Propaganda And Poisonous Mushrooms

I had a different idea for this poster originally because I was going to write a short story to go with the previous poster I had designed, however, as it always goes in life, I did not have the time.

I am very pleased with the way it looks now. I think it makes more sense with this statement than the other (which I'm not telling you about because then you would need the story). This statement is also very straightforward, which I think is better in a propaganda poster.

Habits of Mind

This is yet another post about the reading!

Because I often forget that I'm supposed to post so many. 

Anyway, I like that this book has so many different things that it's trying to teach through lessons in art and design. It even says that the traits listed for "'habits of mind' that are essential to success," are specifically for art and design students, but they also work well as guidelines for people in general (Stewart 136).

Stewart says that one needs to be flexible, be capable of analytical thinking, have the capacity for synthesis, and be responsible for risk taking (136). You can apply these principles to any job or school setting, and if you did then it would only make you better in whatever it is you're doing. 

BRAINSTORM

I really enjoyed Stewart's section on brainstorming because one of her suggestions was to keep a journal.

I think that it's interesting because that's always something that we're told to do in life. For a number of projects in school they wanted us to keep journals. There are even times that we have to keep journals for scientific reasons, for data. 

The main reason that I like this suggestion is because everyone is self-absorbed. 

We all love to talk about ourselves, it's our favorite topic as human beings! I know in the Engineering 120 class they have to write a fifteen page paper about their career goals and their life plans. I would have no problem writing fifteen pages about myself.

Journals are the best fodder for creativity because you get to see the way your brain works over certain periods of time. 

It's fascinating to remember things about yourself, which is why I like the idea of keeping a journal.

Unfortunately, I'm not dedicated enough to keep up with it.

Curiosity, Conviction, and Complexity

I enjoyed Stewart's section on Cultivating Creativity (128-139) because it actually made sense to me.
She mentioned in this section that creativity is unpredictable, which is the best thing I've heard because I don't know if anyone actually sets out to be creative.

Who just wakes up and says, "I will be creative today."

Probably a lot of artists and designers, actually. But it's still a good point, I think.

The point she made about curiosity is true, because when you come upon something new you're immediately drawn to finding out more about it. Then you try to figure out the new thing based on prior knowledge, or as Stewart puts it, "creative people value existing knowledge." This is conviction. All of this and complexity (among a few other things), makes creativity.

I think I'm mostly just a fan of how she's made the very ambiguous concept of creativity into something simpler.

Threefold Abstraction

Hello, all! 

      I'm not really sure what to say about this piece considering that the only purpose was to deconstruct letters so much that they become abstract, but I do like that the image has a uniform sort of quality to it even though you can't tell what it originally said.

      I chose these colors specifically because they reflect well against one another, and thinking about it now it kind of reminds me of the stark differences between genders, while at the same time representing how the term "gender" is being abstracted in today's world.

Classical Calligraphy Versus Modern Day Design

I saw a video yesterday while I was randomly scrolling through Favebook that was about a man who is currently the youngest Master Penman in the world. He's THREE WHOLE DECADES younger than the others that also hold the title of Master Penman.



Anyway, while we working in Illustrator today it reminded me of the video I saw, so at Peter's suggestion I thought I would post it here.



It's really incredible to me that even writing can be a form of art because you don't think about it as much more than a means of communication; however, it does illustrate the point that art isn't so much about talent as it is about practice and dedication.



And like Professor Griffin told me when he asked if anyone could draw in our introductory math class last semester, "That's not talent. Anyone can draw, it just takes talent" (although I definitely was insulted because he did ask if anyone could draw).



But anyway, enjoy the video! It's pretty cool.

It's Me Again

What is it with chairs?

It seems to me that there are a lot of artists that make furniture and title it and call it art, which is odd for me specifically because it is furniture. Furniture is functional, I don't really consider it art. Stewart discusses the expectations that people have for certain chairs and others don't, which is important because you don't expect all chairs to have the same qualities (114).

It's just ridiculous because you expect certain things from furniture, and if you see an outside chair or lawn chair then you aren't really expecting it to be as comfortable as an armchair.

And you certainly wouldn't expect a chair that is an art piece to be very comfortable either.

How Did We End Up Here?

I'm not sure how I only have six blog posts when I knew I was supposed to be posting twice a week...

Anyway! The next few posts are going to be me catching up, so yeah that's a thing.

From Stewart's section on Motion, I enjoyed that it discussed the way that motion can be implied in art because some piece don't actually move at all (102). I know it's really obvious, but it seems like something people don't really take into consideration because it isn't very easy to make things look like they're moving when they aren't.

For example:

                       
                       Laocoon Group, Roman copy of Greek original, Vatican Museum, Rome
                       Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen


However, if I tried to make something that implied motion, I don't think it would come        
across very well.

Day Five: Finding the Balance

I think it's interesting that often we'll use the artistic principle of balance when creating a piece without actually even thinking about it. Stewart defines balance as, "the distribution of weight or force within a composition," (74). Based purely on instinct, I'm more likely to begin a drawing or an art piece at the bottom of the page, and the more I add in that area the heavier it becomes at that point. But if you leave the top half of the page empty, the negative space will balance out the heaviness of the bottom.

I don't actually think about these things until I do the readings from the book, but it's interesting that we're able to create this way while basically on auto-pilot.

Irrelevant, Irreverent, and Inarticulate

This post has nothing to do with the assigned readings for DTC this week, and rather much more to do with the idea behind my photomontage. Thus, this post still belongs on this blog, but because I am not posting on a class day per my usual, it doesn't get a similar title.

ANYWAY,

I'm not sure what possessed my friend Jet to begin sending me his sunset photos. They just started showing up one morning in August, and have continued to show up since then.

The pictures he sends aren't always of the sunset. Once he sent me an incredible picture of a water droplet suspended about what looks like a puddle in the middle of a tree trunk.

What I usually do for him is post the photos to my Instagram account because he said that I would get more likes on the picture than he would (which basically means he's using my account to gain exposure).

I thought that it would be a nice idea to use his sunset photos in my photomontage because nothing better shows the passage of time than a sunset. I am grateful that I have a selection of them to choose from.

That's the idea so far, I hope it turns out well.

-Falon

Day Four: Your Life in Color

I thought that it was really interesting that Stewart had a diagram on color separation because even though people know that that is an option, you don't really take it into consideration (39). The main reason behind why I liked the diagram is because it shows the effect that removing colors has on different artworks. Another thing that I liked in this section is the discussion of how color affects the weight of a piece (Stewart 54). Weight isn't something that's immediately thought of when you look at a piece, but it's definitely something you think about on a subconscious level.

Day Three: Picture This

      I feel like this self-portrait represents me as a person pretty well, and I'm being completely serious about that. I love to laugh, and this image is something that I've had in mind for awhile because of a joke my friend made. The story goes a little something like this: I said something to my friend Audrey that caught her off guard, although I don't remember exactly what it was. Her reaction was to tell me that I can't say things like that because I'm, "an innocent little chicken wing." And thus, this image was born.

Day Two: Your Average Definitions

Today's reading included the terms that you always see when discussion art, such as value or texture.

But it makes you wonder,
     do artists really think about all these 

              technical terms before they go about 

                       creating something?

I don't think so.

Day One: DTC 355

I came into this class thinking that it was English 355, which is why I was so surprised (in a good way) that we get to use Photoshop and other tech tools.

I mention this because in Stewart's book they discuss the charcoal and chalk mediums, which I like better than most. It's really odd for me to create something on the computer because I'm more used to relying on my hands directly rather than using my hand to guide a mouse to make something. 

This is gonna be interesting.