Reviewing Peer Responses

Person #1
Project #1: http://lostprofetsun.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-slideshow-on-elements-and-principles.html
Project #2: http://lostprofetsun.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-art-gallery-visit.html

Person #2
Project #1: http://artisticmemoriesx.blogspot.com/2010/09/third-post.html
Project #2: http://artisticmemoriesx.blogspot.com/2010/10/seventh-post.html


2. When looking at Project #1: (Elements and Principles), did you agree with the element or principle the artist listed with the images? Did you see other elements and principles in the images?
For the most part all of the photos that I looked at appeared to really go well the element or principle the artist listed with them.  The artist was clearly keeping in mind the emlmeants and principles when taking the photos.  I some photographs are a prime example of the element shape, but also included in the compoistion are the use of line, color, texture, rythym, value, and other principles and elements.

3. When looking at Project #2: Where there any images in the Peer Blogs the same as your own? If yes, what were they? Where the reasons the image was selected the same or different as your own?
One of the artisits selected the art work " The Marvelous Sauce" for the same reason that I did.  This piece amazed the both of us with how detailed it was.  The lines, and edges were so crisp, it was amazing this painting was not a photograph
Another piece that we both selected was Jackson Pollock's "Convergence".  We both felt that the painting was mesmorizing.  I loved the piece for the love of paint  like  Pollock himself, who wanted to paint it because of his love of paint and what you can do with it.
4. Where there any images that your Peers selected that pique your interest now? If yes, what are they and what is your connection with them? What would you want to know about them?
Pablo Picasso's Bronze Sculpture entitled, "Woman's Head" piqued my intrest.  I would want to know what Pablo picasso was thinking about when he was creating this sculpture.
5. What do you think about  the process of reading your peers reflection? Do you find this to be a valuable in your learning? I do find it valuable, and interesting to see how others view art work.  It allows me to think about things in a different way and open up to new things.  Reading others comments helps to clear up anything that I might be having problems with.

6. Check your Blog and read comments posted by your Peers. Do you find their comments helpful?
The are helpful because they let me know that I am going in the right direction.

Sculpture, Ceramics, and Installation Art: Video Review

Sculptures can be made of many different materials, bronze, limestone, marble, and clay are a few.  Sculptors that make sculptures out of stone like limestone or marble need to be aware of how much resistance it has, how fragile it is, the softness, and other factors that will affect the sculpting process.  Sculptors start first be putting their ideas down on paper.  They can make a variety of sketches, tweaking their ideas until they come up this the right idea.  From the sketch, they then sculpt a small-scale clay model.  Using clay they can reform the model until they get the right shape and structure, something they wouldn’t be able to do with stone.  With stone, if you take too much away you will never get it back.  The Sculpture then makes a plaster model from a silicone mold, which he will use when he creates the full-scale clay model that will then become a plaster model.  The plaster full-scale model has a specialized team of crafts persons that only sculpt certain aspects of the plaster model.  Finding the perfect block of marble in the mountains of Italy or other marble quarries seems to be quite the feet.  The artist needs to find a block of marble that “speaks” to them, the right block for the sculpture that they are making.
Other sculptors don not follow the age old, ancient, process of sculpting stone, but instead have their own style.  Some sculptures draw directly on the stone the natural stone becoming a part of the composition.  It is as if the stone decides what it wants to be.
Installation Art is known as “fashionable yet controversial”.  This type of artwork is that which the work of art not only takes over the space that it is in but defines the space.   Installation art can be site specific, meaning, the art cannot exist anywhere else besides in that specific location.  These art works can take months to set up, and can be set up more than once in different galleries or locations just as long as it does not take away from the original meaning and context of the work.  The piece has to be set up in a similar if not the exact same way.  Some installation art is sold.

Glass is made of sand that has been heated up to high temperatures to become a molten liquid that is malleable.Glass can be sculpted hot by blowing the glass and the bending it or cold by using abrasive and corrosive liquids and chemicals.  Ceramics are made of clay and then gradually cooled.  Depending on what temperature the clay is fired at depends on what type of ceramic it is.  Glass and Ceramics have specific chemical and structural make ups that give them a variety of uses.  For example, through the years glass has evolved to now include reflective glass, more durable glass, and laminated glass. 

The readings gave specific examples of ceramics used in different cultures.  These ceramics were used for holding most likely liquids and food.  We can learn a lot from the ceramics and glassware of certain cultures.

Also from the readings, we read about installation art.  We made the same connection that the artwork defines the space.

The films helped to create many connections.  The visuals and seeing the process that the sculptors had to go through was very interesting and added to my understanding of stone and marble sculpture.    

My Visit To The Albright Knox

I visited the Albirght Knox Art Gallery
These paintings had an impression or an impact on me...

The Marvelous Sauce, ca. 1890, by Jehan Georges Vibert
Oil on Wood Panel, 40x47"

This painting had quite the impact on me the first time I saw it.  Not because of the content of the painting but because of the vivid detail.  I myself have done many paintings using oil paints and acrylics and understand the amount of skill it must take for someone to get this amount of detail.  It is amazing how crisp the edges and lines are and how the characters come to life is like the Pixar animation we see present day.  This painting was done circa 1890, 120 years ago, it is incredible to me that someone can do this especially without the fancy tools that some artists use today to get certain effects in paintings. 


Untitled V, 1977, by William de Kooning
Oil on canvas 81x72 1/2 "
Looking at this painting, I immediately thought of the raging seas and storms.  The colors in the painting along with the harsh strokes made me think of anger or sadness.  My eye is drawn to the white area in the upper part of the painting, like it is the light in the storm, the light.


Ace, 1962, by Robert Rauscherburg
Oil, cardboard, wood, and metal on canvas 108x240"

This piece had a lot to say.  When I sat down to look at it I saw the use of mixed media and was trying to figure out why the artists decided to use the certain pieces of mixed media that he did.  The wooden pieces have A-C-E on them in the upper left hand corner and a R on it in the bottom left hand corner spelling out "race".  But the R is crossed out. The colors are sad.  So putting it together I felt the piece was saying something about race has nothing to do with something. It is a very powerful piece that with a lot more thought and research I could put some more thoughts down about it.    
I feel a connection with...

Church at Old Lyme Connecticut, 1905, by Fredrick Childe Hassam
Oil on Canvas 36 1/2x32 1/4"

This painting reminds me of home.  I am from upstate New York, The Adirondacks, where the mountains in the fall attract tourists from far and wide.  The changing color of the leaves is a gorgeous thing and this older style church reminds me of the the older region that I live in.  I like the stroke work that the artist used, and the variety of color of the leaves.


Convergence, 1952, by Jackson Pollock
Oil on canvas 93 1/2x155"

A friend of mine told me about this piece.  He told me how Jackson Pollock created it by standing on the canvas and squirting out the different colors of paint and then water and other materials.  He told me that this piece captures the essence of paint and nothing more, and that is why I feel connected to it and really like it.  This piece of art work is playful in a sense that everyone wants to throw paint on a canvas.  I love painting and feel I don't have enough time to do it and this painting is an appreciation for paint and what one can do with it.

Notre Dame in the Late Afternoon, 1902 by Henri Matisse
Oil on paper mounted on canvas 37x30 1/4"

I felt a connection with this painting when I knew that the figure in the background was Notre Dame, even with it's minimalist qualities.  I like how the brush strokes also add the the painting. 
I would like to know more about...

Music and Literature, 1878, by William Harnett
Oil on Canvas 24x32 1/8"

Another over 100 year old painting with amazing detail.  The painting looks like a photograph.  I would like to know how the artists can create such great detail? Mostly I would just like to know more about the artist and his style. 


Gootham News, 1955, by William de Kooning
Oil on canvas

I also commented on another of William de Kooning's paintings, and I would like to know more about him as an artist.  This painting seems to have a story behind it.  I can see a nose and some headlines embedded in the painting.  Kooning uses color and the use of stroke marks to set a certain mood in his paintings, I would like to learn more about this.


Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash, 1912, by Giacomo Balla
Oil on a canvas 90x110 cm

Besides the fact that I have two dachshunds at home I really enjoy this painting because of how the artist tries to depict motion.  I would like to know more about the artist and the artists style.  I would also like to know if there is a special name for this sort of a style?

Emily: My Logo

Creating my logo was an interesting process.  After reviewing all of the reading material and viewing the videos I had an idea of what direction I wanted to go in but I still wasn't quite sure.  I thought about something I read about how icons resemble something more.  Figures and symbols can resemble something that people can relate to and will think about when they see your logo. 
Being homesick and missing my dogs terribly I thought of my dachshunds.  Dachshunds, like the two I have at have at home, have quite the personality, they are very outgoing, and goofy dogs.  The more I thought about them the more I saw myself in them and in the breed so I used them to start my sketching process.  I am a very outgoing person, I like to always be on the go, full of energy.  I like upbeat music and having fun with my friends and family.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjDzmzmnnVJ2u15k9pETl598bO04R7aZSRcWEnmbO_pxL6QBGrtBOMmkis-sfj9HR8G1k1e227kLi76UUdY7pj5j3D6OZPSRvxfKi_RZc54JdexKtWl3bS3zqO5SGEFUIpIMPNUeGaXpm6/s1600-h/ww2.jpg

I used that picture of a Dachshund for my sketches.  My dogs actually walked in the wiener walk which was what this design was for. 

Knowing my likes and dislikes I knew I wanted vibrant colors and a design that showed something fun.  I am a biology major that's where I got my idea for my sketch with the tree in the middle in the shape of a "y" my middle initial.  I also tried playing around with the letters in my name.  In the end I came back to my original idea of dachshunds, but my first sketch seemed unbalanced so I tried balancing it out more.   

The hardest thing I found in the creation of my logo was coming up with ways to portray myself in a design. I first came up with the dachshund idea I did not think i could come up with much else.  I was trying to think more out of the box, creatively, but nothing.  I felt Biology really did not portray the real side of who I really am everything I could draw would be too mellow. 

I learned from the videos, the PowerPoint and other reading that the most important thing about creating a logo is you capture the essence of the company or person you are creating the logo for and get across the message that they want you to get across.  This is why it is important to brainstorm and come up with a variety of ideas.

Exploring Value and the Subtractive Color Theory

This is my Value scale.  The picture might not be so great sorry.  I have done a value scale before and I find doing it quite tedious if you do it the right way.  Starting with the darkest end I made it as dark as possible by cross hatching and working my way up to pretty much black.  Then you work your way down from black.  In the next box you start kind of light and work your way up to what you think is one step down from black.  You do this all the way down the scale. I found you have to go back and tweak some of the boxes to make sure they are not the same or really similar. 

Color wheel.  I like painting more then drawing with pencil, and I like mixing colors more then shading boxes.  some of the color mixing was tough trying to make a blue with magenta and cyan you kind of have to mix it a few times and get the ratio just right.

I like working with paint better because of the way you manipulate paint. The lines that you smoother for me.  I love drawing and painting both and some days I might say I love drawing more, but most days it's painting.  I really like mixing colors and finding the right one that goes with the composition.

The most important discovery was the truth about primary colors.  That is that cyan, magenta and yellow are the true primary colors because they make black, while red, yellow, and blue, make a dark brown.  If cyan magenta and yellow are primary colors then red, blue and green are secondary colors.

Elements and Principles

I decided to take pictures of my everyday life, which included, walking down Elmwood, eating dinner with my boyfriend and  playing with my friend's hamster.  Starting with the picture labeled "Unity", I felt the vines of the plant and the leaves all really went together.  Nothing really stuck out as disjointed or confusing about this photo it all felt very unified.

 The next photo, labeled "Balance", is of me and my boyfriend our two very light toned faces take up most of the photo mine on one side his on the other balancing out the picture. 

The next photo, "Proportion", is of me with Oreck the hamster showing an obvious size difference. 

In the photo of value, when I saw the glass I remembered how black and white pictures look with glasses and how you can get really good highlights from the light in the room when you take a picture of them. There was a spectrum of light to dark in the room that could be displayed very nicely in a gray scale. 

In the next photo, "Harmony", there is a definite repetition of color and other elements such as texture throughout the photo. 

The photo of the repeating square tiles was really interesting, I could have labeled it a few different elements or principles but it definitely stuck out as an example of the element shape.

  At first when I took the photo of the twin towers on the Psych Center I thought of balance but then I remembered the element, space, which refers to the distance or area around or within things. 

In the "Rhythm" photo, the number of windows on that building stuck out while i was on my walk, and I knew that I could use this photo as Rhythm for how the windows repeat from one side of the photo to the other.      

The photo of the red door says nothing else but emphasis.  When we walked by that house my eyes were automatically drawn to that red door.

When you look at the white rocks in the photo labeled "Texture", you think about how bumpy and jagged those rocks are you wouldn't associate those rocks with being smooth they look like they have a very distinct texture. 

I love fall and how the leaves change color.  What better thing to resemble color then this leaf.  

When looking for an object to be my example for form, I was sitting waiting for my food to come at Pano's when I looked down into my tea and saw my lemons mixed in with my ice and thought it would be an interesting picture.  

I liked the crosswalk picture and was debating whether not to use it as movement or line, because crosswalks imply movement especially since I made someone cross in it when I took the picture.  but I liked the use of line.

A top my desk sits a variety of knick-knacks, what a better example of variety.  So many colors and textures, yours eyes do not know where to look first.  

In my movement photo I was going for one of those night time, high speed, car light, kind of picture where the light moves across the picture where the car has been.  It kind of did that and should the motion of the cars and I like how the highway winds around.  

Aesthetics, Philosophers, and Science

The video, “Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts,” touches on a variety of philosophers and their theories on aesthetics. All philosophers have their own views on art and aesthetics but somehow all have the same main ideas about art as a way to express emotions and show creativity. Aesthetics is defined as the nature of beauty another universal thought. The video took us through the history of art showing us the differences both in opinion and the differences in styles of art from romantic, to Greek, to contemporary a van garde art.


I feel that Aristotle’s (4th Century B.C.) theory on aesthetics is most important. He said, “There is beauty by which all things are beautiful”, and I feel that this is a very important because beauty is truly “in the eye of the beholder”. What is the real definition of beautiful? Some feel beauty is perfection and some think things are beautiful that others do not. This concept is true in art. Artists “reason through the senses”.

The video, “CARTA: Neurobiology Neurology and Art and Aesthetics,” discusses how art is genetically built into a person and done by the brain. Many people say that the two worlds can never intertwine, science and art, because science discovers universal principles and art emphasizes individuality, but there is a science to art, universal principles across all cultural boundaries.

I felt that both Changeux and Ramachandran were great speakers and I can relate to their interest in the sciences and in art, as a Biology Major. It was fascinating to hear, when Ramachandran talked about how the mind distorts the picture to please the human brain and that is why things come out looking all contorted like Pablo Picasso’s paintings. I also thought it was very interesting when Changeux discussed how artistic interpretation is up to the individual. You would think of course, everyone has their own opinion, but he went more in depth, talking about how you brain controls the number of possible representations the an artist can have. By doing this, the brain is therefore controlling and creating the artists unique style.

The videos help me to see what I have read in the textbook in a new light. For example, In the textbook we read about context and how the context of an art piece is what ties the creator of the piece to the art itself. It is the background from where it came from, why it was made and now how it connects to its audience. In the film we learned how culture effects art work and how over time art and aesthetics of art have changed.  I felt that the films really went well with the readings and they both were very fascinating, I learned a lot from both. It was comforting for me to see my two worlds tied in together in the one film that gave a scientific view on art.