Anuradhapura art trip

DAY 1 we left colombo train station early in the morning at about 5:50am and we arrived in Anuradhapura a historical region in Sri lanka at about 10 am. That was a 5 hour long train ride which is an less that a bus trip to Anuradhapura. Even though the train ride wa bumpy and uncomfortable I would not have gone ona train in Srilanka otherwise. Our day began with a trip to a mueseum.. that did not go well because they would not let us in so instead we went to visit the temple called IssuruMulaniya. There I took pictures around the temple and out of the temple area and managed to produce pretty decent pictures in which i would have to edit once I get home. While at the temple I also sketched a picture of the front part of the temple itself. Today I produced some photographs and 2 sketches. my goal for this trip is to create 10 piecec of work. 4 photographs, 4 sketches, 1 painting,1 soft pastel. so tommorow I will try to sketch two more sketches so I would have completed my sketch goal and I will also take more pictures so by the end of the trip I will choose the four best onces. The reason I want to finish of the sketches is because I want to work on a painting the following day. This trip was all I expected- Sketching/photography and creating artwork. DAY 2 Today we went to a stone bridge at first there I took more photographs and experimented with different compositions and angles. Then we went to the Lova sabhawa temple area and we got a demonstration on how to use acrylic paint/charcoal. I tooka seat by a tree and then I started to sketch out a tree infront of me with my charcoal and then later i started to paint. Ifound it really reaxing and soothing to the mind. as for my artwork itself I could have done thin strokes as the grass. ocerall I still think my skills with acrylics could be improved but even so I found that I quite liked painting scenary. I find it easier to sketch the final piece out before painting the whole scenary I guess I could try paining a scene as a whole next time I try to paint a scenary. DAY 3 Today we went to mihintale which is a sacred and historical area of Anuradhapura. It took us about 30 minuits to get there. The first locaion we went to was really scenic and it was really inspirational. I think it provided more inspiration than all the other locations because it had a more variety of things to draw. It was not just trees, this location had a lake,mountain and different view points and angles to sketch from. I found that working outside was really peaceful but at the sametime it was frsutrating because the lighting kept changing and it was hard to pinpoint what tone/shade I should use in that particular area. After eating lunch we went to the main Mihintale area. One thing I learned from this trip was that that was the place where Buddism was first introduces to Srilanka and that was pretty interesting because I li

- Sketching at the temple ruins ke to know more and more about my host county and their culture. DAY 4 TOday we took 2 hours to reach the plce that has the largest Budda statue in Srilanka, like the previous days we sketched. I got to experiment with soft pastel and I quite liked how my finished piece turned out. Working in a quiet area like a temple was really soothing because everything was silent and everyone was working quietly. Once positie thing about this trip was that it was a trip dedicated to art. I think that I have developed my art skills to an extent because normally I would not have gotton out with a sketchbook and start sketching any onject infront of me but I think that this experience has actually helped me grow as an artist. This concludes my week without walls.

- Painting inside the temple grounds

Practicing for Archery Competition

My Archery coach has informed me that there is going to be a competition coming up really soon. The distance to shoot in the competition is 30ft and I can already accuratley shoot the arrow froma good 20ft. Starting from next week I am going to start practice shooting from 30ft. This shows perseverence because I am really commited to this sport and I intend to take it very seriously. What I need to work on is consistency. I always manage to hit the target but i need to focus on hitting the all the arrows at the same spot this shows my awareness of my streanths and areas of improvement and this will also help me develop a new skillI . Another aspect i need to improve is to strenthen my arm muscles by doing a few arm excesises everyday because Archery involves streanth. I have Archery only on Saturdays but I decided to practice by setting up m archery eqipment in my aunt's field and practice there every Monday,Tuesday and Friday as those are the only days of the week where I have even a little amount of time to spare for Archery alone because on the rest of the days I have to study, practice violin,go running and of course have some social time and alone time to myself.

WWW Anuradhapura Trip

For WWW ( week without walls) our group is going to Anuradhapura. The G10/11 trip to Anuradhapura will focus on exploring the local area and the many sites within the area. We are going to use this as an inspiration for the production of visual art. We would have the opportunity to develop our visual art skills through drawing, painting and photography and personal exploration. The goal of this trip is for me to respond to the experience of being in this major cultural, artistic and historical area of Srilanka through the creation of a series of artworks. We are going to be in Anuradhapura itself most of the time while we take a day trip to Mihintale which is a sacred area. An exhibition of the work done during the trip will be up for presentation after the trip. Since this trip focuses more on the creaticity aspect my goal for this trip is to:- - Have 10 finished pieces by the end of the week - 4 Photographs - 1 soft pastel painting - 4 sketches - 1 painting I want to improve my visual art skills, This will be useful for both my IB visual art HL course and for my future as well because I'm quite certain that it will have something to do with art. Being in a historical and yet artistic place I will develop my observation skills as I am not just going there for sight seeing. I need to produce artwork from these observations. I will also gain more knowledge about the history of Anuradhapura and know more about my host nation.

SAISA girls football

SAISA stands for South Asian Inter-Schools Association (SAISA). WHich is sports conference us GECKO ( name of our sports team) attend every year. This semester I am doing SAISA girls udner 19 football. I love the sport and I am hoping to get in to the team this year. Even if I don't get in this year at least I'll be getting some fitness by going for all the practices as I said in one of my goals I need to keep my fitness and stamina up in order for me to be healthy and avoid heart disese/diabetes which is common in both sides of my family. I also increased my awareness of my own steanghth and areas of improvement . I need to improve my stamina and how hard I kick the ball. One of my streanghts in football are defence and endurance. By going to all the pracices I am showing how commited I am to this sports. This is true because I do take football seriously as it is one of the only sports besides Archery that I like and would continue to do later in life. Also because of football I learned to collaborate with others . These are girls from grades 9-12 so most of the people I interact with in football are people who I don't interact with on a daily basis so it's good to work with new people for a change.

Archery

I do archery every Saturday morning from 9am-12am. At first sight it may look like an easy sport but its not easy at all in fact it is really challenging. In order to hold the bow right you have to have a certain posture (a slouch) this is something beginners find really hard to do but I found that I naturally had that posture and this is one of my strengths . I am aware that the slouching posture would not be good for my back when I grow older and continuing archery might worsen the situation but I am working on not slouching when not doing archery. In doing archery I also undertook a new challenge as this was a sport I had never done before and also one of the sports I have wanted to do for a long time. IN January there is going to be an archery tournament, I am in the under 18 rank and the things I need to improve on before the tournament in archery is to improve consistence. (shooting the target at the same spot not necessarily a bulls eye) and try to shoot the arrow 30 feet away.

Trip to the RCCI center

Last Thursday the RCCI ( Rehablitation Center for the Communication Impaired) community visited the RCCI center. This was a change of scenary because usually every thursday it is the RCCI kids that come to OSC but last thursday we payed a visit to their 'home' We went there with cricket ( sport) equipments and refreshments and the kids were really excited to be able to play with us. This visit was an eye opener. The RCCI center was not spacious, there was only one class room for all 32 kdis to cram in, No black/white board in all the conditions were terrible. This made me realise how much this community and service is of global importance I asked our community and service supervisor whether there was anyway we could help the RCCI center and some of the ideas we planned and initiated for our next visit were:- > Buy or fix the playground equpments > Turn the epmty shed in the RCCI center into a second classroom > Donate some plants to the school.

RCCI( Rehablitation Center for the Communication Impaired) is a service group, supported by Overseas School of Colombo, which was started to help adults and children with communication handicaps, whether it be caused by autism, Down’s Syndrome, strokes...etc. Our goal is to help the children interact and get the children to be more active as it would be good for their health. The RCCI kids come to OSC every Thursday. They come here with great anticipation to play and have fun, this may or may not be something they get to do on a daily basis. I have been in RCCI for almost a year and half now this shows perseverence and commitment to the activity. This service also allowed me to collaborate well in a large group setting which is also one of my goals. Last Thursday the Kids could not come to OSC because of the heavy rainfall. ( Thursday 1 November 2012)So, Instead our RCCI service group started to plan and initiate activities for our upcoming trip to the RCCI center on November 15. Some of the activities we planned to do are:- > Take Cricket ( the sport) equipments as the kids there really love to play the sport > Take puzzles for the girls as they do not like to do sports. > Take refreshments and Drinks for the teachers and the students