Music 2019

Musical Theatre

Songs/Musicals:

• I Dreamed a Dream - Les Misérables
• I'd Rather Be Me - Mean Girls 
• Somebody to Love - We Will Rock You

I have found very strong connections to the musical theatre songs that I have chosen this year, and I am excited to see how they will all come together.

Research:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1q72I8DxoLFHSRAjbT6uVgVCxxWJxaWvXozYvf5fX3Ng/edit#slide=id.p


Feedback from Barb/Focus for the week:

Week 1 - Finalise songs

Week 2 - Start listening to the songs and learn the melody and lyrics

Week 3 - LEARN ALL LYRICS OFF BY HEART

Week 4 - Work on breathing for "I'd Rather Be Me" as well as diction for all songs. Keep practising looking up when performing unless you are purposely portraying that you're looking down for a reason etc;


Week 5 - No vocal lesson this week due to strike. I just kept on practising the songs over and over and working on looking up, and diction!!!!

Week 6 - This week I was working on the little things now getting onto the nitty gritty!!!  In my lesson with Barb, we discussed just getting the nitty gritty done now because my songs are 80% ready!  Her feedback was - More chest in "I'd Rather Be Me" and working on the beginning of "Somebody to Love" and doing a crescendo etc; then also just really working on the last half of "I Dreamed a Dream" with the low notes and breathing/transitions of "and they turn your dreams to shame" etc;

I have blocked "Somebody to Love" on stage and have also decided to stay stationary at the microphone stand for "I'd Rather Be Me" and are still yet to block "I Dreamed a Dream" on stage but that should be fairly easy to do as I will most likely only be doing small movement transitions from sitting down and standing.

Week 7 - This week I managed to catch the nasty virus that has been going around so I was unable to have my vocal lesson with Barb which is a real shame. So this week, I've just been listening to my songs and thinking about costumes for my Scaramouche and Janis characters (which will actually be quite similar to each other) but honestly, I think it's better I am sick now than in week 10 on the musical theatre evening!

Week 8 - This week, we have been on getting into the habit of performing on stage. The movements are becoming a lot more natural rather than forced and I am just letting loose a bit to get into character.

Week 9 - This week the virus was back to attack! Therefore,  I decided to use my voice minimally. Especially as we have Formal this Friday and our performance is next Wednesday!!! So during vocal lessons, Barb and I just briefly went through my songs but I was just using my head voice to keep it light.

Week 10 - PERFORMANCE WEEK IS HERE!!

Unfortunately, I am still not 100% back to my normal self. My throat is still scratchy and dry, but the show must go on!!!!!

I have made sure to get lots of rest and only use my voice when it is really needed because I was starting to get very nervous and unsure if I was even going to be able to perform on the night, as I was really struggling in rehearsal to belt it out without cracking.

But in the end, I felt so proud of myself for being resilient and just giving it a go anyway because I honestly almost couldn't even tell that I was sick, it was the clearest I had sounded in weeks and was just the best performance I could've pulled off while still battling the virus. The Lord definitely answered my prayers.

Drama 2019

Welcome to my Drama 2019 blog

New Zealand Theatre:

• Māori Performances - https://www.maoritelevision.com/news/regional/maori-theatre-show-first-its-kind-tour-north-island
• Pacifica Performances - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egL3Gm19Swo
• Bollywood Performances - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zden0QwqoBY

New Zealand Society:

Māori, European, Pacific Islander and Asian ethnicities all come together to form our culturally diverse society in New Zealand. Although our founding cultures are Māori and European, over the past few decades immigrants have bought a wide range of cuisines, languages and customs to our country, as well as American and global culture being observed everywhere from cell phones to streetwear. Therefore, from having such a multicultured nation, the way us Kiwis speak and act is unlike nowhere else in the world as it truly is a combination of all of our cultures.

Viewpoints:

Using the text below, we focused on viewpoints - a technique of composition that acts as a medium for thinking about and acting upon movement, gesture and creative space.

“Rumour is a pipe

Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures

And of so easy and so plain a stop

That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,

The still-discordant wavering multitude,

Can play upon it.”

So we started the lesson by just moving around the space and acting upon each individuals movement etc; Then we partnered up and did a trust exercise of letting your partner guide you while your eyes are closed and you just had to know your surroundings by using your hearing, touch and even sight (even though you cannot see you can notice the different shadows and lighting when you walk) Then for the remainder of the lesson we do some more viewpoint exercises using the "Rumor is a pipe...." etc; and just doing what we felt right for the scene, whether it be interacting with the space, the audience or each other. In one group's scene, I really enjoyed watching Frank interacting with the audience using a humour approach without even having to say anything. As well as Rania's sudden movement and decision to walk away out almost completely out of the scene.

Devising

25/07/19

This term we are devising a piece of theatre, with a concept.

We were introduced to this standard at the begining of the week by watching some of the NZQA Exemplars which focused on the theorist, Antonin Artaud, and the theatre of cruelty. 

I was particularly impressed with the female soloist who did her piece on the Māori Battalion in World War 1. Her use of conventions and Artaud's viewpoints were very cohesive and supported the development of her concept to show how quick the young Māori tāne had to grow up. I also felt a very emotional connection to her piece because of her use of Spacial Relationships between her body and the architecture in the space eg. floor, and walls etc, as well as Gesture through incorporating kapahaka actions and positions that represented death. 

We then went on stage and did some physical theatre. In particular, we used Anna Bogart's viewpoints. One of the main viewpoints that we focused on was Kinaesthetic Response - a spontaneous physical reaction to something which occurs outside you; the impulsive movement which occurs from stimulation of the senses.


Breaking up into smaller groups we then did smaller scenes using the following conventions:

• Music
• Repetition
• Space
• Gesture

This week we also got into pairs and did a practical exercise where we got to choose a convention to act out that we could possibly use for our devising. Lina and I got 'Telephone' and so we did a conversation between two best friends who were talking about a girl they did not like etc; but it wasn't very etched out properly. This definitely challenged us, especially given the 10-15 minutes time frame we had to do it in.

But it was a very helpful exercise in terms of watching what the other groups within the had come up with.

I was really interested in what Te Rama, Keiran and Jordan's group did as it inspired an idea for my own devising concept. They had the convention of a 'News Report' which I was thinking would be cool to incorporate at the begining of my piece, as a way to get some statistics/facts/information across, as I have already started to brainstorm ideas around societal beauty standards which I think I will use to develop my concept around the pressures that females have to deal with in our society.

30/07/19

This week we did some more mahi around conventions.

During the first lesson, we read the book called "The Island" which is about a man coming to an island on his raft and he is instantly outcasted and stereotyped by the entire island of people. We then chose pages of the book to use to devise a small performance, incorporating the mime mask convention.

Mya, Lina and I were in a group and we decided to all use masks. Although, Mya was wearing the lizard looking mask that almost looked really empty in the face which represented the emptiness of the character that was being outcasted. And me and Lina were wearing other masks to show that although we are all different, in some sense we are still the same - as we are all human. We were acting as if we were in a choir and we were better than the man who we were bullying whereas in reality we really weren't. Overall, we wanted to show that we really aren't any different or any better from those we judge and ridicule.

I think there could be a possibility of incorporating this convention into my piece as I could create different masks to portray what is classed as "beautiful" and "what is not" etc;

I was then away due to an injury for most of week 2 & also week 3.




13/08/19

On Thursday last week, we focused on "isims" such as racisim, feminism ect; and we looked at political theatre.

Today our lesson was focused around rituals.

We all gathered around the table in Drama and ate cake, discussing the different kinds of rituals that there are. One of the elements apart of the ritual is a karakia/prayer which is a ritual in itself. Although this was a really cool activity, I don't think it is something that I will incorporate into my performance.

Yesterday we focused on storytelling which was also another really interesting activity where there were four chairs and we had to come up with a story as a collective, while only speaking one at a time. It was really exciting seeing what stories people were coming up with, but I don't think it's something I will incorporate into my performance either.

I had some time off during weeks 2 & 3, but have tried my best to keep up to date by looking in the devising folder our sheet in class so I can catch up and see what they have been doing. One thing I saw, in particular, was that they used signs for narration. I particularly thought this could be useful in my performance to either add to what I am feeling or contrast to how I am feeling.




19/09/19

It is that time of year when everything starts to get a little hectic, so a lot of things are all over the place at the moment. But I realised that I have not updated my blog on my devising process for over a month now. Therefore, I just wanted to use our "working from home" days to update it.

So we only have a week to go until the school holidays, and our devising assessment is on Tuesday.

I will admit I do not think my piece is 100% ready yet as I have spent a lot of time in the last 2 weeks just going back and forth, being really indecisive and procrastinating a lot which hasn't left me with a lot of time to practice. Although, I plan to just keep consistently practising over the next few days, and give it my best on Tuesday so I can say that I did give it a go. Then hopefully I can just continue practising over the holidays and then resubmit it again in the begining of Term 4 for a higher grade.

A lot of ideas I had in the begining of this process has worked and been a success. But I think having so many ideas is what I struggled with for so long because I needed to narrow it down and uncomplicate it a bit more. But I am really happy with what I have planned, now I just need to turn that vision into a reality!!

To the left, I have attached a collage that shows some of the things I have been working on in the last few weeks - showing the stage layout for my performance, as well as the signs I have made and the mask/lipstick props.

Instead of having to repeat myself from what I have already written, I have also attached the link below to the Google Doc I have been doing all my mahi on throughout this process.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k9xrx9ne5qVuFkxMYhV36aX5RY0HXORBKDtLcXYdjm0/edit  


This link contains a really in-depth explanation of the ideas that helped me form my devising concept and the theorists and techniques I am drawing from to convey my message.  If you would like to check it out and understand WHY these elements are relevant to my performance,  anyone at Hornby High School with the link is able to access this. 




26/10/19

On Tuesday, I did my assessment just to give it a go... I think it was an absolute fail but I knew I had to give it a go just to see what I needed to improve on and what I could possibly change.

I am now glad that I did give it a go because I have since decided that I will no longer use the mask or lipstick as it was just way too hard to transition into but everything else I am going to keep the same and just keep practising it over the holidays and nail the transitions etc;

Design 2019

Welcome to my Design Blog for 2019

This will blog will contain all of my self-reflections and documentation for the entire process of my Level 3 Design folio.

04/02/19

Today we had our second period of Art and I think I have made a really solid start, as I already have a rough idea on what my focus will be for the year. So like we have in the past 2 years, I have written out my "WHY" and key ideas to give me a foundation for my work this year. I have also begun gathering subject matter that could be useful to my vision this year and identified some contemporary Māori designers who might be interesting to take a look at as I would like to stay true to my Māori whakapapa and keep it simplistic and true to the NZ kiwi style. I would like to continue keeping a cohesion between my Levels 1, 2 and 3 work, so I have decided to continue having a strong wāhine based theme around my work.

I have also begun the first task of our Art History standard, which is to define Typography, Bauhaus and Constructivism and what it is in relation to art. So I have made a Google Doc and begun writing each separate definition with their sources and identified artists from these art constructs that were on Mrs Clemence's site. So hopefully, I can finish that up within the next Art lesson. But when I am making goals this year, I actually need to stick with them.




19/02/19

While I have a study period, I thought I would write a quick blog post just to discuss the progress I have made this year in relation to my focus and our Art History standard. Since my last post, I have successfully completed the definitions for Typography, Constructivism and Bauhaus. In this blog, I have attached an image showing my finished Typography definition, with an example, description and interpretation of it.

The artist I have decided to research for Typography is Johnson Witehira (who I plan to draw major inspiration from this year in my mahi) who was the first to create a typeface specifically for the Māori community. I have made sure to also list the sources of where this information has come from.

I would expect that by the end of the week I will have completed these necessary steps for Bauhaus and Constructivism as well. Then moving forward to Week 5, I would like to write out my basic proposal for my theme this year!

03/03/19

This weekend I thought I better do a blog post, updating how things have been going for the last 2 weeks as it is very overdue.

The first thing to mention, as shown on the right, is that I have looked at a few different artists and movements that I will be drawing inspiration from this year. Then I broke down my "WHY" a bit more and wrote out a rough copy of my first "proposal" for my theme. Then I stated why I actually care about it. So to sum up my theme for this year in 3 words, it would be "Mana Wāhine Māori."

The next thing to mention, as shown on the left, is that I have experimented with photograms in class with Monique and Aaliyah. Although I am not doing Photography this year, I definitely would like to use photographic elements throughout my design work. So we wanted our subject matter to actually be relevant to our theme's as they are all quite similar. Therefore, we collected some natural, earthly elements from outside such as flowers, weeds, leaves, stones and twigs etc; as well as using the taonga we wear around our necks every day. Then we also played around with how far we left the photocopier open for, which ended up giving a really cool line through the middle giving both sides a contrasting effect. Overall they all looked awesome! I also pointed out to the girls that they reminded me of traditional Māori portraits. From that, I then decided that for my mahi this year I would like to do my own photo shoot of Wāhine at my kura, trying to capture something similar to those Māori portraits that combine both traditional and contemporary forms of Te Ao Māori.  And I think this technique could even be useful to use later on in the year if I physically create the products I design and want to photograph for marketing purposes.

The third thing to mention, as shown on the right, is that I have finished both the Bauhaus and Typography definitions with examples and their description and interpretation. I hope to find a Constructivism example in the next week so I am also able to finish all of those off and move onto the next thing for this standard.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/161Ma7w1yC3tWgAnPqp1b_dIV2i1cr98b1R-C-FsWt7U/edit?usp=sharing
The link above will take you to the Google Doc I have written all of the definitions for 3.1 Art History. However, I have only given access to those specifically at Hornby High School with the link. But please let me know if there are any issues with that.

The fourth thing to mention, as shown on the left, is that I have gathered subject matter ideas, which could possibly even go on my mood board! So if you can't tell by looking at it, I want to use natural and floral elements. The shower cap and spray bottles, as well as the watercoloured leaves in the bottom left corner, are similar elements to what I would like to experiment with in my design mahi. Because I would like to keep the labelling of the products as simple as possible but incorporating elements of nature and Te Ao Māori. Then the marble pattern in the top right corner and the other two patterns at the bottom were what I was looking at for backgrounds, whether that be for the portraits or design elements.

And the final thing to mention, as shown on the right, is that I have made my first rough folio layout sketch with the help of Mrs Clemence!! This was the most recent lesson before the weekend, in which I honestly felt amazing afterwards! I think it was my most productive lesson of the week and I am super confident going into the next week that I can start generating my 25 concept sketches. I now feel as if this has shaped how I go about the next few lessons, as I am one of those people who looks to have structure and clarity on what I am doing and what the focus is. And even though, I am still trying to wrap my head around it as I type, I still feel better than I did last week when I did not even have the slightest visual vision of what my folio would look like. So to break it down on Panel 1, I will have an overall Design brief - which I have decided also within the last lesson that similar to a "Me too" or "Times Up" movement march, I will be creating an International Day for Wāhine Māori to empower one another and embrace who they are and share it with the world. And then I have 6-7 other mini briefs. I'm not to include a mood board on my folio at this stage. I will be making one and using it when doing my mahi this year but it will not be included in the final outcome. Instead, that is where my Logo design brief will be going. Then next will be a catchphrase or hashtag design brief which will be modelled going into the next design brief of a Facebook and Instagram presence for the day. So, for example, it would show Facebook and Instagram posts introducing the photographic elements and using the catchphrase/hashtag. Then on Panel 2, it is split up into two mini design briefs. The first half of the panel would include the layout of the Facebook page, including a profile picture, cover photo, events, shop etc; for the calendered International Day with a Press release. Then the bottom half of the folio will be a mini brief to design a magazine cover for Times Magzine. This is why I decided to make it International because National was just too small for how BIG I'm thinking. Like I want to take it GLOBAL and spark controversy. So then on Panel 3, I will be creating products and then marketing them under the 'Shop' section of the Facebook page. I know that there are still some grey areas and I think I will probably swap a few of the briefs around within the next few weeks but for the first draft I think it is actually the most solid and clear plan I have made this year so I guess from here I need to slowly shape this into a more clear plan.

My goals for the next week is to get a start on generating 25 concept sketches and gather more subject matter to use (go to the op shop) so we are able to do our own DIY photoshoot area at school. And then there also might be some other things Mrs would like me to do, so I will just take each lesson as they come and hopefully next time I don't leave it so long to do a blog post. Maybe I could make a day for my blogging day to give an update.

08/03/19

This week my focus was on generating my first concept sketches for my folio. I'm not really confident in my drawing skills but I just took my time to mainly work with typography, drawing from Johnson Witehira and another typeface I saw online.  I was also drawing some of my taonga and an idea for body painting and photography to incorporate this year in my design work. And then I have also done the first rough layout of my 3 Panel folio!!!



I have now begun to digitalise all of my sketches and have been working on Illustrator to further develop then using "Mana, Wahine, and Māori" as well as trying to incorporate taniko, my main colours and other ideas etc;

I am feeling super good about where I am currently at and how the process is going. Going into next week, I think I am going to set my goal of coming up with at least 5 more developments on Illustrator. And I cannot let myself forget that I still need to find an example for constructivism and add a description/interpretation. So on Monday hopefully, I can have a good catch up with Mrs Clemence about a few things.

18/03/19

So I just wanted to quickly do a blog post updating you all on the progress for my logo development.  Last week I was able to develop more logo concepts and I am going to continue generating it further this week.

But I will also be working around Monique, Aaliyah and I's photoshoot that we have planned. And I think that getting these shoots done will help moving forward. As I am at the point where there's would be useful in further developments. I do still need to get in contact with Matua Correy to see if he and the Māori department can provide us with Korowai and any kapa haka uniforms to use for our portraits.

I would like to use some photographic elements throughout my folio this year, especially for my magazine covers and social media presence. Therefore I think it is essential that I capture these Wāhine in an element that they feel comfortable and confident in. I want to showcase the beautifully strong and powerful Wāhine Māori to the entire world. Therefore I think working around nature and tāniko that that could be a strong connection between traditional and contemporary Māori culture.

So yeah this week my focus will be starting this shoot and on further development.





25/03/19

Since last Monday, on Wednesday, Monique, Aaliyah and I managed to get our photo shoot done and the photos turned out so good, I am really pleased with the outcome as I was starting to get a little worried on whether we would even be able to get them done. If we do have time towards the end of the term, we would like to do the shoot again to see if we can get some further development. But so then on Friday and over the weekend I began the editing process and started playing around with typography and using my logo etc; so for this week I am just going to focus on getting Art History back underway so I can get some credits this term, and then once that is sorted I am going to continue editing the photos and developing my logo as well.




31/03/19

Last week I managed to get a lot of work done on both my practical work for my folio and for the Art History standard. I got a bit slack and just left the Art History stuff to the back for awhile because I had more urgent matters to deal with so yeah I forgot about it. Thats why I thought I would spend this week to get caught up. I have managed to catch up and it is progressing well. Mrs has given me some feedback on the first third of my work (the Bauhaus section) and I have been adding more in depth interpretations based on the colour palette, symmetry, depth of field etc; so it is tracking nicely again and I will make sure I keep at it and dedicate 1-2 hours to it a week as I am aiming for Excellence.

This week I have also spent some time in class marking out things on my folio which I have now digitalised. And because a lot of design students actually buy stock images online instead of taking their own, I would like to show the moderators that I have done my own photoshoot, and instead of a mood board I will be putting all of the original photographs at the top of Panel 1 next to the brief. So I dedicated the time today to start actually laying these out on to my folio which is shown on the left. I have made sure that I included shots that showed the process of us getting ready and having practice shots etc; so not necessarily the best shots but to show the real raw and authenticity of the photoshoot.

Today I also did a series of 4 really cool developments for a logo design which I think would have to be my favourites so far!! I always feel like I do the best work at home, it's so strange... Anyway, this could even be the beginning of finalising a logo soon.... (hmm we'll have to see what Mrs Clemence says tomorrow..) But I honestly really do like this design. Initially, after I did this design, I thought that there may be too many elements going on in the final development I came up but the more I look at the more I think no they all compliment each other. The image I used is an imaged traced version of one of the photographs that I have been editing, and the koru steam is from an earlier logo development that I wanted to try include. I am excited to see what Mrs Clemence thinks because I am really proud of this, last year I was struggling to keep the development for my work flowing but I think this truly is a breakthrough.

I am also really proud that I have been consistent with blogging and sticking to the plans I set and meeting the deadlines I want them done by. My plan for this week is to continue with what I was doing last week in terms of both my practical folio work and my Art History writing. I will make a more specific plan for the week tomorrow when I will show Mrs Clemence what I have done and then we'll go from there.




07/04/19

I just want to do a blog post this weekend to discuss my progress from last week, just to keep everything up to date because I have been really proud of myself for keeping my blogs consistent this year which I think I have mentioned in previous posts... so anyway, last week my focus was Art History while still keeping the logo developing process steady. So I spent 2 periods on Art History this week and 2 periods on Logo development.

I am feeling more confident with my art history, although it is still very hard trying to keep up with it. As I am aiming for Excellence I know I need to put in my all, which I am, but this year I am finding it is very time draining, a lot more time consuming, and stressful. So this week I tried to make sure I added all of the things that I needed to boost it up to that level that is required, and I know that Mrs will still probably say theres something else missing and then I'll have to go back again but I just hope that I don't spend half of the year on it like I did last year... I would just like to quickly get it over in done with to put it bluntly (sorry Mrs, you know i've never liked this standard) but yeah. Next week I will only dedicate 1 period to doing Art History, and then if I have time during a study or home other wise I will focus on my folio development for the other 3 periods and see if I can finalise something.
As I would like to be able to have a good end to Term 1, I would like to finalise my logo. Last week I made the traced image of myself more defined and added features to it such as as a blue dress, some hair, and a Tā Moko using the pen tool. I also used an effective black and green gradient for the colour of my pounamu. I think that if I work extra hard this week I may be able to come up with some more developments that end up becoming the finalised logo, then I might be able to start laying things out on my folio properly. Because the photo to the right was what I was playing around with today to get an idea but I need some more developments worth putting on my folio. I'm also thinking that I may change the colour red to a brown, blue or green in the first logo concepts. I will need to ask Mrs about it, but I know that it will make a nice cohesive balance in my folio if I do change it because right now they are clashing! I can still use them for my internal standards as developments but I think it's best they change colour to suit the rest of my folio colours.

So as I said, I will spend 3 periods on it this week, and will hopefully have something finalised by the end of the week. Then the next steps for me over the holidays is to do a write up of an offical draft for a brief and some concept ideas for a Cover of Times Magazine. Then hopefully when Term 2 starts back we can get straight into developing the magazine covers and finish Panel 1!! Yay now doesn't that sound exciting!!! like imagine that, by Week 4-5 of Term 2, Panel 1 done!! Now I'm probably dreaming, but I like it! I mean you never know, that could actually be possible... hmm we'll see I'll let Mrs know my thoughts and let's see if she laughs at me lol



15/04/19

Term 1 is officially done, and I have never been so excited for the holidays!!! It has been challenging at times, but I am very proud of myself for keeping on top of this class and not falling behind because this is full on course, and there is rarely any time to be delayed on schedule. Last week, I did not spend any periods on Art History, due to there being assemblies, and parent/teacher interviews so it was a disrupted week and therefore, my focus was on finalising a logo. (Mrs also gave me some informative feedback and said that the Bauhaus section was at Excellence level, so I will just need to spend 1 period a week next Term until the others are up to standard as well.)

After a few different discussions with Mrs Clemmence this week, I sort of took a few steps back by just taking away the girl from my logo to see if a simplified version would work better. But now I have decided that I just will leave my logo design for now, and come back to it later once I have figured out so other things. Therefore moving forward, over the next two weeks I will aim to construct my first draft for a brief as well as doing some research into Times Magazine so I can begin generating concepts for my magazine cover.

Overall, I am really proud of my work ethic this term, and I am excited for Term 2 to see how my work will continue to develop!

 



07/05/19

We are halfway through the second week of Term 2 and I just wanted to do a blog post because I did not get the chance to at the end of last week due to some personal things I had going on. So over the holidays, there wasn't much progress on anything because I was mostly taking the time to actually take a break and do nothing for once seeing as I am 24/7 on the go these days. So I will admit that I overindulged in some me time which I would actually encourage everyone to do every once in a while.

Anyway, so once returning to school, I spent last week mainly focusing on my Art History work and keeping the tracking along as I think Mrs has set a due date for Week 4. As my Bauhaus analysis was in-depth enough for an Excellence, I am now working on the other two analysis's to make them as in-depth as the Bauhaus one. There has been some very good progress on that and I think that I have done a good chunk on it in the last week. I still have some more research to do on a quilt made by Sonia Terk Delaunay, where she had literally stuck heaps of different pieced materials together like she has done in the oil canvas I chose to analyse. Then I also need to find some of Shane Cotton's work that clearly shows the usage of the original manuscripts from when the Europeans were beginning to teach Māori how to write classical English letterforms. So those are my next steps for that, then I will go back to the Excellence exemplar Mrs Clemence gave me so I can check that I am adding everything that's required for that grade.

So as I already mentioned, in the first week of Term, I mainly focused on my Art History work. Therefore I have made the effort to spend this week catching up on the practical things so I am on top of both of them by the end of this week. That way in Week 3, I can spend 2 periods on Art History and 2 periods on practical so I can keep on top of them both.

So in the last two periods, I have been working on some poster concepts. What I started with was "the girl" as Mrs Clemence refers to it as, and then I just began experimenting with combing other things with her to see what would work and what wouldn't work by playing around with the space, background, colour etc; I thought I could also try to develop the koru shapes into something and so I did some sketches on the art table and then furthered them digitally. Through this experimentation, I ended up actually creating something I really like and would like to continue developing on and head into that direction for the final magazine cover. And I know it is way to soon to say that because I know it's a mile away right now, but I feel like this is a start to heading in the right direction of finalising a really cool magazine cover. So when I got really excited about the design, I did some quick research into Time Magazine and traced out their typeface form their magazine cover and put it over the top of my poster design to start getting an idea of how the layout of the Magazine may look. For the rest of this week, I will do some more poster concept sketches and do more in-depth research and figure out what I could use in the poster to create a powerful statement about Wāhine Māori.

I will also want to quickly mention that over the weekend my mum was weaving some flowers out of harakeke (flax) which just sparked something in my brain and gave me a really awesome idea for a product outcome. I'm not too sure what yet, like something like a bookmark could work. At this stage, it is only an idea but I think it will actually tie in perfectly with my mahi as weaving is prominent to Wāhine Māori and through using some traditional elements like this and using it for something modern like a bookmark etc; it is incorporating both and bringing them together. Therefore, we are still keeping it traditional to Te Ao Māori but also using some of those more modernly and I think that the shapes I am using in my design were reminiscent of these flower shapes when I saw them. 




11/05/19

It has only been a few days since my last blog post but I still wanted to do one at the end of this week so I can get back into the routine of blogging at the end of every week. So in the last 2 lessons, I have been continuing on the research and development of my Time magazine designs, I have refined the design a bit more after having a conversation with Mrs Kene about magazine layout and having the design speak for itself etc; and wanting people to look at it and know the message behind it from reading the text. So I wrote out all of the things I could include in my design. 

After thinking about it, I also then decided to go back to using the original photos for the magazine because I believe it makes it look a lot cleaner and less simplified as a magazine is usually a really good quality to it.  And with the image that I have used, I played around with the saturation levels and really liked the raw look to it.
I then wanted to challenge myself a bit a play around with the layers and overall layout so as you can see I have experimented with layering "the girl" over "Time" and the subtexts layered over top of her etc; The text I have added is "Te mana o te wāhine māori" as the title above "Time" so they know it is about an empowerment of Wāhine Māori. Then I thought it was also important to have my main message nice and loud as "He wāhine, he whenua, mate ai te tangata" which is a well-known whakataukī that translates to "By women or land, man is defeated." In Te Ao Māori, there is a synergy between women and land, and that without one or the other (or both) man will not survive. Therefore, the message from this whakataukī is that both land and women are both as important as each other. And that is why I think it stands as a statement to say that we are important in the world. 



10/06/19 

It's been a whole month since I did my last blog post, and I feel disappointed in myself. Although, it has been quite a rough month.  I have had a lot of difficulties with my MacBook struggling to save all of my work. So I have been trying to sort that out which has made practical work slow steady. But there is no real excuse to why I haven't done a blog post, besides the fact that there just hasn't been enough time to do it. So here is a full update on the last month: 

So quite similar to what I did with my logo designs I have decided to leave the magazine designs for now. 

The photo on the left shows the current layout on my folio. I have decided to keep the logo as is for now as well because I quite like it how it is. But that could still change. The Time magazine covers have also been laid out onto my folio how I would like to show the concepts, developments and final designs etc; so I have also now left that as I don't have any further ideas yet to develop it more. So I have started on my next design brief - Social Media Presence. 

I am still yet to put it onto my folio layout but I have also made a small panel to of the photos from our photo shoot, showing all original photographs. I have also added some photos of the more "behind the scene" shots as well to show the authenticity of the shoot.

Social Media Presence - So to start on my social media presence I have just recently started getting to know the programme "Adobe XD" so I can do my work on there as it seems a lot easier to generate these kinds of design on XD than Illustrator.

I have already started to make some templates for these, starting with Instagram and the website, as I think making a facebook template will be a bit harder. So I have kept it simplistic to start with until I get the hang of XD, and to give me some time to start with these to help me develop my ideas for these.

So yeah my next steps would probably be to try to re-shoot our photos with the girls so I have more photographic elements, and I also would like to use it as apart of my development of ideas etc; and then to just continue figuring out a way to make it cohesive and linked to my first design briefs.




17/06/19

Today, Mrs Clemence has asked that we do a blog post on the following...

1. Our folio layouts
2. Extra photos of any work that aren't on our folio's
3. A screenshot of the four things that we will work on this week
4. Restating our concept/why to see if it's becoming clear our my work.

I have already updated my latest folio layout in the blog post I did last week (in which I have blogged all of my progress so far.) So since my blog post last week, I have not done any work. I got a really nasty virus and just had no energy to do any mahi. But I am back this week, still not feeling 100% but I am committed to being resilient.

I have made my goals for the week, and clearly, my focus will be entirely on my design mahi on my social media presence.

That is going to be my focus for the rest of the term. And I would like to re-photograph the photos of me, Monique and Aaliyah but I don't see that happening if we can't find the stuff to do it with.

But I can genuinely see my concept/ "why" coming through really nice and coherently in all of my design mahi on Panel 1. There is definitely a very strong and empowering presence of Wāhine Māori, which is what I want to continue developing and touching on throughout Panel 2 & 3. I would also like to start introducing more elements of Te Ao Māori in Panel 2 - leading into Panel 3 with my final product design being based around Papatūākuku - and Wāhine connection to the land. This is where the whakatauki "He wāhine, he whenua, mate ai te tangata" - "By women or land, man is defeated." will become strong. 



18/07/19

It is currently one of the last few days of the holidays and I just wanted to quickly update my blog as it has been a whole month since my last blog post, so I apologise for the inconsistency. Towards the end of the last term, I was away for at least a week, as I was battling this virus that just attacked me physically and mentally So during that time, I did not do any mahi and although that has definitely slowed down the process of my mahi, I feel good for focusing on myself and my own wellbeing for once.

Then when I did return to school, I missed a few periods due to Musical Theatre practices/ and half days for the union meeting etc; so what I did manage to get done in the last week was a test print of Panel 1 so I could get a clear visual of what it looked like on the folio, so I can make adjustments/developments etc; so moving forward for Panel 2, I am still working on the social media presence. I would like to get some new photographs at the begining of next term of some moko kauae and harakeke etc;

Ideally going into Term 3 I would also like to have some more structured, and detailed designs underway within the first week or two, incorporating new textures, patterns, and possibly even playing with the text and saturation levels as well, just to see if we can create a more traditional vibe on a contemporary platform.

Recently in my own journey of self-discovery,  I have been able to trace 22 generations of my whānau back to Tahu Pōtiki. All registered tribal members of Kai Tahu can trace their ancestry back to him, hence why the term of Ngai Tahu translates into "the people of Tahu." Throughout this process, I discovered that many of my tupuna were highly ranked within their communities - coming from a bloodline of chiefs and warriors from significant hapū in Te Wai Pounamu.  I thought that in my mahi, I could incorporate some of the legends about the prominent wāhine in my whānau. Especially in the social media presence, having a section on the website that discusses the Māori legends of wāhine toa, because it is apart of our history and Te Ao Māori so if we share those stories online it makes it accessible for our current generation and the digital age, where they can continue to pass on their ancestral legacy through sharing the stories of their tupuna.

So this term coming, my focus will be around the social media presence of Panel 2 and then developing that to go into advertisement and marketing design for Panel 3 where we will have the final product design. At this stage, that is going to be around harakeke and possibly kete. But as we begin the term I would like to make some stronger web designs, and really work on creating an aesthetically pleasing Instagram as well, so I may need to photograph the harakeke and kete early on within the term unless it is something we pause and come back to.

I'll make sure to make a blogpost ASAP to give a brief summary of my plan for the rest of the term!




10/08/19 

We have just finished Week 3 of Term 3. It has been a pretty full-on few weeks back, time is flying by so fast and we only have 10 more weeks left to complete our folios.

For the first week, as I should've expected it was a bit hit and miss. I honestly was not sure where to start with my mahi, I just had a designers block. So I thought, if I currently cannot help myself I will help others. So for two periods,  I did just focus on really helping Zac and Kodi (both Level 1 students) with their practical mahi. Zac just needed some guidance on using Adobe Illustrator and staying focused - so we were working on generating more of his logo designs on the Macs, as well as looking at his folio layout, colour palette and next steps for his mahi. With Kodi, I did not need to physically help him, but mentally just give him confidence and the reassurance that it is possible to get his folio done if he makes a good crack at it now. Overall, I was really proud of them and what they had produced and for taking on board all that I had said to them.


After I felt like they were both in a good place, I turned my focus back onto myself. I had finally come up with a plan for the Term and decided to delegated weeks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to my social media presence design mahi. Regardless of whether I get it finished, I will then be moving onto Panel 3 for weeks 6, 7, 8 & 9. For weeks 10, and the second week of holidays I will then be focusing on looking at my folio as a whole and the individual Panels. I will then be going back to anything I had paused on or does not work with the rest of the folio etc; just so we can bring everything together and make it really cohesive.

So for the rest of week 1, I started doing more mahi on my website designs, adding information about weaving, harakeke, kete etc; as well as a Legend about one of my tupuna, Hinekakai. I also wanted to promote a new app called Guardian Maia which has just recently launched in Aotearoa. Their main character is a Wāhine Māori warrior and she is the kaitiaki. In Te Ao Māori, guardianship/kaitiakitanga means protection, preservation or sheltering where there is kinship between humans and the natural world.  A guardian or kaitiaki is a person who is recognised by the people of a tribal group/Iwi and this person acts as the carer or protector of their assigned area such as a lake or forest or special valued items. But we are all kaitiaki of the land and the world infact, so I thought it tied in very well with what we are trying to educate people on.

During weeks 2 and this week, I have had a bit of time off due to having a really sore back. That has definitely limited what I have been able to do at home for a lot of my classes. Although, I feel really lucky and privileged to be able to work at home and do my design mahi thanks to the software installed onto my Macbook by the school. So even though I was begining to stress from missing so much class time, I knew it would be okay. I also did speak with Mrs Clemmence and she assured me that I would be fine. While I was at home, I photographed some of the weaved harakeke flowers and some kete (baskets) on a nice green background. For this, I did only use my iPhone 7, but I think the quality is actually really good.

I have now just added them throughout my social media presence within the last few days. Through this, I think I was really able to understand what outcome I wanted from this. So I started writing what I think is a really good foundation for my brief and would instantly make a statement and introduce who we are on our social media pages.

So ideally, I would like to be a non-profit organisation simply aiming to take Te Ao Māori globally. At the essence of this organisation, will simply be about knowledge and empowerment. I want to be able to educate people and share knowledge for FREE on how we can protect Papatūānuku, and how specifically important the role of Wāhine Māori is in maintaining that.  We will give without the expectation of being given anything in return. So I have decided that I do not want to sell products, I want to promote other Māori people and businesses who are already doing this and trying to take Te Ao Māori globally. Our job is to just give support and offer them a platform to stand strong on.

Our focus will be based around the whakatauki, “He wāhine, he whenua mate ai te tangata” which means that that without women or land (or both) man will not survive.

(So I think that it could even be in connection to climate change as we are the kaitiaki and we are educating people on uses resources, for example, using kete as a solution to plastic bags or harakeke flowers for bookmarks etc; so I am not currently ruling that out yet because it is a possibility that could actually work.)

So for the next 2 weeks, my focus will still be on social media presence. There is a lot to do, and lot more to generate but I am trying to not stress about it. Hopefully, I can have a kōrero with Mrs Clemence or she can read my blog, see where I am at and give me some feedback and possibly things to consider etc;

I am also yet to get some photographs of moko kauae but I will aim to get that done this week to see if it's something that I could also use throughout Panels 2 & 3. And I will also need to go back and look at some of the NZQA Exemplars to see how students in previous years have laid this out onto their folio as I did not do a social media presence last year and would have no clue how to lay one out.




28/08/19

It is currently assessment week and today I have come into Art for 4 hours to get some mahi done on my design folio. For the last week, I have been going back and forth between the NZQA Exemplars to see what I need to do in order to achieve a high grade and I have found that the key to this is actually exploring different ideas and directions as well as keeping it consistent and fluent with colours, and motifs etc; and there is definitely a need of more artist models to be seen evident throughout my folio as well.


I had a good kōrero with our new student teacher, Ms Glass, on my design mahi and she has given me a sheet to fill out (which included my why, colour palette, artists models, motifs and folio layout etc;) that I can always go back to and look at if I get stuck. I found this really useful and have looked at it multiple times, just as a consistent reminder of what I am doing. And because I needed some more artist models she gave me 3 artists models to look at - Robyn Kahukiwa, Bronwyn Waipuka and Kehinde Wiley - whom I have found really useful to draw from.

Since speaking with Ms Glass, I have been exploring more ideas and working on more redefining and developing in my designs. Over the weekend, I began using a design from Bronwyn Waipuka and generated it into 3 very diverse Wāhine Māori. In this, I also experimented with the Johnson Witehira typographic elements to explore the idea and have also found some other artist models to draw from throughout my folio such as Isobel Joy Te Aho-White and Huriana Kopeke - Te Aho. I found the work of these Wāhine very powerful. Although they have quite a few similarities, Isobel's mahi is more traditional and Huriana's mahi is more contemporary and is the artists known for the beautiful Ihumatao designs.

So now for today, I will just continue with my design mahi. I was originally aiming to do the photoshoot today but Monique is not here today and Aaliyah is not in much of the mood so I will just do what I can for today and hopefully we can get that done ASAP or I will just have to leave it and use what photographs I have got.




02/09/19

So last week, Aaliyah and I did end up doing the photoshoot (because she was in a better mood) but it was just me being photographed. I think I got some really good regenerations done that I can start using throughout my folio especially in my magazine and social media presence designs. Which speaking of magazine designs, instead of doing a "Time" magazine mockup design for my folio I have since decided in the last week to be more authentic and design my own magazine. Since then, I have done some great progress over the weekend with more new and improved magazine designs that I have attached to the right.

I have also been re-laying out my folio and trying to make it look less repetitive, therefore developing and re-generating ideas and being more consistent with my motifs.





07/11/19 

Wow. After 2 months of not blogging, I am happy to say tht I have finally completed my folio.

Obviously, a lot has occurred between that time compared to when I last blogged. So that is what this blog post is going to be about so you can get an update on how I got here.

So basically, the last time I had blogged I was still yet to complete Panel 1. I was humming and haring about a lot of things. However, after asking the opinions of those around me, I was able to finalise my logo design. I then spent some time on my magazines and doing some further re-developments as I was not 100% happy with them and did not think they were to standard. But in the end, after playing around with a few different things I was really happy with the magazines that I produced.

Moving onto Panel 2, as you would have seen in previous posts, I had some good progress throughout the year, but it was quite slow and steady. But I feel like as everything else on Panel 1 came together, slowly Panel 2 did as well and I was able to develop and re-generate things like I did with Panel 1 as I was able to notice the motifs in my work that I wanted to keep using and touching on such as the patterns used that have the maunga "mountain" shape etc; so it was little things like this where I started to improve/develop my work into a more clean-cut, professional pieces until I was happy.

Then with Panel 3 I was actually really worried about this one as I literally only decided before the term ended what I was going to do. Therefore, it has been the most rushed Panel but I am still pretty happy with how it came together in the end. For this app, one of my artist models, Bronwyn Waipuka played a huge part in the development in my logo as I drew a great deal of inspiration from this one piece.

Originally, this idea stemmed from a class conversation about Tinder... yes weird I know... but it made me think about how I could make the structure work in terms of whakapapa. So I thought what if I were to design an app that could connect you to relatives you might not even know or haven't heard from in a long time. So from looking at templates of Tinder online, I generated my own app called "Te Here Tangata" which means the "Rope of Mankind" and it really is as simple as it sounds. And the more I thought about it the more I thought how perfect it was to end my folio with this app as my kaupapa is essentially about connecting our people. Obviously, I made the app really simple to operate as it is supposed to be suited to all ages, so you would not need to know a great deal about technology.

Overall, now I am really happy with what I produced and am actually surprised I pulled off such a nice looking folio, considering what it looked like two months ago... I never would have thought it would be possible. But it was!!! And I think when I look at my folio on mass now I think what really stands out to me is how I used the mockups of these designs and put them into real-world visualisation. MockupWorld.com has been a lifesaver in doing this and has made my mahi look so much more clean and professional.

Voices Festival 2018

The Voices Festival 2018

Recently on August 15th, I was one of the members of Voices with Soul that attended The Voices Festival, which is a New Zealand Pops Choir Festival aimed at providing students in years 7-13 with the chance to perform contemporary music at a high level and to inspire great performance. Featuring over 25 schools and nearly 40 groups, it is the largest vocal festival for schools in Canterbury!!

Since I've been at Hornby High School, I have been to this festival twice. My first time was in 2016, which I thought was such an awesome year! But Voices with Soul then compared to now just amazes me because of how much we have grown and our sound has developed so nicely that we now blend like a true whānau!! 

This year, I was super excited to goto the festival as we were unable to go last year due to some technical difficulties with getting the dates wrong.... But this year we were onto it and organised! There was also a new venue this year, at the YMCA in town opposite the Botanical Gardens.. and I thought it was actually a really cool venue with lots of beautifully big studios where we spent the day preparing for our performance in some really cool workshops!! Personally my favourite was the acapella one we did with Jullian Hay who is apart of Voices Co, I really enjoyed that and have actually now considered joining one of their open youth acapella groups!! After the workshops we had some spare time to get ready before soundcheck and so us girls got ourselves looking all dollied up, but after the soundcheck nerves started to kick in, I don't know why but it doesn't matter how many times I go on stage every time feels like the first time again and I get really nervous. But the atmosphere was so  positive that when the show started and we actually got up there, I felt at home and in a complete state of flow. The stage felt like my home, where I belonged. And afterwards I was just so happy and overwhelmed with how well our performance went, and I was so grateful for the awards we received. Overall I think it was definitely a highlight to my year for sure, and I can not wait for next years one now!!!!