Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Project 2 again!

Project 2

Photoshop turned all of the flares yellow and red, but i kinda like it.

Mark Bannerman



Mark Bannerman is an award winning 3D visual artist who lives in Scotland. His portfolio shows 3D rendered drawings with a humanistic feel. His images appear to be dreamlike and quirky. They tend to have the same aesthetic feel as the children's book, Where the Wild Things Are. Mark Bannerman has claimed to be a perfectionist, which can be seen by the technical confidence, inspirational subtlety, and stunning concept in his works. 

The meanings that can be derived from Bannerman's work is that of fantasy and imagination. For example, his above work, Flying Fish, takes the name of the animal, the flying fish, and transplants it literally to a fish flying a plane. It also tends to oscillate from a three dimensional image popping out at you to an image that sinks back into the page. The fish and plane are quite realistically drawn as if they are flying out of the page towards the viewer, and the waves of the ocean are in the same style as Eric Carle, made up of layers and layers of paper overlapped to give a sense of depth. 
  Some critiques of Bannerman's work would be that the colors of the sky and land tend to be composed of the same image and blend together in some images. This could be part of what Bannerman is going for in his images, but it tends to detract from my interpretation of each image. His use of a crisp foreground and a blurred background help to create the surrealistic effect, giving the image the fantasy land feel.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Art Debate

During art week 2.0, there was an art debate in the style of a great throw down. The focus of the main tag-team debate was the theme: "Should there be limits to art?" Those in the yes camp were Billy and Lisa, those who were a part of the no front were Joe and Colby. This debate encouraged in philosophical thinking about art, what it is, and what it means.

The main event was the elimination round. In this event, each speaker was given only two minutes to discuss the question for the round and a very official applause-o-meter was used to judge who was knocked out for that round.

The first round question was, "Who has been the most impactful artist/ piece of art in the last decade?" Billy was the lucky number one and took the stance that the Obama hope poster was the most impactful piece. It became populated by social networks and was sold in DC. Recently it was bought by a poster gallery. This piece impacted the 2008 election immensely, making te vote less about race. Lisa chose James Terrell for his reshapping of the earth. He reshaped the earth and heavens in view of the human mind. It is a timeless piece of work. Colby took the stand and chose Stephen Colbert. He argued that Colbert created  art that is political. He is capable of insinuating in the enemies clothes, and his comedy can be appreciated by both political sides by the absurdity of what he does. "Art should shed light on on something that you thought you knew." Joe determined that Chris O'Phealy's art mendona. It was a dark skinned image of the Virgin Mary, made with elephant dung and erotic images from men's magazines. It was rejected as obscene and made people defend public funding for Art. It spoke to local cultural images and challenged traditional European views.

The next question was, "can art be diverted from politics and can art be for art's sake?" Billy took the side no because even not taking a position on an issue is reaffirming the status quo. Even if the artist did not want a political view, it always did. Art is a dialogue about a view of objects. Joe took the stance at drawing a line at seeing everything as political at sensory image and pleasure. A visceral response is universal and not political, because it doesn't move through language. It enters through smell, sound, and taste.  Colby took the approach of asking a different question, "Does society deserve art? Does an artist deserve a society to respect it?" He believes that art needs to be embedded in society. That it sends mixed messages. Liberal living with nonliberal.

The final round was the question, "What is the role of intention in creating art?" Joe said that intention is an important way in understanding the work of art. Art is in a dialouge in the world once you put it out there. It depends on those who encountered it. Colby said that intention determines the context of the art. He gave the example of Jackson Pollack, a post WWII artist who did intentional acts based off of unintentionality. Once let out into nature, he could see patterns. Connecting accidents in studio to accidents in nature.

I took away from this debate that the artist's intention of their art and their meaning behind it is almost inconsequential. The public's perception of art is what defines it through history.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Artist talk - Mirta Kupferminc

Mirta Kupferminc is an artist who's life has been indirectly affected by the Holocaust. Her mother and father were both survivors and in her talk she focused on tatoos as ornamental vs. tatoos in the Holocaust. She feels that in both ways tatoos give that person an identity that they can forever relate to. She described herself to our class as a digital artist, but many of the works she was showing us were videos and a few pictures, which in this day and age could mean that they were photoshopped and made digitally.

She tried to reinact the Holocaust in a way through one of her exhibits. A tatoo artist was there to give henna tatoos to any who wanted one, except he would only give numbers to those wearing red. Those who were wearing red soon came to realize that they were in a different group than the rest of the patrons and they had something to identify each other with. The number's gave them an identity, just as the survivors of the Holocaust have come together to have an identity via their number.

Mirta always uses her mother's number in her works because she was too young to remember what her father's number was and would not like to make up a number or worse yet steal a survivor's number. This keeps her artwork real and more touching. The audience can relate to the fact that this was an actual victim of the Holocaust's number.

The picture of her mother sitting on the chair with wings and the rock star sitting in the same wingged chair help to show the difference between tatoos as ornamental and tatoos given in the Holocaust. Your eye is not immediately drawn to her mother's tatoo, but your eye is drawn to the man's many tatoos. His posture helps you to realize that he has gotten all of these tatoos purposefully, whereas heer mother's posture indicates that she might not have wanted to get her tatoo on purpose.

The video she showed was called "The Skin of Memories". This video compared the pain of tatooin with that of embroidery, a skill which Mirta's mother enjoys to practice and has passed on to her. She said in the talk of how she is interested in objects because she uses every other media and wants to involve physical objects into her work. The video started off with a needle pricking at a latex skin. It later peirced the skin and made embroidery. During the video, the viewer could feel the pain of getting stuck by the needle. It then changed to embroidery very close up, and one could feel the pain of the needle going through the fabric.

Mirta Kupferminc is an artist who dabbles in all forms of art and her works are stunningly powerful.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Christopher Haines

Chris Haines is an artist who's favorite styles of art to combine are 3D, photography, and painting. His artwork is incredible and has an immense amount of detail put into it. Chris stated in an interview with Psdtuts+ that he is fascinated with how humans think and live, and that is why they tend to be the subject material for his art. He also began to use digital media in high school, where he discovered Photoshop his junior year. He then studied graphic design for two years in High School and two years in a diploma course. He enjoys both being taught and the self teaching method. Teachers bring their years of experience to the table, and being self taught helps you to learn how to combine various tools.
Chris created this artwork, entitled "Zen", for the latest Desktopography wallpaper pack. I believe that Chris is showing humans connection to nature in this work. Many corals make up the face in the image, but the holes in the face show how we are incompletely connected to nature. Man continually distances himself from nature by cutting down forests and building grand cities. This work shows total immersion of man into the world of life living in the sea.
Critiques of "Zen" could be the fact that some of the fish look too animated. They appear to be glowing in the water, and the fish that are where the rest of the image is in focus are not in focus. Other than this, there is honestly nothing I can say to critique his images. They are quite wonderous and i look forward to the next work of his.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Project 2

I am going to be taking an image of myself at Christmas and I will be creating a vector map portrait. I hope to include the sunglasses on my Santa hat, the Santa hat itself, and the shirt im wearing. I am unsure as to how to go about adding shadows and features to my face.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Scott Kildall


http://www.kildall.com/artwork/2009/black_hole/index.html


Scott Kildall states that he works at the intersection of media culture and human memory. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in Political Philosophy from Brown University in 1991. He received a Master of Fine Arts through the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Art and Technology Studies department in 2006. His artwork depicts collapse but into the mysterious and awe inspiring future. He has created a sense of 3 Dimensional space in between 2 pieces of 2 Dimensional paper. He wishes for his projects to be edited by the public.

I believe that Scott is commenting of how people are extremely materialistic. All of the objects that fly by in his video are all man made objects. The Black Hole Series showcases the act of drifting into the unknown, endless void, known as space. Many of the objects in the Black Hole Series are in excess in peoples lives. They drift away in order to de-clutter the rest of the world. He could also be making the point of how the media saturate the public with materialistic images and encourage everyone to have the next great thing in order to be trendy. Throwing the objects away gives the feeling of relief, like the weight of being over encumbered is discarded. 






Some critiques of Scott Kildall's artwork would be the fact that the 3 Dimensional objects tend to look unrealistic. To me, they seem too animated which detracts from recognizing that you are freeing yourself of this clutter. If the objects looked more similar to the actual objects they are representing, then the feeling of relief could be more concrete.


http://www.kildall.com/artwork/index.html

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Tony Robbin


Tony Robbin is a pioneer in the computer visualization of four-dimensional geometry. Since 1981, his realtime rotation programs of four-dimensional figures have been useful for obtaining an intuitive feel for four-dimensional space, and quasicrystal space. He has melded influences as diverse as Cubism and contemporary physics into his artworks. In his work below, Drawing 53, Tony projects various cubes and four dimensional objects with a great sense of depth. The cubes and four dimensional objects are shown flying off of the canvas.


The concept that I believe Tony is playing with is the idea of new age art and new medias for art. Art had always been considered a formal subject and with the use of computer assisted drawing, art becomes more of a language that must be studied. One may have an idea in their head of what they want to draw, but then the lines and sketches must be converted into computer programming language. He also involves computer generated images of the fourth dimension which shows a sense of wonder and awe. People cannot imagine the fourth dimension very well because all of life is in the third dimension. Showing the fourth dimension in only a three dimensional space is the equivalent of trying to draw a cube on a piece of paper. The general idea can be expressed, but the actual shape and view from all sides cannot be shown. Another idea is that he could be showing how when translating from one language to another, information can be lost or misconstrued. Converting from drawing, to computer programing, and back to drawing can lead to some areas where information is lost or chaotic.

Some critiques of Tony Robbin's artwork can be voiced, but there are not many. All of the artwork is either painted or drawn on a canvas. Because it was made on a computer, perhaps the artwork should remain on the computer and be put online. Also, many of his artworks look the same. there are the colorful cubes and objects, with thousands of lines in the background. In a few of his drawings and paintings, there could only be the background lines, or only the colorful cubes and objects.

Monday, October 4, 2010



Number 2 after days of touch up. Didn't import quite as large as the first one. The feeling of depth is shown in all three layers and in the picture as a whole along with the transcend from light to darkness from top to bottom. The 3 class scans were the locket (heart), the crab, and the .O.A.R. tree used as coral.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Color Correction


Yay! made better!!! i love learning things in photoshop!!!

this one was too dark..

Oliver Wasow

Oliver Wasow

Oliver Wasow is a Wisconsin born artist who currently lives in New York and continues to make art. He is considered one of New York's most valued living artist. In Wasow's photographs, he adjusts them through photoshop and creates an image that is breath-taking and also believable. He has been in many solo exibitions, including most recently in 2008 in White Columns, NYC. However, Wasow has also been in a great many group exhibitions, most recently in 2007 in Williamstown, Mass. Wasow offers his knowledge to other aspiring young artists by teaching at: The Bard College Milton Averery Graduate School for the Arts, The School of the Visual Arts Graduate Program in Photography and Related Media, and SVA's Undergraduate Photography Program.

Oliver Wasow

I believe that Wasow's goal was to enhance the feel of the area he was photographing. I believe that he wanted to give the locations of his photos the utmost wonder and awe. The issues being raised are the beauty of lighting and the grace of nature. The Vipassana Meditation Center in Tehran, Irashows the beauty of a cave and how nature can so easily provide a place for somber reflection. The use of lighting is shown in this picture by having the mouth of the cave lit brightly and the top and back of the the cave fades to darkness. The area seems so incredibly vast. Lighting is also shown on his Odyssey Cruise Ship Theater by having the spotlights of the stage form a heart against the curtains (which are appropriately red). This is almost advertising by showing the romance that can be found when on a cruise ship. Wasow is inviting people to go on cruise ships in order to be encaptured by the romance. Conversly, Wasow shows no one attending the theater, and so is stating that the beauty is there, but no one wants to see it anymore.

Oliver Wasow

For me, the only critique i can voice is that if the message of these works is to show the beauty and power of nature and lighting, some of the locations and completely man- made, such as the Koyasu Suma Shrine in Kyoto, Japan. That being said, the Koyasu Suma Shrine shows an extremely peaceful man-made-nature, which the Japanese are known for making extravagantly beautiful via simplicity. The photo feels like it could be from nature, but definately a man-made-nature, because of the tree mural on the wall and the lighting source. However the lighting source emphasizes the second idea Wasow plays with: lighting, and so it fits well in the picture even though it is not natural.

http://oliverwasow.com/

Monday, September 13, 2010

COLLAGE

This picture was resized about 3 times, and is now somewhat pixelated.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

pixels! yay!
Started out this drawing with the purple squiggle and man, the squiggle became a bird looking thing, lets say its a chocobo from any of the Final Fantasy games. Then i thought the man was more mario-esque, so I wanted a horizon and keep with the pixel/zelda/mario/ff mood. put in shore and bridge and sun then waves, bridge lines and grass. Used the blur tool for the bridge to the grass.

Rock'em Sock'em Robots by Jeff Shaw

This was taken by Jeffrey Shaw. It is a close up of Rock'em Sock'em Robots, which were toys that were extremely fun to play with and made the sport of boxing familiar with the youth.

I believe that this piece helps to bring all who view it back to their childhood, comparing it to the children of today, who require so much more technology to be entertained. In the past, children would use their imagination and energy to keep themselves amused, whereas nowadays, children need a constant influx of the newest gadgets.

Critiques of this photo include the angle of the shot encaptures the fight well. It makes it seem like the golden age of boxing, with the dark background and the sudden flash to illuminate the heat of the battle in a split second. The rule of thirds is kept well in this image. The boxers are kept in the middle third of the photo while the ring is in the right and left third. 

Monday, September 6, 2010

1st photoshop-gibson self tuning guitar

This is my first photoshop assignment and i used both the pencil tool and the blur tool. I noticed that as I blurred the image it softens the contrast to make the image look more realistic. Using the pencil tool, I wrote my name on the guitar in the smallest pixels possible, using the neon green from the tuning knob.