Series of Five

Pixel Portrait

Pixelated and gridded out on a 20x30 piece of illustration board then painted with only black and white acrylic paint. My self portrait. 

More Art

< Weird days result in the best art >

Final Photoshop Composite

Our assignment was to pick a vintage photograph and place a picture of ourselves in it using the Photoshop skills we have learned over the past three weeks or so. The picture above shows me hangin' with the crew at the old metropolitan brothel and bar - this was such a fun night. . .

Visit to the Henry

Ken Kelly, USA - 1994 acrylic

Untitled (Bow's)

The piece pictured above represents a strong usage of positive and negative space. The wavelike tentacles that traverse the painting offer intrigue in both the white (positive) and black (negative) shapes. Additionally the piece utilizes symmetry and rhythm to give the viewer a sense of the organic nature of the piece. 

The Henry Art Gallery main exhibit was a large, interactive piece created in harmony with three artists: John Sutton, Ben Beres and Zac Culler. The piece created in 2010 is a collage of 154 paintings directly selected by these three artists from the Henry collection. The piece is also comprised of a aluminum track supporting a large digital camera and LED lights which broadcast a video signal to a console in the next room. 

I believe the main concept the piece was trying to touch on was the ever increasing encroachment of technology into the traditional arts. Most famous paintings now-a-days can be viewed online but when viewed in this fashion lose a significant amount of the substance. The act of viewing a painting in real life is something that cant be recreated, even with the best technology money can buy. By using a remotely operated digital camera I believe Sutton,Beres,Culler were trying to play on this idea that artistic viewing is now largely mediated by technology. 

Photoshop Manipulations

 

A few weird Photoshop compositions as for my Intro to Digital Imaging class. Photos courtesy of Google

Clamshell Folder

Made with craft board, mod podge, old newspaper and acrylic paint.

Reduction Printing

I'll spare you the details. . . Reduction printing involves carving away a piece of linoleum-like "easy-cut" to create a progression of prints changing from one form to the next. Our assignment explicitly restricted us to using letterforms and a progression from 75% black to 75% white. This project was extremely fun and I suggest everyone try this method of printing some time before they die - it's amazing!

B&W Value Scale

Simple black and white 8-step value scale on bristol paper.

Making Marks

Step one: Write your signature LARGE on a piece of brown craft paper in black acrylic paint.

Step two: Cut out 2'' inch squares from the above noted signature painting

Step three: arrange these squares into three unique and interesting graphic compositions.

It harder than is sounds believe me - with that said - this must be one of my favorite assignments to date. Not only was the process of writing and cutting out my signature extremely fun but I also had a wonderful time arranging and manipulating the squares to create the above images. 

Figure / Ground

Above is a small assignment using black paper and an 8'' bristol board square. Basically playing with the elements of design, most particularly unity, rhythm and positive / negative space. 

Pocket Shrine

My entire life encapsulated in a small plastic box -- pretty interesting, I know. 

Photoshopped

A few different manipulations of the same photo created for my Intro to Digital Imaging class.

Molskine Pages 1

Above are a few pages from one of my older sketchbooks. I plan on slowly adding all the pages to this blog, hope you enjoy!

Typography In Design

How can an artist's choice of type influence the concept? Typefaces can easily control the whole feel of piece. For example, Comic Sans could easily suggest a playful and happy tone for the work while Helvetica would demand neutrality, modernity and seriousness. The typeface speaks for the words it spells out, implanting upon it the total feel and message of whatever the typeface represents.

What are some of the differences between art and design? or between the way artists and designers talk? This is a tough question to answer because I truly believe that artists and designers are the same thing. Both strive to create aesthetically pleasing images which evoke a message or emotion for the viewer. With this said I believe there can be some differences in the professional fields. Designers are usually contracted by others to carry out some specific objective through the use of form, line, color, text etc. Designers usually deal with digital images and less on traditional, tactile mediums and also usually receive little recognition for the work they create. Artist on the other hand seem to work for themselves to create a message that is solely from their imagination, additionally artists almost exclusively use traditional mediums and stand as representatives of their own work and receive publicity as such. They use practically the exact same terminology when speaking about their works, which to me alludes to the fact that they are working towards a very similar end product. In the end I believe there is no inherent difference.

Better Late Than Never

In response to Rebecca Solnit's book A Field Guide to Getting Lost I would like to share a few words on how I believe the concept of getting lost can help to develop new artistic avenues.

First and most importantly I would like to touch on the definition of what it means to get "lost". Most of us would define getting lost as the act of physically not having a sense of direction or not possessing the capability to get where we are going. This definition of getting lost is all fine and good but only vaguely applies to the artistic process, instead we must look at the concept of getting lost in a completely new way.

For me getting lost within my art represents a point in my process where I cease to be concerned about where I am going, but rather where I am now. Being lost is in essence the ultimate form of living in the moment. When one can admit to truly being lost they can agree to being fully present in the world around them which results in a unique and often times enlightened state. When one is lost they are able to come up with new concepts and ideas they may have never thought of. For that reason getting lost becomes invaluable in the adventure that is creating original work.

Street Name

Camera in hand I stroll down the street, snapshots of letters I must complete.