Ali Mohammed

Ms. Hertz

My project for this assignment was Image editing. I am doing image editing for a second time in this class because I want to learn more of how to perfectly use the online tools for editing. For my image editing I used Pixlr https://pixlr.com. I used three images from the internet. Pixlr is simple to use, it is not such a complicated and hard, and it has different tools options such as eraser, color picker,  marquee tool, sponge tool etc… The whole purpose for using these pictures was to give a big picture of the corrupt political system in Eritrea and the immigration. The first picture is about one form of torture in the country. The punishment that is described in the first image is  of a person who is after beating and torturing for hours then the hands were tied on a tree. It is a tyronical type of a torture. The second picture is also almost the same and the third on is a picture of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia. It is reported that Ethiopia received about 120,000 Eritrean immigrants among them are soldiers, children, women and men of different ages and places from the country, and their reason for fleeing from the country is that they could not tolerate with the punishment and cruel life in the country because of the ruling party. The party which is leading Eritrea is known for violating human rights and committing Major crimes against the people. The united nations reported that the government is one of the worst government in our world today is the Eritrean government for human rights abuses. Most of Eritrean people are forced to leave the country and are immigrating to nearby countries such as Ethiopia, Sudan, and Djibouti, and they are accepted as refugees and are recognized by U.N. and there are also thousands of Eritrean in different countries of Europe and Israel. There is no country in the face of the earth which has not an illegal Eritrean immigrant.

I did not have that much difficulties and failures in this project it was interesting and that is because I did image editing before. Throughout this project my intention was to lean how to use the tools for image editing and I have learned many things from this project, communicating through arts, and different tools for image editing. I also did not experience any difficulties or failure. I learned about myself that I was interested in the editing art and how it helps us understand history.

Ali Mohammed

Ms. Hertz

Artist statement

   For this project, I created a piece of drawing on a big sheet of paper which is based on the artwork of great Cuban artist known by the name of Armando Marino. His artistic capacity and talent are highly appreciated in all parts of the world. Almost all of his arts are based on media reporting issues such as immigrants, wars, economic crisis and other related issues. His arts are so amazing and based on facts. He was born in the end 1960s, that era was historically one of the worst situations, It was a time when the civil war was spread all over the countries, and the economy was bad. I chose to study his him and his arts because when I was doing my research I was looking for artists who do arts based on immigration, and refugees in order to relate his art to my life. There fist thing I did was draw the chained hand as big as I can with pencil, After the drawing was completed I used pencil colors for coloring. I have drawn two chained hands, brought together as one hand are locked. The palms of the hands are big and used different colors to beautify them. I used different pencil colors, mostly used brown over it red pencil color, and for the forearm, I used brown over green one. For the chain, I used blueberry pencil color over it a red color. And all the colors I used were, red, orange, blue, blueberry, brown, red, and pink.  If I had to do this project again I think that I would have drawn an image of refugee or people protesting and being beating. This project inspired me to participate more in art classes and courses.

   I have learned many things from his wonderful arts, his arts are self-evident, you can understand the heavy message behind them. One thing I liked the most about his art is that they are directly connected to social problems, such as protests, immigrants, violence etc.. and these are of deeply rooted in my life. His artistic works have influenced many people from all over the world. This project inspired me to participate more in art classes and courses.

The wet eye

One evening when I was in Ethiopia in a refugee camp called May-Ayni I was watching a movie and there were many people watching too, suddenly we heard screaming, shouting and crying. Everyone rushed the door and got out of the cinema center. We saw many immigrants lined up and began prostrating with loud and strong voices of screaming, others crying. I was shocked to See the crowd and that condition and have no idea what was happening and why they were there. After few minutes I saw a woman lamenting, and mourning bitterly uttering few words “My lovely, you have gone from my sight forever” My life is nothing without you, death is merciless” I watched my two eyes filled up, I understood and said to myself that there should be a boat that is sunk or something like that. And in my guess, I was right because it is not possible to see immigrants prostrating in streets wildly. After some time the speech was given telling the crowd that there a boat was sunk and there were about 300 of Eritrean people in it. The tears of a woman in the evening are one of the memories that I carry in my mind. My art was an inspiration of that moment.

I art is drawing “the eye” that  I was on that evening filled up and dropping tears down from it. A wet eye that can show you the wrong and violent condition of life that is imposed on those immigrants by their own government and leaders. Immigration is not something that can be chosen but rather it is imposed through different acts of violence of human rights, oppression, hunger, imprisonment, torture your land and most of the time by your leaders. And the only solution that you can do think of is just cry out, yell, weep, lament and grieve and all of these can solve nothing.

I had to go through different processes to complete my art project. The first thing was choosing four watercolors, and they are red, black, yellow and blue. I had to mix these colors to see what colors I can get when they are mixed in pairs.  I used the black for eyebrow, pupil, and iris. Yellow for painting the whole paper, red for areas below the eyebrow and below above eyelids and to represent the tears. And blue I mixed it with black to paint the Irish of an eye. This project is a new technique for me because I am using art to communicate things that are happening in the real world also I thought that my art also would represent different things besides that it was intended to communicate. One thing I can change would be colors or the size of the art.

In my humble opinion, I have learned that art is peaceful which gives us a way to communicate anything and everything.

This image is base on the memory of my childhood. It gives a clear picture of what kind of place I lived in, what I liked, and what I did in that time. It also tells about the kind of life I was born in. I am from people who have and do farms, and own livestock like cows, goats, camels, etc. I lived in a countryside or you can also call it a village. The life at that time was beautiful to me I just loved that kind of life, going to place where there are farms, rabbits, birds, mountains, different wild animals like fox, and dears, it was so amazing and above all the climate with its beautiful shiny sun. It is hard to explain it but that was when I was between the ages of five to nine.

I started this project  with a pencil I drew the whole thing you see there and then after I completed my work with a pencil I used three different pencil colors yellow and orange for the sun, green for the tree, and corn plant black for the mountain.

Creating this art was a carefully planned process. I was provided with a measured piece of paper. First I had to think about the best thing that I can draw that would briefly explain and define my culture and my childhood. Then I came up with the idea of the mountains, farms, trees, and birds I used to see. I found these things special to me, then started with the tree on it is a bird, and imagined myself sitting under the tree and things I could see in front of me like mountain, farms, and above the sun. I drew everything on the piece of the paper and then started to think about their color and others. I colored using pencil colors.

Important things in this art is that it tells my culture and childhood in that environment in a unique way. And one thing I have learned in the process is that I experienced that I can say everything about how my childhood was based on the piace of the art that I have done and it allows me to do that freely. I am proud of this art because it helps me refresh my memory of my past times.

I would say that if I can change anything in my art is that the colors, or the shapes of the tree, or the shape, side and placement of the mountain a little but not big change.

I learned that art is fun that allows me to communicate my ideas in a way that can be understood by all people of different languages, cultures, and backgrounds.

We are Peachy Designs and we work with many people all over to help them be more green in some shape or form. Our most recent client Ms. Fanning located on the second floor next to Mr.Johnson’s office is our wonderful Guidance Counselor and fabulous creative writing teacher. Sh told us that she wanted her room to be more green so we decided to create a garden box and place it in her room.Ms. Fanning will give the plants what it needs to thrive such as water and general care and since her room has a lot of sunlight that will come naturally. Our green design relates to almost all of our previous assignment which teaches us the inner workings of the plant therefore teaching us how to take care of the plant better and create a stable place for the plant to survive. Overall I would say the as a group we did good on the project however and think that since we were so  exciting in creating we did not plan ahead for possible problems of the garden box such as it being knocked over. We do believe that we satisfied our customer and look forward to working with her sometime soon.

Our project is to create a box that satisfies our client in which we can plant. To complete this process we had to go through many many processes. First we had to have a client means a teacher in this building who is willing to have a green design in his or her room. After that we had to get trained in order to use the tools that we need to work in this project like how to cut and glue etc….  Or how we can use the equipments that are in makerspace. And we arranged another appointment with our client to ask or be asked about what was going on and how we are going to place the box there, and the needs of the plants in order to survive.

We also had to work ai different assignment like answering questions or watching videos in order to understand how we can fulfill the desire of our plant.

Our plants need

• Soil

• Water

• Nutrients

• And Sunlight to survive. We already build our wood box for our plant. The box will be as I showed in the picture below in order to get sunlight and will be watered by Fanning Mrs. Fanning.

I think their similarity would be being dependent to each other. The box needs to be perfect for supporting the pants to develop and grow. The plants also need to get what it needs like rich soil, sunlight etc……

Nature is the phisical of our world and everything in it. Technology is development, creativity and invention. The relationship would be we act wisely with nature in order to have a good technology. We use like plants, animals, and other sources to have a good technology.

Our group did well in communicating with Ms. Fanning of what plants she desires to have and how we are going to place the box. As well in building the box. We are dedicated to do out best in our project and collaborating in doing that.