Art from Geometry Class

The school year has ended. During the year that recently ended, multiple projects I completed for my geometry class had artistic final products. For one of these projects, I had to create a billboard for a company (either one I made up or one that exists, but I chose to make up one) by graphing straight lines. I found the domain, range, and equation for each line on the graph. My company was called Unlimited Mobile, and offered unlimited talk, text, and web on mobile devices for $30 a month.

Here is a photo of my graphed billboard design:

I was allowed to add curved lines and other extra lines for the final billboard. Here is a photo of the final colorful billboard. The bars are the lines that tell you if your phone has a signal, and the arrow represents the unlimited nature of the service.

Another project involved creating a model of a three-dimensional building with two different types of 3-D shapes. I combined a cylinder and a rectangular prism. The cylinder was partily located inside the rectangular prism, so I had to solve for and subtract the overlapping part when calculating the surface area and volume of my building.

Here is a photo of the net of the building:

This is a two dimensional drawing of the building drawn about the same size as the net:

Here is a video that shows the final building after the net was colored and tapped together I decided to call my building a theater because the cylinder reminded me of a round theater. The rectangular prism could be a hallway:

Music: Life of Riley
Royalty-Free from incompetech.com

Exciting News: I am Starting an Uploading Schedule on YouTube!

It has been six months since I uploaded a YouTube video. I had been filming videos, but until I downloaded Adobe Premiere Pro, I was struggling to edit them. Also, uploading YouTube videos requires a lot of time (unless the internet speed is very fast) and data. I could only upload in places with unlimited internet access. Recently, I not only got new editing software, but I also got the feature on YouTube where you can schedule posts. Now I can upload multiple videos when I have good internet access, and schedule them to publish at different times! Watch the video below to know how often I plan to publish videos:

What do you think of videos like this where I just talk to you? I was thinking of doing ones like this more often, as well as asking questions on social media (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and YouTube under the name Varietygirl1). You can also leave comments on these blog posts.

It's the One Year Anniversary of my First Post!

One year ago, on May 20, 2014, I created a post on this blog for the first time. 

Link to first post: http://miriamsketchbook.blogspot.com/2014/05/first-post-first-video.html

       I promised to show readers what was not shown on camera in my YouTube videos. I think that goal was met, considering two posts had to do with artwork not shown in videos. Other posts showed water damage to my lace drawing, and part of the process of creating the fake food that had to be cut out of the video. I do not know if this blog has inspired anyone, though it has gotten more views than I expected. 

       For the second year of this blog, I hope to engage with my readers more. This does depend on you to comment, or share on social media. I would like to know what you think of posts, and what you would like to see me make next. I have redesigned my blog recently so the links to my social media pages are more easily view-able. The part that depends on me is the posts themselves. I have only made five posts in the past year. I want to start posting at least once a month, if not once a week. This will encourage me to draw more.

       I know I have not uploaded YouTube videos in a while either. It was November 2014 when I last uploaded. I was having trouble with the editing software. I was using two programs that came with my computer; Windows Movie Maker and Cyberlink Powerdirector10. I liked both programs at first, and had made my first sixteen YouTube videos with them, as well as videos for school projects. Lately, the programs have constantly crashed when I was using them, as well as blur footage that was not blurry before editing. This may be due to them being older versions. The other day, I purchased Adobe Creative Cloud. I have been using Adobe Premiere Pro at school, and have two videos half edited. As soon as I download the program to my computer, I will be able to edit videos at home again. Now I can edit over this summer as well. New videos are coming soon. The pictures below show three pieces of artwork I am currently editing videos based on:

How to Draw a Daisy:

How to Draw a Knitted Scarf:

How to Draw Realistic Eyes:

How to Draw a Jack-o-lantern:

(I will probably upload this one closer to Halloween.)

A Not Very Fancy Street Scene

    In one of my classes, I needed to make a backdrop for a play. Seeing as the play is comical, I decided to not make the drawing of the street scene I needed too formal. I looked at a street view on google maps that was similar to the scene I wanted to draw. I made a quick sketch in pencil, went over it in marker, and added color with colored pencil and crayons. It took less than an hour to make this drawing.

Caught In the Rain: A Lace Doodle

Read about how my lace drawing, and video, came into existence:

One day, earlier this year, I was sitting in school with all my work done. There was still more than ten minutes of class left, so I decided to take out a piece of paper and draw. The only paper I had at the time was lined or graph paper. I chose the graph paper because it had lighter lines.

At this point, I did not know what I was going to draw. First, I needed a writing utensil. All my pencils needed sharpening. I managed to find a pen that barely worked. I moved the pen in circles to get the ink started.








When I took the pen away, I noticed that these squiggly lines looked like stitches in cloth. I practiced making this type of line a few times, as you can see in the photo on the left, and then decided to draw lace.










I was not able to finish my drawing before I had to switch classes. However, when I got home, I decided to work on it. My camera and tripod were already nearby, so I filmed myself drawing. I didn't notice that there was a smudge on my camera until after I finished the drawing. I didn't have time to start over. Instead, I saved the footage on my computer, and debated whether to turn it into a video.

Months went by. I soon forgot about the lace video. When the school year ended, I took all my papers and folders home. The other day, I was flipping through one of these folders when I found my lace drawing.

The corner had been damaged from one day where I had to walk through heavy rain, but luckily the water had not reached the ink.

Looking at this paper again, I decided to finish the video I had filmed months before. The footage was a little shaky, but I felt that since this drawing had survived the rain storm, it was worth finishing the video.

And here it is:

Printmaking: The Element Stannum (Tin)

In my art class at school, we made our own prints that represented an element. I was given the element stannum, which is more commonly known as tin. The stamps had to include the atomic number and symbol.

First, I made three sketches with a black, thin-tipped sharpie:

 As far as archaeological records show, tin was first discovered by people somewhere in Europe or the Middle East. This map with a question mark symbolizes how the exact location of the first tin mine is unknown.

(This is the sketch I used to make my print.)

 Tin can be melted with copper to form bronze. This process was first used around 3000 BC, a time known as the bronze age.

The atomic symbol of copper is Cu, and the atomic symbol of stannum is Sn.

Bronze is used to make bells and other objects.

Tin is also used to coat the spot where two wires join.

 After I decided which design I would use, I traced the sketch with pencil.

Then, I flipped the tracing paper, placed the paper on top of a board, and used a pen to go over the edges of the design.







Next, I used a cutting tool to remove material from the areas of negative space. When I was done carving my stamp, it looked like this:

I used a roller to put paint on my stamp. Then, I placed a paper on top, and pressed the paper down by rubbing a wooden spoon over it in a circular motion. I carefully removed the paper, and let it dry overnight.

This is what what the final stamp looked like:

An Attempt at Making Clay Food

For my Spanish class, I had to preform a restaurant scene. We were allowed to use props, and I decided to make clay food (rolls, flan, and a strawberry).

Dinner Rolls:

I made clay rolls by making aluminum foil balls, and covering them in a thin layer of baking clay. I wanted to paint the rolls with different shades of brown, to make the rolls appear baked. I used watercolor paints, until all the colors started to blend together. When I tried to add a second coat of paint, the first coat became wet again. In the end, I painted the entire roll with one shade of brown. I placed the rolls in a wicker basket.

Flan:

I thought it would be easier to make the flan out of paper mache than clay. First, I tried to make the flan out of a yogurt container covered in paper mache. The next day, the paper mache dried, but the yogurt container smelled like spoiled milk, even though I had washed it with soap and water. I decided to throw this flan away, but I didn't give up.

I looked through the recycling for a container shaped like a flan. I found a plastic applesauce container, which didn't smell of spoiled food. Due to lack of time, I decided to paint the container without covering it with paper mache. I covered the entire container, inside and outside, with yellow acrylic paint. After the yellow paint dried, I covered the top of the flan with light brown acrylic paint.

Once all of the paint dried, I placed the flan on a plastic plate. Then, I placed a clay strawberry on top of the flan.

The Strawberry:

The strawberry was the only piece of food I was able to make without any problems arising. It was made out of baking clay, which I covered with acrylic paint. To see how I made the strawberry, click the video below: