The Coolest of the Cool Look for the Lemon Tree…

history of art: Claude Monet Impression: soleil levant 1875

This painting ‘s title supposedly gave impressionism it’s name. In this picture color is used to show the water and sky in a beautifully done painting of the harbor outside of Monet’s room. In this image Monet uses a lot more brilliant colors than he does in his numerous paintings of water lilies. Here in this painting you are given bright yellows that stand amongst brilliant blues and are beautifully connected with soft greens. These colors work well with one another and make you feel as if it were you out in that boat staring at the midsun. Although the reference is small the human forms seen in the boat seem human in a way. While one is standing, it is apparent that one is sitting fishing. While looking at this artwork I have a strong wish to paint water. Just looking at how many colors he used to show the waves of the ocean inspires me to want to do the same and explored the different ways that color can be used to express movement.

visual culture: [Based in Paris, Zevs the anonymous Parisian street artist has been active since the early 90s].

Yellow, that stereotypical happy-go-lucky color. The color of sunshine, the color of sunflowers, the color of fast food? For years this anoymous street artist named Zevs has been running around Paris adding his point of views to billboards and advertisements. Whether it be adding a bleeding gunshot wound to a model’s airbrushed face, or by giving the Mac Apple logo a bleeding and smearing appearance. Above is a pieve he did in front of a McDonald’s resturant. Make of it what you will. To me, it appears that the logo is slowly melting off and going away, or… perhaps the logo is vomiting from its over commercialized business. How does it make you feel? Just like with other people’s street art, i feel influenced to want to go out and create some pieces of my own. I think street art is amazing and so creative and I only wish i were able to get the nerve to out and and create some of my own.

fashion: Emma Hack 3D ‘human wallpaper’

Artist Hack spends 19 or so hours trying to paint a design she has created onto the naked body of a woman. She begins by designing a background that she finds pleasing. With the selection of colors above I feel that they compliment the skin of the women above nicely and gives her a nice healthy tan appearance. While yes, fashion can be made with cloth and other materials, I was far more intrigued by the painting aspect of it. To think that this model laid still for more than 19 hours just for a photoshoot shows devotion. But just looking at the beauty of the images painted onto her shows that it wasn’t in vain. I love the way that the colors play off of eachother and I am glad that the artist chose against using black to outline her pictures. The use of the maroony, deep purple causes a beautiful contrast to the whites and blues of the background.

Do we define a place or does a place define us?

Places do not define who we are, although we can become inspired by where those places are and can take pieces of the place to create our artwork.

How is each of the featured artists influenced by particular places? How is this influence reflected in the artist’s work?

Richard is influenced by shipwork and other forms of transportation.

Sally is influenced by her parents and her children.

McGee and Killgallen are influenced by things that people have handpainted and are influenced by things that are found around on the streets.

Osirio is influenced by his family history and background and his first haircut.

Cara Walker is influenced by slavery and the deep south.

Kiki Smith is influenced by the trials and burnings of witches.

Which artist do you feel most connected to and why?

The artists that i felt most connected to would have to be McGee and Killgallen. I love seeing signs that people have painted themselves and enjoy the different ways that things can be written and styled. I also love to be able to read someone from their artwork it does help you “learn about someone without even knowing them.”

 When you were young, was there a place that interested you? A place that scared you? List five places from your childhood. Use one word to describe each of them.

When I was younger, I used to live in town and there were very few places in my house where I could hide and leave to do whatever I wish to do. But while living in the town house I was able to find a few places.

1. A place that scared me would have to have been our basement and the door leading down to it. The basement had bricks missing from its walls and was covered in spider webs, basically it was the last place any little kid would ever want to be. {UNTOUCHED}

2. I used to hide under things a lot, and was often foudn hiding underneath our large dining room table doodling in a sketchbook with crayons or just reading a book to pass the time. Under the table i felt as if i were in a forrest and could imagine different stories in my head. {ADVENTURE}

3. While in the townhouse my closet was about half the size of the closet I have now at my parents home but about the same size as the closet in my dorm room. While in there, I used to take flashlights and pillows and blankets and create a home away from home where no one else could go. In there I could dream and imagine all that i wish without having to worry if my little brother would be coming in to break it down. {SAFETY}

4. Grandma’s house was a house where my cousins and I were able to run from room to room doing whatever we wish to do. I grew up with three older boy cousins and was the only girl for about eight years of my life. There we could be as stupid as we wanted without having to worry about getting yelled at for doing something wrong. {FREEDOM}

5. My swingset at my townhouse. A good blanket, some headphones… and a book… [i was a multitasker] and i was set for life. {RELAXATION}

Pick one of those places. Try and remember it as well as you can. Answer these questions about it… What objects occupy that place? What are the textures and sizes of those objects? What was the lighting like? Was it a dark dreary place? Or a bright happy one?

My swing was made of wood with a rusty old chain on either side of the seat to hold it up on the wooden stand. Around me a lot of the time were branches that my dad had wanted me to pick up or leaves that had fallen because of the change in the seasons. Despite the swing being made of wood i always found it just as comfortable and it helped that i had always broughten blankets out to make myself warmer and comfier. On the swing i was usually always happy, or was able to make myself happy.

“I shall call you fishy
and you shall be mine,
and you shall be my fishy…”

For our part two of our juxtapose assignment I chose to use the images of a fish, a puzzle piece, and a camera. Each in their own meanings represent who I am as a person. My memory sometimes can be just as terrible as a goldfish‘s when it comes to remembering people and dates in time. I absolutely love taking pictures and seeing all the different ways something could be captured in a single frame or two. I have the believe in life that life is one ongoing puzzle. You will find and lose pieces the further you go and that is why I chose a puzzle piece to use also.

I really like how the fish on the right is a dominant figure and how there is a puzzle slightly cut into it. It really makes your eye move from black to white and back again. I also love how i cut the highlights into the fins. However, my absolute favorite part of the whole composition would have to be the bottom left corner. I really like how everything is laid out. I am glad I changed the fish in the bottom to be white as opposed to be only outlined in white. It really gives the fish character and offset it on the puzzle piece. If you look closer at the picture you will see that there is also a fish that has been turned into a puzzle piece where it looks like a fish is about to be eaten by it. I really liked the play on creatures with that portion of the composition.

Why Hello there! My name is…

Alyssa
Danielle
Overmier

…and I hail from a small town called Liberty Cetner, OH. I am the oldest in my family and the first in my family to be going to college. I am a freshman at Bowling Green State University with an intended major of Art Education-2D Studies, and I could not be happier. All my life I have wanted to be a teacher. I love people and I get along with everyone and anyone. It is very rare that I am ever shy around people and because of that it is very easy for me to make new friends.

I grew up in a creative family environment, and have been expressing my love for art for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I was often found running into my grandma’s house just to find my drawer full of markers and coloring books. I would spend hours upon hours coloring and drawing pictures. There wasn’t much question in my mind about how much I loved art. It came easy to me and I loved sitting down and redrawing what I had seen. In classes, my teachers would push me to do better and to better myself and I loved the challenges. In my high school I was voted the “Outstanding Senior Artist for 2008”.

My favorite medium of art would have to be my colored pencils. I had never really gotten into drawing with colored pencils until my junior year in High School. I love the way that the colors can flow together and blend and how you can make something so realistic out of strange colors. With all of my drawings I loved being able to go outside and find my own sources. While finding pictures online are nice to draw, it makes it a little bit more personal when you’re drawing a flower you took a picture of that you found in a garden. My biggest pet peeve in drawing was always drawing faces because I feared I would mess up someone’s nose or teeth. Which is why when I drew a face it was usually my own, and it could be called an artistic “twist”.

I am someone who prides themselves on being a little bit strange and I would never change that for the world. It is the quirks in your life that make you who you are and you should never change that about yourself. Being different is usually not an utterly terrible thing,

and I love that about myself.