Reflections

1. What were your expectations for this course and where they met?

I was expecting to be able to create art, to learn about different types of art, and to be able to analyze art better. My expectations were met, and then some. I think the extensive discussion about art and artists expanded my knowledge about art as whole. I think that I learned how to properly analyze art, rather than just look at it and admire it is. I now can find meaning and depth.

2. Now that you've been through this course, What is art? How would you define it now compared to your intial posting?

I would define art as an individual expression or beliefs, emotions, and creativity. My original definition of art was "an unique expression of point of view." I think that it is very similar, however I expanded upon beliefs and emotions because we learned a lot of art is based off of these factors.

3. Who was your favorite artist in your original posting and who is your favorite visual artist now? If there is a difference, why do you think so? If you have the same favorite artist, why do you think so?

My favorite artist in my original posting was Keith Harring. I still believe he is my favorite because I always enjoyed his creativity and messages behind his work.  However, I think I added Andy Warhol to my list of favorite artists. I just like that his art is fun, it pops, and it sends a message about consumerism.

4. Now that you've completed this course, how do you feel about taking an online course? Is your answer the same as it was in your first posting? How is it the same or different?

I think my view on online courses is the same. I have taken plenty over my college career because I work so much. I think they are a great way to learn time management skills, they are great so you do not have to stress about getting to class on time, they are great because they are filled with so much information and you can work on it when it is convenient. 

Final Project

INSPIRATION

Petar Dobrović | The Pavle Beljanski Memorial Collection
Figure
1927
w60 x h73 cm
Oil on Canvas


















 

Vincent van Gogh | National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Self Portrait

 1889

 w438.2 x h571.5 cm

Painting

oil on canvas

 

Paul Gauguin | Van Gogh Museum

Self-portrait with portrait of Bernard, 'Les Misérables'

1888 

Painting

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

                                                                                                                                                           

                          

1. Why did you select the inspiration pieces? 

I chose them because they were colorful, they had texture, and they had contrast

2. Why did you select the media to create your self-portrait?

I selected acrylic on white cardboard. The cardboard does not have as much texture as canvas but it is still stable enough to hold paint without wrinkling or anything. 

3. What challenges did you face in creating your self-portrait and how did you overcome them?

I am really bad at facial proportions. I drew it first with pencil and waiting until it was perfect to paint.

4. How does this piece represent you?

I chose pink! I love pink and I am always smiling. I also chose a picture of me with no make up on to show my natural beauty. 

5. What elements and principles of art did you apply in this work?

The element most noticeable in this work is value. I also used color and line. As for principles, I feel that I used unity, balance and contrast. 

6. Did you enjoy working on this project?

I did enjoy working on this project, because I love looking at myself! haahah

7. What do you think of your final artwork?

I think this is pretty great for being my final artwork! 

Art Curation Exhibition Process

My process began with inspiration. I have been really inspired by flowers and roses recently. Also, as I stated in the project. I love flowers dead and alive. I love the way they look, the texture, the colors, the different ways they could be arranged. The floral arrangement theme fits this best. I then did internet searches for flower paintings. After hours of finding the perfect ones that I could put all together I started inserting them into power point. After all were inserted, I arranged by how I would liked them viewed as if I was walking the space of an art gallery.

Video Review- Module 12

Andy Warhol
Art and Modernity
 
I chose the Andy Warhol video because I think Andy Warhol is an interesting person in art and has made a big impact of art in the modern world. I chose Uncertainty: Modernity and Art just sounded interesting.


Warhol: When she passed, Marilyn Monroe made Warhol famous. He used the silk screen technique and printed a serious of the Monroe motif. He began with a certain idea, took images, cropped them and changed them many ways and produced many of the images. The next celebrity that sparked his interest was Elizabeth Taylor, also silk screen prints of these images of the actress. Transferring a photograph to a silk screen the image must be enlarged several times, the contrast can be altered, then the image is printed. It is stretched and treated then after covered in water. This creates a negative image and then paint is applied to the silk screen over canvas. Warhol played with the technique, if there is too much paint the image becomes smeared, if the pores on the screen are clogged the images is lighters, etc. The texture of the canvas and the screen create a pattern. He used Polaroids to capture images of himself and his celebrity friends and clients to make the screen printed versions. Consumerism was at the time Warhol created these pieces, so his pop art style drew consumers and he took advantage of the consumerism movement. The repeated images, such as the one of Liz Taylor, each image after the initial seems deformed to some point.

Uncertainty: Modern art, is it the higher realm or the lost path? Modern Art tells us that there is no single code for living. Future will look back and see a changed society and a society that lives by change. Obscurity had been made glamorous. The bricks that lay on the form of has an uncertain meaning. Modern art is difficult, we wish it could just pull itself together.  Picasso's first cubist painting, was out of the norm and this became the look that began the change. Distortion in modern art is to give life to new forms. Modern civilization agrees that everything is relative, that is where abstract art began. Abstract art asks you to look beyond something that doesn't have a meaning to find a meaning. Abstract expressionists asked viewers to look at the void. The artists we outcasts because they couldn't accept consumerism, they felt reality was chaotic. Art in this case is telling society off for its falseness. Popists seem to be cruising through society, because that is what society does.

These videos relate to the text because they discuss the artists in the texts such as Warhol and Picasso, also those artists of the art expressionist movement, also known as the New York school. These videos discuss the terms we read about society like consumerism, and also painting techniques like silk screening.


I like that the films allow us to see more visuals of the art being produced in different art movements. I also like that they do in depth about the meaning of art. These two videos seem to support the idea of pluralism. Art has many different meanings all at one time. 

Art Gallery Visit #2

First thing is first, I visited the Burchfiled Penney Art's Gallery on campus. The three exhibits that stood out the most to me were : MELT by Brian Millbrand, Biological Regionalism by Alberto Rey, Fly Fishing: A celebration of the stream. The major themes of these exhibits all made a splash with water. 

Fly Fishing: A celebration of the stream
The overall theme of this exhibit is display the beauty of nature. The colors on the walls were a darker gray, and this exhbit was in a hallway. The lighting was dim and shined on the each piece slightly to emphasize the piece of art. This exhibit included more than one artist to be in focus and also a mix of media.However, each piece was apporximately the same size and framed the same. They were all labeled to side of each piece on a plastic white plastic lable. Since this exhibit is in a hallway the movement down the hallway is linear and you look at one side then walk back down the hallway and look at the other side. These paintings are about equidistant from eachother.

MELT: Brian Milbrand

The theme of this exhibit it displaying the movement of waters and organisms. Milbrad used two different types of media's within most of his pieces. One: a projector and two: watercolor on canvas. The lighting used within the gallery was dim ambiant lighting. The exhibit was not too bright, but also not too dark. The colors of the walls were a really light gray. The space was at the end of a hallway corridor with the flying fish exhibit and it opens up to a room made of walls that made it almost rectangular shaped. However, the walls do not continue all the way to the cieling, the cieling was extemely high up. So it allowed more light into the area, but made it more of a intimate space. The movement for me was about counter clockwise through the space. I started with the wall that had the name of the exhibit and moved around the room to the left and watched the movement of the pieces. The artwork was organized on the wall with approximately equidistance from each other with the same dark black frames of the same material. The art pieces were similar in size and also content was mostly water color. The artwork was different because of content and movement. They moved in different ways, some flowed more and some were more choppy. The pieces were each identified and labeled with little plastic lables on the right or left hand side of the piece depended where on the walls the piece was located.

Biological Regionalism: Alberto Rey
Can I start by saying, THIS EXHIBIT WAS AWESOME! The theme of the exhibit is to reconsider our relationship with our environment. Scajaquada creek was the main attraction. The colors of the walls were white or light gray. The ceilings were high and the lighting was bright. The exhibit was gigantic! I walked out of the MELT exhibit and my jaw dropped. on the right was the wall with the title of the exhibit and I started there. I then walked across the room and started with the artwork that started at the beginning of the Scajaquada river . The geography of the river was painted on the wall which lines like a timeline connecting to each piece naming the location. Along with each painting, there was an artifact from each location in a jar with the content of the water. Not only did Alberto Rey paint and collect artifacts from approximately 6 sights along the river, he also had the water tested. It was tested for safety of the water and conductivity. His exhibit examines the ecological changes over time. The wall the mural of the creek and these paintings are on is curved. outward, the cielings are high and the lighting is bright. I moved from the right wall of the staircase where the description of the exhibit is located to across the room to beginning of the river to the end of the river. The artworks are similar because of colors used and the content of the river, however locations and point of views are all different. They are all framed with what I believe are wooden frames. They are labeled with a description of the art piece as well as the information about the artifacts with bargraphs and infromatin about the water testing. Each piece of work is separted within equidistance of each other.

I think that visiting the Gallery with taking more the surrounding into consideration and thinking of the theme was purposeful because the artists are a part of the whole space their exhibit takes up and it displays where the view should look, how they should move around the space, which pieces have more or less emphasis and create and overall atmosphere to display their works of art. I personally was drawn to the three exhbits that were related in theme, with the overall content of water. I think the neutral colors for the walls create more emphasis on the works themselves which is nice too.

Video Review- Module 11

Dada and Surrealism

Impact of Cubism

I chose Dada and Surrealism as well as Impact on Cubism, because these art movements are intriguing to me. I responded in my discussion to Dada and Surrealism, and I read on another student's post about Cubism, so I thought these videos would add depth to my knowledge on these subjects. 

Dada: This art was the anti everything art. The some pieces disucssed were a mishmash of negative images on top of eachother and almost like a collage, such as Hanna's "Cut with a Kirchen Knife".Surrealism was the next movement right after the dada movement. Surrealism was bizzare. The paintings have many shapes that are extrme forms of what they represent. Miros was an artists that portrayed surrelistic art, just as Salvador Dali. Man Ray was another artist that the content is of familiar objects within unfamilar arrangment. The theme is the discrepancy between the reality and what is portrayed. 

Cubism: Colors, textures and shape are the main elements of cubism. After looking at these paintings the shapes represent objects, and it depicts life as we know it from a more distorted point of view. The one artist starts with abstraction and moves to a real object in the finished piece. Picasso was a very important artist within this movement. He was influential to other artists. The arrive at an image, we have to imagine what the subject is behind the abstraction. 

The films explained nnore artists that created these movemts that ents. However, they mostly just reinforced the information from the readings. It also explained more about the artist of this movement. I always say, the video are just so dry and boring, I sometimes feel like I learn more from the reading, but in this case it was nice to have more visuals of these types of art. 

Mask of Roses

INSPIRATION

I really had a blank mind on this project until I went grocery shopping. I love flowers so I always check out the flowers at Tops or Wegmans, especially around holidays because I am always curious to see whats out, whats new, what I can get as gifts, or what I can ask my boyfriend to get me (JUST KIDDING!.....not really.) I also work at a Bridal salon and I love seeing bouquets and asking what flowers girls are using. I personally love roses, and I saw the rose petals while I was snooping around and I thought to myself that I could not believe how inexpensive they were. Then I strolled the aisles and I saw Easter stuff, and all the fun colors and pastels.

So my inspirational images are just things that I thought of while I was grocery shopping and coming up with ideas for this mask. 1) M. A. Carr, the bridal salon that I work at. 2) Ivory rose bouquet, because I work in the bridal industry and I saw Ivory roses. 3) Macaroons, because I tried my first one ever over the weekend, and because of the colors, which I saw all over the grocery store because of Easter. I am not sure I can do an artistic critique on these inspirational images because they really are not art pieces that inspired me, just things in my environment that did.

PROCESS

I picked up a crayola set of water colors, ivory rose petals and a balloon. I was thinking about doing paper mache. Yep, epic fail. I have no idea what went wrong, but it would not dry. So instead I just found thick paper in my craft closet and decided to glue the rose petals to that. As I did so, I really wanted to see texture so I made sure the petals were not perfect and had a 3-d effect. I let the petals dry all night and I woke up in the morning and painted them pastel blue and yellow because I keep seeing that everywhere and red because I feel that the red added depth to the petals and displayed the veins in the petals the best. I used elements of color and texture and the principle of balance with the symmetrical shape of the mask as well as the uniform amount of petals used around the mask. I really liked my mask. I think it is beautiful, it has personality, it reminds me of me, and I think that going with the flow on this one was the best option.

HERE IS ME WITH MY MASK OF ROSES!