My mom is the most amazing woman in my life. My mother is extremely athletic, and plays softball and basketball in leagues with her friends. She was voted most athletic in high school and is still in great shape. She is a great cook and she always finds new recipes to make which end up being incredible. She takes my brother and me on fun trips, and puts a lot of thought into making days like our birthday’s amazing. My mom is a really smart woman who comes up with great solutions to problems that come our way. My mother attended UC Santa Barbara and is now working for Stanford. She treats everyone respectfully whether they deserve it or not, and is very kind. A great memory I have with her was at a hockey game when she was telling me about how her and her friend would make stupid jokes when they were my age. I remember being in a bad mood that day and when she started telling me her stories, I started to crack up.

For my 20% project this week, I went to my nana’s house over the weekend to meet with her and my aunt since they are my mentors. I was able to whip up multiple drawings that will go on my trifold as well as come up with a plan to design it. The only problem I ran into was getting a creative block during class, and not being able to think of anything to draw. When meeting with my mentors, I completely changed my plan meaning that some of the drawings I did in class will unfortunately have to be scrapped. Instead of showing the different art techniques, I have decided to go in depth on the progression of a picture. I will be showing different steps on each part of the trifold. For example, the left side may have a simple line sketch which shows the beginning of the process it takes to make a drawing. Next week, I will either start to decorate my trifold, or work on one of the drawings at its final stage.

In April, I reads the book Flush by Carl Hiaasen. Flush is a realistic fiction book about a boy named Noah who is trying to prove his father innocent. Noah’s father is a nice man who sometimes finds himself in trouble with the law for trying to bring justice to those who harm nature, and has a tendency to get reckless. This time, he sunk a casino boat known as The Coral Queen for dumping its sewage in the ocean. Noah’s mom is fed up with his father’s nonsense and is filing for divorce. However, despite his father’s accusations, there is no evidence of The Coral Queen dumping its waste in the water. This forces Noah to dig deeper in order to keep his family together and set his dad free.

I really enjoyed this book because of the humor. The way Carl Hiaasen manages to keep the book light hearted despite the topic being serious is just brilliant. I also love how he sprinkles little jokes throughout the book to keep the reader entertained. This story was fun to read and I definitely recommend it.

My favorite character is the funny and filterless little sister, Abbey, because of her outspoken personality. One quote which comes quite early in the book is, “‘All he’s making,’ my sister said, ‘is a jackass of himself.’ ‘Hush, Abbey,’ Mom told her.” This proves to the reader that she has no filter because she will say rude things about her own father without even thinking twice about it.

My favorite quote from the book is on page 44 which states, “‘Dad wouldn’t hurt a flea,’ I said firmly. ‘But would he hurt a human who would hurt a flea?’” I like this quote because I think it’s very important to Noah’s dad’s personality. Noah’s dad is a sweet man who doesn’t like to harm things, but when it’s by means of revenge or justice, the story changes.

For my 20% project this week, I practiced color blending with the different techniques I learned last week. I was pretty good at the layering technique, however, I still need to work on burnishing since it didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped. Due to the shorter class periods, I was not able to get that much done and I will have to work on it some more at home. Another thing that I will have to squeeze in is finishing the drawing I started in week two. Besides the time crunch, everything went according to plan and I didn’t have to make any adjustments to my schedule. I will continue to work on blending over this next week as on Friday I have to move on to sketching. In week five I will again research some helpful tips for sketching and maybe practice a little bit. Thank you for reading, and I will see you next time.

While working on my 20% project this week I learned about different techniques for color blending. After searching up tips on how to color blend, I started to practice for a little bit. While I didn’t get as much as I would like to have gotten done, I still made progress which is good. The only problem I faced was that I was sick, and wasn’t able to make it to school. However, this might have actually been a good thing because it meant that I had all my supplies with me, and as much time as I needed. Like I predicted last week, I did end up practicing while I learned as I just find it easier to do that. Other than that, everything went as planned and I was able to stay on track. Next week, I will spend all of my time practicing, and possibly finish the other half of the drawing I started in week two to see if I have improved.

My favorite room in my house is my bedroom. Firstly, my room is upstairs in the top right corner of my house, away from the chaos. In my old house, my room was downstairs and I often felt that it was too close to the guests when they came over. Now that it is upstairs, there is a sense of privacy. When we throw parties or invite people to our house, it is nice knowing that people will not just randomly walk in. I also like that almost everything I need is in or nearby my bedroom. If you exit my room and make a left, you will run into our upstairs bathroom. I also have a desk in the corner of my room to work and study, a trash can underneath it, a bed to sleep on, and a T.V. across from that. As long as I bring snacks into my bedroom, I will have to leave very few times. This was especially helpful when I had Covid because I was able to quarantine myself from my family quite effectively. Finally, I get to design my room the way I like it. My bedroom has several different posters such as a basketball poster, football poster, and a Weezer poster. As well as wall decorations, I also have a beanbag chair which makes for a comfortable place to sit. While my parents get to decorate the rest of the rooms in our house, I have control of what decorations are put up in my bedroom.

While working on my 20% project this week, I finished the first half of my drawing to mark my progress. I drew an orange and shaded half of it, leaving the other half for sometime between week three and four. My only struggle was forgetting to bring my art supplies from home which meant that I had to use a regular pencil. However, this ended up working out because these two weeks have been focused on shading which means that I didn’t really need anything other than a pencil. I didn’t have to change my schedule because the orange half ended up taking me the entire time, so I am where I should be according to my calendar. Next week I will be starting a different unit, and focusing completely on color blending. I am supposed to just research, but I will probably end up practicing if there is time.

I sat on the uncomfortably small plane seat livid. The two annoying little kids continued to bicker and whine as I mocked them before receiving a “we’re all annoyed, so take your mind off of it” look from my mother. My veins nearly popped out of my arms as I clenched my fists to keep me from walking right over and throwing them both off the plane. My mom jabbed at me again, so I reached into my bag and pulled out my AirPods. While it did calm me down for a minute, “Crazy Train” by Ozzy Osbourn could only bring me peace for so long. Eventually, it came back. “Mommy I’m hungry!” The younger brother shouted while the older one started to have a meltdown because his ears hurt. I glared at the mom from my spot on the plane as she continued to do absolutely nothing to discipline her kids. I sat in the middle seat, smashed between my mom and a random lady. When will those two kids just shut up! I thought to myself. We hadn’t even started moving and I was already close to having a breakdown. I hadn’t realized it yet, but this was going to be a long three hours.

Hi my name is Jeremy and for my 20% project I am trying to become a better artist and drawer. This week I focused my attention on shading. Week one went well, with me being able to successfully draw and shade an apple. After researching some different shading methods, I was able to practice them and get the hang of these different techniques. This week was fairly simple and I was met with zero struggles along the way. My original plan was to spend the time solely researching, but I had to adjust that. Instead I ended up practicing as I researched, as I felt this was the best use of my time. Soon I will be starting a drawing to mark my skills at this point in time, which I will later finish to see if I’ve improved. Next Friday I will continue to practice the shading techniques I learned in week one, and maybe attempt to shade on more difficult shapes.

There are so many people I would want to invite to dinner, but these would be my top three. Firstly, I would invite Nate Bargatze. Nate Bargatze is a clean comedian from Tennessee who also appeared on Saturday Night Live. He would make for great company as well as tell hilarious jokes at the dinner table. My second choice would be Rivers Cuomo. Rivers is the lead singer and composer of the alternative rock band, Weezer. Weezer is one of my favorite bands and I would find it really interesting to talk about the band and its backstory. Finally, I would invite defensive superstar, Nick Bosa. In case you didn’t know, Nick Bosa is a defensive end for the NFL football team the San Francisco 49ers. The 49ers are my favorite football team and I would absolutely love to meet a player, let alone have dinner with them. For dinner we would have the best sushi money could buy, since that is my favorite food.