Making this children's book was alot of fun for me because it let me draw which is what i love to do, i doodle all the time. I also got to make up a story. Everyone loves reading children's book when they're young and this was a cool experience to be able to create something i treasure.

Since our projects had to be about a job that included art, I chose graphic design. My Children's book was about album art designing.

The story is this guy named Dave who gets kicked out of his band so goes to his mom for advice, she tells him to go into graphic design (he studied it inUniversity) which he does by going to an interview thus, getting the job. His job entails meeting bands, listening to there music for inspiration and drawing album covers. One day, a little boy named Justin Bieber doesn't like the album Dave has made for him so he has a fit, and with Justin Bieber being the biggest thing in music right now... Dave is called into his boss's office to discuss his future at the design company. He is told he has one night to do the Bieber album or he'll be fired. Dave stays up all night and finishes the album which Justin likes so much he asks about the fine art of graphic designing which he decides to go into as a profession, leaving music scared for ever. And with that, Dave had saved music from Justin Bieber and was able to keep his job.

My intended message for my book was for it to be fun but look a little serious. I would probably recommend it for kids aged 5-11. I wanted the colours to be very plain and not very bright, more black and white. I also wanted the drawings to be straightforward and to the point and not spend too much attention to detail. When i was working with the grade 4's, Owen understood the whole story withouth words written on the page, just from the pictures which made me think i could have a younger audience. The others thought it was funny that i had Justin Bieber in my story.

I chose a glossy paper for my pages to help with drawing and give it a more professional feel. It worked very well with pencil crayons and black marker. I made a mistake by buying the wrong sized tip for the black markers but it still came out all right. I used cardboard for the covers. On the cover of the book i put some cool album designs (Jimi Hendrix: Axis Bold as Love, Protest the Hero: Fortress, Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy, The Fall of Troy: Manipulator, and Cream: disraeli gears) and no name on the cover just like so bands started doing in the early 70's. To be honest, i forgot all of the binding techniques for the book so decided to cut the covers off of a binder and use the clips of that and punch holes in my pages. I made the book the size of an album because the topic was album art design. I also made the book like comic book with four pictures on a page because it was doable and I thought it would be easier to look at as a child. I felt that there was more movement this way.

Two positive aspects that i think were present in my work were my drawings which I'm quite proud of because they had a 3-D aspect to them and my ability to make the whole thing rhyme (terribly). Two things i could have improved on were first, my binding technique. I really wish i did that in class. Second, I wish i made it look more like an album but easier said than done. I also wish i had made my own album art for the cover.

As I said before, I really enjoyed doing this project because I got to make something I love dearly, Children’s books. As always, it seemed like a daunting task when we first received the project but I think mine turned out quite all right.

Sculpture Self-Assessment

My sculpture is my interpretation of the song Gallows Pole by Led Zeppelin. It’s a very old folk and blues song from the 1930’s. The theme of the song can be traced back in music the mid-1600. It depicts a man whose to be hung from the gallows and tries to bargain with the hangman. He offers gold, silver, and his sister, which the hangman willingly accepts but still carries out his execution.

Oh, yes, you got a fine sister, She warmed my blood from cold,

Brought my blood to boiling hot To keep you from the Gallows Pole,

Your brother brought me silver, Your sister warmed my soul,

But now I laugh and pull so hard And see you swinging on the Gallows Pole

I started my project by creating an outline for what I wanted it to look like. I drew some rough drawings of the shape of the body and setting, as well as the placement of everything. I then started to create a 3-D sketch with wire to figure out the sizes, dimensions and proportions of the sculpture.

The sculpture is mangled and the circumstances are bad which creates a dark and frightening scene but the colours of the person makes the sculpture easier to look at and not so threatening and alarming to the viewer. This was the intended mood, a light side and a dark side to the sculpture. It creates a contrast to the image.

The roughness of my sculpture represents the maliciousness of the songs lyrics but the fun colours and bright fabrics I used create a beautiful visual that reminds me of the happy, bouncing music displayed in the song. The lyrics are about someone down on his luck, someone feeling the blues but this isn’t displayed in the music of the song, the music is happy quick and very folk influenced. Though the sculpture depicts something dark (the hanging), the mood is lightened by the fabric colours and the position if the body. I used dark, long, curly hair because it reminded me of Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page. I pictured Page at the gallows because he was the leader of Zeppelin. When it came to picking fabrics for the person, I used fabrics that I could have seen Page wearing in the late 60’s and 70’s because he was known to wear very bohemian-esque clothing. I used some fabric from the studio and fabric from my house to create the flamboyant figure. I used regular wood lying around my house for the base and pole because it gave the piece an outdoorsy feel that I felt it needed. I pictured the hanging happening in front of all the towns’ people. I got this image from reading Huckleberry Finn in English class, which is also why I chose a hanging. Also, The person is hanging from a rope, which creates a fun atmosphere as well; the rope also creates a line effect that sends the viewers eyes right down the piece.

I found that creating an image before I started the real sculpture was important to the outcome. By drawing out the body forms and the shape of my sculpture. It showed me how to proportion the body better. Drawing the whole figure helped me with the transition to the wire stage. I thought about how you draw the body and created my wire person with that knowledge.

Overall, I found this project difficult and to be the most frustrating because I didn’t really know where to start and what to do. After a while, I got a hold of the sewing but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my sculpture, which was annoying but I really enjoyed the poem/lyric part of the project. It added having to create a concept to bestow upon art.

Intended Message

My intended message for the sculpture is for it to be crazy looking and sad. For my sculpture, i want to have a man hanging from the gallows and have the man be able to swing around. By doing this, i feel i'm creating a funny aspect to the sculpture because the man is moveable and will be in a variety of different colours etc. I chose this idea after seeing the lyrics i wanted to use. My lyrics tell the story of man about to get hanged, so to try to be let free, he gives the hangman money, gold and even his relatives. But in the end, he still gets hanged. The songs lyrics are kind of playful even though its about death and being hung. This is reflected in the music aswell as the music starts slowly but builds up until a final crescendo. I want to have something like that in my sculpture, a crescendo in colour. Like have the bottom of the mans legs be quite plain but as we move up the body, there is more life in him.

Lyrics

Gallows Pole by Led Zeppelin

Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
I Think I see my friends coming, Riding a many mile.
Friends, you get some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my dear friends? Keep me from the Gallows Pole.
What did you bring me to keep me from the Gallows Pole?

I couldn't get no silver, I couldn't get no gold,
You know that we're too damn poor to keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Hangman, hangman, hold it a little while,
I think I see my brother coming, riding many a mile.
Brother, you get me some silver?
Did you get a little gold?
What did you bring me, my brother, to keep me from the Gallows Pole?

Brother, I brought you some silver, yeah.
I brought a little gold, I brought a little of everything
To keep you from the Gallows Pole.
Yes, I brought you to keep you from the Gallows Pole.

Hangman, hangman, turn your head awhile,
I think I see my sister coming, riding many mile, mile, mile.
Sister, I implore you, take him by the hand,
Take him to some shady bower, save me from the wrath of this man,
Please take him, save me from the wrath of this mad, man.

Hangman, hangman, upon your face a smile,
Tell me that I'm free to ride,
Ride for many mile, mile, mile.

Oh yes, you got a fine sister, She warmed my blood from cold,
She warmed my blood to boiling hot to keep you from the Gallows Pole,
Your brother brought me silver, Your sister warmed my soul,
But now I laugh and pull so hard, see you swinging from the Gallows Pole

But now I laugh and pull so hard, see you swinging from the Gallows Pole
Swingin' on the gallows pole!

Ah-ha-ha
Swingin'
Swingin' on the gallows pole!
See-saw marjory daw
See-saw knock at my door

My self-portrait painting went through a long process of applying many layers of colours and paint. I wanted to make a very thick texture that people would want to touch and that really popped off of the canvas. My intended message and mood I was trying to evoke was a serious but not so serious portrait, much like my self-portrait drawing. When we were taking pictures for the portraits, I wanted a serious photo but the photo of me laughing brought forth more of an intense feeling because it was so spontaneous and I wanted that to be represented in my painting by just applying whatever to it because I was so cautious creating my drawing.

I started the portrait by creating a simple blue back round with the darker outside fading into a lighter blue. This was to create a dark side to my painting. I used deep greens to lighten up the back round a bit and to add more focus to the back round. By using the cool colours, a somber mood was created but was made less intense when I added the light orange at the bottom and red streaks at the top. I used lots of paint around the outside of the canvas but left the middle open with the wood bare. After that, I created a skeleton for the body with a light yellow that I lightly applied. I used a rich orange to outline the guitars neck and headstock as well as the beginnings of the facial features. I created a brown helmet of hair to get a simple idea of the shape it would have to be. Later, I shaped out the face and neck and started painting in the shirt with a white and a little light blue. I used the dry brush technique on some parts of the shirt and a very wet brush on other parts to start adding attention to the creases in my shirt. I used a peachy skin colour to shape and colour in the head, neck and arms and a light brown to shape the guitar neck. Later I added more gray to the shirt, which made it a little darker. I also added a colour and light green outline of a tie.

I thought a positive aspect that lead me to my final painting were the colours I applied to the face. I added shapes with dark blues and very light yellows to the face to start creating shadows around the nose, mouth, chin, and by my ear. I then painted over that the next class with a light skin colour so it would sort of pop out. This taught me later how to apply shadows to the face and how to paint over them but still keep the visible. After that I added some pink undertones to brighten the skin underneath a little. Another positive aspect that took me to my final painting was when I realized I could paint over anything and that it was relatively easy to change some things. This helped me in the end because I wasn’t afraid to take risks and I ended up happy with the risks I took. The area in which I would like to improve on is creating more lifelike features in the hands and face. I want my painting to be more realistic and more similar to the actual thing being painted. I also would have liked to improve on my eyes, tie and guitar because I feel like I rushed them because we were close to the deadline. Overall, I really enjoyed painting and didn’t think it would lead to something so rewarding.

Self Portrat

The intended mood I tried to create with my self-portrait was a very dark one but with a lighter side. I tried to make the self-portrait very mysterious and solemn. By using the white paper as my medium, I felt I got a very darker look from the drawing and the white added to the light and shade of the drawing. The paper also had a rough texture, which helped when I drew and coloured the hair because it added more depth to it.

Two positive aspects of my portrait to me are the hand and the hair. The hand because the shading came out nicely and it fits well with the message in the picture. The curves and lines on the hand also worked out well too. The hair, because it adds to the darkness of the picture, it also adds to my eyes and the contours on my face. It also gives a lot of value to the white parts on my face that I didn’t shade in.

I need to improve on drawing noses, especially around the dorsum. I also need to work on figuring out proportions because that is what starts your pictures and without that, it won’t look nearly as similar to what your attempting to draw or paint. Also, i need to practice shading.

Some things that were helpful to me in the process of drawing this self-portrait were the egg head drawings because it taught me how to shape jaw lines with heads. Having everyones opinions really helped too because they saw things that i didn't see. Same with pinning my picture up and standing far back so i can see it as a whole.

Over all, i think i did an okay job on my first portrait but there is still lots to improve on.