Last three projects in 2D

Project 4 had us learning how to carve stamps out of carving blocks.  We had to pick one image to carve and stamp it on a ground of choice a certain number of times (I don’t remember the exact number).  I chose canvas grounds partly because they are really easy to work with, partly because they are cheap to buy…and mostly because I seem to have a ton of them already in my art supplies.  🙂

I researched a few ideas, it had to be something that was meaningful to us.  Remembered that my Mom had once told us that we were part Welsh on our Dad’s side so I did some googling on “Welsh Symbols” and found the coolest dragon that is on the Welsh flag, as well as the daffodil with the lemon grass.  I designed my stamp in the image of the dragon and used colored pencils for the flowers.  I made it as a collage, four grounds placed together to form one piece.

Project 5 was teaching us how to do image transfers onto a ground.  I decided to have a little bit of fun with this one.  I went with the “I love music” theme.  The lyrics pasted in the background are all songs that either still are, or were in the past, considered theme songs for me.  Every song has some sort of meaning in my life and holds a memory or two with it.  The lyrics written in marker and swirling around and off the canvas are songs that I love to sing when I’m doing my karaoke.  The photo in the middle…well I think that’s kind of self explanatory.  🙂

Our final project, I believe was supposed to be some sort of self portrait, but I don’t remember the exact assignment.  This one I honestly put no thought into and had fun listening to what my classmates and teacher had to say about it.  I had decided the night before what I was doing, and was going to leave it up to everyone else to decide what it meant.  I admit to taking full advantage of finally having a teacher who thought I could do no wrong.  🙂  I did a lot of nodding and smiling during critique that morning.  “Yep, that’s exactly what I meant when I put that there”.  🙂

What do you think it means?

More Art!

Now that this is no longer the required way for me to turn my 4D projects in, I plan on using it to keep you, my loyal readers, up to date as to what else I’m working on while I spend my time working through my Art Education degree.  First up is a quick catch up of projects from the first half of this semester in my 2D class.

First project in 2D was cut paper.  We did two pieces due the same day.  The first piece was using just black and white.  One half was black on white and the other half was white on black.  They had to be symmetrical and use one pattern piece cut out and used at least 16 times (I think).

Can you tell what my pattern piece was?

The second part of the assignment was black and white and one color.  This one we had more freedom as to what the final piece was as long as we used black, white, and one color.

I really liked the way this one turned out.

The second assignment was “Dream or Memory”.  I chose to do a memorial piece representing the friend I lost last fall.

I was mostly please with the way this one turned out, but I felt like it started to look to collage-y and cheesy…

The third assignment was a color theory one.  We did six panels that had to fit together somehow, each panel using a different part of the color wheel: Primary, Secondary, complimentary, analogous, mono, and black/white using acrylic paints.

 

As much as I hated the amount of time this took, I think the final result is pretty cool.  🙂

 

Project 3

Project 3 the assignment was “Shoot and edit a short video (1-2 minutes in length) responding to a prompt selected in class. You can think of these prompts very openly—a one-word spring board. Use this prompt to begin your conceptualization, but feel free to think of it very abstractly. Through your video, you can define the word, but also think about how you can challenge that word, or abstract that word. CRITIQUE for your videos will be on Thursday, 03/13—our final for this modular.”

I chose to use animation software to create something abstract.  I spent some time finding the perfect software as I am a beginner and I didn’t want it to take long for me to master the program.  While I was searching, I thought of ideas.

My word was “Old”.  My first thought was old people.  But, that wasn’t creative enough.  Then I was thinking about using my Dad’s old photography equipment.  I was going to run with that idea, and when I found a program by Autodesk (which I was able to get a free 3 year license with my student email account) called “Motion FX”, I downloaded it and checked it out.  It uses your webcam to record stills or movies and has fun special effects.  My plan was to hold my Dad’s old camera close to my webcam and move it around while changing the effects every few seconds.  Well I couldn’t get it to work with my hands or fingers not in the shot, so I threw in the towel.

Next plan was to still use this program, but I covered my webcam so the shot was black, and I used the trackpad and made designs with my finger.  I wanted to make it look like fire that gets hotter and hotter and then finally goes out.

I picked the music by looking through my itunes collection for a song that was exactly as long as my video, initially looking through my classical/naptime playlist because I thought something without words would work best.  The song I ended up picking, was a fluke.  I saw that it was the exact length so I tested it out and it just seemed to fit.  It wasn’t the theme that I planned, but I really like the way it worked out.

The video itself has a few quirks…some of my transitions didn’t work the way I would have liked, but it was my very first time working with iMovie and after getting in a couple of fights with it, I’m mostly pleased with my final product.  I will probably play with it again when I have more time and see if I can perfect my movie.

 

Reading #4

My two questions:

What is the one of best techniques for creating “implied motion”?

I wonder what the longest a photographer had to wait for that “perfect shot”?  I know I’ve had to have patience…I took an awesome fall shot of a church a few years ago and had to wait quite awhile for the clouds to be in the perfect spot, and the people to get out of my shot.

 

Performance Art

This project turned out so much better than my last one!

Doing anything in public causes me so much anxiety, so I wanted to do something public, but still be anonymous.  I thought and thought and thought…tossed around a few ideas with my mom, who vetoed most of them.  It finally hit me during class last tuesday what I should do.

I’ve been following the antics of Shia LeBeouf the past few months and his stuff cracks me up!  Some people in  L.A./Hollywood (including a few of my close friends) are all up in arms with what he’s been doing, thinking he’s making a fool of himself…Others, such as James Franco, are sticking up for him: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/20/opinion/james-franco-on-shia-labeoufs-recent-antics.html?_r=2

If you haven’t been paying attention, Shia showed up to an awards show in the fall looking like this:

Was it a publicity stunt?  Or was he really doing his own form of Performance Art?

I found a couple of things he posted online that details his thoughts on Performance Art and I liked what he had to say:

The week of Feb 9th, he had an art installment in L.A.  He rented a small office, frosted the window and door, and the sign out front said “#IAMSORRY”.  People enter the room only to see Shia sitting in a chair with the same bag over his head, not saying a word.

Yay!  That is totally something I could do!  It would be public, and I would still be anonymous!  No one would know who was under that bag, so it didn’t matter how red my face was.  I just needed to make a couple of changes to what my bag said…I tweeted my plans the night before, although not sure any of my 15 followers actually paid any attention.

I “hired” a good friend as my photographer to document the performance and we headed down to 16th street mall on Sunday.  We set up a chair for me in a high traffic area to maximize my exposure.  I reluctantly put the bag over my head and she snapped a photo before hiding in the background to get candids of the crowds.

Debbie did awesome catching people’s faces and got a ton of photos, but for the interest in space, I’m only including the really good ones…

This next guy cracked me up!  He came running out of a store with an ipad and asked if he could take my photo.  When I didn’t answer, he asked again, so I told him I wasn’t supposed to be talking and told him why.  He said he was an actor and understood.  He took about 12 pics of me and a few of us.  I made sure to smile for the camera… 🙂

These two girls were the only ones that I think actually got what I was doing because the second they saw me, they couldn’t stop laughing.  As they passed me, the Mom said “I wonder if she lost a bet?”.  I was loving that the bag was covering my face.

All in all, I feel like this was a successful project…I’m honestly hoping the next one isn’t quite so public…I’m a photographer, I’m not used to being in the spotlight, I like being behind it.

Technical Exercise 3#

The Assignment: “After receiving a set of instructions from Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit, perform the action on campus. Write about your experience of performing the action and of any public response you observed during your performance on your blog. Also include any applicable documentation (cell phone images, drawings, etc.) in your post. Use this exercise as a warm-up before beginning PROJECT #2 [PERFORMANCE]—push yourself out of your comfort zone and question the parameters of how art is made. Can you make art with your body?”

We chose a few pieces to try out, the first being “Shadow Piece, Put your shadows together until they become one.”  We decided to stand in a crosswalk and used a camera to document the process of our shadows becoming one.

The second piece we tried was “Cut Piece.  Throw it off a high building”.  The only “high” building we had easy access to was the parking garage.  This involved climbing a small metal fence to get to a spot where we could see down, and we both tore up something to toss to the below.  Again, this was documented by camera.  (Photos to come)

The third piece was “Touch Poem V. Feel the wall. Examine its temperature and moisture.  Take notes about many different walls.”  We did this throughout our time with the other pieces.

Walls

Concrete, brick, glass and sheetrock.

Why are you so cold against my fingers?

Rough and smooth, smooth and rough.

Sun comes out, warmth again.

I honestly don’t think anyone paid any attention to us while we were out “performing”, except for the few that had to go around us while we were playing with our shadows.

Reading #3

My 2 questions:

Can it really be considered performance art if no one is there to see it?

This is more of a statement than a question, but it’s amazing that deaf people seem to do really well with music.  I love that they can feel the vibrations, making it a completely different experience than what hearing people experience.

 

Ugh!

Project 1 had me frustrated beyond belief.  I don’t do well with being center of attention, I have a fear of getting in trouble, and I was worried this project was going to do both.  I wanted to choose a project in which I could get it put up when no one was really around, but people would eventually come upon it and enjoy it.  I chose earth art for this reason.  My original plan was to go on a hike during the week and and do some rock paintings along the path.  Then it got cold.  And it snowed.  Well crap.

Ok, next idea…still on the earth art idea, so I googled “snow art” and found this:

Yay!  That is something I could do!  I’m not the best at sculpting, but I knew I could easily sculpt a pig, one of my favorite animals.  My new plan was to go to Observatory Park in Denver and make this pig, not on a pole, but on the ground.  I had this great plan to build this pig, and clear out the snow around it in a design, and paint the pig using spray bottles filled with colored water.

I got to the park and it was so cold that the snow wouldn’t stick together.  Well double crap.

Not wanting to completely give up and take an F on this assignment, I took my spray bottles over to the picnic tables and started “painting”.  I had this beautiful design in my head, and it would have turned out great had my purple actually been purple and not brown…and my green bottle actually stayed in one piece and not break in the middle of spraying table #2…at least my blue worked, right?

Or so I thought.  I ran back to my car to snap some photos of my “work” and snapped some photos of the tables and the bench and the few footprints in the snow that I painted.

Once my fingers defrosted, I loaded the photos onto my laptop and to my dismay, I could barely make out what I had done.  Sad day Liz, sad day.

When I had finished decorating the tables, I loved the way the shadows played with the colors.  There was a dying balloon on the second table that I had painted a design around.  I’m very disappointed that my photos did not reflect this.

I know that a huge part of artwork is the process, and I definitely learned a lot during this process.  Practice spraying water bottles with gloves on.  Test the colors on something white before heading out.  Spray more color before moving on.  Spray things that are in the sun, not in the shadows.

And this is when the bottle broke.

Bitter.

Exercise #2 had me pulling out a card from a deck and placing it somewhere unexpected and documenting it with my cell camera. I pulled out the Jack of clubs. My first thought was to scratch out the face with my x-acto knife and put some scratches throughout the card. I took the part of a bitter ex-girlfriend, showing my ex exactly how I felt. What better place to stick the card than the “Men” sign by the bathrooms? The scratches weren’t obvious enough so I used a sharpie too.
*side note–I’m not as bitter as my photo would lead you to believe*

Reading #2, my questions.

1.  How can an artist make sure that the context they are attempting to represent, it the context his/her audience also sees?

 

2. If a piece of “trash” put up on a wall in a gallery is considered art, why aren’t more people artists?  If all they need to do is dig through their trash and call it “found art”?