Reflections on Project Four.

I've been working a lot lately so this project was sort of hurried together in the last two days. Still, I think it's pretty good. I wish I had more time to go into a little more detail than I did. The idea of my theme came to me during the semester as we were introduced to different artists. Being of German descent I took interest in all the different influential German artists that are mentioned throughout the book. I had no idea that Germany had such a rich art history. Usually when you think of Germans you think automobiles and invasions of France. With a little research I discovered the "Danube School', a group of German artists in the early 16th century that were known for their landscape paintings and etchings. I decided that this was an interesting topic to pursue and there you have it. I didn't have trouble finding images but I did have trouble with the background info on the works. Thats all I've got. I hope whoever revues this project likes it.

Week Fourteen Video Review

I have to apologize for this posting, I have a terrible cold and I’m having a little trouble focusing. I’m afraid this may not be up to my usual standards. For this weeks video review there are four videos to watch. The first one I watched was “The Lowdown on Lowbrow: West Coast Pop Art”. This was a pretty cool video. Like past videos, I liked this because it was narrated by the artists themselves and gave good insight into their motivations and influences. I liked the various names the artists go by, like Shag, Brain Eater, 12midnite and The Pizz. Lowbrow art was developed as a reaction to highbrow culture. Robert Williams, who says he invented the term, doesn’t like the term or feel it’s appropriate. The genre revolves around naked girls, hot rods, pop culture and TV shows. Lowbrow art has not been well received by the established art society but lately has been received better. The art work is interesting and some of it is recognizable from album covers and posters. A pretty cool film, all in all.

The Second film I watched was “Bones of Contention: Native American Archeology”. This seems more like a scientific film as opposed to an art film, but I definitely found it compelling. It is about the movement of native Americans to retrieve the bones of their ancestors that are being kept in museums like the Smithsonian. In 1971 a native American women named Maria Pearson was upset when human were remains found by a construction crew, the remains of white people were moved and reburied but the remains of an Indian women and a small Indian girl were sent to a museum for study. The film goes into some of the history of American oppression of the Indians and discusses several different responses by various tribes in the country regarding the return of remains. It discusses the differences the tribes and the scientific community have regarding how the remains should be used. I liked this film it’s very interesting.

The third film I watched is “George Eastman House: Picture Perfect”. This film is about the Eastman Photography museum in Rochester New York. The museum is located in the home of George Eastman, the founder of Kodak. Some interesting facts I picked up from this one are that motion picture film \was invented by Eastman and Thomas Edison. Eastman introduced his Brownie Camera at the turn of the 19^th century for one dollar and it gave regular people access to photography. The film goes on about the contents of the museum, including works that represent 14000 amateur and professional photographers, the camera used by NASA in the sixties to take pictures of the moon and 3 million motion picture items in their collection. This was a descent film. Some of the history of the camera was a review of material that we covered earlier in the semester, but aside from that this was a good learning experience.

The fourth film I tried to watch was “Displaying Modern Art: The Tate Aproach”. Unfortunately, the film keeps cutting out on me a few minutes in. I did manage to learn that the Tate museum has moved away from the traditional approach of displaying art established in New York. The New York museum displays its art in chronological order on white walls. The Tate has decided to display items by four different categories; landscape, still life, history and the nude. That’s the best I can do for this one.

Week Thirteen Video Review

The first film I chose for this week’s video review was “Andy Warhol: Images of an Image”. This was fairly interesting, I’ve of course heard of Andy Warhol and this film had some good insights into his work. The “Ten Lizes” is an interesting piece. I’ve seen his work before but did not know it was done with silk screen. I liked how he was interested in making art to make money. The details on how the silk screen images were made are something new that I was unaware of.  And I like his famous quote about everyone being famous for fifteen minutes. I’m still waiting for mine.

The second film I chose was “The Power of Art: Rothco” about the life and works of American Mark Rothco. We’ve read about his works that were intended for the Four Seasons restaurant and how he painted them to make everyone sick. This went into more detail about his distaste for the wealthy people who would frequent this restaurant and why he made the paintings the way he did. The film itself I hated. What a bunch of over dramatized nonsense. Did the narrator really call him an “omnipotent sorcerer”? One of the things I’ve found that I do not like about some of the films that we’ve watched is this over dramatization of the artists and their works.

With that being said, the last two films I watched were two of the best I’ve seen this year. The first one “Hockney on photography” was really good. I like that the artist himself is narrating and gives good insight into the creative process without all the hype. I really like his Polaroid montages that he called drawing with a camera. As a child, cinema had a big influence on him. He was fascinated by perspective and his works with reverse perspective are very unique. The Grand Canyon piece is awesome. I really like the photo collage but I’m not to fond of the painting. I thought this was an excellent film.

The last film I watched “Isamu Nogchi: The Sculptor of Spaces” is probably the favorite film I’ve seen this year. Like the Hockney movie, this was narrated by the artist himself and gave great insight into his motivation and vision. He said he dad a vision of the earth as a sculpture and he wanted to turn landscapes into participatory works of art. The park he designed in Miami is beautiful and I Really liked the slide he made. His dealing with the Miami town board was a good insight on how he was unwilling to compromise his art. The stone sculpture garden in Jerusalem is beautiful as well. All of the works that were shown in this film were beautiful and I really liked getting the artists perspective.

Art Exhibit Review

The title of the exhibit I chose for this weeks art exhibit review is “Timeshare: An Historic Art Collaboration” now being shown at the Burchfield Penny Art Center. The theme of this exhibit is art that the regional history of western New York. The works look at the time period between the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

The exhibit consists of almost exclusively oil paintings from the period and they are displayed every three or four feet along the walls in a room that has been divided into two areas. One section has paintings from the 1800’s and the second room has paintings from the early 1900’s. The room itself is painted a warm grey tone and the lighting is not too bright and not too dim. The paintings, for the most part, are framed in gold and are grouped in no particular order other than time period and a few are grouped by artist. The works mostly consist of landscape and portrait paintings of the artists involved and famous historical figures that influenced the history of Buffalo and the surrounding area. The works are labeled and identified by name of the work, artist and the year the work was created.

Since photography is not allowed at the Museum, I have chosen to review three of the works found in the exhibits literature guide.

On the cover is a painting by Hamilton Hamilton titled, “Fletchers Furnace”; 1876, oil on canvas. The painting appears to be a night view of an industrial center. Smoke stacks can be seen in the distance lighting up the night sky. Just off center in the lower right, a bright door way is shown illuminating the water front. In this work the artist uses color to emphasis the doorway. The painting is very dark and this darkness is broken by the bright color emanating from the door way. When viewing this piece your eyes are automatically drawn to the door. To balance this effect, the upper left corner is very dark with very little light showing.

The second work I’ve chosen is “Flags Flying, Avenue of the Allies, Main Street Buffalo” by Claire Shuttleworth; 1919, oil on canvas. In this painting a street scene is shown. It is a corner of a city street and from the buildings in the scene, dozens of  flags can be seen on display. The majority of these are American, but in the foreground a large French and British flag can be seen. It’s a daytime view of a busy city street with many people moving about. Color is used vividly in this painting as the colorful flags brighten up what would be a fairly drab earth tone painting. The size of the large British and French flags emphasizes them to the viewer. The bright sky in the top of the painting is balanced by the dark shadow, thrown by the building on the left, on the lower section of the painting. The painting uses linear perspective to give the feeling of depth as the street recedes into the distance.

The third painting I’ve chosen is “Captain of the Lincoln Rail-Splitters” by Joseph Josephs; 1880, oil on canvas. This painting is a full body portrait of a lumber jack from the time. It is an outside scene with hills and a body of water in the background. The man is standing in uniform with an axe on his back, a giant hammer in one hand and what appears to be a lamp in the other. A sign is hanging from a nearby tree that has the title of the work and the artists name on it. Like the other works, the use of color is a big factor in this work. The main figure is dressed in a striking red shirt that emphasizes him as the central figure. The bright white sign is also emphasized due to its brightness. It appears to balance out the bright sky in the other half of the painting.

I enjoyed this exhibit. There are several beautiful landscapes included in the collection, as well as a giant portrait of President McKinley at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition. Being a native western New Yorker, I really enjoyed the artistic and historic take on my home town.

Video Review: Week Twelve

The first video I chose for this week’s video review is “Matisse and Picasso”. Of the four videos I watched, this was the one I liked the most. It documents the unique relationship the two artists had, that had never been seen in art history. It describes how they both broke with tradition with their unique styles. Both were discovered by Gertrude Stein. The film discusses the difference between the two; Matisse is deliberate and rational, while Picasso is impulsive. During his life, Matisse travels extensively, while Picasso rarely leaves his studio. And although both liked painting women, Matisse liked models and Picasso rarely had people model for him. Despite their differences the developed a friendship that lasted until Matisse’s death. I thought this was an interesting film and found the relationship between the two men to be fascinating.

The second film I watched was “Dada and Surrealism”. Dada had its roots in Germany following World War I and was a protest against the conditions that led to the war. The film goes on to describe the works of Kurt Schwitters and Hanna Hoch, German artists who worked with collage.  I found the works of both to be disturbing and not very appealing, but considering that their work was inspired by war and political upheaval I suppose that is appropriate.  The film then goes on to explore the works of surrealist artists like Joan Miro, Salvador Dali and Man Ray. Miro painted a series of paintings that parodied 17^th century Dutch paintings called “Dutch Interior I, II and III”. The paintings are abstract representations of the earlier works. The film then explores Salvatore Dalis “The Burning Giraffe”. This is a pretty disturbing painting of a skeletal woman with drawers coming out of her and strange crutches holding up growths coming out of her back. A small burning giraffe is shown in the lower left hand corner, hence the title. I’m not too fond of this film or this weeks movies in general. The topic matter for most of these paintings is centered on war and death and I found them rather depressing.

The third film I chose was “the Mystical North: Spanish Art from the 19^th Century to the Present”. And speaking of depressing, the film starts with the works of Francisco de Goya. After losing his hearing from an illness he focuses his art on mans inhumanity to man. The “Black Paintings” that are shown are inspired by the Spanish civil war and are very disturbing. I found it interesting that he put his painting “Saturn Devouring one of his Children” in his dining room. The film then gets a little lighter with the architecture of Antonio Gaudi. He was the first famous Spanish artist since Goya, nearly fifty years before. Unlike Goya, Gaudi is a devout Catholic and incorporates this in his art. He attempts to build a catholic cathedral, but a lack of funding leaves the project unfinished. The film then discusses the work of Picasso, but that is a topic I have already explored but I did learn that he had done a great deal of religious themed works that he donated to a local museum. The film finishes off with the work of Salvador Dali, again a topic I had already seen in the previous film and finishes off with a look at the Guggenheim museum and how it is possibly a tribute to Picasso. Again, not a very interesting film in my opinion. The art is very disturbing and although I can see the possible appeal to the underlying motivation and messages they are trying to convey, it’s too dark for me.

The last film I watched “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” was much better. It’s a light look at the great painting by French painter Georges Seuret. The film tries to explain the possible meaning of several aspects of the film. The monkey in particular seems to be the biggest mystery. The painting is kept in a Chicago museum and viewers are asked what they like the most and the monkey is the leading answer. The search for meaning within the painting was fun and light hearted a welcome change from the depressing earlier films. I also was amazed that the painting was made with a style Seurat pioneered called Pointillism and that it took him two years to paint it with this painstaking method. If nothing else, I’ve learned this week that I’m not a big fan of Dada or Surrealism or Cubism.

Video Review: African, Asian & Indian Art.

For this weeks video review I tried to pick four videos that covered different cultures. The first video I watched was “Buddhism”. I don’t know much about Buddhism so this was educational. Some of the things I found interesting was the theory of “tanha” which states that people should extinguish all the desires that feed the ego and should be in the world but not of it. The great stupa in Sanchi, India has gateway entrances that portray the Buddha through symbolism and the three tiered design symbolizes the three levels of heaven. I thought the architecture in the monastery in Carmel, NY was beautiful.

The second video I chose was “Hinduism”. I found it interesting that Hinduism as a major religion has no founder, no profit, no institutions and do not seek converts . The stone carvings that were shown are very elaborate and I really liked the small shrines that were carved from single large boulders. But for both the videos on Buddhism and Hinduism, I thought they both were more about the religions themselves and not really focused on the art.

The third video I chose was “African Art”. This video discusses how art in the African culture is a part of daily life and is very important in traditional rituals. Since most art is created from wood and other perishable materials, most of the artworks available are less than 200 years old. African art is conceptual art that comes from the imagination of its creator, which is in contrast with traditional western art which is considered perceptual art, a reflection of the natural world. Art in Africa has great variety due to the many different cultures that exist there. This video was interesting and I felt that it was more centered around the topic of art than the first two videos.

The fourth video I chose was “Chinese Art: Treasures at the National Palace Museum”. This is a boring video. It felt more like a book with its simple focus on the works. Some of the art work was nice, I liked the curio cabinet ant the jade pendant shown in the beginning, but I quickly lost interest in this one.

Drawing my Hands

For this weeks art making exercise I drew my hands. I’m right handed so I drew my left hand with my dominant right hand and drew my right hand with my not-so- dominant left hand. I chose to do the drawings in pencil for no other reason then I have plenty of pencils in the house. Drawing my own hands was not that big of a deal. I have a six year old daughter and for some reason small children love tracing and drawing hands. I have probably drawn my hands and her hands a couple hundred times in the last few years. The one thing that was different was trying to draw with my left hand. At first I naturally would pick the pencil up and start to draw with my right hand. I had to consciously focus and tell myself to use my left hand. The final result is not too bad. Although it was awkward using my left hand I don’t think the final result is that much worse than the drawing I made with my right hand. It did take a little longer, but other than that, no big deal. Just the same, I don’t think I’ll be using my left hand to draw in the future.

Video Review: The Renaissance

For this week’s video review, I started with “The Drawings of Michelangelo”. This was an enjoyable film on the surviving drawings of Michelangelo and what they show and might show about the man and his works. The sketches give insight into his desire to achieve perfection. The method he used to shade his drawings, straight line hatching and cross hatching, was difficult for the artists in the film to reproduce. He was a self taught sculptor and his work “David” was the first colossal marble sculpture since classical times.

The second film I chose was “Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance” This film was interesting for the subject matter but I wasn’t too fond of the over-dramatization. This film gave a history of da Vinci’s life from an early age, where he showed great gifts at an early age to the time of his death. One of the things I found interesting was that his Master gave up painting after seeing how skilled he was. He was also the first artist to make a drawing of landscape. He was an accomplished Engineer and served in Italy as an official architect and engineer in charge of fortifications. He studied the flight of birds and insects that led to his ideas on manned flight. Because he was always in search of perfection, he never finished his work and he actually developed a bad reputation for this.

The first two films I chose because of the fame of Michelangelo and da Vinci. The next two, I’m sorry to say, I picked because they were the shortest. I’m a little time constrained this week. That being said, the third film I chose was “Albrecht Durer: Image of a Master”. This was a nice film on an artist I had not heard of before taking this class. A gave a good example of how the Renaissance differed in the north as opposed to in Italy. Dure was best known for his realistic, not idealized, portraits and later in his life, his prints made from his woodcuts. The example shown of the woodcuts he produced in his home later in his life were beautiful. I really liked these. The detail is amazing. He also was known as the first time landscape artist in Europe.

The last film I chose was, “Velazquez”. This Spanish artist was the court painter to King Philip the IV. This film was terrible. It was produced by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and felt like a propaganda piece. I did like his painting “Surrender of Breda”, but besides that I didn’t find this to be very interesting. In particular, I disliked the segment on the court jesters or the “buffoons”. After seeing the portrait of the King with that ridiculous twirled mustache I thought they had a lot of nerve calling those other subjects of his paintings buffoons.

All in all, a good supplement to my reading this week. Especially the first three films.

Video Review: The Human Form

For this weeks video review I watched “More Human the Human” which showed the history of the human form in art. The first thing I found interesting about this video is how ancient human sculptures depicted by different cultures in different areas in the world are very much alike in their look. They show the same exaggerated features of the female body. Another interesting point is the research into seagulls that showed that the baby chicks are stimulated by a stick with a red stripe on it just as they are by the red stripe on their mother’s beak. This study gives a clue as to why the statues are all the same. Early man, no matter the culture, was stimulated by the same thing. The next part focused on early Egypt, and showed how the Egyptian depiction of the human body was virtually unchanged for thousands of years. Paintings were made with the help of a grid and the proportions of the human subjects are uniform in all paintings. Researchers think this is due to the Egyptian obsession with order and precision. Early Greek works depict the human body in much that same way as the Egyptians, but over time their works evolved. Their work eventually led to the most realistic depictions of the human body ever created. It is believed that this is due to the Greek religious belief that they are created in their gods images. Worshippers expected images of their gods to be realistic, to show perfection of form that was worthy of their deities. The one thing the film stressed was that, even the detailed work of Greek artists, depictions of the human body throughout history and even today are for the most part unrealistic. I found this video to be fairly interesting.  I’ve always been intrigued by ancient Greek and Roman history and this added to my knowledge of the subject.

Because of that interest, I chose three other videos on ancient Greek and Roman art for my additional videos to review. “Beyond the Classical: Byzantine & Later Greek Art” focused on art work created in the latter stages of the Roman Empire. These works are heavily influenced by Christianity. Holy Roman Emperor Constantine helped to usher in the Byzantine period of art. During this period art works moved away from the detail of early Greek and Roman works and revolved around a style that was more rigid and stiff with more two-dimensional elements. During this time the Christianity inspired the Icon form of art. In architecture, the renaissance led to a rediscovery of the classical Greek style.

For the final two videos, I chose; “The Greek Awakening: Art from the 5^th Century BC” and “The measure of all things: Greek Art and the Human Form”. These two videos seemed to be little more than a re-hash of information I learned in the first video. I did enjoy seeing the some of the images again, but aside from that, I didn’t get much more from these two.

Video Review: Architecture

In this weeks video assignment I watched four different videos. The first, titled “Prairie Style” showcased the works of Frank Lloyd Wright and his influence on today’s architects. Frank Lloyd Wright was innovative in the way he chose to design homes to blend into the natural surroundings. He believed that the home should reflect the landscape of its surroundings and have an organic look as if it grew out of the surroundings. The term “Prairie View” is used to describe his use of layered horizontal design in the homes he created in the mid-west. The prairie being a flat landscape, he wanted the homes to reflect that in their design. For the interior of homes he wanted to get away from the established practice of creating separate segregated rooms within homes. He favored open spaces to link rooms. I enjoyed this film. Frank Lloyd Wright is well known in the city of Buffalo and it was nice to have learned more about his philosophies and to see some examples of his earlier work.

The second film I watched, “Architecture: The Science of Design” was more about the technical aspect of architecture than the artistic side. For the most part I enjoy learning about various technical and scientific topics. But I found this film to be rather dated. The show a proposed “smart house” run by computers and I could tell that from the reel to reel stereo and the fax machine that it is a little behind the times. I did find the discussion on the effects of wind on skyscrapers interesting. The idea that tall buildings can sway up to one meter in heavy winds is something most people probably don’t think about to often.

The third video titled “Classical Architecture” is about ancient Greek and Roman architecture. I enjoyed this topic so much that for my fourth video I chose, ”Imperial Rome, Ostia, and Portis: Ancient Architecture and Technology”. The first video describes the effect of ancient Greek and Roman Architecture on today’s designers in England and the U.S. One thing I found particularly interesting was seeing how Prince Charles influenced a return to classical design in the 1980’s. The second video was my favorite. I find it fascinating to think about how technologically advanced the ancient Romans were.

Rome at the time of Constantine had a population of one million people. By today’s standards that might not seem out of the ordinary but when you think that this was 2000 years ago that number is staggering. The film goes into a lot of detail on the various materials and techniques used in the construction of Roman buildings, but I found the information on how this affected the culture and economy to be the most interesting part. The use of sewers and aqua ducts to move water through the city, the use of glass windows and central heating, public toilets and baths, moving materials from coastal port cities to Rome all show just how sophisticated and advanced the ancient Romans were. No wonder they still have such a large influence on today’s societies.

All in all I thought the videos were a good supplement to this weeks reading on architecture.

Blog Review.

I just finished checking out some of my classmates blogs. I looked at Mellisa's http://kellmr35.blogspot.com/, Stephani K's, http://artinquiries.blogspot.com/, and Karen's, http://eyesonart-karen.blogspot.com/

I looked over the projects and left a few comments. I didn't do the first assignment. I’m not an artist. My primary job responsibilities over the last several years have been concerned with efficiency and cost effectiveness. I’m having a hard time tapping into my “artistic” side. But visiting the other blogs and seeing some of the examples from project one has given me a better understanding of what I should be looking for.

I noticed in both Mellisa and Stephanie's postings from their respective museum visits that they both chose a few of the same works I did to review. For the most part I think they chose these works for the same reason I did. Pure visual enjoyment. Stephanie lives in Brooklyn so her choices were of works I’m unfamiliar with.

Video Review: Sculpture, Glass & Ceramics, Installation.

I've finished watching the videos "Through the Eyes of a Sculptor", "Glass and Ceramics", and "Installation Art" and these are my thoughts:
I found the video on sculpting informative. I found it interesting to see the complexity involved in completing the marble statue. It's a very elaborate process that included many people with different specialized skills. The process of trying to find the right piece of marble was particularly interesting. Overall, it showed that the process of creating the statue was as much a technical endeavor as an artistic one. The information in the video also gave examples that related to the reading this week. It showed how the process of creating the statue included clay modeling, plaster casting and final stone carving, all topics in chapter eleven.
I also enjoyed the video on glass and ceramics. I like glass work and the video enhanced my appreciation of the process involved. The making of the stain glass windows is another example, like the sculpture video, of how much goes into the creation of certain works of art. The general perception may be that artworks are created by a solitary artist. The videos showed that this is not the always the case. Sometimes many people with different skill sets are needed to complete a work of art. This video also supplemented  this weeks readings by showing first hand what goes into glass and ceramic creation, both of which are topics in chapter twelve.
The third video on Installation art was my least favorite. the concept of three dimensional art that encompasses large areas is interesting but I didn't find most of the examples shown very appealing. The only one I did like was the rotating section of the building.
All the videos were very informative and for the most part left me with a greater appreciation for the amount of work that goes into these creations.

Logo

I've finished my logo design and I'm happy with the end result. Since I'm not trying to sell a product or service, I settled on just taking my initials and trying to present them in a manner that I thought was interesting. I'm assuming since I like it, it must represents something about my personality.

I Started with my three initials and then paired that down to just my first and last names. I combined the two into one symbol and then set it on an angle to give it some sort of flow. I then experimented with various symbols around it and settled on an outline. When the two letters are outlined the result looks like a combination of various geometric shapes. The various shapes give it a look of order while also showing variety.

As for the colors, I settled on a simple black symbol with a red outline. I've always liked the combination of red and black, I think it makes a bold impression. I briefly experimented with adding additional colors but I didn't like the way it looked.

Finally, I added a little half arrow along the top. I think this gives the impression of speed and motion.
One of the things I found most interesting about this assignment was the film on the Digital Animations logo. I thought it was very interesting to see that with the elaborate process involved with creating the logo, the final product was such a simple design. Five red circles doesn't seem like much.

Albright Knox Visit

I visited the museum the other day with my six year old daughter. It's been a few years since I've been there and this was her first trip. She enjoyed it very much and during the course of the visit these are some of the things I noticed.

 First, the paintings that made the biggest impression on me were the ones I didn't like. Electric by Edward Ruscha and Red Yellow Blue Painting by James S. Ely Fund just don't seem like great works of art. They look like something I could do and I'm not any artist. Carcass of Beef by Chaim Soutine looks like it required a great deal of skill to paint but I thought it was a disturbing topic to depict.

Three works that I really found interesting were The Cone by Alexander Calder, Urban Landscape Buffalo by Zhan Wang and, I know we saw this in class already, Wall Drawing #1268 by Sol Lewitt. I couldn't tell you exactly why I liked The Cone other than it made me smile when I looked at it. The Urban Landscape sculpture is strange in the way it uses pots and pans and other household items to form a landscape. It makes quite an impression as you enter the room and see this huge splash of silver covering the most of the floor throughout the room. I know we already saw the wall doodle by Sol Lewitt but I think you can't get the scope of the project until you see it first hand. Its quite impressive up close. I particularly liked the little electric warning voice telling me to stay away from the wall over and over.

The last three paintings I let my daughter choose. I told her to find three that she really liked and she chose Tow-Path at Argenteuil by Claude Monet, Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks and Winter by Emile Pierre Branchard. I think she did a good job. I liked these as well. I wish I could go into more depth about what I find appealing about these but all I can say is they have very nice eye appeal and are soothing to look at.

Color Wheel and Value Scale

This weeks assignment on the value scale and color wheel was different. I'm not an art student so I'm unfamiliar with these concepts. To that extent it was interesting. I watched the video on making the value scale and thought the process was very detailed. My attempt was not quite so detailed. It didn't take me long and the results probably show that. I still think it looks pretty good for my first attempt.

  

My results for the color wheel are similar. The worst part is I had to go to two stores to find the paint. I liked this little project the best. It made me feel more artistic. Mixing the colors was reminded me of doing water color painting with my daughter. I thought it was interesting that the colors used were not the primary colors I would have expected. I didn't know that red and blue are too dark to be primary colors.

Color and Emotion

Color can effect emotions in different ways depending on the color involved. Red is an intense color and can represent fire, anger, danger or violence. Blue is the color of the sky and the sea and is serene and cool. Yellow is a bright color like sunshine and can convey happiness, brightness hope. The reasons for this are likely caused by the every day things these colors remind us of. Would we have the same response to blue if fire was blue? Would red have the same emotional effect if it was the color of the sky and the sea?

The most interesting technical aspect of color that I found while exploring the Elements of Art web site is contrast. The tool that shows you how a change in the color of the overlapping black and white strips over the gray background makes that background appear to change color is fascinating. The optical allusion is very convincing.

After watching the "Color" video I felt the biggest impact it had on me were the examples of Van Gogh and Rothco that showed how using strange color clashes and intense shades of red could convey a negative feeling.

The "Feelings: Emotions and Art" video was a little underwhelming. I thought it was overly dramatic. The main difference between the two artists use of colors, is that David uses some bright and intense colors like red in some of his works, while Goya's work is darker and more foreboding. I didn't like any of the works so the color schemes had little emotional effect on me.

Setting up a blog

I've just completed setting up my gmail account and my blog for Fundamentals of Art Inquiry. A fairly painless and simple exercise. The instructions were very helpful.

I'm not quite sure what I expect from this course. It's my first Art class so I don't have any real background to base expectations on. I hope it proves to be more than just a necessary grade in order to finish my degree program.

This is my first online class. I think I'll like the flexibility it provides but I'll save my final judgment until after the course is completed.