Blog Entry #6: Blog Assessment

1. After completing this blog, will you ever write art again?
Yes, I really like art so I am assuming that I will take more art classes and will have to or choose to write about art.

2. How often did you use Art vocabulary in your writing?
Extensively, I tried to make each blog pertain to one or more of our vocabulary words even if they were on a particular artist I still tried to use different vocabulary.

3. How would you rate your personal research involved in this assignment?
Above Average, each blog dealt with a different artist or idea. I researched the artist or period, such as Dadaism, before I would blog about it.

4. When writing, did you begin to use a dictionary or thesaurus?
Neither, I did feel there was a need to use either of them.

5. Has your interest in new or different forms of art increased?
Yes, I am always open to new forms of art.

6. How would you rate your overall vocabulary?
Above average, I would say that my vocabulary is above average, even though I might not have used a lot of it in my blogs, but there are still many words I do not know so that is why I did not choose outstanding.

7. How would you rate your vocabulary of art terminology?
Above Average, my high school teacher had us learn a lot of terminology, also I have picked up a lot on the way. In my blogs I tried to use different terminology for each one.

8. How would you rate your writing abilities?
Confident, I had a pretty strong English department in my high school that worked us hard. I think it has helped me with any kinds of writing I have done.

9. How would you rate your writing abilities when writing about art?
Confident, since I feel that I am an overall confident writer it does not change much when writing about art. I think it also helped that I had to write about art often through out high school.

10. How would you rate your ability to use specific vocabulary when writing?
Above Average, if I know that I need to use a specific vocabulary when writing then I will always figure out a way to understand the words and use the words.

Image Essay #15: Complementary Colors

This water colors painting is called "Appreciation Required" and was painted by Ellen Jean Diederich. Ellen is an artist whose artistic life began when she was nine when her older sister saw a picture that she drew of Bambi and encouraged her to become an artist. After then she began drawing portraits at public events. Ellen has a BFA degree in fine art and a BA in K-12 art education. Her hobby of gardening provides for most of her subject matter.

Originally I it was hard to figure out what color scheme Ellen has used for this painting. Then after looking at it longer I realized that it was complementary coloring. Complementary colors are hues that oppose one another on a color wheel; when juxtaposed, complementary colors create wonderful contrast; when mixed, they create a range of browns. Complementary colors are one of favorite color schemes that I use in my own work. I think I really liked this picture because of her use of complementary purple and yellow and the flower subject matter. I have a few art works that showcase flowers. One of them is even water colors, like this one. The main purple color key gives the overall picture a cooling and calming emotional effect. The accent color is yellow which creates nice contrast on the purple and also attracts emphasis on the middle of the blooming flower.

Image Essay #14: Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 and died on July 29, 1890. He was post-impressionist painter and can be considered one of the greatest painters in the history of European art. Van Gogh is an extremely known artist. He is one of my favorite. I also liked this style of painting. Van Gogh used visible dotted or dashed brush marks. I like that he didn't completely blend all of the paint on the canvas and left a lot of brush marks visible. His style is probably my favorite to use when I am painting. I did a larger, about 3'x2' painting of myself and my boyfriend with Van Gogh's brush mark style.

Van Gogh would work incredibly fast. He produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a ten year period before he committed suicide. It is said that most of his best known work was produced in the final two years of his life and in the two months before his death, he painted 90 pictures. That is simply stunning for me to hear. I think that is is fast to do one painting in two weeks because I usually paint slow, and Van Gogh did 90 in two months.

Some of his most notable works are: The Potato Eaters, Bedroom in Arle, Cafe Terrace at Night, The Red Vineyard, The Night Cafe, Starry Night Over the Rhone, The Starry Night, Irises, Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Wheat Field with Crows, and Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat.

This painting is his Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers. As stated above, you can see his brush strokes. Also, Van Gogh chose an analogous color scheme. Meaning, he chose colors that are next to each other on the color wheel, which yellow and green are. Green and yellow are the main colors in this painting. There is some use of orange and okra, but these still fall into the analogous color scheme. Van Gogh also added an accentual red ring on one of the flowers, which is a complementary color to green.

Image Essay #13: David Hockney

David Hockney was born on July 9, 1937 in Bradford, England. He was born into a "radical working-class family." Hockney was always considered to be eccentric because he always did what he wanted to do and never cared about what people thought of him.

I liked this piece because it reminds me of the first art project I did my junior year of high school. I took pictures of myself and then reassembled them like this. It was was one of my favorite projects and I got a Regional Governer's Art Show Award for it. Mine however was done it black and white photography and I also added parts over it that I drew, but it is still one of my favorites.

This piece also uses complementary colors. The older woman's face has an orange coloring to it. Orange is opposite blue on the color wheel, making them complementary colors. The older woman then has on a blue blouse. It makes the picture more visually appealing and the assembled photos makes it interesting. I think it is neat how even though the pictures do not line up we still know that it is a woman.

Image Essay #12: Dada Art Movement/ Marcel Janco

Dadaism was an art movement against conventional art and society. It mainly occurred from 1916-1923. The dada artists were young and did not agree with World War 1. They also did not want any part of the political or social standards of the time period. Dada was used as a form or art activism and rebellion. Common objects featured in the artwork would be urinals, pieces of junk, and shovels. Dadaism was an important precursor to Pop Art. I thought that the Dada Movement sort of tied into our art activism projects we are doing right now for the FYP event.

Marcel Janco is said to be the founder of the Dadaist movement. He was born in Romania in 1895 and joined a group of other artists in Switzerland in 1916. Those artists were the principal founders of the Dada Movement. The artists, including Marcel Janco, would enrage their audience through their bold defiance of Western culture and art. They published periodicals and articles, as well as exhibited art work. Janco created abstract reliefs in plaster and cardboard. He would most often combine expressionistic nature and figurative elements with abstract. Janco later returned to Romania. In 1967 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Painting and before he died in 1984 helped create the Janco Dada Museum.

This painting was done by Marcel Janco. The painting is very abstract and at that time was a form of rebellion against the war. Once you look at it longer you can begin to see figures of people. Then you notice that the people are wrestling and fighting. In the time he lived, this painting would have been considered anti-art, but now would sell for a lot of money.

Image Essay #11: The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys is a movie that came out in 1987, the year I was born. However, it was still an interesting film. It is about a mother and her two sons that move to a small town in California. The town is filled with bikers and mysterious deaths. The older of the two boys makes friends with a gang of bikers and the younger boy teams up with two other boys who claim to be vampire hunters. In the end the older boy starts to become a vampire and the younger brother has to save him by hunting down the head vampire biker. Normally I am not into vampire type movies, but this one wasn't bad. I chose to talk about it because of the movie poster to the left.

The poster places the people in a triangular hierarchy. The older of the two brothers, Mike, is in the foreground and it slightly higher than all of the other people. The next most important character is the head vampire/biker, then the girl Mike fell for, and his little brother. The poster also uses almost a monochromatic color scheme. There is orange in the background, then the people are shaded in darker shades of orange. This could almost be considered an earth tone scheme also, because of all of the rust and brown colors. This poster also has great value. Some areas such as highlights on the head vampire's face and the girl's face are almost white. Then there are also areas that very close to, if not already, black.

This is a little be older movie, that sort of scared me the first time I watched it. However, I kind of liked it and I normally do not like vampire type of movies. So I think that I would recommend someone to watch it, at least once. If they do not like it, then they can just admire the well thought-out poster.

Image Essay #10: Monochromatic Coloring

Well it is that wonderful time in my life that I want a tattoo. I have been wanting a tattoo for a long time now, I just have not found the perfect one. After watching the television show on TLC, Miami Ink, I saw this girl get a Koi fish tattoo and I loved it. The second picture is of her tattoo. She actually had gotten two, one on each side of her back. I did not like the colors used on her tattoos though.

All of these Koi fish tattoos use monochromatic or split complementary colors. Almost all of the Koi fish tattoos I have seen are similar to these, in the colors choices. The most common is monochromatic reds. They start with a deep red color on the outside, then gradually fade to almost an orange or yellow. Some, like the third picture, will use a split complementary coloring. Red and Green are complementary colors. As you can see in the third picture the eye of the fish is green, but the main body of the fish is red and orange. It is split complementary coloring because red and orange are beside each other on the color wheel, then red is opposite green.

There are also other coloring of the Koi fish tattoos I have come across, but this style is the most common. Even though it is the most common I really like the monochromatic hot colors. Some use cool colors and are green, blue, or even black. I think the hot colors really make them more realistic. If I do end up getting a Koi fish tattoo, I will ask that the artist use the hot colors, reds and oranges.

Journal Entry #5: Inspiration Artist-Charles Worth

My major here at BGSU is apparel merchandising and product development (AMPD). As an AMPD major, I will be working with clothing, designers, and textiles. Charles Worth is a clothing designer from the latter 19th century. He worked for as an apprentice and clerk for two London textile merchants. He has contributed to the fashion world because he earned the name "Father of Haute Couture." Haute couture is fashion mixed with costume. It has come back in Christian Dior's fashions.

What impressed me most about Worth was he was creating this elaborate gowns back in the 19th century. He created designs that have been used over and over again up to the 21st century. He must have spent hours and hours of time one the dresses.

In Worth's gowns he uses dominance to make the dress look complete. In almost all of the dresses he used one pattern or fabric then accented it with different colored bow. Also if the dress is mostly all one color then Worth incorporated accentual different colored trimming. All the gowns use dominance of texture, because of the different fabrics.

Worth address the woman form well. He fits used to tailor his dresses to the woman who had bought it. All were flattering to the female form and he really plays up with the hour glass figure of women. In addition, they were tastefully done and not exposing too much skin. This could have been from the time era that he lived and designed in.

I have been influenced to try to make this dress I have been wanting to make. If Charles Worth can make these beautiful gowns in the 19th century then I should be able to make a simple dress with much better equipment than he had. Some of his designs were very modern looking and gives me ideas of ways I can design my dress.

Worth uses a lot of monochromatic schemes. One of the examples you can see is different shades of yellows, creams, and gold's. Some dresses he uses complementary colors such as blue and orange. Not many of his dresses use hot colors. I am assuming that during this time period it was harder to make bright colors than opposed to darker cool colors.

Image Essay # 9: Guerrilla Girls

The Guerrilla Girls are a group of art activism women. They disguise themselves by wearing gorilla masks when in public or appear in their art work. They also do not use their real names for the sake of remaining anonymous; instead they use names such as Frida Kohl and Käthe Kollwitz as decoys. They have been an artactivismm group since 1985, longer than I have been alive! They like to compare themselves to other do-gooders such as Batman, Wonder Woman, and Robin Hood. The Guerrilla girls use facts to humor their audiences about important problems such asdiscriminationn, sexism, and racism.

The Guerrilla Girls started in 1985 after an incident at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum opened an exhibition that was supposed to be an up-to-the-minutesummaryt of the most significant contemporary art in the world. However, there was a problem because of the 169 artist who where there, only 13 were women. Also, all of the artists were from either Europe of the US and were white. Also the curator of the show, Kynaston McShine, stated that any artist who wasn't in the show should rethink "his" career. This comment really annoyed many artists because McShine was obviously very prejudiced. Many woman picketed in front of the museum, but they said they were really irritated that they did not make any impression on the passerbys. That is how the woman began to question why woman of color did not do better in art in the 70's and 80's and who was responsible for this problem?

I chose this picture because I thought it was funny and true. As a woman there are many stereotypes that people place upon use just from looking at us. That is one of the most misunderstandings today I think, when other judge you based on appearance. Many women are just who they are and do not fit into one of the stereotypes.Unfortunatelyy, some like the stereotypes, such as callingthemselvesf a fag hag, girl-next-door, or any of the others. Not all of them are too bad, its just that stereotypes in general are not good and lead to many problems.

Image Essay #8: Chiaroscuro

This is a painting done in oil on canvas by Giovanni Baglione. It is called Sacred Love Versus Profane Love. Baglione was an early baroque painter. His Scared Love Versus Profane Love, shows an angel (Sacred Love) interrupting a 'meeting' between Cupid (Profane Love) and the Devil. Baglione was notorious for his animosity towards Caravaggio. The Devil's face in this painting portrays Caravaggio's face.

Chiaroscuro is and art element Italian for lightdark. It can be defined as a bold contrast between light and dark. Chiaroscuro developed during the 16th century in Mannerism and Baroque art. It defines objects only by the contrast between the colors of the object and the background, not by contour lines. My high school art teacher used to always want us to use chiaroscuro, so I have been accustomed to using very dark darks to very light lights. I think that paintings and drawings look more dramatic and appealing when they use chiaroscuro rather than all grayscale. When something is completly grayscale, I think it looks boring. It almost makes me think of pictures that you color when you are young and have no value change. Without lights and darks the objects appear to be flat and less realistic. Mr. Johnston, my art teacher, used to always say that we should use chiaroscuro because it shows knowledge, and I completly agree. He would mention how the Art 1's (freshman art classes) always use flat grayscales, like coloring books. I really try to use the whole value scale when drawing or painting, especially with black and white paints or charcoals. It is more dramatic, eye catching/appealing, and

This painting obviously uses chiaroscuro. The background is not even visable because of the darkness of the color. Then parts of the angel's legs look as if it is pure white. You can see the dramatic value changes, especially on the angel. On its right arm, the area in the light is very bright when the other side of the arm almost fades into to the background because it is so dark. I think the brightness on the angel helps portray the purity of angels and gives it empasis. The Devil behind the angel is in darker values. Overall there is a big range of value throughout the painting.

Image Essay #7: Figure Ground Reversals

This piece was done by M.C. Escher. He was one of the most famous graphic artists around the world. Escher made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings, and over 2000 drawings and sketches. He is most widely known for "Ascending and Descending," "Relativity" "Metamorphosis I" (II & III), "Sky & Water I," and Reptiles. He was born in 1898 with the name Maurits Cornelis Escher and died in 1972.

One of the main concepts that M.C. Escher uses is figure/ground reversal. Figure/ground reversal is an arrangement in which positive and negative shapes alternatively command attention. It can also be known as positive and negative interchange. The shapes of the negative space can also be shapes for the positive space.

This piece is an example of a figure/ground reversal. There is a man in the middle with a hat with a feather in it. The feather can also be seen as the woman's arm who is positioned right above the man with the hat. If you look longer then you realize that the woman whose arm is also the man's feather in his hat, has a decoration in her hair with also turns into the body of the man with the feather in the hat. It is like a big cycle. The longer that you look at the picture the more images you see in the negative and positive space that were not completely noticeable until you looked longer.

Image Essay #6: Fore,Middle, and Background

This piece is called "Woman at the Window at Figueras" by Salvador Dali. It was painted on canvas in oil in 1926. The Original was 9.5"x9.8". It was painted during Dali's surrealism period.

Dali is a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, and designer. He studied in Barcelona and Madrid Spain. He then moved to Paris in the late 1920's to join the Surrealist artists. He then became the world's best-known Surrealist artist. Objects in his paintings are usually common objects that have been deformed and changed in bizarre ways. His most famous painting is the "Persistence of Memory" which many of us would know as the painting with all the melting clocks in a weird landscape. He was an unusual man but was a very good surrealist painter.

This painting of his is very easy to see the foreground, middleground, and background. In the foreground, area that appears closest to the viewer, is the woman in the chair. She appears to be in the foreground because she is not completely in the picture, looks very large compared to the other images in the painting, and has the more bright colors used.

The middleground is the area that is not the focal point of this painting, but can be the focal point. It is set behind the foreground images but appears to be closer than the images in background. The main building is the middleground, however, I would also consider the mountains to also be in the middleground area.

The background should be the last thing that you look at. Even though some important elements may be hidden in the background, it usually is non-important and does not serve a great purpose. The background is the area that appears the furthest away from the viewer. Generally, like in this picture, the background will be much lighter than the middle and foreground objects to not draw away from the more important objects and also because that is when naturally happens; objects become lighter the further they are away. The sky and some may say the mountains would be the background of Dali's painting.

Blog Entry #4: Art:21-Place/Stories

Place
I feel that a place defines who we are and not the other way around. We can fall in love with places and they will then be a part of us. That's why they say living in New York makes you "hard" and living in California can make you "soft". The place where we are is going to effect and define us.

Richard Serra was influenced by the place when he and his father watched a ship be put into water and sent to sea. He started thinking of how something so massive then can become weightless. Serra also plays with place in this sculptures. You can walk in and out and around them. Sally Mann was influenced by her childhood places. She was the youngest of three and by the time she was born she felt that her parents were tired of raising children. She was neglected and ran wild and naked until she went to school at the age of seven. The influences show through in her photographs. She took many pictures of her children naked because she thought it was completely normal. Margaret Kilgillen and McGee were also influenced by place. McGee explains that when he does a show in an art gallery he feels it is the same crowd and it is not widely seen. Then when he creates graffiti on trains then people all over can appreciate the art. Finally, Pepon Osorio was influenced by places he went to in his childhood. The one piece was a rendition of this experience at the barber shop and his first haircut. Osorio feels that he does installation work because it is the only way he can connect beyond just on the wall.

Art can change the way a space is viewed and effects you. Advertising is art and it can effect many people and places. The program has changed my notions because before I did not realize how childhood places can come back into some of our art work.

I feel most connected with Sally Mann because I really enjoy black and white photography. I took a photography class in high school and we rolled the film in the canisters, developed it, and developed the pictures. I would really like to pick it up as a hobby and Sally Mann's photos inspired me a little.

Each artist video on place used a different media. Richard Serra used steel. Sally Mann uses black and white photography. Margaret and McGee used spray paints and oil paints. Finally Pepon Osorio used videos and multi-media to create his installation works. The scale for all the artist except Sally Mann could go very large. Mann is limited a little because she is using photography which she was developing in her home. She would be able to create a very large picture is she combined many pictures to create one large one. Composition I feel would be most important in Osorio's works because it is installation work, and the placement of different objects could create a whole different meaning if not in the right places.

When I was young the outdoors interested me a lot. I was always outside playing with my sisters or neighbor girls. Then what also scared me was the outdoors, but only at night. I especially did not like being outdoors by myself at night in the country. If there were others with me I was fine, but I did not like to be alone in the dark outside. Five places from my childhood would be: Grandma's house, the first house I lived in, the shed of the second house I lived in, the car because we were always driving and taking trips, and my neighbor Janet's house. One word that would describe each one in order would be: happiness, old, adventurous, relaxing, and cluttered.

My grandmother Lucius' house was always a bright and happy place. It always smelled good and not like mildew and old like my other grandmother's house. Objects the occupied her house was lots food, big dining table, long counter top, two living rooms, big windows, hallway full of pictures, small cement front porch, big black asphalt driveway, open backyard, long homemade swingset and the fire-pit in the backyard.

Stories
I thought about what story I would want to be guaranteed to be passed down, but I could not think of an exact one. I would probably choose something about the civil rights movement in the 60's or a story of a war. I would chose one of those because they are both hard to look back upon and think that they really happened. So many people die in wars and also in the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement is extremely important to our country today and how we are growing as a nation. Many people such as Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood up for something that they believe in and I think that is very worthy of re-telling. Also, a story on a war would also be very important because history repeats itself, and maybe if we are taught more about certain histories, then they wouldn't happen again. I would want the story to be written because stories are told by word of mouth are changed and forgotten more easily. I would want my story to be remembered and original.

Some stories are told because they are supposed to teach us a lesson. Especially stories we heard as a child usually had a moral or lesson to them. Some stories are continued to be told because they are interesting, important to learn from, important to our country, or have become traditions. I think nursery rhymes have become traditions that you learn when you are little because that's is what was always done in the past.

The artists used journals and sketchbooks to develop their ideas. I feel that a journal or sketchbook is sort of a work of art because it is a composite book of all of your ideas. You can usually see the progress of an idea growing. A work of art can be described in many different ways. So some one may not think that just a bunch of scribble and writing is art, but to someone else it may be a masterpiece. It depends on who is looking at it.

To start off 15 years ago I was only 3 years old. I remember the world around me as large and happy. Everything to a 3 year old seems to be bright and fun. I spent my days at home with my mom. I would watch cartoons or color until it was time to go walk down to the school to get one of my sisters. After Jenna came home then we would spend our time watching more cartoons, playing outside a lot, or playing with our neighbor Michelle. The emotions that I felt was mostly happiness. When I was 3 I never remember ever worrying, feeling sad, or stressed.

10 years ago I would have been 8 years old. This would put me in about 2nd grade. Even then I still did not seem sad or stressed. I have always been a happy person. However now I remember having crushes on boys because they didn't have cooties anymore. Even at 8 I didn't remember feeling emotions such as jealousy even if the boy I liked, like another girl. To me this wasn't a big deal and I was not even jealous.

5 years ago I would have been 13 years old. This is when a lot of emotions kicked in. I was a teenage girl with flying hormones. Everything now is a big deal and something that would have only mad me a tiny bit annoyed now became a huge ordeal. I can remember feeling sad because a boy didn't like me, but then happy and excited if someone had a crush on me. I remember worrying that I was wearing the right things and that my hair was ok and wasn't messed up. Also I began getting stressed because my classes in school were beginning to get harder and I needed to keep my grade point average high. I wasn't just a big ball of stress and worries though, I still remained very happy and laid back because that's who I have always been.

Image Essay #5: Gestalt-Closure

Gestalt is a process in which visual information is understood as a whole before it is examined separately. It can also be stated as a configuration of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts. There are six principles of Gestalt: grouping, containment, repetition, proximity, continuity, and closure. Closure refers to the mind's inclination to connect fragmentary information to produce a completed form. In other words, the mind connects many closely placed separate images to one another to create one whole image.

This picture demonstrates the Gestalt principle of closure. All of the circles are separated and not touching, or are barely touching, it is hard to tell. However, our minds do not conceive the picture as a bunch of separate circles. There is a sense of unity which connects them all together creating one image of an owl's head. The values of the different circles help divide the different parts of its face, because when you look closely all the circles are the same exact size. The values also creates space and the illusion that some parts of face are closer to us than others.

The like that the further you are from the image it doesn't look like it is made up of separate circles at all, but is just a picture of an owl's face. You have to get extremely close to the picture to even see it as solely circles, which is very hard to do.

Image Essay #4: Tension

This piece is called "Jimi", obviously after Jimi Hendrix. It was created by Richard S. Duardo, a pop-art artist. This has become one of my favorite works of art. For our senior art mural in my art class in high school, we had to find a pop-art artist who's style we liked and could use to recreate our own version of ourselves. This was the particular piece that I fell in love with and made my self-portrait resemble. I also like many other's done by Duardo, including Madonna, Frankenstien, and Simon from the movie A Clockwork Orange.

Not only do I like this piece, but also it has good tension. Tension is a balanced relation between strongly opposing elements. As you can see Duardo has used a variety of elements in "Jimi". There are many smaller circular shapes: Jimi Hendrix's hair, the small dots on the left side, and the repeated circles on the right. There are linear scribbles and abstract shapes. Also, he uses many sharp edges and rectangle shapes.

From Duardo's variety of shapes there is tension. It does not break up the picture but actually conforms it as a whole. All the similar shapes are not grouped together. Since the shapes and lines are throughtout then there is no where that your eye leaves the page. This project also uses the Gestalt principle of proximity. The project is actually broken up into three rectangles, but it is hard to view it as just three rectangles and not as just one rectangle because of their close proximity.

Blog Entry #3:Writing About Art assessment

1. Before this blog Assignment, had you ever kept a journal, diary, or blog?
No not really, for some of the English classes we sort of had to keep a journal, but never for an art class.

2. Before this Blog Assignment, had you ever written about art before?
Often, in my high school art class we would have to fill out an art planner before each project that we did. On the planner we would have to describe the medium, composition, elements and principles of design, and etc that we were going to use.

3. Have you ever written for fun (poetry, fiction or non, journalistic, or research)?
Never, I am not a creative writer.

4. When writing, do you use a dictionary or thesaurus?
Both, but mainly a thesaurus.

5. If given the chance, would you rather discuss art verbally or through written means?
Written, because then you have more time to think about what you are going to say and you do not feel as if you are put on the spot and will lose your train of thought.

6. How would you rate your overall vocabulary?
Average to Above Average

7. How would you rate your vocabulary of art terminology?
Above Average

8. How would you rate your writing abilities?
Average

9. How would you rate your writing abilities when writing about art?
Average to Confident

10. How would you rate your ability to use specific vocabulary when writing?
Average maybe Above Average

Image Essay #3:Dominance in Shape

This is a painting called "Living Signs" by Ryan McGinness. It is painted onto a wall in the Galeria Moriarty in Madrid. McGinness is a young artist who lives and works in Manhattan, also makeing films and graphic novels. This is one of my favorite paintings by this artist, but I love them all. One website that shows a lot of his work is http://www.ryanmcginness.com I would advise anyone to check out his stuff. Most of it is screen printing.

Even though this painting it on a wall it still shows a dominance in shapes. The trees are the most domiant, then there are smaller subordinante circles, and many tiny accentual circles. This is a great example of the exaggeration of the shapes, because the trees are much greater in size compared to the very small accentuals.

He also took into consideration the negative spaces. There is a dominant negative space, some subordinates, and many accentuals, same as the shapes. There are lots of details in the subordinate circles that keep you wanting figure out what everything is. The details can really draw a crowd in to really observe and analyze what is going on in this painting. I feel that the tree looks as if it is exploding, and all the cirlces are bursting out of the tree. It has great movement and you do not follow it off of the page, or in this case the wall.

Image Essay #2: Contour Line

For our new project we have to make contour line drawings. This piece is a great example of a contour drawing. The whole drawing consists of nothing but lines. The lines also vary in definition; some have thicker lines than others. The one thing that makes me like this piece is that fact that from close up it looks like just a very complex drawing of many juxtaposed images, almost collage like; but when you look at the drawing from farther away you can see there is one image of two faces.

The artist also used tension in this piece. Tension is a balanced relationship between strongly opposing elements. When you look at the drawing closely you will see lots of flowers, skulls, feathers and small people. There is a message written in the top left hand side which says, "Times of War". There is tension in this drawing because there is a message saying "Times of War" but then there are a lot of flowers around it. Usually when one thinks of war, flowers are not the first thing to come to mind.

Also in this piece there are dominant images and negative spaces. The definition and the closeness of the lines help us determine the most important images. The dominance of negative spaces creates better movement around the drawing. I really like this piece because of its great usage of contour lines.

Blog Entry #2: Reviewing Part III

For the third part of our first series of work I chose to go with an overall theme. My overall theme was Chinese culture from an American’s point of view. I incorporated many of the things that we as American’s view as being part of Chinese culture. Chinese culture is very different from our own lifestyles, and that is why I chose it.

The juxtaposed images all relate to one of another because I chose an overall Chinese theme. I also put very related images besides one another. Such as the shape of China beside the flag and the chop sticks beside the Chinese food take out boxes.

The dominance of the size of China was my way of emphasizing its importance. The whole theme was based on the people and their culture from that particular country so I felt it was most important and made it the most dominant in size. Opposed to say, making Bruce Lee’s head the most dominant piece. That would send a different message than what I was trying to portray. If Bruce Lee’s head was the largest shape then I think there would be a sense of commercialism and maybe seem like there was more of an emphasis on his movies, rather than Chinese culture.

The larger image of the Tai Chi sword at the bottom is powerful and also helps pull the viewer in and lead their eye to the smaller accentual images. The smaller images help calm the piece and not make it too overpowering with lots of larger dominant images. The accents give a variety in size and better movement through the whole composition.

Image Essay #1: Composition

This painting portrays dominance of negative space. You can easily see there is a dominant area of negative shape, some subordinate, and many accentual areas of negative space. The dominant negative space forces the painting to be shifted to the left side, making it more visually interesting than a traditional painting centered and very symmetrical on either side. It also has lots of movement. The eye is drawn from the bottom bunch of stems to the yellow flowers up the leaves and red flowers then back down the leaves to the yellow flower in the corner and back up again.

The yellow flowers help the viewer to not follow the painting off of the page. The flower in the bottom right corner serves to not lose the viewer’s eye after following the leaves back down. It curves a little to the stems to lead us back to the center of the art piece. This is the same for the flowers in the top right hand corner. They lead the eye away from the edge of the painting and back to the main focus of the red flowers.

Flowers naturally have lots of movement but can sometimes is not always be captured in paintings. This artist did a good job of showing the natural flow of the flowers. The many tiny leaves creates almost a vertical pattern in some parts which allows our eyes to follow the pattern until introduced to another set of vertical or horizontal set of leaves to lead our eye to another place.

Blog Entry #1:Biographical Statement

Art has been a fairly large part of my 18 years of life so far. I have been creating art ever since I was very young. Even simply coloring in one of my many coloring books kept me entertained and happy for hours on end. I began creating art in elementary school where it was required that we all took art, but it was always my favorite class. After middle school and junior high I began taking my art more seriously and took drawing and then two years of independent art study classes.

There are several reasons why I make art. Firstly, it has always been enjoyable to me. I just use that side of my brain to where colors and images are appealing to me. Secondly, I like the idea and having the ability to create works of art. I even feel that what we wear and how we put together our outfits are just creating art, e.g. matching colors, patterns, ect.

Personally, when creating art I like to use charcoal pencils, acrylic paints, watercolor paints, 3-D objects and materials, oil pastels, and during my senior year of high school I took a class on commercial art which sparked my interest in computer designing. Unfortunately I have never used oil paints, but would like to someday. I am up for any medium when it comes to art. I have used the materials above more often than others because I like the finish product I can get from them. Also, they were easily available to me during my high school art classes. The charcoal pencils I think give a drawing more of an edge than ordinary graphite which can look dull in its complete gray scale. The black and white charcoal would give me the darks and lights I wanted, especially when using colored charcoal paper, not only do you put in shadows with the black charcoal but also highlights with the white.

Finally, what inspires me? I think that many things have inspired me. My old art teacher, Robert Johnston, used to inspire me. Or when I was stuck for an idea, I would get out our old pictures he took from art shows and I would go through and if I found a concept or idea that I thought looked fun then I would be inspired by that and create my vision of the idea. Previous artists like Van Gogh, Warhol, Jasper John, and new artist Ryan McGuinness have inspired me with their techniques or styles they used. Even my own art projects have inspired me to do others like it, change it up a bit, or add on to a previous project I had done a year ago that I thought was done but then decided to add on to it. So really I have many things that inspire me to create art.