Forest Spirit - "Princess Mononoke"

Recently I recieved three DVDs from my father, the three being from Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli was founded by Hayao Miyazaki, and is an acclaimed Japanese animation studio. The three movies I was gifted with include "Princess Mononoke", "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" and "Tales from Earthsea". Other favorites from Ghibli include "The Castle in the Sky" and "Kiki's Delivery Service".

I really enjoyed "Princess Mononoke", a tale set in a far away place with spirits, demons, and dying tribes. What really captivated me was the epic struggle between man and spirit told throughout the story, and the phenomenal artwork. I highly recomend picking up this movie just to appreciate the beautiful forest scenes.

One thing that my sister and I enjoyed about the movie was an ensemble of tiny white forest spirits, described as being 'a sign that the forest is alive'. Though many of the spirit characters in the film were beastly and sometimes looked terrifying, these little creatures were quite cute but strange and other-worldly.

I was bored the other day and sculpted one of my own, though in the movie they appeared much larger. Just one way for me to express how much I truly enjoyed the movie :)

Medals

Ya! I finally got my medals back from my art teacher!
Here's the two medals I won at the art show for second place, and the medal I won from the Royal Canadian Legion for my Rememberance Day poster; along with a closer view of my clay Easter egg from the show.

Remember

This I am quite proud of. There was a big Rememberence Day Poster contest across Canada which was brought to the attention of our art teachers. I was asked if I wanted to participate and I jumped at the chance.

This is a big poster I made for the occasion. It's April now, and we've just got the results. We had an assembly where a woman from the Royal Canadian Legion came in to award the prize winners. I was awarded 1st place in my intermediate branch and 2nd in another. I recieved a certificate, a medal, and some prize money. My poster was also in the art show the other day because of it.

Another girl from our school won in two levels, and was awarded justly. Our art teachers were happy to have some prize winners :)

So, it's not a great photograph. In a dimmer light, without the flash, and from a head-on angle it is justified. The soldier's face is... distorted... but otherwise I think the poster was a success. I believe the children's faces are some of the best I've ever done.
The top winners (whose posters are still running in the competetion) will hang in Ottawa for a year.

Clay Easter Eggs

Also at the clay station at the art show, our school showed off our Easter spirit!
We have a clay club at school, and in honor of this festive season we molded and painted some cute little eggs.
Mine's at the top- it's red and blue with green leaves. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out :)
Also, I drew on the face to the huge egg in the middle because the girl who made it abondoned her egg, and the art teacher said it was okay. Also, the purple and yellow egg two to the right of it is my art teacher's, but I drew on the black design.

Happy Easter everyone! :)

Elf-Yoda-Avatar Cup

Earlier this year, we had a project to create a 'unique' clay goblet.
He has gone by many names among my friends. One guy says it looks like an Elf King (he's a fantasy nut), someone else claims it's Yoda and a few people agree it's a Yoda-Avatar hybrid. ???
I thought it would be fun to put a face on my cup :) A pain to mold, and a pain to paint, but in the end I really think it's cute.
He got into the second art show at a booth where kids from our school were demonstating how to mold clay. I went to go pick him up in the art room today after the show, and he is now adorned with clay splats along his backside :( Oh well, I'll just have to clean it off, though I do hope no paint rubs of!

Myself: Mirror Image

Okay, picture's not great.
Another from both the art shows. I also won a medal for this one too :)
It was a long school project. We had to draw ourselves realistically using their methods (it was hard to follow their techniques because they wanted us to construct our faces in a spacific way). Then, in part two, we drew ourselves abstarctly using coloured pencil.
It was a pretty cool project and I'm glad they thought it worthy of the art shows :)

I Wish...

Another school art project that was entered in the first and second art show. At the first I got a cool medal which I'll upload soon. It's one of the first non-merit awards I've won (patheticness) :)
The project was to make a one-point perspective dream bedroom and fill it with stuff. It took me ages and the smudging was murder! I guess it came through though, because my art teacher entered it in the art shows.
If I could have my real dream room it would probably be ten times the size of this place...

Stand Together (Collab)

My school's art program likes to enter their students in little regional competetions so they can earn some bragging rights if their kids win. I found out I was already entered in a competition out of town the day before it happened! :(
A few of my school art projects got entered into the show, and I went for a quick peek with my mum before my sister's soccer meet.
This an anti-bullying poster me and another friends from school did. The school put our actual projects on hold so they could deck the walls with feel good anti-bullying posters before parents came for teacher-parent interviews.
It's sort of a weird poster... but my classmates seemed to like it :)
A second art show also took place just the other day. The whole school turned out as well as schools from across the boards, and yet again, this poster was on display. I got to see what other art programs were doing and the great talent from other kinds below and beyond my grade level.
Photo's not great... so just imagine it without the glare :)

Cake... art?

Okay, I guess this kind of counts as art...

Katie turned ten recently, so I got the job of decorating her cake while she was out at a soccer meet. I must say, I'm not Cake Boss standards, but it's not the worst looking cake in the world. It tasted pretty good too :)