Art Gallery Visit 1

A) Janine Antoni’s 2009 work ‘Inhabit’ which was a digital color print was definitely one that left an impression on me. I thought it was really cool how the artist was able to feature herself in the photograph. The message to me was clear yet unclear. It was simple, yet it was so simple it made me think there must have been another hidden meaning I was missing out on. Donald Judds ‘Untitled’ which was a 1969 work done with Iron and Plexiglas, was a really great work of art as well. When I first saw this work I thought the orange light was actually from a light but a closer glance revealed it was actually the way the natural lighting was reflecting off of the Plexiglas. B) Wessily Kandinsky’s 1913 oil on canvas painting ‘Fragment 2 for composition VII’ made me feel some type of way. It screamed out turmoil and chaos and I almost couldn’t handle the connection I felt to this piece. It was so bold in color, so loud in form and it made me feel connected in the emotions that seemed to be present in the work. It was scary in a way and provoked raw terror and anger in me at the moment. While that piece had me emotionally wrecked for a few moments Jennifer Stankamp’s 1993 computer installation ‘Untitled’ had a very calming effect on me. I connected with the colors and the way in which the work was moving made me feel calmed and peaceful which I often look for when I am particularly stressed and or under pressures. I loved it and felt very satisfied with the work. C) ‘The final veteran’ (1960, oil on canvas) by Larry Rivers was a work that left me questioning. I wanted to know why the artist created the work, and who inspired it and what it was created for. The painting was aggravatingly vague that in a way it left me dissatisfied. Another work that left me wondering was Ken Price’s ‘The Sea of Sin’ (1961, Tempera, terra cotta in wood and glass box). It was such a small work of art with such a powerful title that I felt wasn’t emphasized or explained enough. That title along with why the work was so meek has been having me pondering for days.

Logo Project

1) I had a lot of good fun creating my logo. It was a slight challenge at first to come up with what I wanted the logo to look like. After I got it going however it was a blast.
2)I had to take some time to think about my logo. I had to think what I wanted it to say about me as a person. I wanted to convey the right message efficiently. I used colors that have had personal meaning as well as colors that would be aesthetically pleasing to a viewer.
3) I realized during the creation of my logo that it isn't very simple to create a logo. A lot of thought goes into the creation and it isn't just as simple as a quick sketch. I discovered that I have more layers to myself than could possibly fit into one work of art or logo.
4) I didn't think about how when creating  a logo you need to take into consideration the places where the logo is going to be. The material that the logo is going to be printed on is vital. The video 'What is a Logo' was what got me thinking of this aspect of logo creation. In the powerpoint I learned about Emblems and I thought it was interesting that emblems mainly show up on flags and clothing. I enjoyed the slide that said "a good logo is like setting the foundation stone for a good brand career" and i completely agree. After all who could take a company with a logo of for example, a cartoon smoking, as a serious business?

Module 4 art project 1

1) There was something tranquil about creating the Value scale and Color wheel. It gave me a minuet to sit and focus on one project and sort of made me relax in an odd way, regardless that it was an assignment. 2) I enjoyed working with pencil the best. The paint became semi-bothersome after a while but with the pencil you were just shading and it was fairly simple. 3) The most important discovery was how difficult it actually was to create colors of the true primary colors. I had to really get the levels of each primary color right in order to create the proper effect and it became frustrating at one point even. 4) Obviously the most important thing I learned in watching the videos was that the real primary colors are yellow, cyan and magenta. Growing up you are told red, yellow and blue are the primary colors so imagine my surprise as an adult finding out that all of my elementary art teachers were wrong! I liked these videos, they were fun, short and easy to watch and very much helpful as well as informative.

Photo Bucket Assignment

For this project I used an eclectic array of photographs from various recent special occasions and spots. The camera I used was a digital camera that I borrowed from a friend. I used different angels and various amounts of lighting which all depended on the type of photo I was trying to take. For the photo "Texture" I wanted to really show how the hair was curled and wild, I wanted the face to be the secondary focal point with the hair as the main piece and I picked a lighting that would accentuate the hairs texture and take away from the face so as not to distract the viewer. The photo "Lines" was of a butterfly bush which had many different crossing lines that were actually the branches. It so happened as I was taking the shot that a butterfly landed on the plant. However I don't feel the element of the lines was taken away by the appearance of the butterfly, although it was a secondary focus almost.

module 3 blog

1) Color is the pigments used in a work of art. It was said that bold colors can be used to show a stronger emotion. Color effects the way someone views a work of art. Take a painting of the sky for example: using light pinks and yellows this photo can be thought of as beautiful and picturesque, using dark reds and blacks it can become angry and haunting.
2) Using color alone to evoke feeling is very interesting to me. Many psychological studies have been done to decipher how and what colors effect peoples emotions and attitudes. It makes me feel as if an artist has to become psychoanalytical while painting and I quiet like this concept.
3) What impacted me most in the video Color was Van Goah's idea that you can express a strong emotion by using bold colors. this was put into play in Mark Rofco's work of art that used only deep shades of reds and maroons to show a hatred for a restaurant.
4)What impacted me most in the video Feelings: Emotions and Art was Goya's "The Black Paintings". I thought it was so intriguing how he created such grotesque works of art as a protest and the coloring he used was so horrifyingly beautiful that I cannot escape them. It really did make me feel as if I were in one of his very own nightmares.

Video Review Module 2

1) Key concepts:
The concepts I learned from the video Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts were that there are many different philosophies about beauty and different definitions and thoughts on beauty in artwork. The video started with the 5th century Plato ("There is beauty by which all things are beautiful") and went as far as discussing the views of Kant (18th century) and Hegel. The main theme of this video was that beauty is a feeling that is brought on by a visual stimulation. The concepts I learned from the video CARTA: Neurobiology Neurology and Art and Aesthetics were all about the technical workings of our brains and visual pathways. It discussed and taught about all of the scientific ways that we perceive artwork and beauty in the arts and uncovered that our urge to create and observe art goes back to primitive man.
2) The philosopher whose theory I feel was most important to the aesthetic theory was 5th century Plato. Just something about what he said "what is beautiful in itself is not this object or that one, but that which conveys their own nature." I interpreted this to mean that beauty does not have a set rule, and you can not compare to things and ask which is more beautiful, rather beauty is something just being itself and not trying to mask it in something it shouldn't be in, not trying to take away its raw form. Plato  brought about the idea that everything can be seen in some light by some person as beautiful, nothing is unappealing. What a magnificent and lovely sentiment, and how elated I was to discover in the video that he inspired Aristotle to think of his very own ideas on beauty and aesthetics.
3) Changeux and Ramachandran
I felt that the views of these two speakers was only somewhat necessary and relevant to our lessons. While it may be interesting to some and it was most definitely relivant, I wasn't too intrigued by the scientific aspect of the videos. The most interesting fact from Changeux was that art is in constant evolution. This was a completely vailid and truthful statement. Art is ever changing and new artist generally bring new ideas, creations and perspectives to the world of art. The most interesting thing from Ramachandran was him saying that "artist create images that hyper stimulate each individual area of vision." I liked that he shed a light on this and it made me think and realize how much sense this makes. When he showed the audience the diagram of the head with the little man and explained that our visual interpretation is not simply that and made us aware of how vision works I was simply impressed.
4)The texts covered the areas of creativity, reasons why art is created, aesthetics, philosophy of these terms among many other things. The videos to me served as back up for the text, to reinforce the lessons of the chapters as well as to delve deeper and explain more thoroughly. The film Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts served its purpose by providing us more with the philosophies of what artwork and beauty could be. The film CARTA: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics  was meant to illustrate to us what goes on in our brains when we experience artwork and beauty. This was a technical explanation of philosophical subject matter.