Hockney Style Joiners

How are David Hockney’s photomontages different from yours
B: Explain how images can send positive or negative messages
C: Describe the message you intend your audience to see (final)
Upload Images: School & Final Photomontage

Hello internet! After a wonderful three day weekend spent avoiding writing an essay until absolutely necessary and playing a ridiculous amount of Sims, I am back at school, enjoying the week or so of relief from report cards coming out. (4.0- Thank you very much) That leaves me just about two or three weeks until the stress of mid quarter progress reports. (The stress cycle continues) Yay school. Anyway, if you are a third year G.T student, and have been forced to read this since the beginning, (Sorry) then you probably have seen my old post about photomontages. Not to mention the fact that you probably did that project. Also if you are a G.T student, you know that we are doing photomontages again. If you are not a G.T student, and have no clue what I am talking about, then I will try to explain as best I can later in this post, and I'll probably link to someone who can explain it better than I can. I'll also link to that first post about photomontages, so we can all enjoy the lackluster and humorless writing (ramblings) of young fetus Maddie. Enjoy!

To start off, lets give a quick explanation of photomontages. A photomontage is basically a picture created through the assembling of several overlapping images. If you've heard of David Hockney, a British artist, then you might have seen some of his work. He was actually the creator of photomontages, first called joiners. I'll link below to some of his work. There are a few differences between his work and the photomontages we are doing here at KMS. For one, because of the limitations of technology at the time, his art is done by hand, carefully placing every photo. Our photomontages are put together in Photoshop, all editing and assembling done digitally. We've done two photomontages, not counting the little practice one. One was a portrait done here at school, (Can you guess who?) and the other of a meaningful subject at home. Of course the only reasonable subject was my cat. Meow.

Now that you have a basic understanding of our project and the whole concept of photomontages, let's move on to images and symbolism.

Images are powerful things, and can send messages without words. Whether that message is positive or negative depends on the artist or creator. When you view an image that strongly portrays an emotion or a message, you feel it. Certain things cause different reactions for different people, but a great piece of art makes you feel something. That's what I believe the meaning of art is- something that makes you feel something, whether it be music, pictures, paintings, etc. Everyone is different, so everyone might have a different reaction to things. Artists often have deeper meanings to their work- that's what makes them great artists.

For my final piece, I am using my cat as a subject. When I am finished, I want my piece to portray some of the feelings I get from being around animals, specifically my own. I feel safest and happiest when I'm in my house, and it wouldn't be the same without my cats there. It's the best feeling when you're lying in bed and a cat jumps up and sits on your feet. Unless if you were allergic to cats. Then it probably wouldn't be the best feeling. In all seriousness though, the goal of my final piece is to showcase the feelings of quiet happiness, of calm, of the quiet life cats lead, outside the rat race of humanity. Or it will look like an orange cat exploded on a black background. Depends on the eye of the viewer I suppose. We'll see.

So, to wrap things up, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed. Check out the links below, to a site that explains photomontages a lot better than I do, a lovely post that will likely bring on a serious cringe attack, and some examples of David Hockney's work. Seriously though, I just reread my old photomontage post. There are actual shudders running down my spine. I will never be the same. Anyways, sorry the actual content part of this post is a little shorter than it usually is, turned out to be a really long week, and I find it slightly harder to over achieve when I'm exhausted and stressed. Who would've known? Any who, check out the links below, thanks for reading, etc, and have a wonderful day!

(PSSST- links)

• What even is a photomontage?
• Fetus Maddie. (I actually really like my old Photomontage. Huh. The writing, not so much.)
• The lovely David Hockney

2016 Aspirations!

Hello everyone! I hope those of you who're back from break had a great one, and those of you still on break... lucky ducks. The first week was fairly busy, as Christmas rarely allows time to breath. However, as soon as Christmas was over, I assumed the browsing position, and didn't move for the next ten days. (I actually was genuinely sick for awhile, so it wasn't complete laziness) Anyways, now I'm back at school, writing blogs and essays, and trying desperately to prepare myself for high school. Shmeh. Well, before I fall to far into a school induced panic, lets get on with the blog post. (There will be time for an existential crisis later.)

If you read the title of this post, or if you are in Mr. Sanderl's class and are reading this because you have no choice, you probably know that this post is about my 2016 aspirations. I'm required to have five different goals for this paragraph, so lets see what we can come up with.  First, I think I would like to work on my crushing social anxiety, which is a real limitation on my life. I mean, I am a functional human being. (Sort of) Its just that sometimes I forget how to interact with other humans, which is inconvenient for someone like me, a person with a sense of humor and opinions. Most likely why I feel so comfortable on the internet as opposed to IRL. My second 2016 resolution would have to be to write and draw more. I really love to write stories and make art, but I haven't been doing those things very often, so I think this year I'm going to try to finally finish the sketchbook I've had forever, and to maybe try and fill up my endless piles of composition notebooks. (I hoard journals) The third great goal of 2016 will be to try and not overthink things to much. I tend to be slightly obsessive. My fourth goal would have to be to control my anxiety better. To often I find myself stressing out over things that I can't change, or things that haven't happened yet. Working on this will help me take advantage of my life, and live every moment to its fullest, because YOLO. (I'm using it ironically, please don't kill me) Finally, and this one is probably going to sound a little silly, at least compared to all of the giant phycological and life changes I say I'm going to try and make, but I really want to stop biting my fingernails. It's a problem. A few years ago (le, when I started middle school) I began to chew my nails as a way of dealing with stress, which is a very ineffective way of handling things obviously. Since then my habit has spiraled into a mess of broken, chewed fingernails and shame. But thats all going to change this year. So, that about wraps up my hefty list of 2016 aspirations. If you are so inclined, leave a comment below with your "resolutions." (I should also work on better transitions, because I seem to use So, and Anyways a lot.)

The goal that is most important to me would probably have to be goal number one, because I really feel like when I start high school next year, I can start clean, with a fresh slate, which I'm excited about. (I mean socially, not academically- Losing my academic street cred is going to be a little hard to take.) Now, I don't mean ditching my old friends and study habits. I just mean make new friends, expand my social horizons if you will. The only problem with that is it involves actually talking to other human beings, which is something I currently struggle with. I plan to take it slow- for example, think over my words before I say them, so I don't blurt out Happy Birthday in a panic. (I've actually said that in response to welcome back. To my Math teacher. Oops) Maybe someday I'll work up to conversations with strangers, reading things in class without panic attacks and tears, etc. But until then, I've got my lovely group of friends to support me, with whom I have many fascinating conversations.

In order to ensure succeeding in my lengthy list of aspirations for this sparkling new year, I plan on first of all pace myself, and not try to make huge changes overnight. If I try to just snap my fingers and automatically become a socially functional human being that writes and draws, doesn't overthink things, is totally chill, and doesn't bite her fingernails, then I'll probably crash and burn within a good 5 hours. But if I start out slow, like saying hi to the new girl I keep seeing around the pod, or keeping a journal around me, or tapping my fingers overtime I want to gnaw on them, (which will probably become a habit in itself) then eventually, I think I can evolve. I can also try writing down things that are stressing me out, to avoid overthinking situations I don't have to. (See what I did there... Two for one) Overall, I'm just going to do my best to stick to these changes, because I know making them will  be worth it in the end.

So, that's all for today, if you want to read some more about why New Year's Resolutions tend to fail, or how to increase your chances of succeeding, check out the links below. If you want to read about some other fascinating NewYear's Resolutions, or more information/other perspectives on the projects happening here, check out the sidebar links. You will find a large collection of student blogs like mine, so go read! By the way, the pictures are photo assignments, where we are giving a random object and need to photograph it. Just thought I would explain since there's no mention of them anywhere else in the post. Okay, bye!

Pssst- Links!

• Why New Year's Resolutions Fail
• How to Stick to Your Resolution

(One last final tidbit- If you are into Youtube vloggers, check out Danisnotonfire's New Year's Resolution videos. They're really good, he's really funny, and they tie into what I'm saying, but this is a school blog, so I don't really want to link to Youtube. See you later!)