Color!

To start out...I looked for the specific prompt for this blog and the most updated information I could find was "blog post requirements to follow"...so I'm just going to talk about what i liked about the reading....but anyways I have to admit I was somewhat confused in class last week when we did our intro to color.  I understand the gist of it, and how the basics are red blue and yellow and every other color is formed from that, and how hues and tints work..but the actual "science" of it phased me a little.  However once i dug into the reading I understood more about the concept of color and what makes it so special.  One comparison Itten made about color struck my attention, and that is how color and music are so simmilar- two things i would have never put together.  He also compared musicians and painters to each other, saying "a musician may know counterpoint and still be a dull composer, if he lacks insight and inspiration.  Just so, a pointer may know all the resources of composition in form and color, yet remain sterile if inspiration be denied him."

This chapter also stressed just generally how important color is to our world.  Color is what gives the world life, and with out it, everything would be dull and dead.  Our world comes alive and functions through the use of color.  Even though we may not realize it, color has a huge impact on our lives.  Naturally we see dark colors as something that is sad, frightening or negative, and lighter warmer colors as happy, peaceful, or positive.  It is our natural intention to be happy when a rainbow is in the sky and sad or concerned when the sky is full of dark thick clouds.

It was helpful to learn more details of the study of color, especially approaching the topic in three directions- impression, expression, and construction.  Breaking color down into different categories allowed me to focus in on a correct way of studying colors- looking at the visual aspect, then an emotional, then a symbolic.  The rest of the explanations all seemed a little repetitive but I got the basic idea between relationships of colors and how they interact and interchange with each other.

Basically, what we did in class became a lot less confusing once i read about color hues and tints and was able to sit down and study the formulas and look at the wheel to really understand how they function.

Proposal: Round II

Ok, so two weeks ago I wrote some jibble-d-jab about not knowing what to do.

I STILL DON'T HAVE A DEFINITIVE GOAL.

But, I think I'm getting closer!

I'd like to keep doing what makes me happy, what's interesting...

Alof of what I had proposed originally really doesn't fall under any of that. I like the idea of... simplicity, or... Patterns. And detail. I do all of that..

So the goal is to combine all of those, and to somehow expand my materials use at the same time.

If anybody has any comments, I'd LOVE to hear them. Anything will help...

--Andrew

New Proposition

Originally my proposition was to be five paintings portraying movement. However, after my ten original sketches, and some suggestions from my professor, I decided to narrow my idea down. From my ten sketches the ones that stood out were the ones of different facial expressions, so I decided to make my final proposition focus on the movement of the face, specifically facial expressions. On top of that a few of my paintings are going to be inspired by different artists. My first two portraits, of my friends Phil and Madison, are different, but in a similar style. So, at the suggestion of my professor, to change up the style of each portrait I should use a different artist as inspiration for my final three portraits. For the third portrait I am using The Portrait of Gertrude Stein by Picasso as inspiration. For this one I want to use an amplified color palate, line, and more painterly strokes to imitate the style Picasso used. For my fourth portrait I want to use Franz Hals as an inspiration and for my fifth I want to use a pop artist as inspiration to make the five portraits vastly different, but still portraying my original idea of movement in the face. While not all the faces are making an obvious facial movements, they are still different expressions and each portrait will portray different emotions and will be inspired by different artists.

Proposal Version 3.0

Alright, on my way to sort of starting over I have yet again changed paths. The idea of simply re-creating a strawberry left behind, I first began thinking of ways to carry my liking of the strawberry into my new concentration. I was heavily considering a series of large works (not HUGE but large by my standards) that were up close, distorted studies of the air bubble's distortions to the strawberry, where you could sort of recognize that it was a odd up close strawberry, but not really. I was going to place a lot of emphasis on the color as well, keeping with the deep reds that I liked about the original picture, but creating new contrast as well. I didn't know what medium to use because Prismacolors were to slow and not practical for large scale works, I don't really know how to paint so if I was to experiment it would be with something simpler like acrylics instead of oils, watercolor was an option, but it wouldn't be bright enough and the edges could never be quite bold enough. It was then that I considered doing the drawing or outline in ink and then going over it with watercolor in an exaggerated fashion, but it still wouldn't be as dark or bold as I was wanting, it would just be lightly toned paper.

So it was then that I really started thinking about this as a technique. Sure, it probably wouldn't work for something I wanted to be bold like the strawberry, but it could work for other things.

One thing that I remembered that I have, is a lot of pictures from my grandmother's farm. They are mostly just random images of old objects and such, but I think they're interesting and they have meaning to me. So I wondered how it would work to draw the random objects as studies using a micron pen or something, and then go over them with watercolor. The images are not especially colorful, and using true and exact colors wouldn't be very interesting, so I instead figured using simply earthy tones over the entire page would work okay. That way I could do a few, and they would be tied together not only by their relations as old farm objects, but also in technique.

Thus, I have decided to do ink studies of random farm objects, both from personal pictures, and then through the use of online pictures as well if necessary. I don't know that I would even stick to just objects, I might do things like old farm buildings as well. But, anyway, the ink studies, then shaded with cross hatching, and then lightly washed in earthy tones using watercolor, to give and old, rustic, and nostalgic sort of feeling.

Updated Proposal: A Dictionary of Puns

I would like to create a clever body of work that makes people laugh using my love for play on words. Incorporating many common idiomatic phrases in my pieces such as “busy bees”, “putting all your eggs in one basket”, “hit two birds with one stone”, and “couch potato”, I want to show the humor and ridiculousness of these phrases by portraying them visually. Additionally, a goal of mine is to convey a sense of awkwardness in my works that makes them more humorous and intriguing for the viewers. While Peter Bruegel’s main goal in working with common phrases of his time was to teach moral lessons, I want to make people laugh. I also want to explore the ambiguous nature of these phrases, by contrasting the real and the imagined in my works. To do this, I will show the real aspect of the phrase through a photograph, while the imagined will be through drawing. I plan on juxtaposing the images together through photoshop. Then I would like to print the images on nice paper and work with drawing and possibly collage to give a more handmade feel to the work and make it more interesting. I think that using pen over the digital image will also serve to connect the real and the unreal. Compositionally, it will also connect the photo with the painting better.

I want to place my works in the context of an Idiomatic Phrase Dicitonary. I think that a dictionary will be humorous and it will also tie all the works together in an interesting creative way. I plan on making categories for the phrases such as Food Puns, Religious Puns, Sports Puns, and Anatomy Puns. Each category will have an image of a pun to represent it. Also, framing my work in the context of a book would further develop a sense of irony since my idea deals with some of the absurdities in language and books are typically places for writing.

I want to use a book that I created by hand as my dictionary, so that the dictionary will be entirely mine. I plan on gluing each page into the book that I have already created. Also, I want to design a cover for the book so that it has the feel of an actual dictionary. I may scan the pages so that my book may be viewed digitally too.

David Rokeby

David Rokeby was born in Canada in 1960. He has been creating interactive sound and video installations with computers since 1982. For the first part of his career he focussed on interactive pieces that directly engage the human body, or that involve artificial perception systems. In the last decade, his practice has expanded to included video, kinetic and static sculpture. Several of his works have addressed issues of digital surveillance. Other works engage in a critical examination of the differences between human and artificial intelligence. David Rokeby's installations have been exhibited extensively in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

One of Rokeby's most interesting pieces to me was "Long Wave". "Long wave" is a site specific installation that was commissioned by Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts + Creativity and was on view at the Allen Lambert Galleria, Brookfield Place, Toronto, June 5 - 20, 2009. It is a 380 foot long, 60 foot high sculpture tracing a helix through the entire length of the galleria. The helix is constructed from 63 large red spheres hanging from the Santiago Calatrava designed arches of the galleria, rising from just above visitors' heads right up to the vaults of the ceiling.

The "Long Wave" represents sound waves- which are normally invisible. It is interesting to note that something such a sound wave that plays such a large part in our lives is often overlooked. Rokeby challenges this by creating "Long Wave" to show how great an impact sound waves have our lives. The wave hangs above the visitors head- sort of looming there- uncontrollable and unpredictable. The "Long Wave" almost looks like the back bone to an animal, this be a metaphor inferring that sound waves are the back bone to society. I love the color red that Rokeby chooses. It has such a presence and many different meanings. Sometimes the color red can be violent.. other times it can represent freedom and hope. This also plays into how sound can affect society based on what the sounds are. For instance the sound of war may ensue fright while the sound of a sweet lullaby could cause peace and happiness.

Materials

In the reading on matter, I found the discussion about how to choose materials really interesting. I think that the author is correct when he says that “the range of matter is to great to lock oneself into.” When I was in elementary school, I always saw sculpture as limited to common materials such as clay, wood, and metal. Now however, I would agree with the author because our materials are endless. Technically, anything around us can be used as a material. This notion reminded me of the gallery we went to on a field trip, when we saw the artist who used dental floss and balloons in for her sculpture. I think that using unexpected materials often times can make a sculpture look more interesting. I really enjoyed the different examples of using different materials for different purposes. Particularly, the table attached that is entirely crafted after metal is really intriguing because it goes against our expectations of materials. It is really cool how the scene of a set table can be entirely recognizable with a different material. I think that using an unexpected material puts an interesting twist on a piece. In the future, I think that I would like to be more experimental with my materials.