", and an "a" respectively. Then it was my turn. I could not for the life of me figure out what word would start with "f-o-o-s-e-b-a". In exasperation, I shouted "What on earth is 'fooseba' supposed to mean?" The other passengers burst into laughter, and eventually I figured out that they were spelling fooseball. Thus, "fooseba" became one of my nicknames.

M.O.M. (fall of 10th grade): M.O.M. stands for "Manly Octave Maria" and is a tribute to the fact that my vocal range is lower than typical for a female. Bev and Lauren G. gave me the name, so I came up with names for them too. Bev is B.O.T.A. (Bev of the Arctic) and Lauren is L.O.T.S. (Lauren of the Scarves). Gertrude (winter of 10th grade): Morgan is pretty much the only one who uses this one now. Stork was our sub one day in gym, and we got him to believe that Gertrude was my real name. La Bosse (early fall of 11th grade): My friends and I all have French nicknames. It all started in the list of zoo vocabulary when we learned that the word for seal is "la phoque" (pronounced "fock") and deer is "la biche" ("beesh"). Both sound suspiciously like "bad words" in English, so Katie decided that she would be La Phoque Volant, "the flying seal", and that Courtney would be La Suisse Biche, "the Swedish deer". I got to be La Bosse (the hump), Morgan is Le Snack-Bar (pretty self-explanatory), and Anna is L'Eyeliner (also self-explanatory). I can't remember anyone else's name.

Maple (mid fall of 11th grade): During Shantytown, I was spelling my name in strips of duct tape on my box/house. When I had finished my masterpiece, my friends pointed out that I had amputated the second leg off of the "R", so the box said "MAPIA". It made me think of the word maple (probably because our little encampment was under a red maple), so I decided to make that my new name. It's fitting, don't you think? I added the middle name "Laburnum", and when filling out surveys on the internet I make "Stwittyspokkit" my last name. This is the most widely used of my nicknames. All my teachers have been handed papers with this name on it, and three of my six teachers call me Maple. Some of my little sister's friends know me as "that girl who called herself 'Maple' and dressed up as autumn the Halloween". I don't see this name leaving any time soon.

Dr. Lithium Bromide (last week): I haven't asked anyone to call me this yet (and I probably won't), but it will be my nom de plume for all semi-official documents. This hasn't started yet, but I think its first use will be on the agreement to obey the Dungeon rules.

Imago Again!

For the first time since December, today was Imago Saturday! My friends and I had been pumped about it for the past few weeks, and today it finally came.

Imago (other than being a Greek word) is an ecosystem restoration project located on a thirteen-acre plot of wooded land in Lower Price Hill. On the first Saturday of every month (except for January and February, to my dismay), we head out there to do whatever they need us to do. We've cut down honeysuckle, rescued native plants from a little bit of the NKU campus that was about to be paved over (as if that place didn't have enough concrete already), weeded a community garden, dismantled an abused wigwam, and done other things down there.

Today, we moved shovels, rakes, and other equipment to a "new" shed someone gave them. After that, we spent quite some time chipping away at a half-frozen mulch pile to cover some unsightly black plastic that's being used to smother weeds. When it warms up more, prairie grasses and flowers will be planted where the plastic is now. Finally, we planted some redbuds. Well, everybody else planted several, but my partner and I were having equipment issues, so we only planted one. I snapped the "heavy-duty fiberglass" shaft of a shovel, and my hole-digging partner bent a trowel out of shape.

It was all great fun. The air was that pleasant temperature that makes your face and fingers cold, but doesn't make you wear a coat. I absolutely love the feeling of a chilled face, but I hate coats, so this weather me fait heureuse. Spring weather is on it's way, and will eventually be bringing the thunderstorms back! However, as we all know, spring can't really start for fifteen more days at least since Punxsutawney Phil did indeed see his shadow. As far as I'm concerned the winter weather can linger on if it likes. We get along well, even though it doesn't normally bring thunderstorms.