Cathedral Square

 Sr. Kim Dung

It was my first time at Cathedral Square since I have studied in the LIEP program. That day was my field trip day to the New Orleans Exhibit which is close to the Cathedral; it was my unforgettable memory in front of Cathedral.

It was around early evening. After we had more than an hour visiting exhibit and getting out there, my professor gathered us in front of the Cathedral to experience French Quarter environment. Standing in the square, I saw some people were there who were playing music, walking dog, waiting for fortune telling and someone was setting another table for fortune telling. The area was an active place with many activities would play around.

I sat on a chair which was near to a torture telling table waiting for some people who were getting out of the exhibit, and gathered with my classmates to talking. While I enjoyably was observing people around and looking people, there was a middle man aged quickly approached to me and kneeled down in front of me asking me whether I was a real sister. I was completely surprised with his gesture. I could not say anything except nod my head to indicate "yes". Immediately, the man asked me to bless him. I was driven completely in sane of his thinking; i looked at my professor preferring for a question what I should do. I saw she nodded her head, and I blessed him by putting my hand on his head and gave a silent prayer for him.

I did what he asked; he thanked me and left.

I was unspoken after that because I had never sunk in that familiar situation before, so I perplexedly found myself at that moment. Besides, my classmates laughed at me because they had though that I would stand up and make a power prayer by raising my hand up, sound a loud voice and put my hands on the man's head.

I could not believe that an American could approach to me and asked for blessing.

After all, my professor indicated to me that New Orleans is a religion region where people kind of respecting religious people by asking for blessing or prayer; beside that, in Halloween day people might dress up as a religious people. Therefore, the man had asked me to confirm that if I was a real sister or just for dress up as a religious person before he asked for a blessing.

Through that man, I understand that New Orleans has been a traditional city of religion and I need to be awake of asking blessing.

Movie Magic Project (Mariana)

As an art lover, this Magic Movie Project result to be the best beginning for my Inglish classes. To be able to do a great job, we have to learn about what we are going to do and the topics we are going to talk about. In this case, the process that ends with the creation of two mosaics, start by learning about the magnificent world of colors. After our brain is full of new rich information, it's time to relate it with another topic, movie clips. It is possible to have enough information about the movie since the colors they use, although we only watch a small part of it. After analyzing the six clips, it was time to choose two of them and start the artistic part of the project. I chose "Marie Antoinette" clip and "Alice in Wonderland" clip. Although you may think that both of them have a similar palette of colors, they don't. I used pastel colors such as pink, baby blue and purple for the first mosaic and for the second one I used darker green and red paper sheets. That was almost the final step of the project but before we had to design and the cut all the color papers I picked up to put together the mosaics. After sticking all the pieces, the result was two mosaics, one more literal than the other but equally representing what I understand about the clips according to their colors.

Color Understanding Process (Natalia)

Before the movie magic project, colors for me were meaningless. I was able to see each color, but not understand them as a source that communicates ideas, feelings and intentions. That is why this activity represents to me the process of understanding colors. The first step was to learn how to name different tones, the effect they have in perception and how we can use them in advertising and movies. The second step consists of watching six different movie clips. The main purpose was to analyze each of them and identify the meaning of colors. The third was about choosing two of the movie clips to make the mosaic. It was difficult to define the criteria to use in this selection. Also all of them had wonderful and meaningful colors. Finally, I chose the ones that were more visually attractive. The process ends with the performance of the mosaics. In my first mosaic I created an abstract piece of art. The main characteristic of this image is movement, which is represented by the yellow leaves. The second mosaic was more meaningful and literal. In this one I used a skull to represent evilness and pink spectrum tones to show innocence and kindness.  I also used fancy materials to create a strong sense of irony. The whole process represents a big step for me into the world of colors and their power in communications. That is why I invite you to take time and think about them and analyze how they can affect and influence your perception daily.  
 

Mosaic project

Hero

Mosaic

Alice in the wonderland

Doing mosaic processing is a good ability to learn how to write a process essay because one needs to follow step by step. First of all, one have to know the color; i was introduced all color names in class, and i got familiar with them. Then, i watched continuously 6 movie clips and took note also; after that I chose two from six clips that i had watched which were Hero and Alice from the wonderland. The next step is I selected color papers and all materials that i need for making two mosaics; the color and design of mosaic need to interpreted the effect from clips. The last step is created mosaics. Finally, when i finished my mosaics, i sat down and wrote a processing assay. This activity is quite useful to help me to get familiar with processing writing

Sr. Kim Dung

Mosaic - Processing

Mosaic writing help students to explore the language and culture of color, learn how to use adverbs of time and frequency, and learn to write an essay describing a process in detail with “color” description. Besides those usefulness, Mosaic writing provide to students the present mosaics for critique, demonstrate ability to describe the thoughts behind the art. Because of those abilities, we learn and acquaint with Mosaic in writing advance. In order to write an essay about Mosaic, we went though some steps.

Add caption

Color is quite important for Mosaic, so we began with learning color and some vocabularies using in Mosaic writing. Describing a color, we can use hue meaning color, tint is a color diluted with white or light; shade is a color darkened with black and dark. Moreover, we explore colors by using funny color names such as beach party, burn orange, fern green, swamp green, royal blue and papaya whip. Defining a color is easier when using name of something that has consistent color such as lemon yellow or princess pink. Learning color is quite interesting and easy remembrance.

The second step is watching continuously 6 movie clips. While we were watching clips, we took note as much as we could. We focused on movie detail and color using in those clips. Then, two of six clips were chosen for mosaic. I chose two clips which were “Hero – Flying Snow vs Moon” and “Alice in wonderland” because those clips seem simple and have strong affection.

The following step is choosing color and creating mosaics. We were provided those materials. Each person excitedly chose appropriate colors from movie clips that had been chosen and implemented Mosaic. In addition, one of each had their own design; some people were quite detail in linking small piece of papers, and some people glued piece of paper to make a picture.

I chose clips of “Hero – Flying Snow vs. Moon” and “Alice in wonderland” because they are attractive with colors: yellow, sky blue, red, black green and white.

“Hero – flying Snow vs. Moon” is a Chinese film. There are two young women wearing red Chinese costumes during years when China was once divided into seven kingdoms that warred with each other constantly. I did not understand what had happened with those women, but they met in the forest during fall season and they fought until one of them was consumed. Even though I did not know the previous part and next part of the movie, seeing red costume they wore, I could predict the fighting, war, strength, power, danger, passion and blood can happen for them. Moreover, yellow of autumn leaves carried some meanings inside of women such as “autumn leaves under frozen souls” from lyric of Paolo Nutini – Autumn.

The second clip is “Alice in Wonderland” Alice found a door which opened to a new place. She followed the puzzle rail road. While she is going, she found a piece of red paint which had thrown from somewhere into in frond of her face. She jumped up to see what and who they were doing; she met three people painting flowers in a big green leave. They moved from one leave to one leave; on each big leave there were several flowers. After a while, Alice asked to paint with them. Those flowers were painted in red color.

Movie Magic Project _ Hebe

Star Wars and Alice in Wonderland were the clips chosen for this project because they have very interesting backgrounds and colors that can easily represent the actions that are taking place in the clips.

STAR WARS                                                        

For this mosaic, the colors chosen were dark colors like black, purple and blue. The abstract distribution of them tries to illustrate and recreate the background and environment of the clip. Also, the dark palette and the triangles represent chaos and disorder, the darkness and depth of space and the universe, which is the main stage of this movie. The yellow and red pieces at the bottom of the mosaic illustrate power, energy, courage and strength, which are present during combats and wars. The translucent blue and orange colors are the lights that shine between chaos, trying to overcome darkness. They represent the lightsaber swords.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND                                              

For this design, the idea was to illustrate this incredible abstract tale. Every object in Alice in Wonderland functions as a symbol, but nothing clearly represents one particular thing. The shape of this mosaic was conceived as three rotating squares with a labyrinth in the middle to exemplify the abstraction and the sensation of disorder and disorientation that a labyrinth transmits.

Translucent green and yellow leaves were superimposed to create an abstract exemplification of the garden. The green color contains the powerful energies of nature, and yellow is full of creative and intellectual energy. The color Turquoise, which is Alice's dress color, radiates the peace, calm and tranquility of blue and the balance and growth of green with the energy of yellow. This color represent Alice's personality during the whole film but especially while she is traversing the labyrinth.

The idea of this project helps people to open their minds and be creative. While doing this kind of exercises is when our imagination flies, guiding us to a deep place of appreciations where our personalities and experiences are determinant. After all this process, we have definitely created art.

Movie Magic Project - Candy Nguyen

Alice in the Wonderland:

                I chose colors that match with one of the scene in the video clip. This scene is when Alice tried to help the cards painting roses on the trees in the amaze. I specialized on colors to emphasize the meaning of the scene.

                I used the technique that I have learn from kinder garden – tear paper into small pieces and glue on a piece of paper to make an object. I applied this technique on the three cards and the tree.

I arranged the cards in three corners. The center is the heart shape tree with green and red roses. Alice is on the last corner. I chose the great color combination of green and purple to make the maze. Light green with shady purple make the maze look more mysterious and strict people’s eyes. 

Marie A.:

                I love pastel colors and I love food. It was amazing the Maria A. video clips chose the pastel colors. These colors represent innocent and high prestige. Despite the fact that Maria A. is a ruthless woman, I love the colors arrangement in the video.

                I used mint for the frosting, with a little red cherry on the top, and light blue for the cupcake base. Orange and purple cocktail glass. Red donut with pink strawberry chocolate. And some glitter pen made the mosaic looks more 3-D realistic.

I am very enjoy doing this project. It was fun to use different techniques and colors to represent the things you want to imply and express. Colors and art are very important in life.