Create > Inspiration POV Series Album

Create > Art History Remix

Create > Amusement Motion Album

Create > Pride Framing Album

Create > Object Painting

Create > Object Painting

Goal: Use historically significant art to create an aesthetic object from an abandoned object.

Studio Activity:

Find an interesting object from the garage, attic, flea market, auction, or second-hand store.  

Pick a famous painting to use as the primary camouflage element.

Transform the object by decorating its entire surface with paint using the defining characteristics of a famous art style movement or a specific painting.

Mimic the the color scheme, brush stroke method or application and the use of subject matter.   

Art History:

Study the art style movements: Abstract Expressionism, Baroque, Postmodern, Surrealism, Futurism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Bauhaus, Cubism, Expressionism

Trigger Mechanisms:

Reinterpret, Translate, Disguise, Substitution, Transform

Visual Examples:

Create > 3D Photography Sculptures

Create > Hope Vignette Album

Create > Interest Silhouette Album

Create > Serenity Reflection Album

Watch > All it Takes is 10 Mindful Minutes by Puddicombe > https://youtu.be/qzR62JJCMBQ
Watch > Hack Your Brain’s Default Mode with Meditation > https://youtu.be/FAcTIrA2Qhk
View > The Serenity Album - Reflection Images > http://goo.gl/vldyYC
Meditate > Guided Meditation > https://youtu.be/gVxX6krj-tw

Create > Gratitude Shape Album

Create > Joy Close Up Texture Album

Watch > Socratic Seminar Alan Watts:The Dream of Life > http://goo.gl/plszEZ View > Joy Close Up Album Presentation > http://goo.gl/TtrxAp

Create > Extreme Angles Album

Create > Extreme Angles Album

Goal: Make 10 images of everyday things and people from unusual vantage points.

Studio Activity:

Emphasize extreme vantage points by getting into extreme locations and positions.  Get on the ground and take a shot from a worm’s eye view.  Get up on a ladder or balcony and shoot down from a bird’s eye view.  Understand that shooting subject matter from extreme angles produces distorted forms and foreshortened perspectives.  Look at the visual examples and notice the foreshortening (a large head (because its closer) and smaller legs diminishing away) or just the opposite when the photograph is taken below (large feet with the body diminishing away).

Trigger Mechanisms:  Point of View, Extreme, Exaggeration

Visual Examples:

Alexander Rodchenko > http://goo.gl/51FmGb on Pinterest > http://goo.gl/IJ7rFm

Google Extreme Angle Photography > https://goo.gl/oydIZj

Pinterest Extreme Angle Photography > https://goo.gl/dKtH9B and https://goo.gl/hpHNv2

https://sites.google.com/site/nphsphotography/ap-photography

Create > Dual Portrait

Create > Dual Portrait

Concept:

• A double portrait can simultaneously signify two sides of your personality

Goal:  Create a biographical self portrait composed of two portrait images depicting two aspects of your personality

Catalysts:

• Analogize, Transfer, Mythologize, Fantasize, Symbolize

Studio Challenge:

1. Create a biographical self portrait composed of two portrait images which depict two sides of your personality.
2. Let one portrait depict the ‘outside you,’ the one people see.
3. Create the other portrait as another ‘you,’ a secret personality or fantasy role model.  
4. Make the double portrait insightful, therapeutic, humorous or surreal.

Possibilities include:

• Juxtapose your portrait with a historical personality or mythological hero.
• Make two identical portraits but transform one with shapes or colors that signify a different psychological state.  
• Research details regarding your horoscope and transfer that information symbolically.  
• Consider what your ‘animal spirit’ is and visually portray it alongside your face.

http://media.creativebloq.futurecdn.net/sites/creativebloq.com/files/images/2013/10/emi.jpg

http://zikibay.com/images/zikibay_illust05.jpg

http://www.martingallagher.com.au/portraits/images/the-dual-self-portait.jpg

http://www.dmbullock.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/6a011570bf3e36970b013488c9940d970c-800wi-e1383569609773.jpg

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/Clowes%20%26%20Tomine%20dual%20portrait.jpg

http://www.manraylugano.ch/game/files/images/thumb/large/1A_09055.jpg

http://th04.deviantart.net/fs28/PRE/i/2008/166/c/2/Dual_Self_Portrait__Part_2_by_Moriam.jpg

http://2-ps.googleusercontent.com/x/www.trendhunter.com/cdn.trendhunterstatic.com/thumbs/xoptical-illusion-paintings.jpeg.pagespeed.ic.PbkhZMb91a.jpg

Understand > Your Concentration Commentary

Understand > Your Concentration Commentary

Commentary Questions:

• What is the central idea of your Concentration?

• How does the work in your concentration demonstrate the exploration of your idea?  You may refer to specific images as examples.

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How to begin your statement: 

Go to > http://www.bmoreart.com//?s=best+professional+practices+for+artists and read the short write up on how to write a good artist statement.

Go to > www.artstudy.org/art-and-design-careers/sample-artist-statement.php for more examples.

Begin by answering these questions

• Title of theme:
• Expand on the meaning of the concept:
• Why your theme intrigues you or is of particular interest to you:
• The media and materials you are using:
• Why are you using them?
• How does it tie into your theme?
• Describe what you principles and elements of design (or metaphor or symbol) you are working with and how it ties in to the theme and concept:
• Describe the compositional tools that you are experimenting with and how they ties in to the theme and concept:
• List the artists or schools of art that are influencing you.  
• Describe how they are influencing you.

Begin to form these ideas into two paragraphs answering the two Commentary Questions above.

Examples:

Concentration Commentary Example 1

    My concentration is a series of abstractions constructed using pastel and ink. I decided to explore the concept of stylizing various shapes and designs found in both nature as well as technology. I chose to focus on zooming in on specially the lines and shapes of these designs and creating animate abstractions from them.

    When I first started my concentrations, I created my abstractions from still lives that I had set up. These first concentrations, such as numbers 1, 2 and 3, were geometrically balanced and had an overall scheme to them which prevented them from having a clear focal point. However, I widened the variety of pictures from which I was creating my abstractions and began focusing on computerized designs and images from nature. I focused on the movement of the lines in each picture and embellished them to that they could embody the shape of the design. The negative spaces that the ink encompasses become the placeholders for the color. The lines eventually began to transform into shapes themselves, such as in concentrations 7 and on. The color palette also began to change as my concentrations progress; I began with mostly analogous colors but eventually became more confident in my color choices. Starting with concentration number 9, I began exploring with complimentary colors and different blending techniques. The transformation of my concentrations enabled me to create this seemingly spontaneous series. However, each piece required careful planning and drafting which was later become more complex and intricate. 

Concentration Commentary Example 2

    I was interested by the possibility that ordinary games could be depicted dramatically to evoke a sense of grandeur.  I sought to find unusual vantage points that a player might not normally see. I used charcoal to establish dark rich volumes and ebony pencil to render intricate details and subtle reflections. In my series, I placed special emphasis on perspective, illusion of depth, and exaggeration of proportion to give the game pieces a definitive, towering prominence in the composition.

    From the beginning, I employed spatial and proportional exaggeration as a means to lend to the game pieces an air of importance. Starting from my first drawing, I employed a “peek-a-boo” effect, enlarging a pawn at the corner of the composition in order to break the page, create an illusion of depth, and most importantly create a bridge from my vision into the world of the audience. In # 3 (Connect-Four), I began to embrace an ant’s perspective and the Connect-Four slots became a majestic monolith. This was a theme I carried throughout my 7th and 8th pieces in which the “Sorry” pieces and beer bottles, respectively, served to create a distinct world—almost a maze, through which the ant—and the viewer’s eye—wanders. Beginning with #10 (mahjong), I developed the concept to depict game pieces in such a way that they seemed to be falling on top of or speeding towards the viewer, establishing a more dramatic atmosphere. This was achieved by juxtaposing objects of extreme proportions to really attain that “in-your-face” feel. The concept is apparent in both my 10th piece, in which the mahjong piece seems to begin descending onto the viewer, and my 11th piece, in which the large king chess piece held by the hand is almost an ominous overhang above the viewer, almost as a human foot would crush an ant. This impression was perhaps best captured in my final piece, in which the die assumes massive proportions and seems to be speeding towards the face of the viewer.

Concentration Commentary Example 3

    My concentration revolves around the theme of isolation and alienation in the modern world using the subway as my context. I was intrigued by the downcast and exhausted body language and expressions of commuters in transit. I found the subway particularly evocative because, despite the suffocating proximity and unusually closeness of the other commuters, each person was intently contemplating their own lives, completely unaware that everyone else was consumed by the same personal reflection.
      The concept behind my concentration was always about the isolation of people in modern society but my pieces evolved from simply observing commuters to making the viewer become a part of the scene. In #’s 1-3 there is a definite separation between the viewer and the piece but by #12 the viewer feels as if they are on the subway, being tilted and pushed into the mass of humanity around them. In #4 I reached a turning point in my work because the viewer was invited to become another passenger on the subway. I began adding cut paper and elevating my focal points form the paper in #5 to further show the chaotic atmosphere of the subway. In preparation for each drawing I began taking pictures undetected on the subway that often turned out at strange and tilted angles. I began to employ this tilted perspective in the background of #6 to further emphasize the jostling of the subway. Having established the crowed feeling I began to use the harsh florescent lighting of the subway to emphasize the focal point in each piece. I began exaggerating the contrast on the clothes and especially the faces of my subjects in #10 to illustrate the downcast and pensive expressions of someone caught up in their own thoughts. In addition, I drew on paper bags to show the leathery and alienated faces of commuters in a working community. I made the subway out of tracing paper because it captured the boldness of the black and white charcoal, which created the uninviting and cold surface of the subway walls. In the same piece I began to vary the distance of my subjects from the viewer, intensifying the allusion that the viewer was a commuter on the train as well. In #12 I further increased the contrast of the piece so that the majority of the commuters were hidden in the dark underbelly of the subway while my focal point was bathed in the alienating glow of the lights above, isolating him from the surrounding people.

Create > Shred and Weave Collages