Vacation.

To My Audience..

Thank you for reading my Blog! 

I'm going to be gone till Monday August 6th. 

I wont get to write a new entry until then. 

In the mean time - My past entries are available to read! 

(Look to your right)

Enjoy exploring! ~ Arianna

My experiment with watercolor and rocksalt!
By Arianna Hall 

Question The Story.

My whiteboard doodles

"The more you look, 

the more you see." 

- Life of Pi

The beauty of english class is that it has the ability to open the mind of a young human. It sometimes worries me how many people glance at life and don't question anything. Every piece of literature that a mind absorbs is filled with connections. Over junior I've learned that with any book we picked up, coincidences ceased to exist. Anything and everything the author mentioned was a link, a connection, a metaphor, a symbol, for something greater. That "wait a minute" type of thinking can only be taught over time with practice. With that said, I think it's incredibly important when people look at art.. or anything really. Good art always has layers. In my first entry I stated a quote by Walt Whitman "I contain multitudes" in Song of Myself saying that humans contain layers.. there for art is the same since, to me, humans are the largest creation of art.

Practice questioning things you look at. Take one of my whiteboard doodles posted above for example, yeah its a girl/guy with a mohawk head to head with a fish.. but does it mean anything more than that? Art that is considered good art has a story behind it. What's the story behind this one? Being the artist I can tell you that it speaks very much towards environmental science. The fish is drooling and is clearly unhealthy, judging by his expression. The woman touching heads with it is becoming aware of its suffering. Also, her hair is covering her mouth, which connects to the harm and pollution people are inflicting on rivers and the environment that's unnoticed and unheard about.

Sketchbook page

So you see.. while freshmen were commenting on how much they're enjoying the drooling fish, I've been subconsciously planting environmental awareness messages into their minds. Yet the tragedy of it all is that who the hell ever noticed? Not a soul. No one took the time to question the story behind my art. 

What does art mean to you, what is it in your eyes. What's its story? Gain a different perspective, find a meaning, question the story. Oh yeah I almost forgot.. here's a quote that I wrote last year about my definition of art. "Art is a piece of a human's soul drawn out from inside them and shown to other humans to comprehend. Because humans contain multitudes, what is shown is both obvious and mysterious. It's the spirit of love and/or truth that's shared for the human senses to reflect on and to experience, to hear, to see, and to feel with the hand, heart, and mind." - Arianna Hall 

Totally leave a comment if you'd like - I always enjoy other's thoughts. 

Thanks for listening :) 

~ Enjoy, Arianna

Gallery.

Hola - Welcome to my Art Gallery. 

These are pages of my sketchbook from last year and I'll be 

updating my gallery with more photos of my 

AP art pieces as soon as school starts up again. 

Drew this after a homeless person died
at the cafe right next to my dad's work 

Project t-shirt has been going on since last summer. I had this idea that I could sell my art and different art shows and what not.. but the problem is, with my art, it's not really a style that you would hang in your house or anything. So I thought they might look good as t-shirts.

Things catch on at high schools.. like uggs. If you don't know what those are you live under a rock or you're over fifty. Which is totally fine! haha, but seriously I think I have a few designs, if sold correctly, could catch on like wild fire and would possibly pay for my plane ticket to Europe or for some of my college classes.

A lot of you viewing from facebook have probably already seen these which I do apologize for, but I'll be getting some new drawings up soon for t-shirt ideas soon. And new works for AP art! Which is going to be a challenge next year.. but it also comes with a lot of freedom to finally think up your own assignments which is great.

As you scroll down you'll see a few sketches.. I'd love to know what people think about my style of drawing.. What's to hate? What's to like? Constructive criticism is always read and appreciated :) I left the comments open for whoever wants to write back to me - you don't even have to have a google plus account, you can be anonymous! Again thanks for listening and viewing. Enjoy ~ Arianna P.S. If you see any errors in my blog that would be amazing if you could comment and let me know. Shanks.

This one I was thinking about putting on a t-shirt
would you want one? haha

Won a gold award in the Scholastics competition
for this one in 8th grade

Just a page in last year's sketchbook 

Focus. Teaching.

 "Don't compare yourself to anyone else." - Sally Harmon

Last summers art by Arianna Hall

Focus.  

This is why I want to become a teacher... why I need to actually. When I'm in my thirties and a student walks up to me and shamefully confesses that they can't draw or aren't very good at art, I want to be the person who tells them these exact words - "Don't compare yourself to anyone else." This is something my piano teacher told me years ago and from then on I've always made sure to live by it. Whenever my subconscious tries to negatively inform me that others are clearly exceeding past my own ability in whatever I do I just remember that quote. 

No matter what it is that you do, music, art, even running, you do it differently than anyone else. That's a pretty significant fact alone. Think about it. In all of human history and time that has passed, the present, and the future, you are the only one who has done what you're doing. And even if it has been done before, you go about doing it in your own way. 

Take a piece of classical music for example. I learned how to play Clair de Lune by Debussy last year. Timing is key with that piece and reading the music gives you very specific instructions on how to play the piece. However, not one person who plays piano plays Clair de Lune the same. You can't get discouraged if someone plays it much better than you do. That's where they are musically, and you're where you are musically and there's really no changing that in a matter of seconds. Same goes for art or anything else really. You just have to know any human can be extraordinary at what they put their mind to.. it just requires focus. 

Art. 

A page of my sketchbook by Arianna Hall

I also want to talk about grading art. If you've ever taken an art class in high school you'll know that grading art is absolutely ridiculous. In fact, it's so ridiculous that even your teacher probably asked you what letter grade you would give yourself for your finished piece, and then what are you suppose to say? Who would really give themselves a D or an F? Let's be honest here. 

When I become a teacher I'd love to be able to grade my students on growth and improvement rather than their mistakes or laziness on a piece that they weren't really excited about. I want to adapt my class to what the students are most interested in. Of course I'd have a curriculum and they'd have to learn basic color theory and proportion, but I'd love to leave assignments open for my students so that they can exceed it their comfort zone at first. Then ask them the right questions and push them further to think in ways about their art that they'd never thought about before. 

When you think about your traditional high school art class things can get uninteresting very quickly. Painting portraits, researching the same famous artists time and time again, pencil drawings of spheres. You want to have a basic class structure don't get me wrong.. but I'd want to introduce newer material to my students to provide a little inspiration and thinking room. Like air brushing or spray painting.. when have you ever heard of a high school class learning pop art through a lesson on graffiti? 

Sorry about my art class tangent it's just I have so many ideas for new lessons and I'm so worried that when I'm finally an art teacher they wont matter because all the funding for high school art programs and classes will be cut in America. Time to move to Europe I guess.. that wouldn't be too bad of a plan. 

Anyway, thanks for listening -  

Please leave a comment if you'd like  :) 

Or if you have good blog discussion questions or subjects I'd love to hear them. 

Thinking about doing an art gallery page.. with a few more photos. 

~ Enjoy, Arianna 

Hello! First Entry.

Divinity by Arianna Hall
- 2012 -

Sketchbook - Entry 1

Alrighty, well I haven't written many blogs before so I just thought I'd try it out. I'm sure you'd like to know a few basic things first. Humans contain multitudes, many things make up who we are so here are some that make up who I am... 

Yes, I'm a high school student but pretty soon now I'll be heading out into the world to become something different. Not to myself, but to others. I'd like to be a high school art teacher. My father wants me to be a web designer (said I'd make more money that way) yet when he expresses this opinion all I can do is laugh and say.. dad - if I cared about money, I would never be a teacher. 

Anyway, more on that later I suppose. I'm still trying to keep you interested in what I have to say and why you should even keep reading. Which is entirely up to you, by the way, depends on your boredom level. So I'll keep it short and sweet.

Me.

I want to get my art out in the world. If you're an artist, writer, reader, thinker, dreamer, whatever, I'm sure you understand the importance of art. If you don't, take a minute and walk outside. Yeah, what do you see across the street? See that building, stop sign, street light? Someone had to design that. Everything is creation, everything is art. Without art, depending on what it is to you, humans wouldn't exist. (Because I believe we're art ourselves.) Something to ponder. 

So - to throw myself out here, blogging sounded like a good idea. I made a website last summer and the link is below if you want to check it out. Just some of my old sketches and such. More to come on the blog if you want to keep visiting from time to time. http://alionsheart42.weebly.com 

Thanks for listening.

~ Arianna 

P.S. Totally leave a comment if you want.
Any thoughts & comments & questions are accepted. Shanks :)