English Studies 12 FINAL Goal Setting workshe
This week, we started a new chapter which is Trigonometry! Last year in grade 10 during Trig, I did really well during the unit and for the unit test but when it came to the mid term, when trigonometry appeared, I had somehow completely forgotten the entire unit and how to do it all so I did pretty horrible on that part of the mid term, so this year when trigonometry was brought back, I was definitely a bit scared for if i would be successful and that definitely didnt help me to learn it.
But now that we’ve spent more time on it, i definitely feel more comfortable but I’m still not 100% there so i will most certainly be discussing it all with my tutor this weekend. It was also very interesting to learn how all of those triangles we’ve been working on since trig started have actually been on a graph this whole time and that makes so much more sense to me and has helped me fully understand the concept as a whole better aswell.
After my tutoring session, i’ve understood a lot more from this past week of mathematics. I had completely forgot how to truly find the angle or the length of a side by using the (Sin O = -3/7) type of equation, and the way you would do this is by moving the (Sin) over to the other side of the equal sign which turns it into (O = Sin^-1 (-3/7) which will equal to the degree you are looking for. I know that is last year’s work, but i had forgotten how to do it and you simply cannot build off last year without this peice of it.
Mission Sustainability is my personal inquiry project. It is not just one, but several pieces of art made to brighten up my room and help to stop the buying of cheap plastics that are destroying this earth.
I made 3 things, a small dish with mushrooms lining the outside, a medium sized patterned mug, and a painting of a mountainous landscape! I wanted to make objects that I would be guaranteed to use and love, that I could put in my room and keep them for a very long time, instead of buying the same objects made of toxic materials that are killing our planet. These works involve several different media, including ceramics, acrylic paint, and more!
I got this project done much quicker than I thought so there really aren’t too many posts about it, because I focused on it and sole-ly it for 2 weeks straight and got it done in those 2 weeks. I ended up using a little knife to poke a hole into the bottom of the elephant head so that i could stick the chopstick into it and the chopstick was already very tightly attached to the clay base which gave it a great weight that isnt too heavy to hold but feels heavy enough to suggest good quality and a nice weight to hold in your hands. i made sure to cover every last piece with the silver metallic paint which made it very shiny and also surprisingly very soft! One thing that i struggled with, was painting the chopstick! I think it’s because it’s a quite small, thin object, and it was also previosuly coated with some kind of plastic to make it smooth and splinter proof for the users to eat with, but that just made it hard for the paint to stick to. But eventually, I figured out a way to paint it which was basically just taking my sweet time painting it. Because the only way the paint would stay in all places was to do it in sections and then let it FULLY dry before painting anywhere near it. I’m very pleased with how it turned out, here is a picture of it all finished!
Lack of Tusks
May-June 2022, Mixed Media
Emma Barkley
Lack of Tusks is an award I gave to myself for being the #1 elephant lover. It is made with clay, wood, silver acrylic paint, and paper mache.
The elephant has always been my favorite animal since i was a child, and when i learned of the horrific abuse they go through from hunters to take their tusks, I was deeply upset. So with this project, I chose to not make tusks on my elephant because humanity as a whole has normalized these kind of attrocities so strongly, that you wouldnt even notice the lack of tusks until you see the name of my art.
I like the way they used cardobard for the find, maybe ill do that with the ears?
I like the bright colors and the unique shapes.
I like how large the base is, but im thinking of making a less circular base.
I like how it gets thin in the middle and is larger at the top and the bottom.
My quality is going to be for “#1 elephant lover” an image that symbolizes this quality is an elephant head, here is a drawing of what i’m thinking my award will look like. Also, I’m thinking of making it a fully silver award so it appears more professional and as if it’s made of pure silver so that’s why it doesnt have bright colors on it.
I’ve decided that for my project I was gonna make a paper mache elephant because they’ve always been a big part of my life because ever since i was young, i would always love elephants because the word elephant starts with an “E” and my name also starts with an E and when i was young that was enough for some reason to be my favorite animal! Then as I got older, I got very interested in how hunters would kill such a beautiful and for the most part peaceful animals for it’s tusk alone! It baffled me how another human could be that cruel, and when I learned how many different elephant species were going extinct it caused a great internal panic that had me very stressed for along time even though I would probably never even get to see one of those amazing animals in person. So I’ve decided to make an elephant head, for my award but not give it tusks because without reading all this, no one would even think about how the tusks are missing and that proves a definite point. We as humans are so used to seeing animal abuse/cruelty that we’ve subconsciously normalized it. My award will be for “#1 elephant lover” and it’ll be a solid metallic shiny grey color (to look as though it’s made of pure silver) with a thick clay base and a thin stick that connects to a medium sized elephant head with no tusks. The thinnis of the stick connecting the clay to the head will also reflect on how they’re a dying species so it can almost look like the thin malnourished body/spine of an elephant. I have accidentally deleted the pictures i took of me making the award but i started by making the head, trunk, and ears seperately out of crumpled newspaper, then i attached it all together with tape and began putting the newspaper strips on making sure to keep it smooth. I made the clay base and left it to dry for a couple days and used a chopstick to connect the base to the head.
At first I found this project very difficult because of the handle situation but when i re-did it, i used what I had previously learned with my failed mug, and it was quite easy!
During this project I learned how to make the handle thick enough for it to not break when it dried out, but to make it not so thick that it doesn’t hold when i attach it to the cup itself.
If i did this project again i would probably add arms with clay just like i did the legs!
The glaze came out great with no bubbles or cracks and it’s completely water-tight and doesnt have any painting mishaps like spoltchy underglaze or lazy looking lines or bleeding. I’m very pleased with how this mug turned out and also love the size of it because I needed a new mug that was slightly bigger because I accidentally shattered the one i normally use at home! It was the perfect time to make this mug.
The handle has also turned out great! It’s super strong and is most definitely not coming off which shows how much I’ve learned from my first attempt at the monster mug project where the handle dried and cracked and completely broke. Here’s some pictures of the final product!
Update: I took the mug home and have been using it for the past week and i love it!!! It’s now become my favorite mug and I’m so glad I left the leg off, it gives Ed (the monster on my mug) so much more character! It’s also so easy to clean and it’s also very smooth so it feels great to drink out of!