Ceramics 7

The last few weeks we started to discover new materials. Mainly card board. We all made different stuff, like animals, objects or extraordinary and simple artworks. I made a 3D video camera that I glued together out of at least 10 different shapes of card board. But others seemed to be more creative and made a toilette, a guitar various animal shapes.

We also got to experience a real sculptor's job: we had to make a human out of clay. We also had a model, so it felt really professional. Although my sculpture did NOT turn out professional, as I couldn't even from the model's leg and made a mermaid out of it. To be honest I don't really find pleasure in making perfectly true to life realistic drawings, or sculptures. In every kind of art form I prefer the more imaginary and surrealistic style. Probably that is one of the reasons why I weaved my own style into this piece and also created a cat head and angel wings.

At least I got the most of what I could make out of raw material and a well established idea. All in all it was good experience to get familiarized with all these techniques and materials, I really enjoyed creating some of the works, but also I found out, that I will probably never become a sculptor artist.

Ceramics 6

To be a pot or not to be. Not to be.

It is one of the most classical objects that human makes out of terracotta. People have been making pots since ancient times for different kinds of functions. Of course many methods had been developed to make the creation process easier and modern. Such as the wheel, which unfortunately we did not have. Anyway I tried my best to make a round pot but as it did not work out for me, I got a little angry and expressed some intensity on my 'pot'. I pushed the sides together and wanted to restart, but then I realized I actually like this form that I gained, so I started to make this crooked pot a little design on the side. Probably it wouldn't be good for containing food...but it could make a perfect pot for small plants.

Ceramics 5

A snail, a mushroom and a ladybug. I made these little forest characters for the title of this class which was: enlarge. We had to take a photo or an object that we had to copy and enlarge. This was actually a pretty simple task. It felt like the old childhood memories where we did exactly the same thing with play-doh i.e. plasticine.

Ceramics 4

Our next task we had to make a carving out of flat clay. I actually made more but only the one on the photo below came out good. So first I got a piece of clay and then I made a round shape and started flattening it with my palm. Our teacher gave us all kinds of tools that we could carve with, so this way we experienced the difficulty and the method of how these tools work with material. I ended up drawing an eye-looking bird into the clay and then shoveling out the rest around it so the figure could stand out more. Also my teacher seared it out in the end.

Ceramics 3

The following class we continued to work on our masks. This time we mainly had to work with newspaper and glue. First we covered the inside of the plaster form with denaturated alcohol, then with soapy water. Secondly we started the long process of filling the plaster form with newspaper dipped into glue. We had to make at least 7 layers out of newspaper, so it would be strong enough to function as a mask. Finally we just had to wait a week until the mask dries out.

So the next week when we came to class we had to break the plaster on top of the newspaper, so we won't harm the newspaper, and voilá it was there...my own hand made mask.

Just to make it a little bit more good looking, we painted the mask, and then it was completely finished after long hours of 3-4 weeks' work. You can see the final version on the picture below:

Ceramics 2

The following week we started a major project, which was to make a mask out of news paper. As simple as it may look like, I will tell you it was not at all! :) First of all we had to make a positive of the mask out of clay, and then pour plaster all over it, until it was completely covered. We had to wait quite a few minutes till the whole thing dried up, so we can take the clay out of the plaster. It was a bit difficult because the clay sticked into the plaster, and it was hard to see if the plaster was dry enough.

Ceramics 1

On the first lesson we met our teacher, and after a small introduction we started to get down to work. This wasn't like the other practicum classes we had so far. We got dirty. Clay and plaster was everywhere. We didn't do much serious work, since we were just getting familiar with the different types of materials. It felt like a little kindergarten group where curiosity and excitement took over the children. Everyone fell really deeply in love with the creation of their very first "masterpieces" :)

Webdesign 10

The last class we were still dealing with the last touch ups on our BAAM website, but finally we got to finish it and present it to the class and Dr. Phil. We were really happy to see our website done that we have worked on for weeks. I believe we learnt a lot about programming, team work and making videos. I definitely think we developed a lot since our first website, which is good since this was the point of this class, to really start to see into how things work around websites.

Webdesign 9

During the process of the website we came across some difficulties, like programs not working, or people not being prepared with their tasks. However in the end everyone accomplished their goals they had considering this website. We really worked hard on it to make it as brilliant as we can. We even had hand drawn background which turned out to be extremely good-looking.

Our Media content got to be very vivid too, as we embedded 3 student made videos such as a 10 minute long interview video, a virtual walk in the school video and a slideshow of photos made by the Baam students.

Here you can watch them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1PeBVv0LUQ -interviews

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnaNTsvBtc - virtual walk in the school

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PZ-ZfgnhrY - slideshow of IBS Baam students

I believe our website turned out really good.

Webdesign 8

By the next lesson we already had a Facebook group established for our Friday team, which I started to make useful right away. I wrote every detail and information we discussed in class as a summary so those who did not attend class will know what is going on with our project. With this task, writing information on Facebook I became something like the organizer of the team. In the beginning I didn't know It was going to turn out this way. But as I was very enthusiastic about it, and I wanted to make this website really good, I did not regret it at all. I was happy to help the others, give small presentations about the project. I even made tables that contained all the departments, and who does which task for our website.

Webdesign 7

The next class our group started to put ideas together, such as the main outlines of how the website will work and look like. We had departments like: Design, Content, Structure, Interviews, Photos, Programming and Media. After we agreed on each department we will belong to, we discussed the first and most dominant task, the design. Since I knew I was going to be in the design team, I already looked for some ideas before class, so this way if we have ready ideas, we won't have to spend time on coming up with an idea that everyone likes. Fortunately everyone was satisfied with the theme i came up with, which was the 50's Rock and Roll style. We even decided to make a Facebook group so we can keep up with each other during the process.

Website 6

As we finished our first major task we got involved with the idea with our new and final task. This was a team assignement, wich we had to accomplish as a group. We had to decide on who will do what and put each one of us into a department.

Webdesign 5

Finally when we finished our websites, we got to show it to the class in a short presentation talking about the content, how we made the website and show everyone how the website works itself. After we got through with it, people and our teacher commented on it, to highlight the negative and positive points in our work, so we can learn from our mistakes and develope so the next time we make something similar, we can make it better than the previous one.

Webdesign 4

As I mentioned before I decided to go with a simlpe, clear, easy to navigate website. Throuout the weeks I have learnt plenty of information and even gained a little rutine in designing webpages. But still correcting all the details, to make a webpage perfect takes up lots of time. So finally I started my webpage. I had a home page and 3 other main pages, plus two other subpages. The four main pages could be accessed from every page exept from the subpages. My subpages were: Home, Biography, Gallery and Contact information. My subpages namely: Early paintings and Recent paintings, could be reached from the Gallery where two hyperlinks led to the actual gallery. My home page had a title and one of my art work. The rest of the pages were just text, and the galleries were made with boxes that contained my paintings and their detail information such as the date of creation and the title of my painting.

Webdesign 3.

As a topic for my website I chose to make an organized website for my paintings. Dr. Phil taught us to resize pictures and even introduced us to a free online photo shop program so we can make a creative design for our website. I didn't want to make a very confusing over decorated site, so I kept it really simple. I spent most of my time sketching down my website's layout on paper, then testing it in dream weaver. In dream weaver it wasn't that easy as I planned it out in my head, so that gave me a challenge that needed to be solved.

Webdesign 2

After we learned how to use the Dream weaver program, we got our first task to accomplish as a midterm assignement, which was to pick a topic that we are interested in, do a research on it, then make our own website out of it based on what we have learned. It took serious preparation since we had to decide on our topic, how the web page will be built up, what kind of theme and layout we want to use and how many pages will it consist of. I wasn't sure what topic to pic, so enevtually I decided to make a web site for my painting.