Balance + Contrast

Abilities and Expectations       The process of setting up the gmail and a Blogger was an easy one considering all I had to do was sign in. However I feel as though I could use more instruction with the mechanics of using Blackboard. I expect to learn how to integrate technology into my lessons and use different media tools to create a better and more immersive and aesthetic learning experience for the children I'll be teaching.  I am hopeful for this course, I definitely feel more positively about getting in-person instruction then a fully online course, but I am excited about the integration of using my computer and the applications available on it as a tool to further my understanding and better my education.

Guernica + Me Pablo Picasso's piece Guernica was created in 1937, as a reaction to the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish civil war. Upon first viewing the piece it appears to be a greyscale painting, but when view with a more careful eye, grays become blue, and shed light onto the sadness Picasso felt about this tragedy. But the piece did more than shed light onto how Picasso felt about the war, it exposed the world to the war as the piece went on a brief tour to bring publicity and hopefully aid to the war. This piece grand scale also speaks to how heavily this war affected not only Picasso but the public of Spain. It also happens to be painted in oil paints, which wasn't unusual for the time period, but it speaks to the effort that Picasso went into painting this piece, as oil takes an extremely long time to dry and therefore is quite precarious to use.   The other assignment we were tasked with this week was creating a self-portrait. Spring is coming. Self-P...

Hockney and Warhol This week were given a choice of whatever two videos we wanted to watch. This week I chose to watch Hockney on Photography because I personally prefer the medium of photography when it comes to making art. I also had a bit of background knowledge of David Hockney as I had a photography project that focused on his style of photography.  But the video was rich with so much more information. It was such a deep insight into the personality behind his work. For instance, it was interesting to find out his philosophy on photography itself, and whether it is an art or not. This was an often debated topic at the time of Hockney's work, however Hockney himself said he didn't pay attention to whether it was art or not, he was just interested in what he was creating. I also had no idea about his love/hate relationship with photography. How he would get frustrated and leave photography for a while and go back to painting; which was his first medium as an artis...

Exhibitions This week we had our choice of videos we could watch. I chose to watch  The Impact of Cubism.  Which talked about the Cubism movement and how it impacted the art world, and the backstory of how Pablo Picasso was a mentor and inspiration for the artist Gris, as well as was Paris and it's many influential artists and creatives at the time Gris was creating. I also chose to watch Matisse and Picasso because I felt I didn't know much about their relationship and that it was a crucial thing to understand in this field. I was surprised to learn that they were such different people, they had very different views on art and its creation and the meaning it could hold, as well as having vastly different personalities. However; they seemed to have a mutual respect for each other and often traded their works. We were also tasked with visiting an Art Gallery. For this I chose to visit the Albright Knox again.  Step 1: The Exhibition Questions about th...

Masks and More... Videos This week we had a choice of the videos we could watch, I chose to watch the Chinese Art: Treasures of the National Palace Museum videos. I chose this video because I felt as though Chinese art and culture was not something I knew a lot about. In this video I learned that the most popular medium for art was ceramics. And that pale colors were often used in their works as they were favorable in Chinese culture at the time. However, tea bowls were ofter glazed in black to better show the pale color of the teas they were served. Details were very few and far between on many pieces as simplicity was viewed as more beautiful, however the details that were included were very well constructed  and refined exquisitely .  I also watched African  Art because it was another culture I felt I didn't  know much about. I learned through this video that the most popular medium was  ceremonial art. This mainly consisted of statues and masks. The m...

Logos + Fine Art This week we had two projects, the first one being an exploration of logo design.  For this project we learned about what goes into the designing and editing of logos. We then had to go through the process of designing a logo for ourselves. I found this to be a rather enjoyable project as learning about the different aspects of logo design was quite interesting, andI am pleased with my final design of a personal logo.  In my initial stages I decided to try a series of designs featuring a J or my middle name, Jade, spelled out. I have been introducing myself and going by my middle name for a few years now and I feel it resembles my identity better. I played around with combining this letter J with the color yellow, with the design of a bee, with the words; honest, homemade + simple, as well as a strong feature of circles in my designs, as I felt all these components related to who I identify as.  In my final design, I utilized aspects from the...

Value + Color In this project we had the opportunity to work with real materials to create different artistic tools in order to understand the course material.  The first project I did was the Value Scale, something I've done many times before in drawing classes. I enjoyed this project, however I wish I would've put tape down to be neater in the making of the scale.   Then I worked on the Color Wheel. This project didn't turn out the way it was supposed to as I couldn't find any acrylic paints in the store labeled 'Cyan' or 'Magenta' so I tried to pick a red/pink color and a light green/blue color that matched the best.  I definitely prefer the Value Scale to the Color Wheel, as I don't much enjoy woking with paints (other than watercolor). I believe the important discovery in making the Color Wheel was that magenta, cyan, and yellow are in fact the true primary colors, this discovery also happened to be the most critical information i...