Below are my descriptions and images of each. 

Sculpture

For my sculpture piece I made buttons. I made a lot of buttons for myself and I also made buttons for a few of my friends. I chose to make buttons because I like to collect buttons and making my own is fun and I get to have my own personal buttons that no one will be able to duplicate. 

Photos

I took photos of my friends and some of the things I saw while walking to the park during gym class. I took photos of Rashaun Williams and Antony Torrance while they were dressed up for their competition. I took photos of Alaya White being silly. And I also took photos with Teila Almond when we were both wearing stripes. I chose too put these pictures on my blog because these are a few of the people who I spend the most time with and have a lot of fun with so I wanted to express that by putting them on my blog.

Rashaun and Anthony


Alaya White


Me and Teila

Copy a piece of art work by a famous artist.

I chose to do art by Marvel Comics. My inspiration was Stan Lee and although he didn't draw these characters he invented them. I chose to draw Spider-man because he is my favorite superhero of all time. I also drew the Avengers (Ironman, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America). I wanted to draw them because, I love marvel and they also have a lot of movies coming out this summer that I am extremely excited for. So I wanted to express that excitement in my artwork. 

Qianna Nelson

For this quarter we did a lot of still life drawings in which we drew what we saw and not what we thought we saw. This was especially hard because when someone tells you to draw something such as a hand, immediately the thought is to trace the hand. But no. that is not what our task was. Our tasks were to look at certain things and draw everything that we saw and not how we knew them to look. Such as when we did have to draw a hand. We had to stare at our hands and draw the lines and take out the lights and darks as well as add the lights and darks. Drawing our hands were one of our more simpler projects.

Our second project was to draw our self-portraits, this was particularly harder to do then drawing a hand. A face has a lot more detail and getting the proportions are also harder. Drawing things such as the eyes and lips were the hardest parts to me. Because drawing things twice and making them look alike has always been a struggle. 

The next picture we drew was of a person, Kim. She posed for the class and we all drew her. Getting the figure right for her body was complicated and drawing the curves and such was a struggle. 

We did a still life drawing of supplies that were in the classroom. This was one of the more simpler drawing we did. The complicated parts were taking the lights and darks out of the supplies.

The last thing we were instructed to draw was something clear. I chose to draw a pair of lab goggles. I enjoyed drawing the googles and I used colors in this one besides black, since the googles were green.

The final project we did we could chose from many topics. I chose the project where we had to ARTIST FOCUS - choose an artist and create works of art that are inspired by them or that are copies of the chosen pieces.  3 pieces for art 3 students. Choose the pieces you want to copy or be inspired by, create your pieces, upload them to your blog and tell about them and why you chose that artist. Since my art focus has been on city landscapes lately I chose to draw posters of city landscapes. I chose the artist Anne Garney, because all her pictures are really colorful and I love color, and i enjoyed looking at her art so I wanted to draw something like her. 

Water scarcity: I some parts of the world the hot climates are drying up water resources leaving 1.1 billion people without access to safe water. This leads to death and illness from drunken unsafe water, affects ford production, leads to hunger and increased global food prices. 

Water sanitation: Throughout poor countries access to clean water and basic sanitation is a major problem. 2.6 billion people are lacking adequate sanitation leading to 5 million deaths per day. 

Water access:Many people have to travel long distances to get the water they need because the other ways of getting water such as through ground water, a spring, or a river. 

Resource management: This is often a political issue, usually there are many groups trying to use the same water source and without political intervention these fights for water can become nasty

This is a link to "World Toilet Day 2009" 

http://waterwars.pulitzergateway.org/?p=7060

Nearly 2.6 million people world wide, 40% of the worlds population, lack access to basic sanitation. 

1.1 billion do not have access to clean water. 

1.8 million people mostly young children die each year form water relatable diseases. 

In sub-saharan Africa the lack of sanitary water is holding back economic growth.

On this site are some videos from the Representatives from Water for People, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Strategic and International Studies and Water Advocates. These people went to these places and saw first hand the depth of the crisis and came p with possible solutions. The above link will take you to their videos.

http://waterwars.pulitzergateway.org/

This is a good website to go and check out the Water Wars. On it you can take a test to see how many gallons of water you use and give your opinions and you can also see whats going on with the rest of the worlds water struggles and you can see what many people are doing to help the problem, you can also share your ideas on helping the water problem. 

Reflection:

The way I went about choosing which laws, cases, or offices  I was going to Identify in my Benchmark was I first thought about the things I know for a fact effect me personally. I knew certain things  that really have been effecting me my whole life. So I went about researching those things and then added to them by learning about different things that effect me now. 

This was a difficult process when I went to look for things on the executive branch. I found all that I needed for the judicial and the legislative very quickly, but the executive branch was hard for me. Once I got all the laws that I needed writing my descriptions was very simple. It was easy to say why these things and how these things have an impact on my life. 

I think that as I get older I will be more affected by the government, when I get an actual job, when I go to buy a house, when I go to do a lot of things the government will be involved. I learned a lot about how the 3 branches work together and how they all keep each other in check so to speak. I learned specifically how the decisions they make impact my life on a regular basis. 

The people in the picture are the Founder Andre Wiley (the lion), Co-Founder Will Thomas (the wolf), and their student Rashaun Williams (the ram), they are the leaders of the Shinobi Traceurs, and in second rank of the Shinobi Traceurs is Tyreé Wright (the dragon). Shinobi by definition is a covert agent specializing in the art of stealth and combat. Traceurs by definition is a practitioner of Parkour, the art of displacement, overcoming physical obstacles in one's environment. Combine the two, and you have the essence of the Shinobi Traceurs.

I decided to draw them because I think what they do is really cool and I wanted to draw a picture of them to show off that coolness using my artistic talents. 

The task that my partner and I chose was how to get a marriage license. To get a marriage license is not complicated at all. You just need to have your Social Security Number and pay the $80 fee. If you have been married before or had your name changed you need to have the proper documentation proving such things. Also if you are a minor you need parental consent and you pay a extra $10 per person. 

To collect our information we simply went on the Philadelphia Government website and collected the steps that people need to take to get their marriage license. Once we collected the steps we drew our flow chart on paper to see how all of the steps would connect together. Then we made our chart digital using lucid charts. 

There isn't really paper work that you need to fill out. As I stated before you need only your social security number and all the proper documentation then to sign your signature, so it is very simple to get your marriage license.

I would change the fact that you have to pay $80 to get married, either I would take away the fee or I would lessen it. Because everywhere else in Pennsylvania the fee is $25.

I think that these systems don't need to be so complicated, the government makes you go through so much just to get what you want. I don't think there is a real reason for it all. 

Qianna Nelson

To inform more people about water preservation I want to let every one know about all the places that are helping with water preservation and I also want to help them tell the world what they are trying to do. Over the summer my job went to Tinikim national park to learn how they are helping water preservation. I wool like them to help me inform people about our water problem and hopefully they will tell ore people about the parts we are all playing in destroying the little water we have.

I will then try to get into contact with Chaka Fatah to tell him about what I have been doing and try to persuade him to also be a advocate for water preservation. I also wish to inform him on the problem that we are now living with. 

There are many other organizations that are involved in helping with water preservation all over the US and it is my wish to get these organizations more well known also because they to have the same goal I wish for everyone to have. To save our water because before we know it our water will be gone.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/639663/A%20Pro-Choice%20Story.pages

For our first project we collected bottle caps and we also made posters asking people to collect bottle caps. We collected bottle caps to give to a artist Aurora who does bottle cap art. She created many structures using plastic bottles and there caps. That to me is a way of making people aware of the plastic problem that is now plaguing our world and it shows people how they can do something with there plastic besides simply throwing them away. Which brings me to my project, I like doing things that make people aware and may eventually cause them to get involved with helping, or making things that simple make them think deeper into different things. 

For my project I created a globe and in the water section of the world I put bottle caps in it to show how the plastic is going into our ocean. I then put animals around it with them saying little things asking humans to stop all the plastic littering and explaining how it is effecting them. To do this I used a ball, paper mâche, paint, glue, bottle caps, pencils, a box, and paper. I paper mâcheed the ball once the paper mâche dried I drew shapes to show where the land is, I then painted the ball green and blue. I got a box and painted the box black, the box is being used as a platform for the ball to rest in and that is where I placed the animals. Once the paint on the ball dried I glued the bottle caps on but only where the water is. 

I really hope that when people see my project they will take into consideration the effect plastic is having on our world and on us in general. Because our individual actions are effecting our world as a  whole. I hope that this will inspire people to take action and get together and find other uses for the plastic that we have in this world because it isn't going anywhere and we have to live with it forever. 

"Is this water sanitary? It looks questionable to me..."