Art Gallery Visit

I went to the Albert Knox art gallery by Buffalo State for my visit. In these pictures you will see that I took a huge interest in oil on canvas. As i have been reading our book, I have become fascinated with painting again and find myself trying to find ways to get back into it and look at examples. 

These two pictures were very interesting to be because of how they were painted on canvas. I love the colors and how they show emphasize the meaning. The first picture is interesting. This is called the Silhouette, two sticks 2016 courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York. The second picture was made by Mickalene Thomas also made on canvas and involves wood panel. I think I would like to learn more about the oil and enamel on canvas type of art work closely related to the second painting. I feel connected with the first painting because it makes me think about what It could potentially mean.

The first image by Charles E. Burchfield in 1927 Winter, is oil on Canvas. This painting I like because you can take a lot from it and really try and think about more than winter but why it has the things in it that it does. The way the street looks and the buildings leave a lot up to the imagination. In the second picture by Paul Fagerskiold White Flag 2013, is oil paint, sand, and gravel on canvas with a frame. This has outlines of the way the American flag looks but in white. It was a gift, but i feel like it is a bit mysterious.  Once again I am fascinated with the paintings on canvas mainly oil. The first picture is very interesting to me because of what it leaves for the imagination. I would like to know more about this because it is something that I am interested in and would maybe like to do sometime. 

In the first picture, Jim Hodges created the Marquette for loom and see 2004, This is interesting because I do not see a lot of things like this around where I live. Actually it was the only thing like it at the gallery. It stuck out not only because of how big it was, but that it was reflecting the sunlight so it kind of blinded me to catch my attention. The mini models are also shown in a little case near the door to go out and see it. In the second picture by Walter Gay Interior of Chateau du Breau 1910, is oil on canvas as well. This is something that I don't usually like because it is older. I like a lot of newer art mostly but this is interesting to me. Why have an empty room with no people all clean and set up. I mean why actually paint it. There must be a reason to it. I wouldn't know what it is and it being up to me to decide my take on it really interests me. I would like to know and see more of sculptures like the first picture because like i said i do not see much of it. 

I wanted to go to this exhibit, but it was sold out for the time I was there. I kind of peeked inside but i didn't get the chance to go in and get a better look. 

Logo

While creating my logo I found it a bit difficult to make one about my personality. This assignment really had me thinking what was important enough to incorporate into a logo that represented me. The first few drafts I created were things that I liked or that represented my name or heritage, but that is not exactly the way I wanted to go. I thought about the symmetrical balance that is needed to be so it looked correctly. This may or may not have worked out because of the type of logo I chose to use. I discovered that the element of color was something that made a difference and the type of figures or items that are put into the logo make a huge difference with making sure that it looks correctly. In the videos I was fascinated by how much work was put into making a logo look perfect for that company or product. Many drafts were done and re done to try and grasp the image that the company portrays. I never really realized how much different logo’s caught people’s eyes and how they provide information that company offers. Logos like McDonald's and ups were things that have changed overtime, but still emphasize the same thing. In the book, when they were talking about the Campbell’s soup and how it was painted on, this has changed thought the years but it still portrays the same image and the logo is emphasizing the same thing. This is the order that I created my logo drafts. I realized that I was going off of the idea of what a logo actually was. And I went back to my original design.

Value Scale and Color Wheel

Making the value scale, I never really realized how annoying it was to try and make a different kind of shade with a pencil. I honestly can't remember the last time I had to draw or shade anything. This was interesting thought because it is something that you don;t do every day and it can be helpful to those that like to draw.  When it came to the color wheel, I was very interested. Ever since I started reading the text book and looking at art, I have wanted to attempt to start painting. I only used to paint in school when i needed to and with my sisters when I watched them so this color wheel kind of inspired me to try a bit of different things. I loved learning about painting. The painting video was very inspirational because I did not know a lot of that information and with me wanting to learn more about paint it taught me a lot of things I needed to know. Videos like the painting and printing are videos a lot of people probably say that they don't need to watch because they know all of that type of information, but for me it was very insightful.  I would have to say that the most important discovery in this section of the class was learning about the different types of printing and how that all worked. It was very interesting especially  when I work in a printing store and never knew so much of this information. The videos were very interesting and useful for this class and was definitely the highlight of the module. 

Slideshow/blog

court2825ourt2825's library on Photobucket
I have tried many times to embed this into my blog, but it just wouldn't work. I watched the power point and tried it many different ways and still nothing, so this will have to do i guess.

I took these pictures because I am either at work or doing school work so why not take the pictures of what I deal with every day. I tried my best to connect the pictures to the elements and principles and I hope you understand where I am coming from with them, I had a bit of a hard time with this just because I am used to looking at the pictures in the book and trying to find ways to connect them to the pictures I was taking was a challenge for me. I watched the student sample and that was very interesting and I liked how it was connected to her life. I feel like a lot of those pictures were previously taken which is good and then transformed into this project. The way I did it was different and tried to create in away a picture that displayed the elements or principles.

Module 3

I am sure we can all relate somehow to color and the effects it may have on us. Like our text says some people will always relate the color reed and green to Christmas or pastel colors to Easter and so on, but there is more to it than that. On page 96 in the text it says " Color affects us on such a basic level that few would deny that we have a direct emotional response to it. The problem comes when we try and find universal principles, for we quickly discover that emotional responses to color are both culturally conditioned and intensely personal." With that being stated, I myself can say that I like colors mainly because I grew up liking a color someone else might have liked. Now I can think for myself and know what I like (purple to be exact) I can realize what colors mean to me. When i think of red or orange even yellow sometimes I think bout the sun or a fire to stay warm. That also pushed me toward family and the feeling of closeness. When I think of blues, greens, and black i feel cold and think of ice or water maybe even loneliness. 

Color properties stuck out to me. I always seen art with different shades of a color that eventually go to the darker version of that color or the opposite way. Tint is something that I used a lot when I was in high school either with watercolor paints ( I didn't do a lot of painting then) or colored pencil. The effect of shading really is nice while drawing which I did not really ever do, but I definitely like how it looked. 

The color video really showed me what goes in to planning a painting and getting the exact color that you want. I never painted something that the shade in particular made a huge difference, but it might have bothered me to the point I wanted to change it. In the beginning of the video showing how the wet plaster had the picture outlined for what the artist wanted to paint and that there was no way to change that after it was finished. When the paint is slightly dry they put another coat on to change the tone which was interesting. When we watched the woman (I forgot to write her name down) be able to splash water on get canvas and in a way fix what she didn't like, I really liked that. I never knew that was a thing that could actually be done. Colors really effected how she wanted her painting to be and it took her longer than I thought it was going to for it to be exactly the way that she wanted it. 

The feelings video was definitely interesting to me in many ways because I never really looked at the way other people might have viewed a painting and how it made them feel. I am always the one looking at the picture and usually I am looking a them alone so I never got someone else opinion. The renaissance and the pagan world had a lot of art that expressed feeling and in a way showed the depth of what they wanted you to see. The Popes Library with the Greeks on one side and Christianity on the other. These were once rivals i guess you could call it, but this shows a togetherness. This picture also displays space from our view or distance. The Mona Lisa is a very unique picture from this time period with the smile that clearly represents that she is human. The piece of art shows a compelling scene if individuality and at the same time possesses a mysterious glow. 


http://s1053.photobucket.com/user/court2825ourt2825/library/

While reading the CNN article and watching the two videos, I found a lot if things interesting. 

Some key concepts from the article:

-The brain seems to respond especially strongly to certain artistic conventions that mimic what we see in nature.

-The individual cells in the visual system that pick out the light-dark edges also happen to respond to lines. 

-Patrik Vuilleumier figured out that the amygdala, apart of the brain involved in emotions and "the flight or fight response", responds more to blurry photos of faces depicting fear than unaltered or sharply detailed images. 

-Artists often play with luminance in order to give the illusion of three dimensions, since the range of luminance in real life is far greater than what we be portrayed in a painting. 

-To trick the brain into thinking something looks three-dimensional and lifelike, artists and elements-lighting and shadows- that wouldn't be presented in real life but that trap into our hardwired visual sensibilities. 

The key concepts I chose I feel really gave me a better understanding of artists and the reason things are made and how the brain processes the images the eyes see. 

From Aesthetics: Philosophy of Art

-In the middle ages there was no aesthetics and the foundation for aesthetics were laid in 18th century England. 

-Plato mistrusted poets because he felt they often spoke about things that they couldn't know. 

-Neoclassical aesthetics is aesthetics of proportion, symmetry, harmony and order. 

-Fredrick Non Schiuer (i think is how his name is spelled) was apart of aesthetics education. This is designed to imbue students appreciation for and understanding for the arts. 

-In the 19th century, few would have doubted Romanticism was the last word in aesthetics. 

-Music embodies the will to live.

-The expression theory is the expression of emotion with expression and emotion defined in ways particular to the theory.

-Aesthetics is always linked to a society as a whole. 

From CARTA: Neurology and Art and Aesthetics

-The beginning of this video was very hard for me to hear and understand, but some of the things that I got from it was the 4 definitions that Changuex listed (art,distance language, aesthetic efficacy and art history)

-30 areas of the brain concern with visual processing

-Artists create hypro stimuli to help the brain process images. 

Aristotle was the philosopher who's theory on aesthetics that I feel is important. Aristotle (4th century BC) analyzed tragedy. He inferred scientific rules of composition-the three unity's-Action, time and place. Unity action is when each tragedy should represent a single action with no subplots. Unity of time is the time frame of the plot and that it should not exceed more than 24 hours. Unity of place is the action of the play should take place in the same location. 

Changuex and Ramachandran sure had an interesting view if aesthetics and art. Changuex  described aesthetics as a discreet mental synthesis if multiple parallel and distributed process. From external perception and from internal memories, stored emotion is the aesthetics experience.  Once you really think about this it becomes extremely interesting. 

The interesting fact from Changuex was when he said selection and storage of an efficient rule most often implicit for top-down restriction of the number of possible representations-creates style of the artist. 

Ramachandran had the eight laws of aesthetics. 1.Grouping 2.peak shift principle 3. Contrast 4. Isolating a single cue to optimally excite cortical visual areas 5. Perceptual 6. Symmetry 7. Abhorrence of unique vantage points 8. Art as a metaphor

The interesting fact that he stated was the point of art is to deliberate, exaggerate, alter the image in some way to provide pleasing effects on the human brain. 

The videos I think co inside with the readings. The videos give you a better insight into how the brain processes images and pieces of art that we see and how we might decide that it is something that we like or not.  The texts gave us an overall outlook on what the history of art is and the different philosophers had a part in history, but I think the videos gave us a better understanding of why and what philosopher believed. The videos did help me further understand the readings more as well as did the article. I personally would rather read and pull information from reading and be able to watch the videos and understand what I am watching.