Uncomfortable Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjY9aWpYuw

3D Texture Final and Texture Book Critique

During this critique students were told to mix it up a bit and join other tables to critique their work instead of critiquing your normal group.  I joined Marissa's group at Table 5.  The "critiquers" were pleased with how far my piece came off of the wall and how varying depths existed in my piece.  The group stated that the piece was only able to be viewed from the front (which was my intention) because I had purposefully left out the sides to my 3-D objects.  Some felt that this was a bad decision due to the fact that it took away from the piece through the conflict between my intentions and the viewer's intentions of the piece.  Others felt that the open sides gave the piece a duality of being a both 2-D and 3-D, depending on the angle the viewer is perceiving the piece from.  My group also felt that the newspaper was too flat and was only an important factor to my piece when viewed from the side as a 2-D piece, suggesting to give the piece more texture.  Some felt the choice of using yellow to shadow my 3-D objects was distracting and clashed with the black and white sections, a few were actually attracted to the use of yellow.  Since I had chosen to eliminate the "walls" or "sides" for my 3-D object, I created support beams out of black foam to suspend the 3-D elements of the piece.  Two different methods were used in this pursuit of suspension, one being I chose to outline the shape/form of the bottom square using black foam support beams placed at intervals along the edge of the shape.  Viewers felt that this defined the shape and allowed them to mentally "see" the "walls" of my 3-D objects and though they failed to state what principle of Gestalt was used in my piece I felt the above statement concluded that closure existed through my suspension system.  The other, less successful method I chose to utilize required simply creating a line of black foam support beams down the middle of the square, causing the "walls" to not exist.  So technically, my piece displayed closure and a lack of closure.  My accordion texture book was reviewed as not having a lot of variety, requiring more strategic placement of shapes/textures, but was well crafted.

3-D piece

Accordion Book

Human Dot Compositions

Modern Art Bill's Reading #3 Summary

Leonardo Da Vinci took major strides by painting the Mona Lisa:
- developed sfumato = layering of thin, translucent glazes in the manner of smoke without lines or borders
- utilized single vanishing point perspective by creating "lines" in the background that all ended at a single point behind Mona's head
- started a trend of paintings that were hung on walls or displayed on easels

History of Photography
In 1826 French chemist Nicephore Niepce made the first photograph but his collaborator Louis J.M. Daguerre developed a more practical method for photography
Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot innovated the process even more after Daguerre by developing the negative photograph
There are types of photography as well:
- Travel Photography: professional photographers trekked the world to show others the wonders they had seen
- War Photography: professional photographers striving to show the true nature of war, Matthew Brady captured the brutal essence of the Civil War through 7,000 negatives

Impressionism
first total artistic revolution since Renaissance
represented immediate visual sensations through color and light
color was understood to be a permanent characteristic of an object but changes constantly according to the effects of light, reflection, or weather on object's surface
known for short, choppy brushstrokes used to capture fleeting essence of light

Post-Impressionism
desired to be more substantial than Impressionism in order to appear as "better planned" or more thought out

20th Century Modern Art
has greatest contrast with academic art then all other trends/movements
rejected the past, Modernism
Fauvism:
use of color was completely skewed and incorrect according to reality, public reacted hostilely
they were known as "wild beasts"
discovery and utilization of non-European tribal art which was to play an influential role in the development of modern art from then on

Cubism
major turning point in modern art, lasted only form 1908 to 1914
Analytic Cubism:
first of two phases
analyzed form of objects by shattering them into planes and fragments
Synthetic Cubism:
invented by Braque and Picasso, they incorporated stencils and paper clippings into their paintings

The Exquisite Corpse Two

The painful rock tickling the lackluster detective.

I felt like I needed the viewer to feel like they were looking at a clue or a piece of a puzzle.  I also wanted to emphasize the "lack-luster"ness of my exquisite corpse sentence.

Exquisite Corpse

My sentence:
The painful rock tickling the lack-luster detective.

My image:

Thumbnails and Final 2 Playful/Periodic

Periodic Thumbnails

Playful Thumbnails

Final 2 (periodic on the left and playful on the right)

Cardboard Critique

                                  Cardboard Gumball is ready to be critiqued.

I was satisfied with my results for this project because I felt it represented the gumball realistically and naturally(which was my intention) by achieving the general sphere form of the object, creating space and texture between each "spike" or "bird mouth", making a last minute adjustment to the stem which gave it a frail appearance, and I was informed today that my decision to round off the end of the spikes gave it a more natural or maybe organic feel to the piece which was good to hear.  Though I produced a piece that strongly resembles a gumball, classmates, instructors, and myself were able to identify minor issues with my piece.  The amount of glue used to hold this piece together was on a larger scale than I anticipated and it showed, literally.  In more places than less where I had joined two planes of cardboard to close the space between the spikes hot glue had overflowed or had been spread around on the cardboard.  The amount of glue shown was large enough to distract the viewer(s) during a close-up investigation of the piece.  

See Beyond What Is Expected 9/10

Today's lecture presented and elaborated on the concerns of creativity such as: how are levels or quality of creativity distinguished? what makes someone more creative than another? can a "uncreative" person gain creativity? can one lose their creativity due to certain circumstances?

Characteristics of creative individuals and/or factors that play into being creative:
- playful
- fluency
- sensitivity
- adaptable
- flexibility
- process
- productivity
- analysis
- originality
- organized
   1. maladjusted
   2. good things can come from ACCIDENTS
- process

As an artist, sensitivity in one form or the other is vital to success.  Without the ability to perceive one's surroundings, the artist is unable to correctly express his/herself.  Sensitivity can refer to being:
 - mentally or conceptually sensitive
 - emotionally sensitive
 - physically sensitive; accomplished by being attentive, alert, awake!
   + being physically sensitive equates to perceiving surroundings visually, audibly, through taste, by touch, by smell, and the acknowledgement of balance/space

When dealing with creativity, fluency can be defined as the language that is the vessel for the artists message.  Artists and other creative people use:
- verbal language
- body language
- visual language
- actual written language
- math
- science
- sound
- tactile

*SEE BEYOND WHAT IS EXPECTED!*
 - when considering ways to solve a problem, do not limit yourself by making assumptions; otherwise known as a "block" - inhibit your creative potential
Creativity blocks can be identified as:
- physical/safety
- expressive
- intellectual/logical = mechanical thinking, inefficient mental tactics
- environment
- emotional
- cultural = rules about where art should be, taboos, playfulness is for children, humor is stupid/immature, practicality is the highest priority, fear of society, fear of failure

As an artist, you will need to master the art of brainstorming.  Brainstorming is the doorway for creativity but before you begin producing ideas you must:
- understand the problem
- devise a plan
There are many methods of brainstorming:
- dream about it
- imagine it
- purge yourself mentally
- incubate the thought
- display
- organize thoughts
- make lists (best if done at a rapid rate)
- create diagrams
- scan dictionaries and thesaurus'
- make charts
- eliminate certain parts
- work backwards
- associate/make connections
- classify it/drop it into a category
- make comparisons
- relate

Critique and Cardboard Progress

It seems as though I had been a little ambitious in choosing my process to build my cardboard gumball and the critique helped me realize that.  I had first planned to build a paneled dome understructure to give the gumball its shape and then I would have proceeded to add the spikes and give the gumball its textured layer on top of this understructure.  This was a tedious, labor-intensive approach which allowed me to fall short of the requirements that were to be met during the critique.  Among our group three of us had been given a gumball to recreate; the other two had come up with an understructure that was stable but was not high maintenance and allowed them to progress at an appropriate rate.  After the critique, I trashed my old structure and constructed a completely new understructure that was inspired by one of table member's cardboard structure.  This new understructure was built quickly and soundly, was easy to work with, and allowed me to progress greatly.

new structure for gumball

Reading Summary and 9/3 Lecture Summary Dominique Ingres

READING:
Gestalt psychology began in Europe in the early 1900's in a movement led by Max Wertheimer.
Gestalt is a demonstration of how the human brain works with visually identifying and categorizing objects that are organized in certain ways.  There are four aspects of Gestalt: continuance, closure, proximity, and similarity.

Practicality is the main concern for design.   There are four elements of design/form that are to be noted: conceptual, visual, relational, and practical.  Conceptual elements are elements of design that we as human beings create in our minds in order to break down objects we see but do not physically exist: point, line, plane, and volume.  When conceptual elements become visible elements they have shape, size, texture, and color. Relational elements of design refer to the placement of an object(s).  This refer to either the amount of space used or the amount of negative space.  Practical elements of design are as follows: representation(accuracy of imitation of nature), message, and function(when the design actually serves a purpose).

LECTURE:
Bill gave a lecture on the differing methods of representation are and why they exist. The question addressed was to "Present or Represent?"  The styles of representation are as follows:
-Naturalistic defined as how an object appears in nature
-Realistic defined as fashioning an image as true to life as possible
-Stylized defined as a simplified image of an object in order to emphasize certain attributes
-Abstract defined as a highly stylized image of an object

Non-representational art is totally separate from the above categories because it doesn't strive to represent reality in any way

Bill then showed us artists who made a name for themselves by working and specializing within one of the realms of representation.

Dwayne Henson chose to produce sculptures that were extremely realistic and natural.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres chose to paint realistically.

Lucian Freud displays a strong sense of realistic vision but also shows interest in stylized imagery.

David Bates bridges a gap between realistic art and abstract art with a moderate interest in both aspects.

Pablo Picasso became known for his extremely abstract paintings.

Though most artists adopt a single genre of representation to incorporate into their own method of image making, there have and will certainly be exceptions to this tendency.  Piet Mondrian was one of those exceptions; he began producing images realistically as a young artist and obsessed over the relationship of space within the image of plant life.

Realistic and Naturalistic

Reality and Naturalistic perspective still exist as the majority, but stylization becomes a part of his work

Stylization has become more important, the idea of realistic representation has partially vanished

Essence of reality still exists, but stylization has taken over as the majority of this piece

Piet has lost all interest in realistic representation and has focused on abstract as his means of image making

Cardboard in Progress

The object that I am attempting to recreate: gumball.

 

Under-structure for cardboard gum ball

The first portion of my process is to build a paneled under-structure that will support the the spikes and panels that will be applied later on.  After achieving the under-structure, the next step is to create the wholes that exist between each set of two spikes.

 16 out of 40 chosen for critique

4 that were chosen by group members in critique

           

revised final 4 

Wednesday, September 1st, students and myself arrived with 40 thumbnail sketches of our dot images.  We were then asked to choose 16 of our images, 4 for each category of the Gestalt visual psychology we were studying.  Students then held group critiques over images each student had produced with regards to composition and placement according to Gestalt psychology in order to choose 1 image out of the four for each category.  To start off my critique, the critique e(myself) was required to maintain silence as Henry, J. D., Michael, and Edith stated any patterns or habits they noticed in my sixteen images produced.  Upon scanning my images the critique’ers felt that I frequented the use of an exaggerated scale shift.  It was also stated that I “needed more variety” in my dots.  I noticed a habit in my process as well that would be probably impossible for my group members to recognize, but as I was working on these dot images my eyes were attracted to the edges of the frame.  I found comfort in working from outside to inside, meaning I drew the dots closer to the frame first and worried about the ones in the middle after that.  After my habits had been identified, my group members began to categorize my images.  While my images were being sorted through one of the images was “disqualified” by a group member because I had two too many dots.  The group had favored the largest amount of dot images for the Gestalt characteristic “proximity”, the second largest amount was for “continuance”, then “similarity”, and then “closure.”  After the group had chosen my four images I went back through the rest of the images that were not critiqued and actually found a image with stronger continuance then what I had chosen and an image with stronger similarity then what I had chosen.  I think the group critique helped me very much on sharpening my eye for seeing principles of Gestalt psychology and also allowed me to strengthen my final four dot images.