Class 103

Welcome to Bottleton
- Zoe Tucker

Art is about expression and meaning, but it is also about imagination, and it is about having fun. I took this idea to heart while making my little characters and coming up with the narrative. I decided to take a comedic tone with my video, giving each of the characters personality and demonstrating this in a short amount of time. My two images give you an idea of the set up of the remaining model. If I was to display my project in person I would have the model for show and the short video playing beside it. I feel that the narrative is still clear even without the video, just in the way I organized the models. I wanted to invent a new little world, something that felt alive, despite it being very clearly not real. I wanted to make the characters expressive, without them having an expression and I really just wanted to have fun with it!

Materials: sculpture, video

Ursa Major - The Great Bear
- Natalie Pelletier

I love a great story and First Nations legends are my favourite. They are one of the ways that First Nations people teach values and beliefs. The legend of the brothers who hunted a great bear teaches of the changing seasons and how pride can become our downfall. I chose to share this story using both beadwork and paint on a leather canvas. Beading takes a lot of time, focus and patience. In these uncertain and stressful times, I have found myself needing to focus on what’s in front of me and take time to remember that this season will pass, and a new one is on the way. If you need a reminder you can look up to the night sky, to the Great Bear and the four brothers.

Materials: beadwork and acrylic paint on leather

“Human” Nature
- Robert Levelton

What is human nature? Sometimes the darkest things can be hidden in the most unsuspecting of places and that is what I wanted to create. “Human” Nature is a symbol for what everything in the world can be with enough hatred or reasoning. Sometimes even a little motivation is all that is needed. I find it crazy how the dark things that can happen in this world can be labeled as “Human Nature” and by twisting those words a little bit, you get to two completely separate things, Human, and Nature. Pandas are nothing if not cute balls of fluff that want love and to roll around, also maybe a little bamboo. By thinking of panda’s in the sense of human nature instead of just nature, you get something that they are nothing like. I created that such thing. Enjoy.

Materials: Blender Software

Pure
- Centaine How Ngan Chong

I stress myself out easily. I would often forget to take care of myself amidst the work I overload myself with. I decided for this project to make something that would take my mind off stressful work. I recently made an original character of a ghost named Nari, she represents my anxiety and insecurities. I like drawing her surrounded by things that would make her happy. For this assignment, I wanted to make a live sculpture and do the same thing. I thought it would be very therapeutic to hand sculpt Nari and small animals then paint them. I hope that when people see the finished product, they can resonate with Nari’s happiness. I think that self care is very important and sometimes we tend to forget to put ourselves first or take a break after stressful events. A message to everyone from me: Take care of yourself and surround yourself with positivity and things that make you happy.

Materials: clay, acrylic and misc. materials

Listen to the Street  
- Josh Gao

It has been over a year since I came from China to Canada, where I have met many interesting cultures I have never seen before, and there are also some unpleasant stories, but I am so happy to come to the other side of the world to see all of them. The streets here are very different from China, with lots of great graffiti, teenagers on skateboards walking past you, strangers in shabby clothes asking for a cigarette. I came to this strange and novel environment and I want to record all this with a camera. I want to use pictures to record the story here and make these photos into a picture album I can proudly show my family and friends to tell my story of discovery here. Since everyone was wearing a mask, I shot the first Angle from the back, the second Angle from the front, and the last one was to shoot different objects so that the audience could think about the story behind it.

Materials: digital photography

Feeling Blue
- Matthew Shepherd

I am not a painter; art has never been a talent of mine, but I decided to try something different with this project. I have always been a fan of abstract expressionist paintings as well as landscapes, I wanted to try my own hand at it. I believe the meaning of art is to convey emotions and feelings, so I decided to record my progress of the painting and see what kind of effects it has on my own emotional state. It may sound like a cliché, but I found it relaxing, it cleared my mind and allowed me to put away the daily stresses of life for a few hours. I took the Bob Ross approach, there are no mistakes in it, anything I did not like I could paint over or turn into something else, especially being an abstract painting. I began the process with texturing the canvas with various pastes and gels and then followed that up with 3 multi hour painting sessions over the course of a few weekends. I may actually try painting more in the future, I enjoyed the experience quite a bit.

Materials: paints, crackle paste, glass bead gel, heavy gel gloss.

Personalities
- Leo Damm

Having four dogs is a lot of work. It is fun though, and something that always amazed me is how truly different they are. Not only in appearance, but in personalities. Puppies are usually playful and happy all the time, some are normal and some have Paranoia, which requires special attention. I find it fascinating because it is something that we usually don’t see at first, but living with them for years made me realize it. It feels a little strange talking about animal personalities, but it is something that should not be. My Project is a way to create a visual representation of each of my dog’s personalities: cartoon, formal portrait, and paranoid (inspired by German Expressionism). For this I created sketches and used pictures for reference, then utilized Adobe Animate as well as Adobe Photoshop.

Materials: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Animate

Frogge and His Suit
- Yuchong (Chris) Wang

Frogge is my original character. He is a bisexual living in modern times. I also designed a suit for him. The suit expresses his attitude towards life. I go for a vintage shirt and suit pants. I wanted to make the whole outfit unisex, so I designed a skirt-like hemline and a shawl-like coat. I designed some overlaps on the coat to make it look more three-dimensional. The heart on the coat represents love.

Materials: digital painting

Unnerving
- Tyrian Smyth

As a whole, I wanted to create a sort of unnerving image that was pleasant to look at for a moment, but the longer you looked the stranger it got. What the picture ultimately turned into was a mock up of a photo on top of the original, with lightly coloured faces, just different enough from the drawing itself to pop out if you were looking for them. I feel it suited my goal perfectly because it does a good job at symbolizing how life is - there is always more to something the deeper you dig, even if that thing isn't so pleasant.

Materials: camera, IPad and Pencil

The Breath of Life After
- Dan Alcazar

The name of this piece is “The Breath of Life After.” The reason why I decided on that name is that a Golem, who has long since passed, continues to be used by the things around it which in this case, is the building perched on top of it. It is to depict the cycle of Life and Death and how in their end they are still utilized by the creatures around it. Many people believe that after a person or creature is gone, they are finished and that they have no effect on their surroundings. I want this piece to show the audience that once something dies, it will still affect those around them whether it be positive or negative and will eventually provide a foundation for someone to live on. In Life there is Death but in Death there is also Life.

Materials: digital painting

Mud Man
- Mingze Li

This mud man is dirty, ugly, and colourless, which is in sharp contrast to the colorful singer on the screen. I want to use this mud man to show that when some people abuse others wantonly on the Internet they are actually losers in the real world, just like this mud man. At the same time, I also want to use this mud man to satirize myself. I envy the brilliance of others on the screen, but actually I am a normal person in real life. The mud spots around the screen were left by the mud man when he stroked the singer on the screen. These mud spots are also to show mud man's dirt and his yearning for a beautiful world. However, because he is behind the screen, he can only imagine touching and embracing the world he yearns for.

Materials: air dry clay, oven bake clay