Erica's ART 1010 Blog

Today was our last day of class in the course. Man, did the last six weeks fly by. It feels like yesterday I was just learning all about my new classmates, teacher, and Second Life. After working with Second Life the past few weeks, I have grown to enjoy the idea of having class through a virtual campus. I am not sure if I will ever use it as a source of entertainment (but I’ve said that before), but I will look forward to the day when I must use the program for college or even a job.

In class today we looked at everyone’s contemporary artists, compared them all, and organized the art exhibit for the showing we put on to the public. My group decided to put the two pictures of suns at each end of the wall, while taking each piece in-between them and organizing them from least to most colorful. I really liked how my group organized the wall and I think It turned out very nicely. As we went around the room sharing all the information, It occurred to me how many talented artists we have in this world; Thousands of artists going unnoticed. A few people I did not know attended the showing and enjoyed all of it. It was really interesting and cool.

This past summer semester was a very interesting one. I have tried a lot of things I normally would never think of trying. I was pushed to make deadlines and meet new people. It was an awesome experience and I personally want to thank my teacher, Anthony Fontana. He worked very hard and answered a lot of simple, yet confusing questions of his students. Thanks, Anthony!

I also want to thank anyone who read my blog. I hoped you enjoyed my thoughts, opinions, and artworks that was ever posted these past weeks. 🙂

After reading the Wikipedia article about postmodern art, I found a lot of things interesting about the movement. As stated in wikipedia, postmodern art is “a term used to describe an art movement which was thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath.” Types of postmodern art include intermedia, installation art, and conceptual art. Some of postmodern art is contempoary, but other work is not. Comtemporary art is more of a broader term in the art scene, while postmodern art can be considered more of a “subsector” of the movement.

I can really aprreciate all the work in the postmodern art because important movements in my life stemed from this genre of art. Conceptual art and installation art, genres or art that were formed during the postmodern movement, are around every corner in my life. Artworks that stand-up for a controversy today are more than a part of postmodern art, they are showing the opinions and thoughts of the world.

I have included a picture in this post that is one of my favorite post modern pieces. This piece is Andy Warhol’s design of Marilyn Monroe. I think it’s an amazing piece that is very eye catching due to such high contrast in the work. Warhol only uses two colors in the entire piece, but yet it is extremely dynamic. I love this artwork for many reasons and enjoy admiring all of Andy Warhol’s work.

Next week my class and I will be presenting our own contemporary artists to each other along with the second life public at an art show this tuesday. I have decided to interview my very good friend, Jeremy Miller. We have been friends since we were about 14 and have always had a close relationship. After high school, Jeremy was accepted into the Cleveland Institute of Art to persue a degree in medical illustrating. Since then he has been working diligently to finish school while also interning at the Cleveland Clinic. I have decided to dedicate this blog post to critique his piece of artwork I will be presenting to the class next tuesday.

The artwork shown above is Jeremy Millers “Cicada” artwork. It was made with carbon dusting, one of his favorite mediums to use. As you can see, the piece has amazing detail, which I think adds the “WOW” factor to the piece. To me, It’s quite unbelievable how well he can spot and create detail into the carbon dusting. Because of such strong detail in the artwork, it gives a visual texture to the piece.

The entire piece has a symmetrical balance and is completely balanced and centered, which I really like about the piece. The balance gives off a simple, yet interesting look. The cicadas wingspan is also very large, taking up the majority of the paper. It’s balance and symmetry create a great piece of work.

Overall, It’s an amazing and detailed piece of work. The bug is definitely a creepy bug that I would not like to have anywhere near me and the black and white shades create even more creepiness to me. As I mentioned before, its so simple, yet so detailed.

I can only hope Jeremy continues to love what he does and to be successful in all his artwork. Thank you, Jeremy, for giving me the opportunity to interview you and show your artwork to the viewers of my BGSU blog!

The painting that had inspired me the most in my college career is Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. The painting is simple, yet so dynamic to me. Starry Night was painted with oil on canvas in 1889. The painting was made from Van Gogh’s own inspiration and shows his view outside his asylum room window at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence at night, which is located in southern France. During the day, he painted it going by memory.

I recreated the painting using my own inspiration from the concepts used in the original painting. I used oil pastels on cardstock paper, which will include several shades of dark and light blues. The stars begin in a yellow pastel that eventually fades into purples or reds. The sky is then colored with several shades of blues and whites to give the artwork density. The lines in the artwork flow together to come together in rhythm. The small and large circles along the grey lines shows homes from afar.

My own inspiration addresses the same issues conceptually as the original artwork due to me re-creating the same view from the asylum. I pulled the same colors from the original painting, giving the accent color shades of blue and kept the stars spread across the paper. The difference I added into my own artwork was the hints of colors in each star the faded into the night sky. The majority of these colors were cool colors, but reds and oranges were still included. I have also decreased the amount of stars in the artwork, giving my piece only a few to show.

Vincent Van Gogh has always been one of my favorite artists. From his sunflower paintings all the way to his very own portrait, I think all his artwork has so much visual weight to themselves. I have decided to take his artwork “starry night”, a piece that gives me the most inspiration, and create a piece off of my own inspiration. My inspiration comes more from how the painting was made rather than the actual painting. I find it very interesting that the painting was made from the window of his asylum bedroom in Arles, France. It makes me wonder what he was going through during that period when he painted the piece and what he truly saw in the asylum.

I started with keeping a rhythm in my own piece as Van Gough gave his original. The original shows a circling motion in the night sky while also making sure all lines flowed in a pattern. I used oil pastels for my own artwork, which seemed difficult for myself, as I normally do not use oil pastels. I decided to draw the stars larger and rounder than Van Gogh’s with giving my dark night sky more density in the artwork. The stars are different shades of yellow, while the majority of them begin to fade into a different color such as orange, purple, or red. The black pastel house has been drawn to represent the same black castle Van Gogh had painted in his original artwork. I would like to add more detail, but not too much, to the piece just to give others something more to look at.

I plan to add hills and small homes at the bottom of the picture, while also smoothing out the lines with a white pastel. I would like the painting to have a smooth effect, yet also be dynamic. Unlike the original artwork, I would like to keep more of a simplicity to my own piece by leaving out trees, bushes, and extra colors. I think keeping my own piece simple could change the way many people think about Starry Night. My pastel work will be easier to take in because there won’t be so much to truly look at, in a good way, of coarse.

Vincent Van Gogh was born the oldest child to Theodorus Van Gogh and Anna Cornelia Carbentus March 30, 1853 in a small town called Groot-Zundert in Holland. He was named after his grandfather and uncle who were both very much involved with religion and art along with the rest of the family. He began drawing as a serious child, began to paint in his early twenties, and continued up until adulthood. In one decade, Van Gogh made over 2,100 pieces of artworks that include paintings, drawings, sketches, and prints. Van Gogh’s artwork ranged from landscapes to portraits that included wheat fields, flowers, houses, and other scenery.

In 1869, Van Gogh’s uncle Vincent helped him get a position with the art dealer, Gouple & Cie, who then transferred him to London, England. During this time, Van Gogh was noted to be at his happiest. He was becoming very successful and had just fallen in love. Before it could last any longer, Van Gogh was rejected from his love and then lost his job soon after. He returned home and began working unpaid as a supply teacher at a local boarding school overlooking a harbor in Rumsgate. While working, he would draw the view from the school. Vincent went on to travel several other countries and cities in his lifetime, which would eventually, led him to Arles.

One of Van Gogh’s first paintings, The Potato Eaters, was created in 1885 and consisted mostly of subtle earth-tone colors. During that time, Van Gogh was living very frugal, studying the gospel, while also still looking for love while also devoting all his time and effort into his artwork, which can explain the dreary tones of The Potato Eaters. For the rest of his life, Van Gogh would continue to live poor and devote his life into his paintings.

After living with his brother that was very close to him, his brother suggested he paint in brighter colors to attract other people to his art, Van Gogh began to see a change in not only his style, but also his success after he took his brothers advice. He moved to Paris, France and began to take on the style his brother suggested for him and attempt to make it in the French art scene. That style would someday make him famous, but he would never live to see the day.

Although Van Gogh began communicating and befriending several professional artists while also getting a lot of attention in his own artwork, he was still unable to sell any artwork her had made in the last years in Paris. Van Gogh had dreams to colonize the artists into one place and went to Arles, France to do that with a good friend Gauguin. While working on his artwork in Arles, Vincent Van Gogh plunged into his most creative and productive stage there, constantly creating amazing artwork effortlessly, such as his famous painting, “Sunflowers”

Although Van Gogh was at his own creative peek, it was a very hard time in his life and eventually, he begun to visit hospitals for mental illness and physical decline in his health. After painting and fighting for his life in the following 10 years, Vincent eventually took his own life on July 29, 1890 by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. No one ever found the gun he used, but still believe it was suicide. Unfortunately, no one truly was able to appreciate his work while he was alive and would take several decades before anyone would realize what genius they had lost and how much his work was worth in their own eyes. By the time Van Gogh passed, he had only sold one piece of artwork in the entire 37 years he was alive to see.

Walking around Second Life, I have begun to explore other galleries in the virtual campus. There are several amazing artworks around the campus by many different artists. Each piece of work shows a different message to me, which I really like. Two pieces really stood out to me during my exploration.

The first piece of work is called “Gelatin Modified Foods” by Brian Whitlinger. The second piece is “Iris” by Mary Frey.

I really like the pattern shown in “Gelatin Modified Foods”. When looking at the artwork as a whole, the piece has a good balance and sets off a great tone, giving off a relaxing, comforting feeling to me. When I look at each small piece of gelatin, it seems as if there is not much balance, so it feel almost chaotic. The colors in each piece flow together due to the perfect shading of each color. The artist, Brian Whitlinger, attends college at Ohio State University majoring in Art and Technology.

The artwork “Iris” is my favored piece out of the two I have displayed. I love the bright colors! The piece carries a lot of visual weight to me and also has strong visual texture. It is almost as if I am in the piece of work! The purple color take the focal point in the picture, which I love. The creator of the piece of art work, Mary Frey, attends Columbus State Community College majoring in Digital Design and Graphics.

It obvious both pieces of work took a lot of work and effort to make beautiful to the eye. They definitely deserve to have their own spot in the galleries!

Watching Roy Lichtenstien’s video about turning Monet’s work into pop art really had me impressed. I loved the way Lichtenstien took a more classical piece of work and turned it into something so postmodern. The original piece uses traditional colors and is a realistic piece of art work, while the recreated piece only uses a couple colors and has high contrast. Each of Lichtenstien’s Monet pieces are in a series, showing the same Monet work in different colors. Although Monet’s work shows a visual texture, Lichtenstien’s recreated work does not, but instead uses ben-day dots.

I decided to research more on Roy Lichtenstien and found more recreated work from Leonardo Da Vinci. I love this piece of work because it adds a comical stance to it! It’s very funny and makes me appreciate Lichtenstien’s work a little more due to seeing more of his artistic personality in this piece!

This week I was quite interested in learning more about one of our founding fathers in art, and decided to research more about one artist that was demonstrated in our Artist Role-play project this week in Second Life…Pablo Picasso!

Picasso was a spanish painter and sculptor that had practiced art in the 20th century. Beginning as a child, he had great artistic ability that changed styles as he became an adult which included changing theories, techniques, and ideas. His mediums grew and he began creating oil paintings, sculptures, drawings, and architecture. By the time he turned 50, Picasso had become a public figure and known in all households for his western art.

In Picasso’s personal life, he was known to be a rotten, sarcastic man that was cruel to his children and looked at women as either “goddesses or doormats”. As he lived in a time where Nazis were common, his popularity saved himself from torture and death. At the time, he also confidently endorsed Joseph Stalin, an important man to world war II.

Today, Pablo Picasso is still an important man and artist in every household. He is taught in schools all across the country and is still an everyday name in an art classroom. He work as influenced thousands of perspiring artists across the world, in which he is looked up to and admired for his amazing talents.

I have included one of my favorite pieces by Pablo Picasso called “Life on a Pedestal”. It’s one of his more abstract pieces but I can see a lot of emphasis in the lines and shapes that move throughout the painting. An symmetrical balance flows through the painting giving it a visual weight.

After reading the wikipedia article about visual arts, I learned a lot. Almost every type of art involves aspects of visual art. These types of visual arts are usually fine, applied, decorative arts and crafts, but in 20th century Britain, an artist was only considered an artist if he/she worked with the fine arts. Eventually, as the creativity and the increasing tendency of privileged painting grew, the spectrum of fine arts broadened.

Today, most artists train in a credited art school a a tertiary level, some being able to take elective courses in their desired art subject. Hundreds of years ago during the renaissance movement, artists were trained though apprenticeships and workshops. Visual arts have come from paintings, drawings, and printmaking all the way to photography, filmmaking, and computer arts.

After reading the article, I learned many things about visual arts and how it all started. From the renaissance all the way to the development of visual arts in japan. Visual art is a very important part in classifying what art truly is and how to go about categorizing art. The majority of art and artists are classified as visual art/artists, so it’s interesting to understand a lot of the art/artists I admire and research fits into that category. I will continue to research more about visual arts and maybe even try some of my own sometime.

This week I was unable to attend class, so I was able to teleport to the Second Life Sistine Chapel and visited the Sistine Chapel around the virtual world. I found several qualities interesting about the attraction that really opened my eyes to the classic art scene in other countries. I have included a few screen shots in this post along with their description and my opinions on the artwork around the chapel. The chapel is a rectangular room that has extremely high ceilings, making it easy to show various artwork from the 15th century. All artists that have painted in the chapel are now very important people in the art community and are a staple in classroom knowledge. Here are just a few screen shots of my experiences at the Sistine Chapel.

This screen shot shows the amazing work in the sistine chapel. Each block of artwork is different, yet all have the small patterned background to themselves. The painted popes around the top half of the wall have extraordinary detail and all share a symmetrical balance. In-between each of these painted popes, there is a large stained glass window in the middle of them, which brings in a lot of lighting for the paintings.  I loved how at the the top of the definitional blocks of the popes and window, Michaelangelo created an arch that had painted women around it. The entire piece is beautiful in everyway to me, and I love how realistic Michaelangelo was able to paint in the Sistine Chapel.

In these screen shot, it shows a picture of a painting that that artist had painted of an angel holding a cross and is so bright, he is blinding all of Jesus’s followers. I love this piece and how the artist was able to put so much emphasis into christianity. As you can see, the angel is the focal point in this painting, giving off a strong orb of light to the people who are blinded by it. I really like this painting for the fact that it represents an important piece of the bible, which is one of the most important objects used in the Sistine Chapel. The angel is coming down from the heavens to speak with the people in the name of the lord. It’s such a powerful and moving piece that original deserves to be in one of the most important chapels in the world. Such a great piece!

I find this piece to be my most favored piece out of all the ones I have displayed. There is so much detail and a lot of important things going on in this artwork. As you can see, this piece is one of the biggest pieces of artwork the Sistine Chapel has inside it. The artwork comes from the bottom of the floor and goes all the way up, juxtaposing at the top of the ceiling with another piece of large work. The dominant color in the artwork is shades of blue, taking up most of the plane. The artwork shows several detailed painted people that are expressing the last judgement of God, an important scene in the bible. Michaelangelo was 60 when he painted the fresco, contemplating his own life and death,  he flawlessly painted all the emotions and expressions on the peoples face. From happiness, fear, and anger, the people are watching the resurrection of the dead and the second coming of Christ.

This piece of work is very simple with not a lot going on with it. It is at the bottom half of the Sistine Chapel wall, giving off great rhythm in the work. As the painting looks as if as it is being pulled down to the floor, there are also small circles in-between the edge of the painting and the mosaics on each side of the piece. This bottom half does not have any dynamic energy to it, yet it is very simple. I like that it gives off a simple detail and does not over whelm you, so the viewer is able to look at me eccentric frescos around the chapel.

The flooring also shares a interesting tiled look. The majority of the tiles are a cream/white color, but there are several blues, greens, reds acting as accent colors. There are several shapes the floor pulls out such as circles and squares. There is also a beautiful perimeter around the edge of the chapel, which separates the wall from the flooring. The tile is very detailed and a great  added piece to the chapel. You don’t always have to look up, because there is also an amazing artwork right at your feet!

I was unable to take a screenshot of the best piece, in my eyes, in the chapel! The ceiling! The ceiling is so detailed and eccentric it is almost impossible to not catch your eye. The artwork was painted by Michaelangelo and describes nine scenes from the bible including the creation of adam. There are several naked and clothed people in the scenes, which really brings out Michaelangelo’s talents and shows them off. This artwork is one of the pieces that brings tourists to the chapel to marvel and such brilliant arts and their timeless work. I am in love with the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.

I have enjoyed all the paintings and different pieces of artwork in the sistine chapel. They all flow good together making it easy to slowing, but surely make your way up to the ceiling for your grand finale. It is quite breathless to me and makes me appreciate such old, yet timeless art. The simplicity of the building does not take away from the artwork inside it, which is something I can appreciate. Hopefully everyone has the opportunity to see the Sistine Chapel one in their life. Someday in the future I hope I can travel to the Sistine Chapel to see all of this artwork in person for myself. It is definitely on my bucket list and cannot wait to travel there!

Watching the khanacdemy.org video on art history with ancient cultures, I learned many things. The building were all architecturally designed for the beauty of themselves, which was one of the most important things when building in ancient rome. The emperor at the time was Constantine the Great and he lived with his family at the Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus was also the center of congress a held several event such as chariot races and sporting events and was a long, but articulately designed area. The Aqua Claudia, an aqueduct, was a beautiful wall that separated part of rome from the other half and helped bring water to the city from the mountains. The Baths of Trajan was also a community bath house for the public to bath. The Coliseum was one of the most amazing structures in Rome and was made to be an arena for the public and royalty to enjoy gladiatorial combats, hunting of wild animal, and execution of criminals.

The above picture is a screen shot from my computer of the Pantheon, one of the most important buildings in Rome. There is SO MUCH detail in this building that it is almost unbelievable. The structure in the front looks like a traditional temple with eight gigantic columns made of marble, but inside is a gorgeous rotunda. This building was dedicated for the worship of emperors.

Rome is beautiful itself, from the amazing buildings to the statues of gods, goddesses, and emperors in all corners. I also find it amazing that all the buildings and sculptures are still, for the most part, intact and can be viewed appropriately. I can only hope to travel to Rome someday with my family and the travel is on my bucket list.

One of the several places I look forward to traveling to at some point in my life would be Chicago. Not only for the amazing stores and people, but for all the art. Everywhere you look there is something that has a message or meaning into it that someone wanted the world to see. There are several museums in the city, but the one I would most like to see is Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art. The MCA is amazing in my eyes because it is all art of our time.

The museum was created in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois and is one of the world’s largest contemporary art museums. All artwork that is displayed is post-world war II and some of the most recent pieces of artwork today. In the collection, artists such as Andy Warhol, Kara Walker, and Cindy Sherman display their own artwork. Not only does the museum show paintings, sculptures, photography, and video, it also displays the dance, theater, and music arts. The building itself is know for it’s large staircase that leads to an elevated floor with an atrium that gives a direct view over lake michigan.

I can only imagine how amazing the experience would be to see some of the world’s most talented artist’s work all in one place. Contemporary art is my favorite, so I like that the genre has it’s own museum all the while giving a variety of different artwork in each turn. I would like to visit the city sometime after I graduate college in the spring of 2013 with my family. I also would like to first a few other museums while also exploring all the other art around in city streets, parks, and buildings.

It has been a few days since I have started my online class of Art 1010 and so far, It hasn’t been to bad. I have received the vocabulary list and have been going over it, along with reviewing all my assignments that are expected out of me. Due to work and other school obligations, the meeting times for Second Life will be hard to jungle, but I know I can do it. I have always liked writing in blogs and journals, so I am hoping this will be one project that comes fairly easy to me. I just let my fingers run around the keyboard while my mind wanders around all these thoughts about art, projects, and all of my crazy opinions on what I think about this kind of stuff.

When I do have time to get on Second Life, It has been pretty confusing and I am not sure really where to go when I am able to go to class meetings. There is a lot of buttons and options to click. I understand you are able to make just about anything in the virtual reality, which really baffles me. I have walked around and looked at several pieces of artwork around the virtual campus, which I like. I have seen only a couple people wandering around the campus, which I don’t think are my classmates due to the fact that their user names are either a bunch of random numbers or some foreign language. It makes me wonder how they end up at the virtual campus and what they think of all of it. Do they know what all this stuff is for? It’s pretty interesting…

I will be ending my post with two pictures of one of my favorite artists, Alma Lee. Her artwork really stands out to me because of the strong emphasis of making sure all her artwork is always fun and exciting. The bright colors flow throughout the artwork giving the pieces such strong visual weight. She usually draws animals and flowers, but once in a while you can catch her drawing simple objects such as dishes or shoes. Its unbelievable to me that her preferred medium she works with is colored pencils. I would love to own an original piece by her someday.

The right picture is “Gerbera Paisley” and the left picture is “Beezy Bot Kitty” both created by Alma Lee using colored pencils.

Early this morning I began to work on my first assignment of my ART 1010 class, which included starting this blog and making an avatar in a virtual world called “Second Life”. At first, the avatar part part was quite confusing, but interesting in it’s own way at the same time. After picking one standard avatar out of about the 10 options the website shows you, you are then “teleported” to a central hub where a dozen other avatars are sent when they begin their second lives. Once there, I personalized my avatar (this is the part that got tricky) by choosing different outfits and hairstyles. I couldn’t understand how to really perfect myself into an avatar. The clothes were all to skimpy or just plain weird, and the website lacked hair options. Eventually, I got my avatar to a point where I looked presentable and teleported to the virtual BGSU campus. I have been walking around the virtual campus, but have yet to find other class mates. I’m still trying to get the jist of it and where I am going. Hopefully that will come sooner rather than later.

I think this class will be quite interesting, and challenging all at the same time. I am definitely not used to Mr. Fontana’s way of teaching, but I am willing to try it! This is my first time to Second Life and BGSU Canvas, which so far I like. Only time will tell on this one…

Before I go, I included a screenshot of my first time at BGSU Campus on Second Life. Like I said, I am new to this BGSU Canvas thing, including BGSU blogging, so forgive me of my terribly small screenshot. Adios!