Showing posts with label coral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coral. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 28, 2023

Self Portrait

In one of my art classes in 2011, we received two related assignments. Our professor told us up front there was a second part of the assignment, but she purposely wouldn't explain part 2 until after we were finished with part 1. Probably just as well, as these would look very different had she explained both parts up front!

For part 1, we were to cut bits out of magazines, newspapers, or anything we found online and printed, and make a self portrait collage. We could get as creative as we wanted—in fact, the more creative, the better—and we needed to pay attention to shapes, shading, and other aspects. Having grown up in the Philippines and loving their coral reefs, I decided to go with that theme. I was very happy with the result:

Self Portrait Collage
Steven Sauke
2011

Had I known the next step, I would not have made it anywhere near as intricate and exciting.

For part 2, we were given the three primary colors of paint (red, blue, yellow) and a canvas. Now we were to paint the collage! Using only those three colors, we had to mix colors and get it as close to the collage as possible. Though it turned out to be fairly complicated, I was proud of the result:

Self Portrait
Steven Sauke
Acrylic on Canvas
2011


Tuesday, January 17, 2023

I Should Go Back to the Sea

The beaches and coral reefs in the Philippines are breathtaking. With so many islands, if we reached a beach that had anyone on it, we could just take our bangka (rowboat with pontoons) to the next island, where the beach may be deserted. Snorkeling is amazing. They also have glass-bottom boats where you can look through the glass floor of the boats to see the beauty below. The coral, fish, and other sea life present a spectacular kaleidoscope of color. The country has around 7100 islands. As some of them are tiny, the number varies depending on the tide. (I'm not sure where exactly the below picture was taken, but it's similar to what you can see snorkeling in the Philippines.)

I wrote the following poem for an assignment in 6th grade, in 1989 or 1990. I put it on a big sheet of paper and drew sea life around it.

Underwater World
Photo by Fascinating Universe
CC BY-SA 3.0 license

I should go back to the sea, the empty, rippling sea
I should go swimming in it, the mighty wet sea
Where all the seahorses reign, the urchins and squid and octopi
All the cute little fishes and the not-so-cute sharks.

I should go back to the sea, the world of plants in the sea
I should go swimming in it, the wonderful "land" of the sea
Where the seaweed sways, the sponges and algae and anemones
All the tiny diatoms and the not-so-tiny kelp.

I should go back to the sea, the full wavy sea
I should go swimming in it, the wonderful "land" of the sea
Where the seahorses reign, the sponges and squid and anemones
All the tiny diatoms and the not-so-tiny sharks
I should go back to the sea.