Arshile Gorky

I went to the Philly Art Museum earlier today, and was checking out some of the current exhibits. One that really caught my attention was an abstract artist Arshile Gorky. He had a very cool style with very bold colors that take a little to look into. One of his pieces, Abstraction With a Palette, was featured at the museum and was one of my favorites of his. Due to a plane crash in 1962, 15 of his paintings were destroyed, which makes his pieces even more rare and valuable. 

Collections

I am fairly happy with the outcome with my project. It was tough figuring out a way to make a pile of chopsticks exciting and not boring to look at. After playing with a few designs, different resolutions, and some crafty arranging of sticks, I am overall pleased with the results. Though for some reason, I cannot upload it onto blogger right now. I'll work on that

Tank Man Update

Wasnt completely satisfied with my first one, so I updated a few of the squares in the whole image. I like it a little more

Cous Cous Kid

Cous Cous Kid is an English visual artist who mixes photography and computer art. His pieces usually are based around women of some sort and very elaborate and vibrant backgrounds and designs around. He also does a lot of work with both pens and sharpies for backgrounds or to draw on some of the models he uses. Very cool stuff

http://www.stumbleupon.com/s/#1HJnr5/www.couscouskid.co.uk//topic:Arts

Finally got the dog image up

Photoshop

Is impossible. The things Jille was doing in class, do not make sense when I try them at the tech center. How do you feather edges? I'll finish them in class so I can get some help

The Met

For my first time in NYC, I visited the Met. Overall as a museum, its a mess. So unorganized and hard to find anything, but that doesn't mean it wasn't great to wonder around. There were a ton of great pieces from throughout history that I came across. The first thing I really checked out were the Greek and Roman sculptures. Though we have all seen images of these sculptures hundreds of times, it is still amazing to see in person. I really found interest in the massive, old European paintings. The detail and technique is just incredible. I don't get how they mixed their own paints and did so much more just to prepare for the work than we do now. Although I wasn't a fan of NYC in its entirety, the Met is a good hidden treasure there.

A poor man's Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey is a modern street artist who originated in using stickers and went from stencils to great works. Most have seen his work with the company Obey. He has done work for Obama's campaign and has done many works for various artists and music legends. He works a lot with spray paint but does computer work too on some pieces. 

Features of his works usually reflect modern events going on, whether it be war or an election or a great musician. His backgrounds are known for intricate, complex patterns. He does a simple palette of colors, but is usually connected to the works message. Since he started out doing simple spraypaint stencils, his pieces include some form of stenciling in it. Lets see how I can recreate.

Patterns

Wolgin

I finally ventured off the the Wolgin show at Tyler this past Friday. I was enthused to check out the Wolgin exhibit because of how important it was and that it was actually being held at Tyler. I liked looking at the pieces included and seeing how the artist came up with half the ideas. One of my favorite things about art is trying to put myself in the artist's state of mind which created such works. I just explored from piece to piece, staring into them looking for more than what might have been there, but in doing so, I feel I understood them well and appreciated them more than when I first walked in on the show.

Fun on Illustrator

The portrait with illustrator was a lot of fun. It resembles the paper one we had to make, but this was much more entertaining. Next are the patterns..

Bradley N. Litwin

          Bradley is one crafty man. He introduced to us all of his mechanical art, which isn't normally thought of in that way. I mean you go to museums to see pieces being hung on walls or sculptures resting in place, but when do you see a machine in motion? It is never thought of as an art but it truly is one with how intricate and precise the different parts, sometimes in volumes of 50,000+, are arraigned in motion. 

          Another really cool part was about how he was going through the evolution of computer art back from when it printed in 80 dots per inch to modern software. It makes you wonder about what could be developed in the next ten years. We'll see when it comes around.

this dog has got to be miserable

Hidden in Plain Sight?

http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2747

This is an article about Jackson Pollock's work and how it has a Rorshach quality about it. There is an upcoming book about Pollock called Tom and Jack which talks about the relationship between Jackson Pollock and his teacher Thomas Hart Benton. But in this article, it speaks of how Benton found a signature in one of his works, and other things such as symbols in different pieces. It is a controversial topic because most scholars think this is crazy and that people are just looking at Pollock's pieces too deeply. It is a very interesting article that makes you look into crazy art like his for deeper meanings or images.

Penn Museum of Anthropology

Went there today for my Art Heritage class and it was a really cool place. It had a lot with Egypt and Minoan sculptures and physical works. It was more of a historic museum than an art museum, but its just that historic art is only sculptures and less of paintings. I recommend the museum to anyone who likes a good history tour

Collections

This collection is working much better than other attempts. I've only got 4 parts to it so far because of uncertainty on what to collect, but will be putting scans up soon since I finally got acetate to lay down on the scanners before using. I thought I was behind by a lot but it seems to finally be working out. Such good news

Memoir Image

Took awhile to get up because of differences with Mac and PC with fonts and every other difference, but finally have it

Update Collection

When first hearing this whole 'collection' assignment, I think I over thought it way too much to find the "perfect" collection. But after running through my natural daily routine as it was, I looked to find things that I come across daily, and theres nothing more natural routine than eating, so I am changing the collection to the utensils I use for meals during the day. I've already got some chopsticks, forks, and spoons collected and I think this will be much easier and better than trying too hard to find the perfect collection and coming short.

Museum Trip

Today was such a nice day out so I decided to take a walk to the Philly Art Museum. I love checking out all the different sections through different periods of art and seeing how much the focus goes from the hand to the mind. In the older art pieces, the artists focused more on simple composition with amazing detail and talent in the technique. But with the more modern art, there is much less focus on the composition and talent in doing so, but a lot more on thoughts and how different pieces make you feel. Both are great styles, just focusing on different areas. 

Helvetica

            I think it is crazy how much passion and meaning can go into a single typeface. How that the font itself is used as a blank canvas that lets the message be so much bolder and noticeable. How serious and urgent it makes the message.     

             Helvetica really surprised me because I truly did not expect much from the film besides a simple documentary.  Instead there was so much more with how the font is and what it means to different people. In an odd comparison, helvetica is like the Tofu of the typeface world. By itself, it is nothing. It is blank and very flavorless. But once there is a message in the typeface, it takes on that typeface and makes it even bolder, just as tofu does to any meal. It takes on the flavors of the foods mixed with it and makes them even bolder and better. 

           I have no camera to take pictures of helvetica examples in real life, but I will bring you some examples I found online.

Tyler

I only applied to one college, and I was extremely late in doing so. So I wasn't too sure if I would actually be coming to college, but luckily I got into Tyler at the last minute. Philly is pretty much my favorite place to be which is why I knew this was the place for me. Tyler has been great so far, even though it has only been one week. But due to a lack of things to say and wanting to finish my lunch right now, this post has got to end short. I look forward to getting to know everyone who shares this assignment of posting our thoughts. 

I care for LIVING over life.