Projects for 2015

I have a very busy schedule for creating art pieces. This has to due with 1) my AP art class and submitting to college board and 2) creating a portfolio to apply to art school. That said, I have my own personal artistic pursuits. Besides blogging once a week (2014 was a weak year for this blog), here is a basic outline of the projects I'd like to see come to fruition for myself in 2015:

1)  Hello Planet Earth - Etsy Store

I'm revamping my Etsy store to, like, actually sell products. Its called 'Hello Planet Earth' and it will feature hand bound journals, book jewelry, and prints. Later this year I hope to launch some other products including the HPE mini paper studio series.

2) February Watercolor Studies

During the month of February I'd like to become comfortable with watercolor. I bought myself a lovely watercolor set and small watercolor paper notebook that I'd like to fill. It will feature my favorite objects I've collected over the years and hopefully culminate in enough decent paintings to create a calendar or some other print set.

3) May Design Explorations

Continuing the month project concept, I have this odd cliff-shaped doodle that I want to explore further. Using food, yarn, typography, plants, etc. I will attempt to create this shape every single day until I have a set of images expressing this abstract design through different mediums.

Painting A Day Adventures

Here are some photos from class time working on our very first oil paintings. Inspired by the painting-a-day movement, we had to create 3 small 6x6 in paintings based on one to two object still-lifes.

   

Creative US History Projects

In my US II class I've had the opportunity for a few creative projects. These are always a lot of fun for me. Most traditional teachers tend to avoid the artsy projects but those are what I enjoy best. Here are a couple from the past few weeks. The first project is a social media account for a historical figure. I chose to create an instagram account for financial mogul J.P. Morgan. I found an amazing insta template that someone had posted on adobe and was able to make it in photoshop in a matter of minutes. The second project is for Teddy Roosevelt's birthday. I made a brownie pan, covered it in fudge, and arranged butterscotch, milk, and white chocolate chips on top to look like his head.

CIT Summer at Buck's Rock

This summer I worked at Buck's Rock creative and performing arts camp. My great grandfather was apprenticed to a book binder in Latvia, and I was apprenticing in a bindery in rural Connecticut. Pretty fun coincidence. I made a cargo collective to showcase the projects I made on my own time. [Update: all these pieces now appear under the section 'Summer 2014']

It was a really great, productive summer. I made a lot of projects that I'm proud of. I learned a lot of new stitches (as evident in the sampler set). From adapted coptic to button hole I taught kids at least a dozen different techniques. I also almost hurt myself in the wood shop but ended up with some decent comfort around power tools. In the printmaking studio I made lino cuts, etchings, and silkscreens so I think I covered the basics. It was a lot of fun. 

I met some new and fantastic people such as the Printing and Silkscreen CITs, Sophia and Emily. And got closer with some old favorites like Basia who took the photos of my summer work, and Ashley, also a PASS CIT. Clearly I spent a lot of time in that shop. Everyone was incredibly talented and fun to collaborate with. I think a did 5 different exchanges which is ridiculous. It was a lovely time even with all the bugs and heat and art kid drama. 

AP Studio Art, Year One

I just completed one of the most emotionally draining classes I have ever taken - AP Art I. Below are photographs of the projects I created over the course of the year, in the order they were made, with a few of my favorite sketches at the end. 

Negative Space Sculpture - vine charcoal and white charcoal pencil: we created paper sculptures and had to make as accurate drawings of them as we could. I must have spent hours each night driving myself crazy adjusting each little mark on the page.  

3 Objects with Cast Shadow - polychromos: these clementines (or tomatoes???) were a proud moment for me because my initial layout sketches matched the final piece. Looking back on it now, the piece isn't particularly interesting but it was the first time I got a compliment from my teacher.

Contour with Color - pen, acrylic, colored pencil: so originally this was a completely different drawing but I ended up scrapping it and I'm so glad. I'm not sure I quite like the eyes but the color contour itself is pretty decent. 

3-Day Figure Drawing Study - charcoal: my first legitimate figure study, interestingly the other drawings by classmates made the model look much heavier. I keep wondering if I perceived her as skinnier, if it was the angle I was drawing her from, or if others thought she was heavier. The mind is strange. 

Section of a Collection - polychromos: the shadows here took forever to get right but this is my favorite project. There's a certain whimsy to it that I'm really proud of and that I feel actually reflects my personality. 

Charcoal Reduction Still Life - charcoal: I'm not a fan of the objects I was drawing but I like the style I did it in, kind of painterly I guess. It was definitely a good lesson in the power of stripes.

Self Portrait - charcoal: alright so I've had to do a self portrait pretty much every year of high school. And I can't take it anymore. Overall though, I like the way it came out, but someone pointed out to me that the eyes are kind of strange and now I can't unsee it!

Creative Chair - oil pastel: I made this last minute so it frustrates me a lot but I like the chair itself. Clearly, though, I need to spend a lot more time on my pastel skills.

Creative Staircase - polychromos: so I do love the staircase, I went to my friend's house and drew her majestic stairs and I love them. Not sure I love my choice in Cleopatra.

Portrait with Pattern - mixed media: I really allowed myself to break the rules and I'm glad that I did because this ended up the best and most highly praised project of the year. Emma was a beautiful model and I can confidently say I did her justice and I don't even have much experience with colored pencil.

Textured Still Life/Genetically Modified Animal - pen: we could choose to do either project but not entirely satisfied with my goats, I drew the still life as well. It's easy to see the shadows were challenging but it forced me to get more comfortable with pen than I thought I was.

Watercolor Fabric - watercolor: the hardest part of this project was the large space. It was a huge piece of paper and covering it was very challenging. Watercolor is a bit scary at first but I think I avoided over-doing it.

AP Art I was the hardest class I took in terms of pushing myself. In being criticized I actually gained a bit of confidence. Here's hoping AP Art II is a bit more fun than stressful.

Paper Popcorn and Wearing Watercolor

I wanted to share some random projects from the past few weeks. The first of which is the popcorn bag I made for our teacher in Israel, as a thank you gift. I cut out little paper popcorn kernels and we filled the bag with actual microwave popcorn bags.

Here are some projects from my AP art class. We've been creating fabric folds in watercolor. Another project has been the portrait with patterns. One is a process shot, another is a close-up.

And just for fun here's a little watercolor of my friend Grace. She is beautiful and I wanted to send her a little watercolor in the mail.

Review: Rony's Clayground

I brought home from Israel the Rony Oren "Secrets of Clay" book and clay set. I saw his books and supplies everywhere and needed to try. Rony's technique is that anything can be made in clay with three basic shapes: hot dog, pancake, and sphere. I personally found the instructions in the book very simple to follow and the results wonderfully successful. To note, I don't have a lot of experience with clay. I'm not talented in ceramics or hand modeling clay. Rony's clay, however, I enjoyed thoroughly, and fully recommend. The colors are extremely vibrant and simple to mix. For a beginner looking to start using clay, this would be an excellent set.

The clay also came with some tools ^

The pages were filled with additional clay scenes and inspiration ^

And these were my results :)

Pros: clay comes in beautiful colors, book has clear instructions, tons of photo inspiration, easy to mold and work with

Cons: the clay cannot be baked or dried (it is plasticine clay intended for animations, etc.), the clay leaves a residue stain on some surfaces

Favorite Moments From Israel: Part 2

Part 1 of the absurd list here.

-Another game we played was organized by Jacob. It went like this. Jacob would say to everyone 'If you know the game, or you think you know the game, please leave this room". Then some people would leave and come back in to guess who the person Jacob had picked was. It ended up that the first person who talked after Jacob said his speech was the person he always picked. I only figured this out on the last night.
-Rebecca wasn't feeling well one day. That night she had the funniest snore as she slept. I kept giggling but Talia was studying and said nothing. I stopped laughing after a while, and then after one of Rebecca's long snores Talia shut her book and said 'I'm going to punch her in the face." 
-I was put in charge of designing the t-shirt. Ben and I had a great time figuring out what objects to represent everyone with on the t-shirt. 
-For Purim, Marisa, Rebecca, and I dressed up with tiny hats in black, red, and gold. Marisa wore lady bug wings and Rebecca and I wore bumble bee wings. I had a red highlight in my clothes, and Rebecca a gold highlight. 
-Rebecca one time climbed into bed with me to cuddle. She told me all about her glittery superman underwear. In my sleepy state I responded that I'd look at it tomorrow. She yelled 'no! this is happening now!' and proceeded to fling away the blanket and pull down her pants. 
-Rebecca was also obsessed with the website Quizlet. She talked endlessly about reaching 100 note card sets so Marisa and I surprised her with her favorite apple pastry and a note from 'the Quizlet team' thanking her for her service to the website. She walked around the rest of the night saying 'Now I know I can do anything!'
-Often times we would go on little trips into Hod Hasharon to buy things at the grocery store. Sometimes I walked with Marisa for falafel, or with Rami during a complaining session. They were always little adventures. 
-Another time on Ben Yehuda street Marisa and I were looking around a little handmade store. Rebecca burst in and immediately suggested we should buy finger puppets. 'Guys! We should be matching!' So we bought a spiderman, horse, and mouse finger puppet. 
-Marisa and I learned various Australian phrases from Jacob. His Australian students used to call to him 'Oy Jacob yooou're massive! You could get a hundred girls ooooooooooooooooooooon THE BEACH!'
-Marisa and I also liked to look at each other and say 'ooh damn!' and call each other a 'babe and a half.' One time I walked in and Rebecca and Marisa had started laughing about the word binoculars.
-The family room often looked something like this: beanbags sprawled on the floor, popcorn kernels in random places and laptops on the couches. 
-On one hike in the Golan Marisa and I got into a serious discussion and missed the fork in the road. After too long we realized no one was in front of us or in back of us and so we found the nearest marked trail. I stupidly assumed that the bus would be there when we go to the top. It was not and instead we were met by 'Danger! Minefield' signs. Eventually Jacob found us. 
-The night before a big test Dikla came in with tim tams and tea. She taught us to bite the opposite corners of the tim tam and sip the tea through it like a straw. It was the most delicious tim tam experience ever. 
-The night before the zionism seminar my group stayed up late preparing for it. I painted a giant Ahad Ha'Am poster. These douchey boys from a private school kept coming over to flirt with the girls. After a while I got so fed up that I took a broom and swept them off the porch. 
-I bought this awesome clay in town from a company called 'Rony's Clayground'. Sometimes Marisa and I would sit in the dorms and have clay time. 
-One time I walked into the dorms and Sheina and Isabelle were talking. Isabelle said to Sheina, 'and on the eighth day God created Sheina' and without missing a beat Sheina responded 'and God said, let there be swag'
-For a mishloach manot I received a soft blanket. It was the best gift I could have asked for and went perfectly in the empty bed in our room that I had rearranged into a couch. 
-I loved Mordechai's class. We had a great group to have discussions with. I loved reading out loud. It was the best way to stay awake for those four hour long classes. 
-Everyone would catch me falling asleep in random places. Whenever I did a chorus of 'Yael can't haaaang!' would fill the room. 
-In the Negev we were hiking and saw tons of baby Yael goats. The mountain goats were the size of puppies and had more grace frolicking around the mountains than I ever will. I was totally captivated. 
-We had classes in the craziest places: mountains, meadows, beaches, city alleyways, caves, farms, museums, archaeological sites, ruins, shuks, any place you can think of was our classroom. 
-Masada was a long hike. It was a nice experience to encourage each other up the mountain and to see the sunrise there. We also came at a time when a basic training unit of the army was finishing a 15 hour hike at the peak of the mountain. It was a beautiful thing to witness the national pride. 
-We drove out to the desert once for a meditation. I enjoyed the first few minutes of hearing the silence of the desert and thinking, until someone a distance away started playing Arabic techno music. 
-The counselors arranged for us to see a HaDag Nachash concert. I love that band and I've been listening to them for years. It was so much fun. I borrowed Marisa's crop top and us girls had the best time getting dressed up for the event but, of course, the concert itself was even better. 
-I always enjoyed talking with Grace and Rami. They were an interesting pair and never minded me third wheeling. Neither of them liked other people much, I was the exception and it felt special. 
-At the HSI banquet Lily and I got up and performed a duet of 'I Want You To'. At the end I was looking away as Lily was holding up her hand for a high five. Everyone yelled 'Yael!' and I turned around and laughed at my mistake and high-fived her. 
-The youth hostels were one of my favorite parts of the trip. The food was always great there and the beds more comfortable. We got rearranged to room with different people but by coincidence I always got paired with Marissa. I took this as a sign that we would share a hostel at some point in the future. 
-At one hostel Marisa, Rebecca, Sydney and I sat on the balcony and made shadow puppets across the other balcony. It was a great night. 
-In Tel Aviv was a place called the Factory di Pasta. Israel doesn't have too many pasta places and it was just the perfect timing for some. Eva, Marisa, Alyse and I all got to order a pasta shape, sauce, and topping. It was delicious. 
-On the way back from an open shabbat in Jerusalem I took the 947 bus. I was kind of panicked about getting off at the right stop so as I got on the bus I told the driver I was headed to Hod HaSharon. At the right stop the driver got on the speaker and yelled 'Hod HaSharon! Mi Hayaldah? (Where's the girl?)'. I thought, that's me!, and ran off. It was at that point that I decided I loved it here. 
-In Jerusalem Orna and Gusti took me around the Christian quarter. It was beautiful. My favorite moment, however, was drinking shoko and laughing with Gusti and Amir. 
-I also stayed with Judith and Bernie one shabbat. They had a gorgeous soft puppy that I cuddled with all weekend. Judith took me to see flowers and to meet her friend, Shraga, a jewelry artist. He was the happiest man I've ever met and I couldn't blame him. His studio was beautiful. He even gave me free earrings. 
-Judith also took me to Hod VeHadar synagogue for the megillah reading. Dov Vogel's grandson was in charge of holding up the green sign to boo Hamen and the red sign to stop booing. He was dressed as spider man and took his job very seriously. Susie Dvoskin was also there and she had me, Yael Tamar, take a photo with her grandson, Mika Tamar. She was dressed as Spongebob. 
-The dorms had two cats always hanging around. Julia named them Poopy and Titty Kitty. One day Titty Kitty, with her little white and orange blob of fur, was sitting on the porch not moving, just staring. Julia walked by and said to her 'Tit, what are you doing here?' and continued on. I laughed so hard. 
-I always liked staying up late talking with my roommates or talking with anyone else. We'd sit there for hours having discussions about our lives and I learned so much about everyone. I always cherished those moments. 
-Sydney said and did some funny things. One time she got a massage from Ben and told him he should be a misogynist when she meant masseuse. During a study session for a test we were all busy asking questions to the teacher when Sydney flipped out her iPhone and started taking selfies in the background.  
-The counselors put together a bonfire in the parking lot. I wore my snow hat and mario t-shirt. We all wrote down a personal secret anonymously, mixed them up, and read them aloud. I was amazed at how similar the secrets were. We are never that alone in our problems. 
-One more great game from the Masoret was the dating game. I got assigned to be a bitter divorcee. I kept yelling about my 'goddamn ex husband'. It got a lot of laughs. 
-After one tiyul we went to a spring pool. There were fish in the water that ate the dead skin off your toes. Everyone hated them except for Marisa and I. They tickled so much. I loved them.  
-On the corner before the campus was a pizza place called Avganiah Pizza. It had this delicious flat crust pizza and an easily recognizable tomato on the front. 
-We had an assignment to interview Israelis around Tel Aviv. Rebecca, Marisa and I found a cute little children's store with a very nice lady there. She was fascinating and I bought more stickers from her too. 
-In a meeting room in the hostel the counselors arranged a little restaurant. At my table was Grace, Brian, and Jenna. We had such a great discussion that we met once a week thereafter for 'bubble talks'. 
-Marisa had a very strange computer that was also a tablet. One night she announced to me 'and now im going to draw' and then she proceeded to take out her laptop and scribble all over it with a stylus. I laughed.  
-Rebecca loved Israeli dancing and in an inexplicable state of enthusiasm she started dancing her strange little moves with lyrics about John Travolta on the plane ride home. 
-On the last day of the trip Marisa and I were chanting another weird Australian phrase that we never understood, 'Life is only a dream, Life is only a dream'. Then we turned to each other and realized that this whole trip had been so amazing, like a dream. And that's when it all made sense. 

Favorite Moments From Israel: Part 1

For the months of February and March I have been away, studying abroad in Israel. The point of this blog is to document parts of my life so I understand that this won't have any significance for others and therefore I am posting it for myself. This is a list of some of my favorite moments from the trip (there ended up being quite a lot).

-On one long bus ride Ben and I sat together to watch a play called 'Twisted' on his iPod. I kept falling asleep and just before the end of the show I drifted off and Ben yelled 'Yael wake up!' and I gasped awake in disoriented shock. He laughed pretty hard at that. 
-Tzfat was one of my favorite cities. It was beautiful and artistic, everything was painted blue. The synagogues had aged with grace and were so peaceful and cozy. It had the perfect little alleys to sit and discuss spirituality in. 
-In Tzfat was a guy named Avraham, the kaballah artist. I love asking artists questions so I immediately started asking him all kinds of things. In kaballah is this idea that names have spiritual meaning. As he was answering my question he started to talk about names and he said 'let's say your name means mountain goat' and I said 'mine does!' Everyone in the room laughed. 
-Marisa and Rebecca and I frequently had Dinner On The Streets together after long tiyul days. One of my favorite locations was the 'Fine' burger place we visited twice, where we had tut banana drinks. Marisa always stayed behind and sat with me, whether I wasn't feeling well or my food was slow to arrive. 
-On Ben Yehuda street was an adorable waffle place. The deal was two waffles to split where both people can choose what toppings they want on their side. It had a mural with waffles and wings and bicycles. It also had a drawing contest with a theme of the month, which you could doodle a submission for while you waited for your waffle. 
-Mordechai, our teacher, invited the class over for dinner one night. It was so nice to have a break from the cheder ochel. I ate so much of that home cooked food. Afterwards, with full happy bellies, we played rat-a-tat cat. 
-On the first day of classes we pushed aside all the desks and took out maps of Israel. We marked all these roads and circled places. Every place we went we marked on the map.
-One shabbat we stayed at a Bedouin tent. We all got ready in white clothing. It was beautiful to stand in a circle in the desert singing shabbat songs all in white. 
-That night in the tent was a big snuggle fest. I'm not one for too much physical contact so around 2 in the morning Marisa, Rebecca and I sat outside by the bonfire reading our books. 
-In the desert that night Lily and I saw a light source peeking out over a mountain in the desert. We both wanted to hike up and find out what it was. When we got to the top of the mountain we saw the city skyline of Ber Sheva and the endless desert on either side. I turned to her and said 'well here we are on planet earth together'. The view was amazing. 
-The Marissi (Short Marisa and Tall Marissa) and I cuddled on Lily's bed watching the movie Her for several nights. It was a strange film but nice to be there together. 
-Sometimes I borrowed Rebecca's 3G capable phone and the two of us would FaceTime my boyfriend Ryan. It was always ridiculous. 
-We volunteered for Leket Yisrael and picked radishes for a few hours. The dirt was so fresh and clean and we competed to pick the biggest radish. The weather was perfect and the time flew by. The next day in Tel Aviv I spied a basket of radishes with Leket Yisrael labeled on it. It felt great to see the work we had done sitting in front of a house ready to feed a needy family. 
-That day in Tel Aviv we went on a graffiti hunt. The graffiti was detailed, subtle and in hidden places. It was basically a giant game of I-Spy.
-Outside an ice cream store a baby rattle fell out of the sky. When we looked up a little baby head was peeking from a window on the second story. She had slid the rattle out of a crack in the window. We all smiled and waved and the baby waved back. 
-At Rabin square we had a heated debate in Mordechai's class. It got very passionate and had to be calmed down. It was fun to argue. 
-On Purim day we all wore costumes and sat in the grass near the Tel Aviv boardwalk. It was nice to nap in the sun, wearing our wings. 
-In the shuk Rebecca was dressed as Where's Waldo so we had an impromptu photo shoot, snapping pics of her blending into the busy market. Later, we bound the photos into books. 
-Marisa loved pointing out pomegranates whenever we passed them. The town the campus was located in had a giant pomegranate sculpture at an intersection. We decided to take a photo there around Purim and several Israeli boys in costume came by yelling 'mesiba!' and jumped in the photo.
-On Erev Purim, around 8 AM we were sitting in biology class when a rave was going on at the Israeli high school. We watched with jealousy, barely paying attention to the lesson. 
-One night I got very sick. The next day we walked to a nearby park on a shabbat afternoon and it was nice to relax with everyone after feeling so awful. 
-Mount Gilboa was the first intense hike we climbed. Hiking was what stressed me out the most about going to study on this trip. It felt so accomplishing to finish the hike. And it was great comic relief when after two hours of steep hiking, Brian fell down on the flat ground. His knees were bleeding so he wrapped one with his shirt. When Jacob yelled from a hundred yards away for him to put his shirt back on, he whispered to himself 'you don't understand, i'm wounded'. Leora and I laughed like crazy. 
-On an open weekend shabbat at the Treisters we watched Casablanca. In the behind the scenes we learned that the plane was a cut-out stage prop and that they hired midgets to stand around it during filming so that the plane looked size proportional. Rochelle is an amazing bead artist and she helped me start a bead weaving on that Friday afternoon.
-At the Dead Sea we floated in the water. It was the strangest sensation. I was determined to find Dead Sea mud. I was convinced that I had, but Marisa told me it was just watery sand. 
-Marisa, Sydney, Alyse and I went to the mall in Ranana. I bought cute stickers and we split a crepe. Marisa and I debated for half an hour whether to buy tiny hats but decided not to. Three weeks later we went back and bought them anyway for Purim costumes. Us short, tiny people thought it normal to squeeze through a small crack in the book store door. Sydney laughed at us and pointed out that the door actually opened the other way. 
-The Kaplan house was cozy and warm. We sat in the hot tub and ate good food. It was so relaxing. Then in the afternoon we went to Max Brenner's and ate amazing sweet potato ravioli and tons of fantastic chocolate. 
-When the power went out during a science lab, we sat at the lab tables testing mentos flavors in the dark. Then I brought out the fondue set I bought at Max Brenner's and we had fondue and played cards with tea lights around us in the Moadon.  
-Fondue moments continued in the quiet place of solitude, the area behind the office with the picnic table that Julia and Eva and I took breaks in, in-between classes. 
-As we learned about the ancient water systems we crawled through actual water caves. So there were were, knee deep in a pitch black cave in hezekiah's water tunnel singing bohemian rhapsody.
-Leora helped me into one of the caves which I greatly appreciated. We stood in a circle having a quiet moment. Slowly Danny led us in singing Hene Ma Tovu and the relaxing scene became a yelling match of who could sing the loudest.
-One night the counselors arranged a night of events for all the Alexander Muss students, "The Show Muss Go On". Our HSI group had the most spirit.
-On the morning of the zionism seminar Jacob and Dikla prepared a huge breakfast with amazing attention to detail. The decorations were Israel themed with little chocolates and marshmallows and tiny flags. The bagels were delicious.
-Rebecca organized a game for one of the Masoret family meetings. It was called Honeymoon Night. Several people were sent outside and we all sat in the family room quietly. Each person came inside one by one to try and figure out the game, when really there was nothing to figure out. We just watched the person and laughed as someone recorded everything the person said. Then the record keeper read off everything they had said as if it had taken place on their honeymoon night: "I don't understand. What is this game? Is there anything I can't do? Why aren't you saying anything?" It was hysterical. 

My Friend The Paymaster

I love collecting curios and pretty things. This week I wanted to talk about my mint green check writer. It is a real-deal Paymaster Ribbon Writer that I found in an antique store in my town. I saw it and knew immediately that I would have to go back home, get my wallet, and return for it. I love it to death. The photos here don't do the brilliant color justice. I plan on using it for still lifes and observational drawing.