Albright Knox

The two pieces I found most interesting at the Albright Knox art gallery were:

Frida Kahlo's Self Portrait with Monkey

(courtsey of www.albrightknox.org)

This self portrait was painted by Frida Kahlo in 1938 using oil on masonite. It is 19.5 X 15.5 X 11.5 in.
This piece of work immediatley struck me because of the realness of the monkey, and the severe eyebrows. After doing a bit of reading I found that Frida lived with exotic animals in her home in Coyoacan, and that the animals often ended up being subjects in her artwork.

Another piece that struck me was Jason Pollock's Convergence.

(courtsey of www.albrightknox.org)

Jason Pollock's painting Convergence was painted with oil paints on canvas in 1952. It is 95 1/4 x 157 1/8 x 2 7/8 in.

This painting is so large that it immediatley stuck out to me. I remember being on a guided tour last year in the Albright Knox and the tour guide explained that some people say that it isn't art because anyone can do it. She explained that while that is true it was revolutionary for that time, and that no matter how many times people try to replicate it, it could never be exactly replicated because of the randomness of the paint. She said that he dropped the painted, threw the paint, splashed the paint etc, to get the effect he was looking for,

Two paintings I felt a connection with were:

Hiroshi Yoshida's Niagara Falls

(cortsey of www.AlbrightKnox.org)

Hiroshi Yoshida's Niagara Falls was created in 1925 and was a woodcut. It's dimensions are 9 7/8 x 14 1/2" . I was drawn to this and felt a connection because it was something familiar (Niagara Falls.) I have seen the view so many times so I was immediatley drawn to it.


I also felt a connection with Claude Monet's Chemin de halage à Argenteuil, ca.

(courtsey of www.AlbrightKnox.org)

I have always loved Monet's paintings. Maybe it's because in grade school we learned so much about him. I enjoy his topics that he paints, they are usually relaxing scenes and very esthetically pleasing. This painting was created by Claude Monet using oil on canvas in 1875. It's dimensions are 32 1/2 x 48 1/4 x 4 in.


Two artists\artworks I would like to know more about are:

Afro's Concertino.

(courtsey of www.Albrightknox.org)

Afro's Concertino was created in 1948 using oil and watercolor on canvas. It's dimensions are 27 1/2 x 35 1/4". I enjoyed his artwork because it reminded me a little bit of Pablo Picssso's abstract artstyle. I couldn't quite make out what the picture was supposed to be, and I suppose that's why I found it alluring. I liked the use of dark blues and browns to create a somewhat dark look for the painting.


Charles Arthur Arnoldi's painting, Volcano, also intruged me.

(courtsey of www.AlbrightKnox.org)

This painting, created by Charles Arthur Arnoldi entitled Volcano was painted using oil stick on canvas in 1981. It's dimensions are 27 x 21" . I liked the large brush strokes and colors used in this painting. Although it is not a realistic interpretation of a volcano, when I first saw it, and without looking at the title that's the word that came to mind. I like the simple yet elegant look of the painting.

My logo

 

 

I enjoyed creating my logo. I had fun playing with my initials and trying to see what way looked best in the circle.


I knew I wanted to use my initials. I originally thought of doing only my intiials-without my last name, but since my last name is such an important piece of my identity I added it into the sketches. I used the circle to give me something concrete to work within. It seemd fluid and I liked the idea of never ending. I decided to use acrylic paint because I enjoyed working with it while doing the color wheel. I used bright and fresh colors to give it a little pop. Since my hand is not very steady a few of the lines were a little shaky, but I liked the overall look of my logo.


I learned to draw very lightly with pencil. I pressed way too hard for a few of the sketches and they did not properly erase.


4. What is the most important information you learned from watching the videos, powerpoint, and
reading material for this project? What is your opinion of the videos?

I enjoyed the video on Marmite. I never really thought about how much work goes into creating a new package. Even down to such tiny measurments on the valve of the bottle can make a difference in how the product dispenses from the tube.  I enjoyed both videos though, it is crazy how much work goes on behind the scenes. The tiniest details make a big difference and can be hours of work.

Material Exploration

I will admit that at first I laughed about doing this project. Once I began doing the value scale I realized it's actually a little harder than it appears. To get it to look "right"I  had to try a couple of times. My brother, who is a technology teacher, showed me that gently smudging can also produce a nice effect from light to dark. Smudging helped me achieve the right progression from light to dark. I enjoyed working with the acrylic paints. The value scale was a bit ahrder for me and I didn't like the feel of using the pencil to press hard for the darkest color. The paint was more of a relaxing medium for me.


I realized that making the color wheel and value scale is a lot harder than it looks. I suppose this is how artists feel when they are trying to achieve the perfect color.



The video on the color wheel showed me how to use just a tiny dabble of each color to mix with each other. My first try I used way to muc, I had to go back and rewatch the video because my original colors were "goopy"



I liked the videos from McGraw-Hill. They were very informative but short and to the point. Also the speaker was very clear and easy to understand. The picture image was also good and I like how the website is organized.

Color

Different colors can effect our emotions. In the video they talked about how intense colors can be used to express strong emotions, and how Vincent Van Gogh used colors that clashed to express how he disliked a cafe.  The painter featured in the video, June talked about how she used white paint first because it reflected the colors off of the canvas, and how she splashed turpentine onto the canvas to make the paint runny, I thought this was very interested it looked like she was ruining her painting but it turned out beautifully with a simple sweep of a brush or cloth. I also thought it was very interesting that the intensity of the color depends on how the paint is made, and that the finer the particles in the paint the more intense the color would be. 

What made the biggest impact on me in regards to how color effects the emotions was the clashing of colors Van Gogh used to represent anger and distaste. Also I just find it very overwhelming all the different shades of colors and how in a single painting there can be so many different pigments and shades of one color. 

Photo Project

For this project I used a mix of my iPhone camera, and my digital camera. I took pictures from many different angles to get the feel I was looking for. For some pictures I would lay down to take the pictures or have the camera pointing up. I enjoyed this project because using the digital camera it is so simple to re-take a picture if it doesn't turn out the way you like, other art forms it can be a much harder process to undo what you have created.

http://s1257.photobucket.com/albums/ii503/sweetja01/?albumview=slideshow

Kant

Through watching the vidoes and reading the chapters in Living with Art, my knowledge on the visual arts is beginning to expand.

Alexander Baumgarten, an eighteenth century German thinker coined the word aesthetics. Aesthetics is the combination of many different things coming together to bring beauty. Aesthetics can be described as proportion, harmony, symmetry and order.

 Immanuel Kant was an eighteenth century theorist. Kant argues that everything can be made beautiful-even the ugly. The only thing that can not be made beautiful is that which is disgusting. Ugly is not the opposite of beautiful because ugly can be transformed into beauty, disgusting is the true opposite of beauty. 

Jean-Pierre Changeux's video presentation on how the brain processes the visual arts, and the biology behind human brain development was very interesting. Although the French accent was at times hard to read through, one interesting fact I pulled out was how an artist style may emerge. He said that the selection and storage of an efficient rule (rules are the acquired patterns of connections stored in the long term memory) most often implicit for the top-down restriction of the number of possible representations creates the artist's style. 

To me the book was a lot easier for me, having no art background, to read and understand. The videos were very interesting, but went a lot deeper into the history of art, which is probably more interesting for people with more background knowledge of art.