Book Project

This post is way after I actually worked on and finished my book, but I never had the chance to talk about my process making it.

I drew out my outline of the different things from La Grande that were going to be in my book. It took awhile because I used a ruler to make straight edges and making the lines nice and even. I drew, in this order, a tree, Denny's, the big red rocking chair, a tree, a house, I believe another tree, a train and a truck. Once I had everything drawn out I went over it with a white pencil. It showed up, but it didn't give it the look I wanted it. It was defined enough, it just looked like colored pencil drawn on black paper. I wanted it to really stand out. I forgot I had a silver sharpie, so I went over everything with that after. I only outlined each thing, I didn't fill anything in because I just wanted it to be an outline of a city, this one being La Grande. I colored the rocking chair red, because that's the whole point of it. If I didn't add color it would just look like a rocking chair.

After I had it drawn I cut it all out, which ended up being quite difficult. I had to cut it all out and keep it connected together. There were some parts that almost came apart because I cut the "hinge" or fold a little too thin. After it was cut, I just drew everything on the back so it would be two sided. It was easier drawing this side because the outline was already there so I really just had to draw in the lines. The part that made it more difficult was adding the truck on. I didn't have enough room to add the truck to begin with so I had to draw it separately and then glue it to everything else at the end. It made it hard to draw on both sides, it's too confusing to try and explain it so I won't.

Once I had everything cut and drawn how I wanted I put my little titles, La Grande, Oregon in the picture frames and then ripped the stand off the back. Then I glued the little flap on each end of the book to the covers. When I folded it all up I noticed that the train and the truck were a lot longer than everything else and stuck out the sides of the book. I didn't want that, I wanted everything to be contained inside the covers. So sadly, I had to fold the train and truck in half, which made it look a little weird when opened, but you could still get the point.

After a few little finishing touches, my book was complete. I was pretty happy with it. It turned out just as I imagined. I would maybe make it a little bit more sturdy and so it would last longer, but I liked it.

Artist # 8 Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol always comes up in classes, but I never really knew what his art was about. I have seen a few pictures of some of his work and know that he is a pop artist, but still didn't really know what that meant, or what the point of his work was.

After reading about him I learned that his work was about mass advertising and media. People retained their information from the media, TV, print, and images. His work was not about time, or conveying a certain light, or anything really deep. One of the most famous pieces he's known for are his soup cans. There are thirty-two of them. I read that they are about sameness: same size, same paint surface, same fame as product. (From American Visions by Robert Hughes)
He worked with different mediums such as paint, photographs and film. He was also talented in writing, publishing, television and music. (Andy Warhol)

I understand that he generated all these paintings and photos of really advertised objects and people, but I still don't really understand it. I don't see how he became so famous for doing these things. I honestly don't really like it, or I guess connect with any of it. It doesn't produce any emotions except confusion.

When I searched Andy Warhol in Google Images, these are the first ones that came up:




His paintings of Marylin Monroe and his Campbell soup cans are of his most famous pieces. Others came up that I have never seen before such as this banana and oranges. His work is very colorful and very repetitive. In his paintings of Marylin Monroe, there isn't just one of her, there's many of her. In his work of Mickey Mouse, it's the same way. There are four Mickey's on one page. I think this ties in with the advertising and showing this person who everyone knows and sees all the time.

Artist # 7 Michelangelo Buonarroti

While I was carving my soap for our midterm assignment I thought about Michelangelo. He believes that sculpture is the truest art form. You start with a block of something and carve away to reveal what is inside that block of marble, or in my case soap. I could understand where he comes from because I didn't really start with anything besides a small sketch on the outside of the soap and I just carved and chipped away at it until it made something. One thing I can't understand or comprehend is how he could do what he did with marble. Soap is soft and easy, marble is hard and i'm sure very difficult to work with.


One of the most famous sculptures of all time is Michelangelo's David. He created this using marble. He stands in cantropasto waiting for Goliath. He is pondering throwing that first stone. The sculpture is made larger than life because it was meant to be higher up so when you looked at it, it would look normal size. The detail of Michelangelo's work is pretty amazing. Especially in his ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.


I was lucky enough to be able to go to the Sistine Chapel and see it. It's crazy how much detail there is on the ceiling and how big it is. It scared me looking up at it and imagining painting it. To me, it's crazy, but it came out to be amazing. Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint this ceiling to try and get Rome back to it's former glory. It took him over four years to finish it. I get sick of a drawing after a day, I can't imagine spending over four years on something.

Here are a few other pictures of his work from Google images.

The famous creation of Adam, and then Moses. Moses was to be apart of Pope Julius II's tomb, but he died and interrupted the commission and so Michelangelo couldn't finish all the other pieces to go with it and the placement of it changed. It is still one of his great pieces, even without the other pieces.


Michelangelo's talent is very evident in his work. We are still looking at his pieces and studying his work, and so I think that proves right there that his work was great.

La Ferte Fresnel

My mom and I got into Paris in the afternoon. We were driving ourselves to a Chateau then on to Normandy. After getting our cute little European rental car,we dropped off our stuff in it, then took the subway into Paris to get something to eat before leaving. We were greeted with nice music coming up from the subway station. Because it was the Monday after Easter, pretty much everything was closed that day as well. We found a place to eat and it was delicious. I know this is weird, but I enjoyed the food in Paris more than I did in Rome. I never had that really good italian dish, maybe we went to the wrong places. We walked around for a bit, then were on our way to our chateau in the country-side of Paris. We had directions from an old guy at the car rental place and my mom thought she knew where we were going so we were good, or so we thought.

I fell asleep, with about a couple hours of a drive left. When I woke up I figured we would be getting close. It was sooo beautiful. I think the grass in Europe is much more green or something because it just stands out and there's so much of it. The sun went down and it suddenly became pitch black. We were driving on this tiny little two-lane highway with headlights that barely worked, and it started to rain/snow. We should have been getting close to our chateau, but we had no idea where it was. I started getting scared because we were driving through these tiny little towns, that literally had about one street and the businesses/houses were only a sidewalk away from you, and they looked completely deserted. It was only 8 or so in the evening too. We drove and drove and drove going up scary hills into the darkness and down back around these tiny towns. We finally stopped at a pay phone so my mom could try calling our place, but somehow she got the fire brigade! I was starting to feel hopeless and I did not want to be there. As we were parked at the pay phone an old couple opened their doors. My mom ran up to them to see if she could ask where to go. They did not speak English, but as soon as they heard Chateau de La Ferte Fresnel, our place, the lady walked around the corner and pointed, it was right there! After two hours of being lost we were there!

Although, once we got there I didn't really feel relieved. We drove through the gate on this road leading us up to the chateau. We were told to use the bottom doors so we lugged everything in through the dark hallways, stairs and so on. An old lady owns it and I think it was her son who helps her run the place. I think we were the only ones staying there, or it seemed like, which kind of scared me. It was this huge place and it was dark and seemed creepy. It reminded me of Beauty and the Beast, when Belle goes wandering around the castle. Anyways we got in and went to bed. The next morning was amazing and completely turned around our experience the night before. We were given breakfast in our room on this little table in front of our huge window overlooking the property of the chateau.
Of course it was green and beautiful. The breakfast was amazing as well. We were able to just relax, take our time eating the crescents, rolls, coffee, and juice.

That was our big adventure of the trip I would say. After that we still had to drive another 2-3 hours to the coast of Normandy and then back to our chateau for one more night. Being on the beach at Normandy was a really weird feeling. The cemetery is right above it and it's a pretty long walk down to the beach, but you just feel it. Here are some pictures of our chateau and the beach, etc.


Here is the inside of our chateau...




and here is the outside, or what I could fit in the picture.



I loved our little getaway in the countryside of France and would do it all over again if I had the chance. After our little two-day adventure we drove back into Paris to meet up with Cole and his mom.

Europe

Because we're coming up on spring break, and i'm not going anywhere I thought I would talk about a previous spring break trip. My mom and I had wanted to go to Europe for a long time and she told each of my siblings and I that we could have one trip that she would take us on anywhere we wanted. I chose Paris and Rome. It was spring break of my senior year in high school. My boyfriend and his mom actually planned to go with us as well. We did separate trips, but met up in Rome and Paris. It was pretty amazing. I'm almost a little disappointed now, because then I didn't know too much about any of the art there and so I saw everything, but it didn't mean a whole lot to me. Now, through art history and other classes i've learned about everything I've already seen, or probably saw and didn't even know and I want the chance to go back to see it again.
Anyways, first we went to Rome. We went to the Colosseum,
the Vatican,
the Pantheon,
the Trevi fountain,and I can't remember what else. Those were the main spots. We were only on vacation for about a week 1/2 so we had to split our time. We walked everywhere, even when it was pouring down rain, which it pretty much was the whole time in Rome.
We went on a tour through the Vatican and the Colosseum. The Vatican is absolutely insane. There is so much detail throughout the whole thing. My picture from inside the Sistine Chapel is actually not allowed, but I had to snap a shot! After the tour I, and everyone else was exhausted. You look at sooo much stuff and soo much detail that you're literally worn out by the end. The Colosseum was cool, but not one of the highlights of the trip.
I could honestly talk about this trip for a really long time, but I won't go into detail. It's getting hard for me to remember how long we stayed in Rome and exactly what we did. I believe we were there for about four days. I have my journal somewhere that I wrote in so I wouldn't forget this stuff, but I'm not sure where that is at the moment. We were in Rome on Easter Sunday, which was kind of a bummer because a lot of things were closed so we just hung around the city around our bed and breakfast. Monday my mom and I flew off to Paris and left Cole and his mom in Rome for a few more days.