Project Introduction
The explorations project is a miniature scale of what the Zenith project is going to be in our senior years, allowing us to expand on essentially anything as long as we’re using our creativity. For my explorations project I knew that I wanted to do something relating to painting because I haven’t painted anything physically ever since I was in elementary. I was able to find a ceramic lamp which instantly sparked my creativity, so I painted on it for my project.
Process
I began my project by bringing the lamp which I bought at Goodwill to Freestyle. I knew when I bought the lamp that I wanted to go with a Starry Night type of vibe with the style, and later on I decided I wanted to take creative liberties with some of the colors by adding more pops of color. I used paints and brushes which were lent to me by Ms. P and GiselleM. The colors which I mostly wanted to use were Dark Blue, Light Blue, Yellow, Green, and Pink.
On the first day I started working on my explorations, I mostly focused on adding enough layers of blue onto the lamp to make sure that the white underneath wasn’t visible. Past that I added yellow paint around all of the individual circle cutouts to make them look like the yellow stars in the Starry Night painting.
On the next day that I was able to work on my project, I was able to finish it by adding all the finishing swirls on the top of the lamp with the guidance of my friend GiselleM. I started them off by adding a base of a light blue that I had, and then after that I would add darker streaks along it to blend it in with the background. After that was when I added white streaks and pops of color like pink and green.
Final Presentation
Reflection
Looking back, I think I could’ve had more fun with my project and added more swirls to the lamp. Originally I feared messing up the yellow stars, but I later figured that if the swirls overlay with the stars that it just gives me an excuse to add small bits of yellow to portions of the swirls.
Poetry Production
For the Explorations unit in English, we learned a lot about poetry and expressing ourselves through it. Mr. Greco had a guest named Ms. Moore who taught us about poetry techniques a week, and from her I learned about different ways that poets created their own poetry.
For my poem I decided to write about pearls, and what they mean to me. The part that I covered the most was how much I admire the colors of pearls, and how every authentic pearl is unique and different than the others as opposed to synthetic pearls which are perfectly circular.
Pearlescent
rainbow through prisms, lenses
subtle shines, refracting lights
White, Cream, Purple, Pink
an attracting eye
colors so alive, seeming to move
infinite mollusk
imitated beauty, hidden by artificiality
Nacre shines
natural diversity
formed to be fake
yet, known for regality
I believe that my music and photos well portrayed the spirit of my poem, as it’s very lowkey and calming. On the other hand I think I could’ve done better with my recording process and said my poem in a calmer manner.
In writing my poem production itself, I took creative freedom in emphasizing the colors that I wrote about. I took this artistic choice because the main focus of the poem, pearls, to me mainly revolves around it’s eye catching color. I think the allure of pearls themselves lie in it’s color, so I tried to emphasize it the most.