For my second Genius Hour Project I decide to research famous impressionists painters and practice impressionism for myself, accept instead of using oil paint like most famous painters I used acrylic paint. I mainly chose this topic because I was learning a lot about painting in my art class but I wanted to make more than just one painting than what we were doing in class. So for this project i decided that for three of the painting I would try and imitate or copy three famous paintings.

The three paintings I copied/imitated were: Starry Night by Van Gogh, Le jardin de l’artiste à Giverny by Monet, and Tilting Dancer by Degas. Before I started painting them I thought that they would be relatively easy to do and that mixing the paint was going to take the most amount of time, but I came to realize that that was far from true. It took about two and a half hours to five hours to complete one of the paintings, but that is what I should have expected since it wasn’t my original work. Although I am very happy with my results:

After making these paintings I realized that there are many different ways to manipulate the paint on your brush to get all these different effects. Also, I learned several ways of mixing paint to get these beautiful colors that I had no idea I could recreate so easily. With all the things that I learned about painting and how to use all the equipment I finally made my original pieces using impressionism and also made a painting of what I usually draw:

Usually I make more abstract Art like Zentangle.

Although my second Genius hour didn’t have a huge impact on the world it helped me take the time I needed to relax since I enjoy Art and it was more like a game than an assignment. This Genius Hour made me realize that this school year I have overloading myself with sports and that I need to have a better balance of school, sports, and personal time.

Also since our next Genius Hour project has have more of an impact on the world have been debating on weather or not I should do something that involves recycling in Dakar since it is a very large problem in the city and many neighborhoods. I figured this would also help me get, outside of school, community services hours.

Kathleen via Compfight

Riccardo Marzi via Compfight

Lawn, Spence . Sun Flower. Taken on November 30, 2009. Flickr. Accessed Jan. 20, 2017. https://www.flickr.com/photos/spencerlawn/4152010108/in/photolist-7jU8Xb-2k9a4z-4M6RHT-a32By6-5Jejsm-6MYgVQ-fbiAsA-dsoSwy-6HZryV-cRHs2s-ooKnsC-ohxB3J-prbBtL-2siHsR-6HHtpR-2so5X3-8U9kJt-wTFREJ-fsCbMR-7kFNcX-fF3vnR-4Ay7gs-f81Uiu-cYxeyY-6GPEVZ-oESw8p-Ltk9Wr-6LAEFo-oykB9Z-5RN6rx-6Bihpy-cxNWAy-8wPbQK-a514ap-oyS7J4-6LC8bL-ignaaS-cHmW4b-2VEgWQ-7zpCNw-6RYKVD-2eng1R-dgMXm4-5VR9oB-JWFgqg-qmeyEL-8pyD47-49KxqZ-XVkx1-2x3yMz  .

Venturi, Filippo. Skateboarding. Taken on April 22, 2012. Flickr. Accessed Jan. 20, 2017. https://www.flickr.com/photos/blind_beholder/7108965449/in/photolist-bQciKP-PKFt7-AURTov-7CagQF-q7AJvk-5zfSPz-6aZvgt-4rktLA-p2R4Jb-dumpmD-dkkMWf-6yt6vJ-5zfSQR-55icoS-7QpvcS-5n3z19-dQr37n-33fqEq-6yt5Ld-d6Xj7o-6C67ik-qnDnif-J5xLAw-34VDqu-f3GMUq-gaEZYQ-owCXjo-bEXDdd-e3kdZB-2sdK7-7QNCmj-6Y64tN-durZT7-6AHJhh-6yt6dA-bE4UJt-fzi47-6yt62s-5upRAX-r1wZWr-6xA63i-7fgQRy-aa7snv-a4dNX-rhAtpU-6yoWZT-srADCe-9hBik5-dumpiB-6AHJiG

Something that I find very surprising is how social media and the internet works today. For example, Twitter. I have a project in my technology class where I get to choose the topic and do research on it, then everyone has to present in class. We have done this type of project in class before but this time he wants us to use Twitter as one of our resources. Since my topic was about learning to do impressionism (painting), I only followed a few people for the assignment. When I was following people on twitter I was mainly looking for experts that could give actually advise on painting :

• Chris Chalk – Artist @chrischalkart : I followed him mainly because he was a frequent updater, he posted what he painted, and he actually paints for a living. He even has his own website and art studio. I am very pleased to say that he was one of the only people to reply to a message. When I was messaging him I mainly just wanted to know a few pointers on how to paint landscapes since that seems to be one of the two types of paintings he does the most.
• Learn Art History @LearnArtHistory , Check123 ARTS @Check123ARTS : I followed these two groups because they both had great example of famous art pieces that I could practice painting, especially since the selection is so large.
• Network Artists NE @NetworkArtistsN , pARTiculars Gallery @pARTicularsArt : I followed these two organisations because I thought they would post most types and pieces of art. Unfortunately most of what they posted were dates on when an event was.
• Darren Henley @HENLEYDARREN , Kevin Petrie @PetrieKevin : When following these two I thought they would tweet things about art and where it came into the business world, but they mostly posted about what events they have been to.
• Angie’s ART @Angiecre8 : I, mostly, followed her because I saw that she was a painter, but after I looked at more of her posts I found that in each piece of her art she was really good at mixing colors especially complimentary colors. Also, she has a really good eye for good art when it comes to riposting.
• Urvashi Patel @Urvashi0525 : I followed Urvashi Pastel because I found that they were very active when it comes to making new art and posting it. Unfortunately, their art may be amazing it wasn’t what I was looking for when it comes to  my project.
• Ana @ana_m_q : The reason for why I followed him was because of his PdHd in History of Art and maybe give me some help finding impressionistic Artists.

Most of what I asked from the people I followed was advise and opinions. Mainly for either research purposes or I just wanted pointers on painting since I don’t usually paint. Sadly, when I sent out questions for each of them, only two people responded: Ana @ana_m_q , and Chris Chalk – Artist @chrischalkart. Although, not many people replied just having these two respond was just enough of a push to get me to start really thinking about what I wanted to paint and why.

I also find it really cool how even though I originally was just asking for advice I still got to continue the conversation with Chris Chalk. It was also exiting when four or five of them actually followed me back. Just with this small project I can see how it would be very useful for other classes, like History, especially if you are looking for teachers to help you decipher what was actually going on during a specific time period.

I definitely think I’m going to be using this for a different project at some point.

Today I have decided to write about art styles, which ones are my favorite, and what type of supplies I like to use with them.

When it comes to art (unless you’re actually interested in) most people don’t know that there are different art styles, let alone the names for them. For example a few types of art styles are impressionism, contour line drawing, wet on wet painting, abstract painting, zentangle, and many more.

When it comes to which is my favorite I would have to split it up into more than one category, which would be painting and drawing, although out of those two I prefer drawing.

On the topic of drawing I usually prefer using a pencil because you can always erase a mistake, but I love using sharpies as well. My favorite style of drawing is Zentangle or just anything with a lot of detail. Zentagle is basically just a bunch of doodles or patterns in any arrangement that you choose. Here are some Zentangle of mine:

These are only a few of the zentagles I have actually done.

My favorite style of painting is impressionism because it’s so real and is usually very colorful. On the subject of paint I do prefer acrylic paint because it is relatively easy to clean up and it is easy to control and manipulate when on paper. Also I very much prefer acrylic over watercolor paint because there is almost no control over where the paint goes. Here are some examples of impressionism by much more famous artists.

Hope everyone enjoyed reading.

When going to a school there are always going to be after school activities (ASA) such as sports, clubs, and student council, but there might not be out of school groups like girl/boy scouts or something else for students/teenagers. Even if there you’re not a social person anywhere you go you’ll probably be in a group or sport at least once.

Before I came to my school, The International School of Dakar (ISD), I had only been in one type of community group thing and it was girl scouts when I lived in Mauritania. when I moved I didn’t do much because I either wasn’t motivated or I wasn’t good enough to get into the group. An example of that would be when I lived in Louisiana and I tried out for the Basketball team at my school.

Now that I’m at ISD on the other hand, since it is a private school with very few students, you can join any sport without being cut from the team and you can join any club. ever since I got here all I have been doing is activity after activity so I basically give myself almost no free time so I am always studying or doing a sport. This year I have been all the sports and also green team which is a group of students that do gardening and recycling at the school and around town.

Another cool thing about going to my school is there are a lot of supplies for sports and science clubs and many of the teachers are willing to supervise these ASA’s. Also there are so many different clubs and also chances to get volunteer hours at my school such as: swimming, volleyball, softball, basketball, track and field, soccer, tennis, green team, student council, peace team, open science lab, girls club (middle school), BIG (big brother/sister), and I am probably leaving out a lot of others but I just can’t think of them right now.

Since there isn’t much else to do outside of school unless it’s surfing most people at school do at least one ASA just to say that they don’t have to much free time. Me personally do a lot of sports and clubs because if I have to much free time I end up procrastinating to much and don’t get any work done at the end of the day, but with the activities I have so little time that I don’t really think about procrastinating much.

That is basically what type of activities are like for me and how they affect most people.

Hello fellow readers/writers this week’s student blog challenge topic was school. The topic was school because there are so many students participating from different countries and school in the world and they are all very much different from their scheduled to the law out of the school. Since there are so many things to talk about when it comes to my school I have decided to talk about the time table is like compared to my last school which was in Louisiana.

At my old school the time table was pretty basic since I had all my classes every day at the same time in the same class room. It was always routine, and if you are like most students, you had to make sure not to procrastinate on homework if you had the class before lunch (don’t worry it’s just a joke).

At my new school instead of having all our classes each day we have a schedule that splits our even periods/ classes and our odd ones up so we only have four classes each day, two days to do homework, and eighty minute classes. Also our school days usually go from eight thirty am to three twenty pm. Sadly the confusion doesn’t stop their. Instead of just having each other day start in order on odd days (1,3,5,7) and even days (2,4,6,8), it had to be even more complicated. So since their are eight periods/classes, there are eight rotation days. This basically means for each rotation day would start with the same class period as the rotation day number. for example on a day five the order of you classes would be period 5, period 7, period 1, and period 3. So it still relatively goes in order.

I will admit that yes this is extremely confusing at the beginning of the year, especially if you’re new, but after the first few weeks it gets a lot easier to remember. Also if you’re someone who always falls asleep in the last class of the day you’re not falling asleep in the same class which means you don’t miss everything going on.

So this is my school’s incredibly confusing but somehow efficient times tables.

I just realized that when I first tried to copy a picture of myself it was just going to be the a contour line drawing (the outlines) but then I saw it today and just thought “why not” and added a bunch of shading. What I didn’t relies though was how much it looked like Pink instead of me. So close, so close.

Darn it.

Since for the week five blog challenge we got to chose my topic I decided why not tell you guys about my second Genius Hour project.

For my second Genius Hour I am so exited because I chose to do it on Renaissance Artists and Acrylic paint. What I am going to be doing is making several acrylic paintings to improve my painting technique but the ketch is I am going to be getting inspiration from famous artists. I’ll try and post more regularly when I start painting and I’ll probably post some of my art.

Hope you guys keep reading because I should be posting a lot more.

Have a nice day