The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Although I only read a few chapters of this book It really surprised me on how hard some of these Jewish families were living and it really makes me stop to think about everything that we don't take time to appreciate in life because at times it's so easy to notice the horrible things that are happening to you but when good things happen they aren't noticed as much.
And from what I learned this book is Anne Frank's diary which was found by her dad who survived the Holocaust and managed to get back to where his family (Anne plus her sister and mother) lived and he found his daughter Anne's diary and published it in memory of her.
I noticed that a lot of her writting in the diary was actually very well written for her only being 13 years old at the time and I wonder if they touched it up a little before they published it or was that just how she spoke/wrote?
Here is a line from the book that I would like to comment on "Anyway, it certainly shows that there are lots of officers and generals who are sick of the war and would like to see Hitler descend into aottomless pit. When they'e disposed of Hitler, their aim is to establish a military dictator, who will make peace with the Allies, then they intend to rearm and start another war in about 20 years' time." This quote struck me because Anne knows that Hitler is a horrible man, but yet she never says it as if she is saying it, she tends to use some one else to hate him such as in this quote. I also can't seem to figure out why so many people these days are willing to protest against President Bush or anythign they dissagree with, but then back then there were barely ever protest and it seemed to be that people didn't tend to revolt as much. This also relates the starting of African American slaves, although there were many African American's, they never really rebelled against the whites which made the white people incontrol of them. It is just kind of eye opening on how people are finally starting to stand up for themselves and realize that anyones voice or actions can makea difference.

Is some art better than others? If so then who decides that?

Well when art is brought up the question of what is art is also brought up. And after speaking to Stephanie Clair, she would say that art is an emotion you can put into your piece and if your personality and feeling aren't put into your art then it's not necessarily art. To me a lot of things can be art whether or not it was meant to be but I do agree with her, but it's also hard to decide what is good art and what is bad art. The reason why I am bringing this up is because I'm trying to decide which piece that I drew in class would be the best to be made into a bigger painting. I don't have that many drawings but I want to choose one that will look professional in the end. It took me a while to decide which drawing but I have decided to choose a water color painting I did of a close up shot of a woman's face, she has bright red lips brown wavy hair and bright green eyes. I chose this drawing because I put a lot of time into it and it's simple but still has very important details of the female face. It took me a while to decide if I wanted to choose this painting or not because not only do I want to be proud of it but I want the rest of the people who look at it and enjoy it as well.

Click--->> {{My Drawing}}

I met the painter Stephanie Clair today.

As I was researching different art galleries in La Jolla I happened to find an art gallery called "Eagle Fine Art Gallery" so I called the gallery and asked if I could come in and interview one of the artist who's paintings are displayed there, and lucky enough Stephanie Clair an artist I have never heard of was coming into town today, and she welcomed me to come and interview her.
I first looked for her website and looked at some of the art that she's done and she paints mostly Romantic Cubism, which I really never had any interest toward that type of art, untilI met her and seen her paintings. She is a full time artist and started her painting career in San Diego, California and she use to live in a small town that wasn't really exciting so she drew on her spare time. She had a very good attitude and answered all my questions and was really open about her life and she became the artist that she is today. Some of my questions were, is it difficult to make paintings that not only you like but other people in order for your art to sell? and she had some really interesting stories about her growing up and how she finally realized that she wanted to paint more than just landscape which then got her into Romantic Cubism. Her paintings had very strong messages and others just made you think about life in general and how we take some things for granted, and she explained to me a lot about just following what you think is best in life and through that you will be successful if you keep your mind set on that, and I believe that she is a very powerful woman that is down to earth and she had a lot of positive things to say about life overall. I really learned a lot from what she told me and I wanted to write down as much as I could but she had so much to say and I wanted to focus on what she was trying to tell me but I definitely learned a lot from meeting her. I wasn't very into Cubism until I saw her art work and it showed me a better side of it that I didn't really understand at first. She was the perfect person to interview because I learned so much about art, her life as a painter, and some techniques that will take anyone far in life.


If you go to her website Stephanieclair.com then you will see her paintings and you can read a little more about her.

Poetry Project: How to Find Love

The Poem I wrote was called "How to Find Love" and it was a sonit. My poem was pretty simple because it was kind of like directions on how to find love. Sort of like the step by step maps you can got on map quest or other maps like that. I really liked the idea of having to find Love, and I chose it because everyone is always trying to find the Love of their life and I know that my directions are not exact because it's not that easy to just fond love but it's a very good topic to talk about because I think everyone could relate to it. Such as If I wrote "How to Clean Your Room" this could be an interesting topic to some but not everyone, while Love can be related to anyone who is willing to look.
I had to decide what could I transform this poem to?I could trnasform it into a painting, a song, a photograph, a graphic design or even a dance. Since my poem is step by step on how to find Love, I decided to make a panflet sort of like the panflets on the airplanes. I drew a picture for every step and so you could proably just look at the drawings and tell what the poem is about. I really liked this project because I don't usually write poems, but then getting to trnasform them into what we want, I thought that was a great idea.

[picture and poem coming soon]

My least favorite painting by Caspar Friedrich.

The painting that I don’t really have a lot of interest toward is called Cloister Cemetery in the Snow. It seems to be painted of the woods and there’s snow everywhere and all the tries seem to be dead and have no life to them and they’re painted dark color and there are crosses stuck in the snow, and there is a destroyed church in the center of the painting and you can tell that it’s only a portion of the church and the rest of it seemed to be knocked down or destroyed. To me this painting doesn’t really give off the best message because it kind of makes the church look unimportant the way that it’s all destroyed and it doesn’t really make the Christian religion look strong. The church could have resembled the Christian religion and then it could have been standing tall in the middle of the forest while everything around it didn’t really have any life, then the church would look powerful. But he made it look like a sad lifeless painting and that’s not what romanticism is about, romanticism is about color and life and expression of romance, but this painting kind of does the opposite because it’s not colorful at all and I would be sad to see a church all by itself abandoned and destroyed.

Caspar Friedrich's powerful painting.

His most popular painting is called Cross in the Mountains. This painting was actually an alter piece. It is a very beautiful painting of dark brown mountains with tall trees on the mountains as well, and on top of the mountain there is a cross, and coming up from behind the mountain there are rays of light and the sky is gray and purplish with some clouds. The cross is the main focus of the painting which then directs your eyes toward the rays of light coming up behind it. There seems to be a very powerful meaning to this painting. Friedrich said that the rays resembled the old pre-Christian world and the mountains symbolized faith, and the trees represent Hope. This painting is very beautiful and I think that it sends off a really strong message just by the way that the cross is the main focus and it is the tallest point in the painting, I see it as showing how strong the Christian religion is, and I like how you can’t see the sun coming up and you can only see the rays because to me it’s saying that although you cannot see the sun, you know it’s there by the rays which are coming up. This could also tie into the belief of God, although you can not see him, he is still there and you don’t have to see him in order to believe in him. The only thing I would change about this painting is the colors he used, the mountain and trees are fine but I think the sky should have been more colorful because the different colors in the sky could resemble the different people that come together to form the Christian community, and it would make the painting even more beautiful.

Tempera paints vs. Oil paint

Temper paints and oil paints seem to be different but actually do have some similarities. They were both used in England as early as the 13^th and 15^th century. The differences between these two paints is that tempera paint is usually applied in multiple layers because it is thin and it doesn’t usually have a deep color saturation unlike oil paint which is really thick and oil paint has a deep color saturation. After years went by, people started to replace tempera paint for oil paint in Italy in the 1500’s. Oil paint allowed the artist to paint not only inside but outdoors which then caused people to give up on tempera paint. Egg tempera painting is slow because you have to add many layers of pure translucent pigment and egg yolk. Although this process takes a while, this medium last for many centuries.

pigments!

Painting related Pigments is a material that creates a certain color mainly depending on what light is reflecting on it, it pretty much absorbs the color. This is used for coloring different material such as paint, ink, plastic, fabric, cosmetics, food and other materials. It is a material that colors plants or animal cells. In order for the pigment to show up it must be dark enough, so it will show up on the surface you’re putting it on. Pigments are dry colourants which are usually grounded into a fine powder and used in manufacturing or any kind of art display. There are different kinds of pigment, another pigment which is not permanent is called Fugitive, this pigment is not very strong because over time it will fade or if it’s exposed to sun light it will fade, or in some cases it could even blacken, this type of pigment would not usually be used in manufacturing or in art displays. Since pigments get their colors from source light, and sunlight is considered white light. Artificial light in some parts have great peaks in parts of their spectrums and deep valleys. Through this you will then see different colors in different pigments.

tempera paints!

Tempera or egg tempera is a type of paint for artists and is also an art technique. This pigment is carried in egg, casein, gum, or glycerine solution in water. Tempera paints are usually made in pots or tubes and only need water or sometimes casein and egg medium. It is kind of dull and is not glossy or clear, so the color lasts longer. It is also buffed so it could have a rich look to it. When making this type of paint you have to make sure that you don’t use too much egg yolk or else it will start to look clumpy, and too much water can make it runny. This paint is usually a little thick.
Tempera is the oldest method of painting in the world. This paint is still seen today such as in the wall paintings of ancient Egypt. The use of tempera paint was being used throughout Europe and Italy, in the 13th and 14th century. Tempera paints where perfect for those times and even now because it is so strong that the color does not die or discolor. In Italy painters of the renaissance grounded their colors by hand and mixed the powdered colors with the medium, unlike now where tempera paints are prepared in tubes or pots and water or some other medium is added and that’s it.

Caspar David Friedrich!!

Caspar D. Friedrich was born in Greifswald, Hither Pomerania. Unfortunatly his mother died when he was only 7, his sister succumbed to Typhus fever and his brother drowned in a frozen lake, while trying to save Friedrich. In 1790 he studied art with Johann G. Quistorp at the University of Greifswald. He usually painted with India ink (black ink also known as Chinese ink), watercolor and sepia ink, and after the age of 30 he got into oil painting. He usually drew landscapes of northern Germany. He also would incporporate crosses into his paintings. Then in 1835 he got a stroke which caused him limd paralysis and after that he wasn never able to paint again. :(

Why did the industrial revolution happen in Europe during the 18t/ 19th century??

Some people might wonder why wasn't China the first to invent all these industrial machines? And after researching, I found that China was so advanced that they had other tools that werent machines to do their work for them, so thats one reason why Europe was the first to create all these innovations. Another reason was because Europe and many other countries are always competing, and so Europe was trying to be ahead so they tried to think of as many new inventions as they could, they were also looking for ways to make jobs easier & that's why they were inventing machines such as the Cotton Gin because they wanted to get more done in a lower amount of time.
But Europe didnt magically start building new inventions in the 18th/9th century, because a lot of their inventions were thought of before but not untill the 18th/19th century did they actually start to work better than before and now they were actually more handy.

PURPOSE OF MY BLOG--->>

If you do not know me, my names is Melissa and i go to High Tech High and I am a Sophomore.I have been attending HTH for 2 years now, and I went to High Tech Middle for all 3 years.
Since it is now the second semester of the school year we are now starting a new project called ARTifacts & through this project we are going to be learning about the history of art & we are also going to learn about the History of the Industrial Revolution, and World War II.
I hope you find my blog helpful and interesting because I am going to try and post as much Info, Websites, and Pictures about my projects as possible. So feel free to read my post and don't hesitate to comment my blog.