Vavia's Blog

Mike and Doug Starn

vavia — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:52:02 +0000

These identical twins collaboration pays off into some pretty freaking awesome artwork. Their use of sculpture, photography, paintings, take ordinary things and turn them into breathtaking pieces. I personally like them because it seems like no matter what medium or fine art they use, it seems to be inspired by all other mediums. You can see the sculptural composition and fine detail paintings entail in their photographs, and so on. My absolute favorite is their copped photograph of the branched out tree. I would be so overwhelmed if I saw it in person, heck I NEED to see that thing in person.

DCD the VCD man.

vavia — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:07:05 +0000

David Carson changed the world of graphic art for the better starting in the 90s grunge era. He is arguably the most influential graphic designer of all time. His use of typography is now replicated everywhere we turn. Turn on the tv, walk past a billboard, open up a magazine and you will find his style of lettering and design everywhere. He turned text from being cookie cutter to actual art. To me, his work has been highly inspired by actual fine arts which is completely awesome. He has revolutionized advertising and turned it into something that requires expertise. Not anyone can produce advertising and graphic design artwork anymore. He took and idea and ran with it, making others run twice as fast to catch up.

My own Film Still.

vavia — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:40:26 +0000

We were given the assignment in 2d to research Cindy Sherman’s film stills and then to recreate them with a partner in black and white, like she. Except we could have no props and no background but a simple backdrop. It was partner work but the photo was taken by ourselves being set by a timer. The lighting was highly tricky as well as portraying our desired emotion without being able to see what it looked like. It caused me personally to pull from inside and feel the emotion. When I felt like I was revealing a story it could be easily seen in the photograph. Immersing yourself into your work is the best way to get the most successful photograph. I pulled inspiration for my photograph from the book Corduroy in that I feel like him sometimes at college–lost and not sure where I belong but missing home. I decided to be a broken doll like those in the story and this is what I got.

The Many Faces of Cindy Sherman

vavia — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:35:23 +0000

Cindy Sherman is not only a photographer, she is an inventor. Taking only photographs of herself, she takes on different personas each time. He ability to successfully reinvent herself each time is astonishing to me. Here is a woman who can make herself a true chameleon by simply putting on clothes and accessories. But its so much more than just clothes and accessorie–you have to take it to the next level by inventing a persons background and portray a story through them in a photograph. I highly admire Cindy Sherman, especially her film still collection. In her more recent works, I find them to be slightly clownish where as her film stills are much more subtle. Her film stills transport me to another place but her other works do not. Instead I get caught up in the ridiculousness–which I partially think she is aiming for. Personally though, I connect and appreciate her film stills much much more.

vavia — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:20:22 +0000

ten things i need to improve upon:
1. tape ripping off paper
2. sharpie–>indian ink
3. border length
4. sharpies show circles in emphasis by contrast
5. cover page
6. thickness constancy in value scale gradient
7. backpage can be a helluva lot cleaner
8. no smudges
9. cleaner border
10. pencil marks on fgr, translation consistency

10 things i did good:
1. design booklet
2. closure idea
3. taking pictures of real-life situations
4. FGR switching
5. creases
6. sense of movement in translation
7. contrast of light and dark in vsg
8. consistency on the amount of black and white on each page
9. bold cover name
10. emphasis by contrast concept.

Giving Nature What it Deserves: Andy Goldsworthy

vavia — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:36:45 +0000

Prior to being assigned to research this smashing brit, I learned a very small portion about him in my AP Portfolio class and fell a bit in love with him (or as much as one can with seeing and knowing barely nothing at all). However, I happened to forget his name, so when I researched this, I became overly excited. This man, is insanely earthy and cool and so on and so forth. Being on the “environmental and sustainability living and learning community” floor, I can even further appreciate this mans amazing ability to captivate nature by using it to its fullest. I love that he makes site-specific sculptures that use the found objects and materials. It is so cool that he takes something that we take for granted and turns it into something absolutely stunning and beautiful. I found a quote of his that struck me. He says I think it’s incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can’t edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole.” Now how cool is that? A man likes a challenge, and the challenges pay off. I one day so hope that I have a chance, by chance or on purpose, to be walking in the nature and wander upon one of this extraordinary sculptures and be able to appreciate it to its fullest because I have a hankering that these pieces are about five million more times beautiful in real life and when youre there in its natural environment and experience it yourself.

Art Guys Are my Kind of Guys

vavia — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:29:04 +0000

Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing make up this halarious and utterly cool duo. When I first googled art guys, I was immediately drawn to the images section that holds all of their pictures. I could not stop laughing at them standing by an intersection, plastered with stuffed animals from hat to toe. It was absolutely awesome! When I went to their official website I found out that their style is a “direct to the public” methodology. Which basically means they put their artworks (sometimes them being their artworks) all over random places. Imagine grocery shopping, waiting for a flight, going to the movies, or seeing your favorite football team, or driving your car and seeing this artwork randomly placed, taking you off guard. SO COOL! Who does that?! Why DONT people do that? Seriously. I get so sick of art galleries sometimes! Picture after picture that no one seriously takes in because its art overload. But walking down a grocery isle, wanting to pick up my favorite mango juice and WHAM! Art! YESSS. How cool….How very very cool and humorous. If Michael and Jack felt so compelled to put a video camera in one of their randomly scattered art pieces and captured peoples reactions and faces, that would be priceless art in itself! These guys are friggen cool.

There is No Reason Not to Celebrate and Protest.

vavia — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:20:53 +0000

Karry James Marshall can be summed up by his quote when he says “You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility. You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it. That determined a lot of where my work was going to go.” I think this man was highly motivated and propelled by his surroundings–by what he saw not only as a human, but as an artist. He saw the effects of racism and inequality, I mean, this man did NOT grow up in Ohio. He grew up in a place that was predominately white and practiced white supremacy tactics. Any true artist would take this experience and find the need to cope by using a creative outlet.

However, it doesn’t seem that Marshall is focusing on all of the bad aspects of civil rights, he actually celebrates the civil rights movements and does this through a series of sculptures, stamps, and paintings. How cool is it that he can question inequality but still celebrate the fact that he is a beautiful African American with so much to offer (and a boat load of pride along with it).

Paving The Way: Jean-Michel Basquiat

vavia — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:03:23 +0000

Jean-Michel paved the way for many others by being the first nationally recognized African American painter. His use of bright colors and sometimes disturbing figures create questions about racial equality. What is most cool about John-Michel is that he, like Barry McGee, started his love for art by doing graffiti on the streets of New York (particularly in Manhattan) which pivoted his career and created a name for him.

Jon-Michel reminds me a lot of myself in that he seems to always be drawn to using color. I admire and look up to him because he uses an abundance of colors to draw the viewer in but then keeps them there when they realize the deep and utterly disturbing message he is trying to convey–that different cultures view the “other man” as barbaric of lesser than themselves. In a way, he feeds into the “white man’s perception” of African Americans by distorting them to make them look inhuman, almost very animalistic. It seems that he is giving the white population what they want but evokes quite a different response. When people look at these paintings and say “this is suppose to be an African American? They are not barbaric like this” Jean-Michel just made his point…They are not barbaric! They are not lesser, or distorted! This again can be credited to his use of colors that pull in the reader. The contrast between his message and use of colors is so extremely powerful that even if the viewer didn’t want to, they would be dragged into his paintings for confusions sake. Now that, is talent.

Chapters 4&5

vavia — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:44:31 +0000

CHAPTER FOUR:
1. Perspective was made in the Renaissance (so cool! But I thought they made that up sooner! Makes sense though, things seemed to be more plat pre-renaissance).
2.Illusion of space can be used by creating overlap (one thing over another), size variation (smaller things farther back, bigger things up closer), and definition (blurry in the background, clear in the foreground).
3. Animation uses this extensively and purposefully (like MULAN! I’ve never thought that so much overlap, linear perspective, and atmospheric perspective went along with those catchy songs and drama!)
4. Before and After is the perception of a decisive moment thats based on our past experiences and our ability to relate that experience to what we see. (SO COOL! its like we finish the action of the picture in our mindsssssssss!)
5. Fragmentation shows up the steps of movement (kindof like we do closure to make one solid movement)

EXAM QUESTIONS:
1. Explain how fragmentation in a picture can be seen as one sold movement when looked at from start to finish. Answer: Our minds do Gestalt’s closure which makes it into one solid movement.
2. What are ways to create illusion of space? Answer: Overlapping (placing one object slightly over another), Size variation (smaller objects in the background, bigger objects in the foreground) and Definition (blurrier objects in the background and increasingly clearer objects all the way to the foreground)

CHAPTER 5:
1. 7 characteristics of creative thinking are:
Receptivity: being open to new ideas, welcoming and being comfortable with having new experiences.
Curiosity: Always wanting to know more and try new things.
Attentiveness: realizing that EVERY moment is something valuable and that you can experience from it.
Connection Seeking: finding similarity between two or more things.
Conviction: realizing that others have been out there trying to do what you want to do for centuries and so you learn from them and respect their endeavors.
Complexity: Combining rational with intuitive thinking (combining two opposites together a.k.a being well rounded!)
2. Find out your strengths and weaknesses. Celebrate your strengths and work on those weaknesses!
3. Set small, accomplishable, NOT VAGUE, goals for yourself!
4. Have some DANG good time management (i.e. prioritizing, making most of your time, starting earlier) and you will be waaaaaay less stressed and a heck of a lot happier.
5. You have to develop good work habits like relying on yourself, being organized, etc. in order to be successful.

Exam Question: What are your strengths? What are you weaknesses? How do you think you have grown over this art course to strengthen your positive attributes and turn your negative attributes into something good?

(This essay question I cannot answer yet, seeing as how I haven’t finished out this class, but trust me, I will come back and answer this baby.)