Does this make you uncomfortable?

I pop my fingers all the time and it makes a lot of people uncomfortable I've noticed. Sometimes I like to mess with people and pop all my fingers (usually in two different places) and then my wrists.

The Human Element

Figuring out what technique we wanted to use to accomplish the white space took us(me and my table group) a while to figure out. It wasn't until we got to the Menil that we came to the dicision to use the clouds and sky as our negitive space and black cut out circles we had made over the last week.

The process:

Getting a different perspective

We cut out mulitiple sizes of cardboard circles and spray painted each one black. We scouted a few places to get ideas as to where we could shoot. We originally were going to take pictures at the baseball field next to the WASH building but once we got to the Menil we decided that was a better idea. The main complication of the technique that we used was that it was hard to get the circles into the right placement. Also, it was hard to keep the background clear of foliage and faces. All and all though, I think we were all pretty happy about the way the pictures turned out.

My two final pictures:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though I was pretty happy with the way these pictures turned out I really wanted to try and idea that I had of drawing circles on hands against a white wall. It's pictured below:

Thank you mom, dad and Hunter for participating!

Monologue

9.17.10 Notes

Post Modernism

Pluralism of new points. Art progresses as science progresses
Shift from a dialog taking place in person to a mediated dialog through art fairs, media, etc

modernism: the shock of the new rapid progression of styles
transgressive = opposition to mainstream society
    rejection of the past
    colonial view of non-european culture

we wanted to see everything. The world was alot stranger than expected
Expanded. Photos have no morality. you point the camera at interesting things
    Artists were put outta the job in replicating life/events

impressionalism: imediate record
influences:
ideas of composition. focus on color and light as oppose to accuracy. Painting things as you ACTUALLY see them. Showed every day life.

painted things the way they feel. started to create
post impressionalism: "Art consists of inventing, not copying" -Fernand Leger

fauves: the "Wild Beasts"
cubism

Italy-Futurism, Russia-Distructionalism, Germany-Expressionism, Holand-De Styl

Textures

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

first final

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Final Final

used play-doh for the circles

Texture

Group Crit:

• impressed by tiny dots.
• All agreed that it was closure: saw things like a crater, volcano, buildings, animal cell, etc.
• They liked the fact that the texture was creased, uneven, and  rugged, especially since it was constant through out the piece. Sort of went with the idea of a distructive crater. All agreed that it added more than what smooth texture could have.
• Liked the 3D, pop of the wall...ness
• Thought it was well crafted. Liked that the elevation had a smooth transition as oppose to jutting out

Things to fix

• watch the curve of the dots. One in particular had obviously curved and should be replaced
• the frays on the edges need to be cleaned up

9.10.10 Notes

Creativity-
playful, sensitive(metally/intellect, emotion, observant, physical, 5 senses, balance, perspective, see beyond), analyze, fluency(language), organized(accidents, maladjusted, curiousity), originality, productive(actually attempt, adapting), flexible, process, maladjusted

Artists dont assume what they are told

conflict/tension -->  order
put their whole self into it

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blocks-

physical, feel safe, intellectual, emotional, environmental, expressive, CULTURAL(taboo, rules about where art should be, playfulness is for children, norms, fear), fear of failing, see what you're suppose to see(mechanical thinking)

understand the problem>devise a plan. what language?>

put it to other use. adapt/modify it?. magnify/minify?. substitute?. rearrange/reverse/combine?.

Anything pertaining to SquareSquareSquare

  8

 Process of making the finals

 Final 2

This project went much faster than dotdotdot, then again I learned to ease up on perfecting the prelimenary pictures. However there was one piece in particular that I spent a great time messing with; The "bird" was something I absolutely wanted to use as my final. Though I had other pieces that communicated playful quite well, I thought creating something out of the squares would be very playful and creative. I approached it like a young child building things out of blocks, playfully trying to make it look like an animal.

Self-crit:
 8

• My craft went down compared to the dotdotdot assignment. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing however. I did get alot more done faster and had more time to tweek and experiment for the finals. I think if I had cared too much about the craft of the 8 that I would have been very stressed trying to complete the project.
• squares stay relitively medium sized. Yet again I need to dabble with different sizes.
• used all form interrelationships successfully. I even used muliple ones in one square for the "bird" (overlap and intersection).

2

• Edges are very straight and clean in the drawings
• The presentation could be a little better. The black board craft looks a little rough because my tools were not sharp enough. I had to make do with what I had.

Periodic

• Good fill of space. All areas are active within the piece. The leaast active space would be the white boarder around the positive space\, but I don't believe it hinders the work.
• Very symmetrical, communicates structure and seriousness. The only thing that could make it playful is the two hovering triangles. They just give it this..unrealistic gravity of some sort? Not quite sure how to explain it, but anyways I don't think it has enough dominance that would make someone confuse this for a playful piece

Playful

• Closure for sure. Obviously looks like a bird, and it's very easy to tell. The only thing that really bothers me about this piece in the blankness to the right. In efforts to make enough room for the beak, alot of space was left open and inactive.
• Also the placement could have been a little better in communicating playful. I was so caught up in getting percise measurements that I neglected to think about maybe resting the positive space at an angle rather than staight across or just a little off balance. I worked very hard on getting the bird to look the way I wanted so i transfered the idea with much thought on the placement.
• All in all though, I do think it communicates palyful very well. The irregular angles within it and the fact that it created an image out squares, to me, says playful.

Surrealists Games

The equiste corpse shall drink the new wine.

 A very rough concept of an illustration showing the process of a dead tree given new life and purpose

I had many images pass through my mind when thinking about this sentence:

-variations of a finely dressed skeleton/zombie with a wine glass
-road kill (particularly a white rabbit) bleeding from the mouth\
       (invision the rabbit laying on its side and a trail of blood "flows" between its mouth and a crushed red plastic cup.)
-vampire biting a victim
-a bloody wine glass,  filled with blood or wine.
       (For some reason i really wanted a black moor [type of goldfish] to be swimming in it. Probably for no other reason than the great admiration I have for my pet moor, Keefie.)
-lastly, the idea of  dead plants being nurished or given new life


I decided to go with a dead tree being made into furnature because I thought it was one of my more original ideas. It was something not obvious.

------------------------------------------------------------

 Part 2:

Cardboard Creation

Object: Flower

This Project will be the death of me! I've scrapped at least 4 ideas by now and im praying this next one works ...pictures to come.

Baiscally my plan right now is to cut the shapes of the pedals and glue them onto a cone-like base I made out of cardboard. Once I get them into the right placement and give them the right curl I will fill the spaces between the petals with the ridged center of some cardboard I tore apart. This will add volume to the flower and make it more plump than just papers laying atop each other. So far its ver difficult to glue the petals to the base so I really hope I can pull this off. Wish me luck!

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

cut and fold

9.8.10) Made alot of progress today, and the flower has all of its petals glued on. I plan to cut out a few more to be fillers because there are a couple bare spots. I discovered that by cutting slits into each petal and overlapping the the seprate sides that it will not only give curve but also a bit of self-support.
My challenge now is to figure out how to get the flower to stand on its own. It's to limp to stay together at the moment. I plan on trying to put filling in between the petals and if that does not work then I may have to wrap cardboard around the base to contain and support the petals.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.15.10)

The final product!

Well today has been quite emotional for me I must admit. It isn't until you face jugdement that you really see all the flaws and undesirables of something you've been working intimately with for several days. I think it's because I got so caught up in finishing it and meeting the requirements that I forgot to take a step back and see what I had done. What I started with on Monday was something I was very proud of (though it wasn't quite complete yet). The problems was, however, that it did not meet the 24inch size requirement so there was no other option but to add bigger petals on. This was something I really wished I did not have to do. It made the flower lop-sided and misshapened and detracted from the shapes I wanted to emphasize.

                            The Crit: 

    like:                                                   dislike:

+wavy leafs                                        -back/bottom: no texture

+curved petals

+stem

What was admired the most was the flow and curvature of the petals

NEWSPAPER/CINDERBLOCK

First Day Project

When coming to my first day of WASH I definately didn't expect to be problem solving for a NASA mission. When we were informed that our help was needed I quickly came up with an idea and began working. What i did was take a couple sheets and roll them to be about two inches in diameter and then stuff each roll with crumpled paper. However, after a few minutes of working on this plan i realized it was not going to the way i wanted. So i scrapped that idea and brainstormed before starting a new idea. I thought that the structure needed more vertical and cylindical supports. This was the key to success. So I worked and worked, and the farther I got into it the more excited I became. I tested the strength often by placing some of my body wieght onto parts of structure. Looked like this plan could actually work! And at last it was complete and looking very promising. I was so excited that i could just not wait to test the cinderblock. Unfortunately, as soon as i lifted the block off the table I knew my poor newspaper structure didn't stand a chance. Ever so gently I placed the block on top...and it could not support the weight. In disappointment, I leave to eat lunch and return gloomily to my creation. I had such high hopes for it and wished there would have been more time to fix it. All in all though, I am proud of what I did make (even though it was not successful) and hope that there will be more challenges like this to come.

Anything pertaining to DotDotDot

Aah. Seems like an interesting project. Doesn't seem too hard.

...

 

*many hours of work later*

 Well I must say I under estimated the amount of time this project would take to complete. The thumbnails were not hard, but remaking 40 of them into 6x6's was a challenge. I did not factor in the time I would spend trying to perfect the remakes. I realize that I have a habit of overdoing the amount of effort it should take to complete preliminary drawings. It could be useful in the future but for now it just stresses me out!

16

Things my group noticed:

• simular sizes through out. Mostly smaller and then extremely big
• go towards the corners. Off-centered
• directional lines
• arch shapes

 Things I noticed:

• placement: majority of the pieces seem to be off-center, especially gravitate towards the corners.
• size: same as the group critiqued. I did try to portray small smalls (I like the idea of small circles floating in a massize white void) but limited myself to the smallest small of my compus because I did not want to free hand "perfect" circles. It didn't dawn on me to put literal dots until looking at others art. Made me feel a bit silly for it not crossing my mind. I also need to just break out of this medium-sized circle thing because it holds me back from creating things more diverse
• I think I should dabble a little more in organic shapes just to test it out since I stayed more in straight lines.

**When talking to Professor Bill I realized the general emotional aspects and attitude my art had. Off-center shows more excitement or loose-ness, where as centered and structured protrays a stable and firm attitude; Something that I had not thought about before. After we were done conversing I took a step back and  examined a few pieces. What caught my eye was one panel in particular (top left corner of "16" and also represented to the right). As you can see the circles stay on at least one guildline and fall into an organized line. However there are two circles that follow lines but are not contained by them. This I think made perfect representation of me. I like the approval of others but will venture off and do my own quirky little things knowing that it does not fit "the norm." Though I do play by most rules, I do not like to conform. Also, the circles are slightly higher than the center. Another small detail that shows my personality through art.

 My top 4

These are my picks because I think they are the "purest" representation of each element out of my selection

 Proximity has ALOT of drama. I absolutely love how there is so much tension, not amongst the dots, but rather the cluster and the huge white emptiness. In this piece the negitive space is equally as, if not more, important than the positive space.

 Closure could use a little tweaking but aside from that this is my favorite piece. My goal in this is for the viewer to essentially "figure it out."

Simularity. I believe this one is the least "tainted" of all the panels that fall in this catagory. And not only that, I personally find it very pleasing to the eye.

 Directional is the best representative that I could find. It's a bit in-the-box but it is very pure in that element.

Outline of reading (due 9.3.10)

Theory of Human Perception

Perception and Gestalt theory
   -began in early 1900s in Europe, led by Max Wertheimer
   -visual. Organizing componets into a meaningful whole
        -whole is understood to be different from the sum of it's parts
   -the principles are easily isolated, but when combined and placed in context are
    influenced by outside factors
   -Four aspects:
        closure: seperate elements are placed so that it is precieved as a whole
        continuance: part of a form overlaps itself or an adjacent form. The eye follows
        the dominant formacross the secondary without interuption
        proximity: distance between parts comprising a form
        similarity: helps hold the form together and can create meaning
       
Defining Basic Visual interactions
Interactions of Form
   -influence our understanding of meaning
   -the frame greatly influences a composition
        -square; doesn't dedicate emphasis to a goruping of elements it contains
   -Visual elements:
        position: placement of element relative to other elements and/or frame.
        (overlapping, touching, or not touching)  
             -Distance can creat points of focus and tension; the element's relationship is
             heightened with other elements or the frame when it is positioned closer to it
             -Cropping can create a sense of movement and suggest the compositional area
             extends beyond the frame
        direction: course of movement. Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines move
        our eye
        space: most important aspect. The areas between and around elements. Can
        group, seperate and emphasize elements to distiguish their roles
              -negative space: seemingly empty, but active area of composition
Depth and prospective
   -creates contrast and help comunicate a forms purpose
   -in two-dimensional design an illusion must be created to illistrate depth (color/value
   changes, size, overlapping, and perspective)
   -Perspective is created through the use of lines to depict 3D form. Linear perspective
   foreshortens to show receding space toward a common point
Visual Weight and Balance
   -Visual weight: sum of components and is akin to mass and energy. Connot be
   touches or physically measured. Influenced by variables such s size and color
   -Visual balance: degree of equalibrium in a composition.
        symmetry: form is divided and the resulting sides are essentially the same.
        Bilateral symmetry is the most common
        asymmetry(dynamic tension, dynamic equalibrium): form isdivided and the
        resulting sides and not the same size or shape. Can create an active form

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Design is the process of purposeful visual creation. Unlike art, it fills practical needs. A good design is the best possible visuale expression of the essence of "something" whether it's a message or product. The creation is not only aesthetic but also functional, while reflecting the taste of the time.
Visual Language            basis of design creation
There are principles in respect of visual organization, however there are no obvious laws. Each design theorist may have a completely different set of discoveries.
Elements of Design
Conceptual
     -point
     -line
     -plane
     -volume
Visual
     -shape
     -size
     -color
     -texture
Relational
     -directional
     -positional
     -space
     -gravity
Practical
     -representation
     -meaning
     -function

Frame of Reference: reference marks the outer limis of a design and defines an area within which the created elements and left-over blank space all work together. Integral part of the design.
Picture Plane: surface upon which the design is created
Form and Structure: form, a shape of definate size, color, and texture. structure, the way form is creater, constructer, or organized

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Types of form

• 
  
  Geometric- has regular angles or patterns. (circles, triangles, squares, or combinations of these)
• 
  
  Organic- fluid in appearance

Elements of form

• 
  
  Dot- visual expression of a point
• 
  
  Line- connection of two or more dots that are so close they cannot be individually recognized
• 
  
  Plane- an area outlined by lines or defined in another similar manner
• 
  
  Volume- the illusion of 3D form on a 2D surface

Characteristics of form

• 
  
  Size
• Shape
• Texture
• Color

Composition: refers to the arrangement of element and characteristisd within a defined area

    -harmony: indicated a grouping of related components that make sense together. Can involve a some degree of discord or tension that attracts us

Simplicity: form with limited number of simple element, or a form that is organized in such a way that its message is unambiguous and easily understood. Certain ideas or objects depicted in abstract, symbolic, or literal form require some degree of simplifacation. "Less is more"

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

To me, the interview explained concepts and connections within pieces. The processing that an artist must go through in order to deliver the message that they are trying to get across and all the understanding behind the work they do.The interview shows it is learning process at which you learn through observence and experience.