Albright Knox Art Gallery Visit

I enjoyed spending my vacation day at the Gallery. I went myself and glad for that enabling me to observe, take notes and see just what I wanted to see. Not enough time to stop at every art piece. I tagged the photos in photobucket with impression, connection, and know more about. I also put the artist’s name, media, year and scale in the description, but none of it shows in the blog view of these works. I had to enter it here.
The three that made an impression on me were:
1.Colors Cool by Mariko Mori, 2002 Photopainting I thru VI edition 3/3 Prints and Lucite with Dye destruction. This attracted me because of the irridescent color, round frames, as well as the three dimension art that diplayed different jelly fish/sperm like shapes and sizes. It was unusual in art form, which seem to be the works I was most drawn to. I would also like to know more about this work.
2. Jess by Unentitled Graces 1978 Paper Collage. It was 100 years of artwork consisting of puzzles, pictures of food, animals, science, landscaping, new and old, and mostly square and round shapes within. The hands in there seem to represent the hands of time.
3. Tow - Path at Argenteuil ca 1875 by Claudia Monet Oil on Canvas. All of Monet’s works are of my favorite colors, the outside, beach, flowers, and nature that seems to appeal to me, just like Thomas Kincade’s work.

The three that I was connected to was:
1. 10 Formal Fingers by Jim Dine 1961 Wood Relief with Oil. Nails and skin are part of the Cosmetology curriculum that I teacher is why I was connected to this piece.
2. Hum by Robert Long 1988 Plastic, formica, wood audio jacks, chrome-plated steel aluminum, plastic bonding and lacquer. Electricity is my husband’s career and this work really intrigued me. It also looked very much like some of my contraptions with all the cords to my theatre/stereo hookups.
3. The Marvelous Sauce by Jehan Geroges Vibert ca1890 Oil on Wood attracted me on the wall and at the post card rack. I am connected because my neighbor is an Italian cook and making sauce all the time. This painting has some humor in it and was fun to look at, just made me hungry after viewing it.

The three works that I want to know more about were:
1. Janet by Chuck Close 1992 Oil on Canvas. This was one of many art works displayed as part of the optical reflection. It all seemed interesting, this one was pictures in a picture much like the puzzle I have been working on. The DNA fingerprints in this display was something I wanted to learn more about.
2. Morning War 2008 by Matthew Ritchie 2008 Oil Marker on Linen, video, paper, sculpture on wall and floor. I was intrigued by this piece as soon as I seen it and wanted to know more about not only the work involved but also the meaning. I could not get a picture of this,so I took a picture from the video that is on the Albright Knox website to place in my blog. After viewing that video I did learn more about the art work.
3. Pinwheel by John Ahearn 1998 Plaster. I wanted to know whose arms they were that were linked by the thumbs, and why. It seemed to me it represented unity amongst a group, whether it be race, nations or a support group of some sort.

Logo process

Week Five - Art Making/Material Exploration #2 Logo Design

A website that I can not seem to paste here from Illustrator is how I learned to make a pair of scissors. After trying it on Illustrator, I tried sketching it myself.
It took so long just to figure out how to operate the tools in Illustrator and downloading the program. I watched all the videos and even some of the tutorial’s in Illustrator. I also checked out all the links for Logos and after many decisions in this process, decided my original design.

I did my best to sketch them out and color them using blue, green, and pink inside the blades, outlined in silver. Looked good so I captured them with my digital camera and uploaded into Photobucket. I did not like it then. The colors did not show up well, so I played around with some edit tools in Photobucket. My slideshow shows a few of the many ideas I tried. I know at staff development days, we learned some Photoshop, and advanced techniques in other programs, but I definitely need more time using Illustrator.

I thought this would be easy and fun. I tried long and hard to use this program with no success to draw a pair of scissors. I then typed my words in there, with no luck saving them to put on the blog, so I redid it on Pages. I took the pictures from Photobucket, made a slide show and now trying to embed it my blog.
The videos were very helpful and I am sure if I was not so determined to do a scissors with the words in the blade, I may have done something else. I see what a graphic designer does all day and the competition is so great. The Super Bowl commercials all started with one sitting at the computer with the thought process rolling. The videos all showed to use the elements and principles of art to think, sketch and design your idea. Experiment with various font size and style also to come up with one clear concept.

Color Wheel and Value Scale

The most difficult part of this project was trying to attach the photos and as of writing this I still may not have it done.
I had a hard time decreasing the darkness of the values in equal amounts. I then did the color wheel went ok. I then tried to write the blog, but typed it first in the wrong box, then lost it somehow. I retyped it in here and can not remember my blog account password to upload my photos. I have spent all evening on it, now it is 11:20 and going crazy.
I liked working with the graphite pencils the most because it was something new and different. I do the color wheel in my hair coloring class with the students.
The most important discovery I made with this project is that magenta, cyan and yellow are the primary colors and not the red, blue and yellow as I learned. We teach the original primaries in hair color to achieve brown, but if we want dark black hair, then I suppose we should use more magenta.
I enjoyed the video because it showed how detailed and precise to be with the pencils in the value scale. I also was able to start and stop it at any time for reference when doing the color wheel and scale.

Photobucket Experience

What seemed to be easy at the beginning of this week, is a nightmare on Saturday. My computer skills are improving greatly, but not the best. It was no problem setting up the account on Photobucket. I then snapped various pictures to put on the computer. Not an easy task, Hard to choose what to photograph.Then, I could not import them onto my daughter’s Apple computer. That evening was totally wasted.
She showed me how to do the import the next day, only to find out some of the snapshots taken said “No file data saved”. This is a new camera and do not know what this means. The picture shows up on the camera, downloads on to the computer, but when I try to save them to Photobucket, they did not save. It commented “files not saved”. Ugghh!!
I took more pictures, made sure they worked, then put them on Photobucket. Hooray, I did it!!!! Now I have to pick which ones go with the proper element or principle. Decisions, decisions!!!! Ok, I finally did that only after I closed the wrong window a few times and had to get the wireless mouse out because I am not good at the little control pad on the Apple. Hours later I have the pictures in tack. I set up the slide show. It is now Friday night. More decisions on which way to present them. After I picked one, I can not fiqure out how to embed it in the blog. Help!!!!
It is now 3:31 pm on Saturday and frustrated. I am not sure which way I am supposed to “share “ this or how to get it onto the blog. I have learned more than I can absorb right now. I will have it in here someway, somehow and hope it is right.

Week Three - Blog: Color Theory and Emotional Effects

 Color is the reflection or refraction of light depending on if it is a subtractive or additive. It is used to express emotions and feelings. Red represents blood and can make someone angry, yet it is used to express love. Blue is serene but depends on the level of intensity. It also depends on the context the color is used and its border next to another color, whether it be warm or cool.
The most fascinating aspect of color I learned from the resource was the length of the border technique in a painting as well as the value for effect. For example, the red interrupting the blue serenity. I do haircoloring and understand some of the warms and cools, complimentary colors, but the interactive tool was fun and very helpful.
 In the Color video, the way June Redfern used the color as she went along, splashing it on and then removing it impacted me more than the actual colors she used.
In the Feelings video, I learned alot about the two artists and how different their thoughts were and how they expressed them. The colors Goya used were more vibrant and David used softer colors. The colors Goya used to express more anger and meanness were vivid and darker than David’s choices. It was interesting how the shape of the bodies changed the message too.
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3661302792757556486

This is my slide show for viewing.
http://s1237.photobucket.com/home/lbmccarthy56/index

Blog 2 video reviews

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3661302792757556486

 Each video spoke about the aesthetics of art and the theory behind it. The first one mentioned various philosophers'  theories on the art and the second one gave 2 scientific views behind the conception of a art piece. Both spoke about harmony and symmetry in what the brain views.

I felt the 18th century philosopher, Francis Hutchinson, was important because of his belief that God is the sign of harmony and all is good and that is beautiful. The inner sense of beauty is spontaneous and one must be knowledgeable to appreciate the aesthetics of art. 

Changeux and Ramachandran both viewed the aesthetics and art as being scientific. It is how the brain is wired according to Changeux. He gave very detailed brain diagrams and explanations to his theory, talking about brain synthesis and restrictions. Ramachandran gave a more lighter, funnier version of how one sees art. Ramachandran's  8 Laws of Aesthetics explained some of what we are reading in the book, such as the symmetry, contrast, as well as groupings in species, societies or across time. The most interesting fact from Changeux I thought was that the brain synthesis of nested processes takes 15 years to develop. Ramachandran remarks about the one region of the brain that extracts one thing about an art piece and gets rid of the clutter.

The videos mentioned what we read in the text, only elaborated in a more scientific manner and very detailed. They gave other opinions and the power points are instilled in my brain, so now I will look at art differently.

I thought the films were educational, but Changeux was too hard to understand and I missed some important words, even after replaying the section. The videos gave me better understanding of how the brain receives the art viewed and explains more about the aesthetics of art than the book.