The Art of Lego Building

This is an Art History Paper Alexander wrote for his 8th grade art class. (His teacher asked him to hand write it, so dad is typing it for him so we can document it here on Learning Signs.)

Labyrinth, overhead view

ART HISTORY PAPER

The art of Lego building is not known or recognized by most people. Many people will say legos are just something I use to play with as a kid. In all actuality Lego building by adults and kids is fine tuned in the creativity side of things. Of course people building with Lego is only as recent as Lego itself which is fairly new. Lego building is something that requires a lot of skill and practice to do well and something many people have mastered.

Lego building in some ways is a lot like sculpting. When you sculpt something you are chipping or cutting parts away to reveal an object that the artist has in mind. Building in Lego is not as different as it seems. When building with Lego you start with one piece than add another on top of that. In many ways Lego building is a lot easier and you an create a lot more complicated and bigger art work than you can sculpting with clay or rock. There are different sizes, shapes, lengths, textures, detail, color, and the list just goes one and on with all the uses and ability of all the pieces that you have access to. There are also different types of creations you can make. You can build something in mini-scale just meaning in looks smaller or makes something huge into a more buildable scale. You can build in mini-figure scale which means you can use Legos version of a person and use them in your build. Another thing you can build in is just a larger scale which is too big for a mini figure to use. Then you can also had design creations that use different pieces in unusual ways to make designs or pictures.

There are many wonderful but right now I will only mention one. [sic] Katie WAlker is a AFOL – Adult Fan of Lego – and makes wonderfully detailed mosaics. Using small cheese slopes (little angled pieces) and tiles she is able to make intricate designs. This is really something amazing and incredible. You can find more of her work and examples by searching for eilonwy77 on Flickr.

Squares and parallelograms

Creating art is lots of fun and something I love to do. Even though they haven’t been around that long they are still great. Lots of very skilled AFOL’s are still creating amazing creations and art. So next time someone asks you what an awesome new art you can reply Lego building.

Evolution of a pattern, part 5

 

Technorati Tags: ,

 

The Fire

This is a poem I wrote for my English class:

The Fire

The Fire

There was a fire ban that year

But the carless campers left

Leaving smoldering remains behind

The fire that ate the forest

 

Wind whispered wordlessly in the trees

The fire was given new life

Like a new small heartbeat

The fire that ate the forest

 

The fire lit the dry grass

It was gathering in strength

Like a lion preparing to strike

The fire that ate the forest

 

The fire now reached the trees

 It was a wild beast let free

Grey smoke billowed up to the sky

The fire that ate the forest

 

Campers couldn’t escape the wild flames

Sirens soon sounded on dirt roads

People evacuated their homes

The fire that ate the forest

 

Old oaks fell to their knees

Trees were consumed by flames

The heat was a blacksmith’s forge

The fire that ate the forest

 

Rescue men were left helpless

The fire covered the forest

Everyone did not escape

The fire that ate the forest

 

The fire burned bright in the sky

Smoke blocked the stars at night

Flames seemed to laugh evilly

The fire that ate the forest

 

 

The fire burned on still

Feasting on what ever it touched

Held back only from a river

The fire that ate the forest

 

The fire slowly reseeded

Rescue workers were gaining ground

Blessed rain started to fall

The fire that ate the forest

 

The roars finally abated

Land was left scorched

Flames had licked every tree clean

The fire that ate the forest

 

New grass began to grow

Trees again grew tall

Animals began to return

The fire that gave life

Treasure Island: Free Audio Book Version

“Treasure Island” is available as a free, public domain audiobook via LibriVox in the United States. Use the links below to directly load mp3 versions of each chapter on your mobile phone.

  1. Chapters 1-2
  2. Chapters 3-4
  3. Chapters 5-6
  4. Chapters 7-8
  5. Chapters 9-10
  6. Chapters 11-12
  7. Chapter 13
  8. Chapter 14
  9. Chapter 15
  10. Chapter 16
  11. Chapter 17
  12. Chapter 18
  13. Chapter 19
  14. Chapter 20
  15. Chapter 21
  16. Chapter 22
  17. Chapters 23-24
  18. Chapters 25-26
  19. Chapter 27
  20. Chapter 28
  21. Chapter 29
  22. Chapter 30
  23. Chapter 31
  24. Chapter 32
  25. Chapter 33
  26. Chapter 34

I created this list for my wife and daughter, who are driving from Lubbock, Texas, to Oklahoma City today and forgot to load up an iPhone or iPod with audiobooks or podcasts! This list is (hopefully) a little easier to link to from an iPhone, compared to the original webpage on LibrVox.

Make Your Own Birthday Card

Recently I was going to a friends birthday party, but didn’t want to buy a card. I usually just make one out of paper and crayons. But I had some spare time so I decided to create a card on the Internet and print it out. I had no clue how I was going to find this sort of site, but with using my best friend Google I found one. I just googled, don’t you just love that word “GOOGLED!” Well as I was saying, I just googled Printable Birthday cards. Lots of different sites popped up. So I had to use process of illemanation, or I went through the sites that looked goo until I found one called greetingisland.com I thought it was perfect! So I messed around with the website and found the right background, and the right words to type. I really enjoyed messing around with the website! So now when you are going to a birthday party and don’t want to buy a card or draw one, go on greetingisland.com and create one!!

1 10 11 12 13 14 33