Making a Roman Soldier Costume

cThis is not really an art- or creativity-related thing but I'd like to share on my blog just because I am so proud that Chen Chen and I did something amazing during this holiday...

Chen Chen and I are two of the young people who took part in playing the skit for the family meeting on Easter Monday in my church. The skit is telling the story of Jesus's resurrection, and the roles we are taking are the two Roman guards standing outside Jesus' tomb after His death and flee after finding out the loss of Jesus' body.
We spent more than 7 hours each making our costumes at the church on the Good Friday. It was a long process and it  is very fun and even fascinating, when the recycling boxes are turning into soldier uniform, and then I can't stop myself working on it.
Almost everything is according to an instruction on a web link, so I can't say there is creative activity. After all, it really helps me learn stuff like crafts and working with my stupid hands.

(Thanks to the girls who took all the pictures:).)

 Chen Chen and I in costumes ;) 

(Two Asian Warriors in Roman Soldier Costume!)

1. Materials and tools

- Lots of cardboard boxes (I don't know how many boxes we used because Shirley or Chen Chen'd got the board in advance, but we used them for a lot of large areas)
- Cutting materials (i.e. knives, scissors, and cutting boards...)
- Hot Glue/Glue gun (for all the joints on the cardboard), and some tape (for the belt part)
- Silver paints
- Brooms (for the crests on the top of the helmets)
- Belt (for the skirt)
- Plastic swords
- Red shirts
- Sandals


2. Helmets
I'm not teaching you how to make the costume, so I won't explain every single step in details. I have some pictures to show you how I made them.

The broom is the hardest part for me to put onto the helmet stably. I kinda screwed up my design but eventually I figure it out with the help from Shirley.

 2. Body Armour
This is the biggest part of the costume, made of almost the entire a box, front, back and two sides.
Also we made an awesome shield for the chest.

3. Soldier's Skirt

It's a lot of work of of cutting and pasting. I'm glad Lucy helped us:). 

Everything should be connect with hot glue and "anything else is a waste of time", however, we tape the strips to the belt. That's why one of them fell off right before the performance, which really took me aback.

Almost done~ Let's relax and have a dance. 

Picture Time!

4. Texture
Using hot glue, convenient and dried very quickly.
Random patterns...

4. Paint it all over with silver paint!

It might be the most exciting part, though I didn't make it myself, because it is turning cardboard into metal.

And they are SILVER and SHINY!

The texture is still clearly seen after being painted. I don't have a word from my vocabulary to describe this coolest thing I've done.

(reference: Instructable-Halloween Custume-Roman-esque soldier uniform - from cardboard! by larenmoer)

More looks  our lovely costumes!

"We look so buff!" (saying in an ironic way)

Pictures from the play :)

Stand Guard...

"My God is not dead

 He's surely alive

He's living on the inside

Roaring like a lion"

Friday:　Children's Night :D

We sing

and we do puppet show

We make beautiful hats from recycling materials.

We do face-painting on each other=)

We knit sleeping mat for the homeless in Haiti.

It is how cool we CITYouth are:).

I'm so proud that we've all got talents and we always work together towards one goal, JESUS!

I'm one of the talents, and I do art.

Happy Spring

Are you tired of looking at the black & white sketches in my blog recently?

Yeah, sketching is less complicated than painting. I don't mean the process of painting is troubling though, painting is a beautiful thing. Just the things I have to do BEFORE and AFTER painting bother me so much- setting up paints & palettes and cleaning up brushes & table- how lazy I am.

Ha, I have something nice for the season this time:). 

The worst thing about the country I live in is that the winter is freaking cold. When I waked up on the morning of APRIL 4th, I saw the snow lying peacefully outside my window...  and then I swore inside my head. 

"Why is the winter here endless?"

Spring is finally here. Yeah! My t-shirts all take a deep breath from the closet.

Does this painting recall you a sweet memory of spring outing? Or does it remind you to go out and have a picnic with your friends on a sunshiny day? 

I did it just for fun, and I used texture again because it's fun!

Click on the picture and you will see more texture:).

The "abnormal things" I used for the painting are:

1. Flour

2. A "weapon" and a holder (Mixing flour and paints)

And after mixing flour and paint in the holder, I used the knife to put the mixture on the canvas. They are very sticky to the surface. 

(Accidentally, I used brown paint to mix with flour... I told myself, "don't gross out. It looks fine, just like chocolate", but seriously, someone might think I was stirring poo.... )

Cover the whole surface with the "chocolate(or ...) ", just wait for it to dry. Once it's dry, it never falls off and it smells... so good... make me want to eat the canvas like a bagel.

Then I paint my image on it. When doing painting on textures, the problem occurs when painting even colors, for example, light colors on dark background and dark colors on light background, that I have to use my brush with paint to dig into the holes in the flour. but it looks great when you want different colors appear at the same time, isolating from on another.

FUN FUN FUN

Have you noticed that my profile picture is changed? LOL.... that's a self-portrait. I'm not a skilled photographer to take a photo of it in a perfect perspective, so I will post it on my blog in later days.

I Love Portraits

These are some sketches of my friends:).

I love doing portraits so much. Doing portraits for friends is like the best gift ever for them.

I did the following two sketches during March Break.

WLX is my best friend in China. On a weekend in March, I sent messages to him and DZW on QQ to ask them send some recent pictures to me and I would do portraits of them. To tell the truth, the reason why I did this was I really missed them and wanted to see some of their latest pictures (the last time I saw them was four months ago and only for like an hour), and it was the best excuse to get their pictures:D.

This is DZW. She had a nick name from me called Banala, because she loves eating bananas. Yeah, she is a COOL person, a great pin-pang player, and a smart "nerd".

Self Portrait, June and July 2010, China

I did this last summer during the 2 months I stayed for in China. I sketched from a photograph taken in a photo studio when I was 9. I was supposed to dress like a floral fairy:). It was cute. And it was the first portrait I started. HAHAHA.

A birthday gift for Irina, Oct 2010.

That was a photograph we took when we were at a pool party at Clare's house. How lovely we are!

This one have been posted in February. A goodbye gift to Hanna. 

I haven't heard from her for a month. Hope she is doing well:).

Doing some accurate and realistic drawing can make up for my talentlessness in anime drawing I hope:).

I hope I can have chance to listen to some professional portrait classes. 

A sketch of someone you might know....

I feel so good to be here again! 

I've been busy on stuff like PHYSICS TEST MATH STUDY NOTES%*&^)(@$% in the past 2 weeks... 

Anyhow, I still do art every Thursday:D. Art is never abandoned.

I did a sketch of this guy last month. 

You know who he is, if you are an Asian or Chinese....

Yes, he is Leehom Wang.

I would totally go crazy by simply listening to his speaking 4 years ago. I was a big fan back then and since I was 11, however, as we both grow older and older, I still listen to his songs that recall me memories and look forward to his new music, and he never really disappoint me.

Just saying, I do not become a fan of any celebrity now. I like him not just because he's good-looking or talented. I attach importance of him because he has been an implacable role in my life whose music I grows up with. 

I feel like I can smell the memory when I listen to any of his song, as if each song is telling me a story of my junior life and recalling me someone from there...  

Zhouzhuang, China's Venice:)

The first look at this painting, "it's that in Venice?"

Keep looking... "hey wait, there is a Chinese boat and red lanterns. All the buildings are Chinese style, and the two pillars on the arch bridge..."

Yeah, right, it's in China.

This is in a small town called Zhouzhuang. Zhouzhuang is one of the most famous water townships in Chian, located in Kunshan City, which is near Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. In an area of half a square kilometer (124 acres), 60 percent of the Zhouzhuang's structures were built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is from 1368 to 1911.

Zhouzhuagn is neither my home town, nor I have relatives there. I've only been there once and that was when I was six. That is too young for me to remember anything there, but as I grow up, I always see pictures of its beauty and I miss this place so much.

Although I've never been to Venice, I think Zhouzhuang is as worthy to visit in China as Venice in Italy. There are many pretty Chinese bridges over the water, nice temples and gardens on the land, and boats that take tourists around the town. 

You can't miss the experience of spending a relaxing holiday in a traditional and cultural atmosphere in this small town . 

Hey, go back to my painting. 

Most Chinese paintings about Venice are very stylish, with soft colors and hazy  feelings. In contrast of my painting, I use strong opposite colors to create a scene of this peaceful small town in dusk, with acrylic paints on canvas board.

This is my painting process. I like how cool it is!

 

"Lotus" in Qi-pao - watercolor (2)

 I believe this is a "sister painting" of the painting of "Chinese Woman in Qipao" in which there is a gloomy lady holding  an umbrella and walking alone in an little allay.
Unfortunately, the painting doesn't turn out very well on the computer. She is supposed to be pinkish, just like pink waterlily color. okay, whatever, I hope orange is good as well.

So I used a Chinese photo-edit program to play with colors and lights. My paintings actually look cooloer :D.

If it's too small for you, click on it and you will be led into a site of the original-sized picture.

HAHA, more interesting!

Art Class at School (2)

Second post about my accomplishments from art classes at school.
In this post, I will show you guys the works from grade 11 visual art, which I took last semester. I did fairly well in this class and got the top mark:) Haha.
One thing really enjoyable about art classes for me was, that I could work with a group of artist at my age:D. There is no one better or worse in art, and all ideas are accepted and acclaimed. After each assignment, Mrs B, my art teacher, always asked us to do presentations about our works and to speak about our ideas, creating process and anything we might want to say. I love the moment when everyone was listening to my presenting and telling me what they liked about my pieces or what I could improve on anything.
But the very one thing I disliked was about marks. Art should really not be related to marks too much, though the teacher gives students marks based on their works. If someone create an art work just in order to gain the teacher's favor and to get a good marks, that is not a good purpose of working. An art work without sincere passion is meaningless. That's why ambition in the class kind of bothered me somehow at that time, however, I feel very thankful to Mrs B for the education.

I arranged some of my works by date created. I hope you will find them interesting.

September, 2010,  Pencil sketch, size: about 1500mm X 700mm

This is a still-life drawing of objects Mrs B set on the central table while we were all sitting surrounding it, and we drew "eyes" into the picture. Before we worked the sketch, we had practiced drawing eyes from classical paintings. 

Here are some sketches of eyes. I think they are funny though...

November, 2010, A Scream from a Chaotic Mind

This is a very interesting assignment. We each chose an artist from certain periods or styles, such as expressionism, romanticism and so on, and we did research on his life and artworks. And Then we imagine the room of this artist based on his life, personality, art style and something like that. See what I did:

My chosen artist is Edvard Munch, an expressionist painter and I was inspired to create this chaos by his painting, the Scream.

After reading about his life and a few more works he did, I assumed that his mind was chaotic, and I decided to create the room in the mouth of the screamer from the painting, the Scream. It was a great idea but you wouldn't know if I didn't tell you so. I also used his style of brush stokes, visible lines, and use of color, opposite colors and warm-cold colors composition. It took my a lot of time to sketch and figured out the arrangement of the room settings. 

Wait! There is symbol in this painting which is the white bird, or you can say it's a book, near the central hole of the mouth. It represents Munch who is trying to escape from this chaos that is swallowing him.

Another important thing art is the teeth... that is actually my creepy teeth I draw from the mirror!

December, 2010, The Phoenix Queen, clay

For this assignment, we are supposed to make a pottery and it is a pottery as you may not know. I worked beyond that I guess. Honestly, I spent at least 5 more hours than anyone else in my class. To tell the truth, I feel so encouraged when it astonished everyone and Mrs B loves it so so much, and before all this happened, I thought I screwed up clay too much and I was too dumb for it.

This is a sketch~~~ funny!

My last assignment of the course, stamping and painting... I didn't know what I was doing though and they are not my best works... anyhow, hope you found them interesting or pretty.

I use phoenix figure again, which is on my stamps. I hope you find them more alike a bird than a cat... haha. The core of the theme is "pouring", either pouring of solids or liquid. we used transparent paper overlapping the  painting and created multiple layers, and the stamping should go with the rhythm of pouring.

 Express art as music:).

BTW, this one can go upside-down as well, still pouring.:)

Chinese woman in "Qi-pao(cheongsam)" -watercolor

 旗袍[qí páo] (Cheong-sam in Catonese) is a type of Chinese traditional dress, modified in 1930s, and it has become the most popular Chinese gown since then.

Qipao is usually made of silk or other materials, and it's tight-fitting.

My mom has one and it is Chinese red (the very bright kind) with peonies on it. She wore it a few times in Canada and people said it was gorgeous.

I think any traditional Chinese cloth or dress looks really funny on me. I guess it's because my baby-fat doesn't suit it very well... it's true that I'm not the elegant type. 

Although I've never had my own "qipao", I always love the way it is, and I love looking at them and paint it.

I started painting this picture during the long weekend and just finished the piece this weekend.

I haven't tried watercolor for so long. I got the paints last year for a civics project and I can't even remember when was the last time doing watercolor drawing... the closest is only once in grade 7 in art class. Fine, I don't think I remember anything about it. 

Pick it up again, there is actually infinite fun: not only playing with color, but playing with water. 

I use tubed watercolor paints and watercolor pencils for this painting.

Watercolor paints are quite different from acrylic paints. First, acrylic paints can be painted over by another color, and can be covered over and over again, but watercolor paints can't; second, not like acrylic paints, watercolor paints dissolve in water easily, once it's dry, you can always wet it with water and it can be reused again, that's how watercolor paints work; to correct mistakes made by acrylic paints, (if the mistake is in dark color) you need to cover it with light color, such as white, wait it to dry and start your new layer by painting over the white, but in watercolor, you can just rub it with a watery brush (not too hard) and wipe off the water with tissue paper. Then, the color will be off with the water.

I should have said this earlier: this lady is not me or any of my friends. She's just from a random photograph I found from online photo collection. But it makes me assured of my portrait drawing skills that I can draw identical portraits from photograph. (well, not 100% identical... you know what I mean). That's why sometimes I draw portraits for my friends birthdays instead of buying gifts.

Goodbye, Hanna

Please have a safe trip... take care, my friend.

A friend is leaving tomorrow night for Korea, and it will be hard to tell when I will see her again in the future. 

She will be studying there for a few years in an art university. 

She's an awesome artist, and an great friend. 

I hope she will see my blog one day. 

I'll miss her very much when I recall the days when we did painting with Shirley on Thursdays, and the day when we went to interior design show and Chinatown.

She is precious.

I wish her all the best.

A "Master Piece"

I think it's a good landscape painting.

I started the painting about a month ago but just finished the whole thing today.

from a photograph I took in Buckhorn, Ontario on Thanksgiving weekend, 2010.

kind of playing with the light somehow... that is a really nice little town for a holiday.

I plan to give it to my grandmother who is in China and just moved to their new house last November. I visited her last Christmas break in China and thought she needed a painting for the new place.

Sounds good? hope she likes it.

A few more winter paintings

LOL

Well, the picture of my painting doesn't turn out very well. The original painting is 3D! 

The birdy is actually plumped up because I used a lot of tissue paper under the paints to make the shape of it.  

Similarly was what I did to the closest branches.

The snowy background is also textured with flour. 

FUN!

I actually name this painting "What I want to see"
I kinda wanted to do this painting with the colors of Picasso's Blue Period at first and conclude with bright pink lips on this girls face.
This is textured with flour as well, but I made it plain and striped with a knife.
Well, Shirley said I did a good job on this piece.
:)))))) INTERESTING!

Valentines Gift for My Valentine

 I am trying to work on a series of paintings about winter. This is the first one I did last month.
Something to mention is that this is the first textured painting I did and what I used to make the texture is black pepper.

Using pepper for painting?
Haha, sounds weird, doesn't it? Actually that day I looked for flour in the kitchen in my church but I found none, and I was afraid to use salt instead because it too easily dissolved in water. Finally, I saw a bottle of black pepper and I thought, why not try this? Then it worked out so well.

Steps:
1. Just mix whatever you are using for texture, in here is pepper, with your paint (background color). It's gonna stick on your canvas so no need to use glue or anything.
2. Then, do something else, waiting for the paint to dry.
3. Once it's dry, feel free to work on it and you will see how effective it's gonna be.

Luckily, texture made by pepper not only lies on the canvas smoothly, but also creates the effects of snowing and the fluffs of the dog.
I also add colors all around the figure to make it more interesting.

Art Class at School (1)

Unfortunately and luckily, visual art classes in my school was full when I went to grade 10.  Media art became the first art class I took in Canada.  My English was poor at that time and I knew nothing about how photoshop (I'm just a computer idiot).  Without any advantage, I wished I would survive this class. Well, I didn't expect the teacher, Miss M., is so wonderful and nice to me. She always give me respect, encouragement and extra help.  And yah, I was creative and hard-working. I had a delicate sketch book and eventually, to my surprise, I got the top mark in my class:).

One of the biggest projects we made in class is called a "shrine" which is a box with an icon you choose for it.  My icon is the figures in Beijing Opera (Peking Opera).



Materials for the shrine.

 I don't think most of Chinese teenagers know traditional operas like Beijing Opera very much, however, as a newcomer to Canada, I wanted to show the awesomeness from my country to whilte people and those Chinese kids who are not aware of Chinese culture in my class.
Then I started to study Beijing Opera, do a lot of research and watch vedios. I fell in love with Beijing Opera, the costumes and the make-up.

On a Friday, I got all the materials I needed, a box from super market, construction paper, glue sticks, college paper and some pictures I had printed out.
And then, I started working, for so many hours, oh my god.


What my shrine looks like in the end.



It's a scene of  a traditional opera theatra, with actors performing on the stage and audiunce sitting at the table, drinking tea and cheering and clapping for the show.

The sides of the box are masks of Beijing Opera.

in side and outside of the shrine.