For the second semester in art this year, we are creating sculptures of ourselves.

So far, we have used wire as our skeleton and newspaper as our muscles. We then needed to paper mache ourselves to completely define the shape our our bodies - muscles and features included.

I have decided use a picture of myself rowing as I love the sport even though I have only just started doing it at the beginning of this year!

I am really looking forward to making my sculpture as I have never really done anything like this before and it has always been something that I have wanted to try!

In art this year an aboriginal painter came into class and taught us about drawing ourselves using the negative spaces. She also showed us how to do dot painting and this is mainly where the inspiration for our task came from.

I really enjoyed completing this task! I learnt so much about drawing and about art in general. Now that I know how to draw myself more accurately, I am always going to draw using that technique!

Even though the dotting looks great in the end, trying to keep the dotting even was really difficult for me I also found trying to make the right skin colour for my particular skin tone hallenging as well!

I really learnt to look at the negative spaces I pictures through this task. I also learnt to look at the lines in photographs and that I needed to replicate them in me painting to create the illusion of form. I need to make sure I look for the directon of the lines so that my picture can look 3D as well.

Overall, I am glad that I completed this task and I am sure that the skills I have learnt througout it will be very useful in the future!

Once I had finished my facial features and my bcakgorund colour, I was able to start dotting in the red negative spaces. I used to colours, beige and white. I outlined my body with dotting first and every line of dots I did, was a different colour from the one before and the one after it. To make my dotting interesting, I created a circle pattern in one of the larger negative spaces.

From the beginning of Term 2, I have continued to paint myself. I began to paint my face and a chose a warm colour for my background. Painting my face was hard because I needed show the form of my face through using different line strokes and tone. I still need to work on these techniques! In the end, I chose to use the colour red as my background colour because it contrasts nicely with the black paper my painting is on and the navy blue of my school uniform.

Today in art Mrs Vincent was way, so instead of painting we were given a revision sheet for our appraising task that is coming up. We needed to answer questions on some pieces of art work by Vincent Fantauzzo. The questions involved the elements and principles of art used, the colour schemes and some interpretations of the piece. I enjoyed doing this task, however, some questions on colour schemes were difficult as I have not learnt much about them.

Once I had painted the background in gesso, I began painting my unifrom and the rest of my body. It was most improtant to look at our photos at this stage of painting because most of our skin was shaded by our dresses and we needed to show this when painting.

I found it really difficult to create a skin colour that was realistic and close to my own skin colour in the photo. I found it even more difficult to paint the showdows at the top of my legs and on my arms. However, with a bit of help, hopefully I will be able to creat the form necessary to make my picture look effective!

In these art lesson, we had our frames all ready drawn so we could begin drawing the negative spaces.
I turned my picture upside down and I started with negative spaces on the left and I worked my way around until my whole outline was complete. I found drawing like this made my picture more accurate and I didn't realise this until afterwards.
Next I turned my picture right way up and I began drawing in the inside details such as my shirt sleeve, uniform and facial features. I found this more difficult as I need to draw add in the shadows on my face and the folds in my apron and unifrom
I am really enjoying drawing the negative spaces because it seems to make my drawing more accurate.

In this art lesson, we painted the three grounds for our figures. One ground was warm and the colour red. The second was cool and the colour blue. The last neutral and the colour black.
These grounds were put on the drying rack to dry and we each then had our picture taken so that we could draw ourselves. The picture that we would be drawing is going to be drawn using the negative spaces so the ideal picture had legs and arms spread out and not be our sides.

This year, an aboriginal visiting artist came to visit the St Hilda's year 7 and 8 students for two weeks.
The artist showed us how to draw our selves using the negative spaces making our figure drawing more accurate.

First, you draw a frame around the figure so that three parts of your body is touch the frame edge.
Next, you block out any excess detail so that the negative spaces are clear.
Then, you turn the picture upside down so that you are no longer thinking that you are drawing yourself, instead you are drawing the negative spaces.
Lastly, you begin drawing.

Once you have finished drawing the negative spaces, you can turn the drawing right way up and the draw in the inside details.