This will be my last artist statement at SLA. It has been a blast for the past to years in Art class. I’ve learned a lot during this class and I was able to continue of being awesome and creative. For this quarter I had four projects assigned to me. One was suppose to be something specific and the other three was anything I wanted to do. The first project was the Rodin Museum sketch. The whole class left school and took a walk down to this beautiful museum and we were suppose to find a spot of what we wanted to draw. I’ve decided to draw the statue that looks like the thinker that was sitting out front of the museum. I thought it was unique and it was the first thing that always drew my attention. My favorite part is drawing the whole figure and how it looks real. The place was shady and the coolest part about that statue was that it look super bright in the shade.

   Now for the rest of the quarter I was allowed to do anything I want. Even though the last projects have the same theme, which is graffiti, I wanted to stick to that because graffiti art is my favorite art in the world. Graffiti is super cool of how it has different fonts, brighter colors, and something bold to draw anyone’s attention. Each of my graffiti has different shape fonts, bright colors, and it is easily readable. I hope everyone likes the graffiti and the museum sketch. It has been a blast of doing art the past two years at SLA. I’m finally graduating and going off to college. Chatham University class of 2020. 

This year's third quarter was different from last year’s third quarter. This quarter seemed more relaxing than usual. Some of the projects made me feel less stress from doing projects and any other school work. I was actually kind of glad to have that relaxation throughout the quarter. These are my projects from the third quarter.

Advanced Coloring: I had to pick out three pages to color. The reason why I think it is called advanced coloring because there is so many little details that need to be colored in. I picked those three designs because I like the designs and I wanted to be creative with them. This was probably my favorite project because I was to be creative and feel relaxed in general because I love to color in pictures just to keep my hands moving.

Self Portrait: Now from the first quarter I was able to draw myself again. This year was totally different because one I had longer hair, and two I’m wearing a hat in the photo. Personally I like this portrait better because I think I look better with longer hair. Now my hair got to freaking long so I had to cut it. Funny thing when this assigned to the class that was the week I cut my hair and as I think about it after drawing it I look so much better with short hair. 

Value: Last year on this project I drew my cell phone. This year there was an orange sitting on the table. I pulled it over towards me and I decided to draw that. I liked what I did because it seems the orange looks a little realistic to me.

Basic Shapes: On this projects before I drew anything I wanted to draw I had to do a basic layout by drawing basic shapes. For this project I drew the cartoon character Brian Griffin from family guy and it looks pretty cool by drawing the basic shapes and I would like to do that more cartoon characters.

Animal Shapes: Now this project is very similar to the basic shapes project. I had to do a rough draft of the animal shapes then draw the actual animal shapes. I basically chose two random animals and they were a cat and a bunny.

In conclusion quarter three was a success and it was a very relaxing quarter and I cannot wait for my very last quarter of art class.

The second quarter of art was a success. I feel it was completely better than last years second quarter. I did the same exact projects. This year I took even more time into my work because I wanted to feel more successful than last year. These are my projects from the second quarter.

Art Collage: This just happened randomly. I went to the school library of the school and found one of Ms. Owens old magazine. I looked into it and I saw what you on the collage. There is many logos on there but they are actually t-shirt designs based off of scientific and mathematical terms and I thought it was cool, funny, and usable for my collage. 

Fabric Drawing: Last year I did the fabric drawing based off my arm sleeve. For this year I did what the class was doing and that was the piece of fabric over the wooden stool. I actually liked how it turned out. I enjoy how your able to see the outline/layers of the stool under the piece of fabric.

Photo Editing: This picture was taken over a weekend when I went my awesome girlfriend’s hockey game! I actually wanted to get a photo of her but my camera got this really cool close up of the net that sounded the rink and I loved it. My girlfriend was very happy to be featured in one of my art projects. This was my favorite project!

Illustration: This was a funny drawing because the first that came up into my mind was spongebob squarepants. I basically drew what goes through the mind of spongebob. I drew random shapes because that is what spongebob does in the show. He thinks and does random things. This drawing made me think of my childhood and made me laugh. 

In conclusion I enjoyed doing my projects again for the second quarter and I hope the third quarter is a success as well.

Its another year of art and I wanted to continue what I did last year. I know it is the same exact course as last year but it will be a great opportunity to improve from last year. These were the projects I did for this first quarter…. 

Ceiling Tile: This was my favorite project. I really love to paint. I decided to go with an SLA type tile, by creating the main key about the school, which is the rocket. I love how the colors stand out in all of his paintings. I feel great on how it came out. I like the the kind of colors I used. My favorite part is the fire. It doesn’t look like an ordinary fire take off. I just wanted to be creative and take it my own way. 

Drawing of anything I want to draw: As of last year I really wanted to continue my legacy of pencil drawings. It’s funny my girlfriend inspired me to do something with a heart in it. So I decided to do a heart and flower type mix. I enjoyed using different shades of pencil.

Jack-o-lantern: Its another pencil drawing because, like I said last year I like to make pencil drawings. The jack-o-lantern has an evil look. As you can see I decided to make different patterns on the jack-o-lantern because I wanted to be creative and have fun with, after all I am the artist.

Self Portrait: I was able to draw myself again. This year was totally different because one I had longer hair, and two I’m wearing a hat in the photo. Personally I like this portrait better because I think I look better with longer hair.

In conclusion I enjoyed redoing this course again because I know it will be a great year and a fun and relaxing time!

A brand new normal school has recently opened up. A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. It's specific purpose is to enhance teaching abilities or standards to the students. On july 3rd, three young woman, who were high school graduates, reported to Lexington, Massachusetts. They had the hopes of attending the first state funded school specifically for public teacher education. All three girls had to take an evaluation to determine if they were satisfactorily versed in the subjects taught by the ordinary district school. After taking that examination they were granted admission to this experimental program. It was the first in the nation. 

  Now the motivation to provide public school education for all children was twofold. James G. Carter was the man who was the bill of creating the first school in Massachusetts. He named Horace Mann the first secretary in June 29, 1837. Mann had a dedication to this school. "I believe Normal Schools to be a new instrumentality in advancement of the race. I believe that, without them, Free Schools themselves would be shorn of their strength and their healing power and would at length become mere charity schools and thus die out in fact ad in form." Below is a picture of the three young women who were brave enough to attend this brand new school. Mann didn't give up on his wish and was able to create this school. 

This quarter I feel that my artwork has improved since the first quarter. For example for one of the projects I had to take a photo and use this app called pixlr. It was tricky to use at first but then the finalization of the picture look wonderful! Like I said in the first quarter, anything you make can be art. Art can be powerful to anyone! For this Second quarter I had to make a collage by using pictures from magazines. Then make a fabric drawing by using pencil and charcoal. After that, I had to take a photo and use pixlr. Last but not least, pick a piece of writing and illustrate a passage. I'm happy how my art turned out to be this quarter, so please don't judge. Enjoy checking out my work.

Collage: For this project, I was allowed to make a collage of anything I wanted. I made my collage spell out the word art because why not? Its art class for crying out loud. So what I used in the collage was pictures from home/design magazines. I used those type of pictures from those magazines because most of them had patterns. Basically how I see art, I see a lot of patterns!

Fabric drawing: Now at first I was suppose to draw fabric on top of a stool, but I really wanted to do something else. So I used my sleeve on one of my SLA hoodies as an advantage to do something else. Now this was my first time using charcoal. I feel I did great using it for the first time. My favorite part of the drawing is the hand leading into the sleeve of the arm because to me it looks realistic.

Photo: On this project, I was aloud to take a photo of anything I wanted in the world. After taking that photo I had to use this app called pixlr. I chose to take a picture of food because food is amazing haha. Especially burgers because its my favorite food in the entire world. After experiencing pixlr and clearly showing one burger while the other was blurry, I seriously wanted to jump into that photo. It basically looks delicious!

Illustration: Finally, for this project, I had to pick any piece of writing and illustrate a passage. I picked "The Cat in the Hat" because that was children's book I grew up with when I was little. The book used to make me laugh a lot. On this day I'm not sure why it made me laugh, but I don't care now because its cool to draw something that was from your childhood. 

Hope you enjoyed my artwork for quarter #2!

   This painting was very important because this was the time America was battling for their freedom. Peale had to keep a close eye on Washington in variety of situations. An example of that is when Washington conferred with the Congress in Philadelphia to discuss a war strategy for the future. Peale was painting the canvas of Washington while he was serving with the Continental Army. Basically he had a certain amount of hours to get it finished. 

   This canvas is related to any other pantings in art history. The reason is because canvases are painted in a variety of mediums. They all have different shades of colors. For example in the Peale's painting of Washington is in a brighter tone on the canvas while the background has a darker tone. That is common aspect in a canvas, which is the person having a lighter tone and the middle ground and background having darker tones to make the person stand out more. You need to have darker tones on the background because the first thing your eyes need to hit it the most important thing, which is the person who is being assembled. 

   There is a reason why I choose this exact piece of art. Its because I like American history. A common thing that comes up in my mind about American History is George Washington. I wanted to do research and find a specific piece of artwork of George Washington. This one Charles Wilson Peale painted is one of the common ones because remember this was the time Washington was leading the Continental Army. 

   Basically what I learned from this was that when a person is being painted on canvas they have to be in brighter colors to actually make your eyes catch them first before they start moving everywhere around the canvas. I also learned little history about Peale and how served and painted this exact canvas at the same time. Usually when anyone looks at art you need to know the certain aspects of it was created. Also the history of because every type of art has history to it!

LINKS TO MY RESEARCH

http://www.mountvernon.org/research-collections/digital-encyclopedia/article/charles-willson-peale/ 

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-battle-of-princeton 

http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/lewisandclark/biddle/biographies_html/peale.html 

             Throughout the course of World History I’ve learned that people should not judge one another. Yea, we have a lot of problems throughout the world, but we solve them. Some people don’t even have the same amount of freedom and rights while some other  people do in the world. I remember in the beginning of the year as a class we made these monologues about the Keystone Pipeline XL. People were protesting because this was not going to save the environment. So with a partner in crime, We have dived into the research and collaboration of the Keystone Xl Pipeline and all the intuitively that is carried with it. Most people applied beginning questions such as “What even is the KeyStone pipeline?” and “How does this affect me?”. Over the course of the lesson we began to learn that the pipeline was a proposed idea for an independent refined oil source that would run through the United States from Canada. Everyone was tasked to understand the viewpoints of people who were pro pipeline and people who were against it. It gave us a chance to step into someone else’s shoes and think differently. This change of thought better supported growth in our minds and helped our ability to see multiple theorems and possibilities. To view my Keystone Pipeline XL Monologue Project click here -> https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1-Ak9i7CwJnogtu0w12PvBqTo3ruD7asItijEuxXctm8 ].In the second quarter of World History this year we studied religion. People would always ask “What is exactly religion?” Or maybe people would “Why is religion a big part in the world?” To have thoughts as a class, we wrote our brainstorming thoughts into a World History journal. Religion is something I think of all the time. Well clearly I don’t know the true definition of religion. But what I think religion is a belief or culture that a key part of someone’s life or life style. To view my journals about religion click here https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1DLMw-Pz8MoQ3NWnknBHv1wGrynyj7sWz-8pcAtXGnAw. In my journal I was trying point out key points of what religion truly is. During the time while studying religion, I remember we would mostly focus on Hinduism, and Buddhism. When it was coming towards the end of the religion era we had this benchmark (project) that we had to describe a specific topic in religion. I chosen food because I know what always be a big part in someones culture/religion. While the class was working on their projects we made these wiki spaces page to put all of our information on it. To view my wiki page about food in religion click here http://ironreligion2013.wikispaces.com/Kevin+Courtney. Towards the end of sophomore year of World History, this is defiantly a topic I will not forget. That was revolution. Revolution is basically an instance for resolving. In todays world mostly revolution is a forcible overthrow of a government or social order in favor of a new system. Check out my thoughts about revolution which is here https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1YT4ftlTMlD6PNqPK-TcCg-hEDKxdymjvPYyHqv0l4AY. As you can see I wrote a good amount about revolution. But wait theres more. For one of our benchmark projects  we had to make a digital story video, that shows pictures while hearing audio. Click here http://scienceleadership.org/blog/Revolution_Guidebook_Project-15 to view the digital story. For World History I felt that I learned a lot about people everywhere around the world. I finally felt the true meaning of religion and revolution. Thank you to Mr. Block.

    C. Why does it help an artist to see in negative space?

    D. Does seeing in negative space enhance drawings, why or why not?

a. I learned how to not make all of the details flat. I learned how to make every detail more outstanding by making the outline of the door and a window.

b. It made my drawings more detail and outstanding. It was very interesting of how the details came out of the art room.

c. I would work at a faster pace because to me I felt really slow while working on this project. My classmates had hard times while working so I was nice and I helped them out.

d.  My advice would be practice makes perfect because people are going to need a lot of help so either I or a teacher, or maybe a parent can help for practice.

e. The resource that help me the most was Mrs. Hull’s powerpoint on moodle because it gives me a great explanation on how to get a great start on the drawling.

This is a video that properly teaches how to use manners in spanish

You will learn

• Disculpe
• Perdón
• Con Permiso

This is a video about how to tell time. The thing you will learn from this video are...

• ¿Qué hora es?
• Son las____

   Enjoy

This is a video that teaches you how to tell the weather in spanish

You will learn

• Hace frío

This video teaches the spanish alphabet.

You will learn

• ah, be, say, deh, eh, efeh, and many more of the letters.

This is a video about to greet someone. 

In this video you will learn

• ¿Cómo?
• ¿Cómo te llamas?
• Soy
• ¡Mucho gusto!
• Igualmente