Art Gallery Visit #1

A.) Which artworks make an impact or impression on me? Why?
Jim Hodges's Look and See sculpture makes an impression on me every time I see it because I love camouflage colors.  I have always been fascinated by the military and that is usually the first thing people think of when they see camouflage.  I can't remember what got me so interested in military movies or games, but anything dealing with the military keeps me interested.

Georges Seurat's A Study for "La Grande Jatte" made an impression on me because it reminds me of Ferris Bueller's Day Off.  In the movie, there is a scene in the Art Institute of Chicago where one of the main characters is staring at A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.  After seeing that movie, I ended up researching the painting to find out more about it.  A Study for "La Grande Jatte" might not be the same as the painting from the movie, but it is just as mesmerizing to look at.

B.) Which artworks do I feel a connection with? Why?
I feel a connection with Jackson Pollock's Convergence because the painting shows how my mind feels while in college.  In my major, my mind is always shifting from thought to thought so quickly that it gets really confusing like this painting.  It looks as if there wasn't any real thought about what paint should go where before he painted it.  

I also feel a connection with Henri Matisse's La Musique because I love music.  I have a song for everything and anything that could happen in life.  I also have a song for any feeling you might get from day to day.  I don't think I would be able to live if there was no music in the world.  When I get really stressed out from college, I will spend the day singing to forget about the things that worried me so much.

C.) Which artworks would I like to know more about? Why?

I would like to know more about Nancy Rubins's Stainless Steel, Aluminum, Monochrome I, Built to Live Anywhere, at Home Here sculpture.  Since I commute to Buffalo State everyday, I also drive by this sculpture, and every time I can't help but stare at it.  I would think to myself, "What made someone look at a bunch of boats and see art out of them if they were all stuck together?".  I want to know how she came up with the idea.

I would like to know more about Alberto Giacometti's Man Walking(Version I).  This is a sculpture that always catches my eye when I see it because it is so thin.  I find myself wondering, "Why did he make the person so thin while the feet are around normal size?".  That is why I want to know more about it.  I don't understand what made him make the sculpture the way he did.

Logo Design

1. Discuss what you thought about creating your logo.
 At first I had no idea what I was going to do for my logo.  When I was thinking about it for the first time, I came up with logos that, I found out after, were too complex.  I tend to make things harder than they are suppose to be, and I did that again with this project.  Once I got a better idea of just how simple the logo was suppose to be, I started to get lots of ideas.  I ended up really enjoying what I created a lot more than I expected I would.

2. Describe the process: creative thinking skills and ideas you used in the logo creation.
 In my final logo, I went with two G's, a crown on top of the G's, and three curvy lines on the ends of both G's.  I chose two G's because of my love for gaming.  In gaming, the term "GG" stands for "Good Game".  I chose to put a crown on top of the two G's to show my determination in the form of winning.  I chose three curvy lines on the ends of both G's to show my love for music.  In music, there are notes which have tails or flags on coming off of them.  The curvy lines I had drawn were meant to look like those flags.

3. What was the most important discovery you made in the creation of your logo?
 The most important discovery I made in the creation of my logo was what the different colors represent in logos.  I never knew that the color yellow meant optimistic, red meant excitement, blue meant trust, and green meant peaceful.  Those words are the reason I chose the colors that I did for the different parts of my logo.  Music is peaceful and helps me relax so that is why the curvy lines are in green.  When I play a game, I get really into (excited) and my teammates are counting on me to help us reach our goal.  This is why one G is red and the other G is blue.  Lastly, the crown is in yellow because I'm always optimistic even when there shouldn't be any hope left.

4. What is the most important information you learned from watching the videos, powerpoint, and reading material  for this project? What is your opinion of the videos?
 The most important information I learned was that a logo is suppose to be simple in order for it to be mass produced easily.  If I didn't know that then I would've had a logo that was way to complicated.  Also, the process of creating a logo helped me put all my different qualities together into one logo.  Once I wrote down different things about myself, then I figured out what a great logo for myself would be.  I felt that the videos were interesting to watch because they helped me to understand what a logo really is, and how much thought goes into making them.

Exploring Value and The Subtractive Color Theory

1. Discuss what you thought about creating the Value Scale and Color Wheel.
When I was creating the Value Scale, at first I thought the dark shading would be the hardest and the light shading would be easiest.  However, once I had to get lighter and lighter I realized that it was actually pretty difficult to do the last two boxes before the plain white box.  When I was creating the Color Wheel, I had to do it three times because one of the secondary colors (red ) didn't come out the right way.  The red kept turning out to be an orange color.  Eventually, I found the right amount of magenta to add to the yellow in order to get red.

2. Which media did you enjoy working with the best and why?
I enjoyed working with the acrylic paint the most because I haven't used that type of paint a lot.  Also, I like experimenting with paints.  By experimenting I mean mixing colors together to see what colors you can get. 

3. What was the most important discovery in the creation of these studies?
The most important discovery in the creation of the Value Scale was seeing all the different levels in shading that you can put into a drawing.  The most important discovery in the creation of the Color Wheel was finding out what colors you get when mixing certain colors together.

4. What is the most important information you learned from watching the videos for this project? What is your opinion of the videos?
The most important information I learned from watching the Value Scale video is that I have been shading the wrong way when making them.  The most important information I learned from watching the Color Wheel video is that I never knew the real Primary Colors.

Color Theory and Emotional Effects

1. Describe Color and its effects on emotions. Use the appropriate vocabulary of color in your posting.
Color has 3 distinct properties: hue, intensity, and value.  Hue is the color itself, like red, blue, green, etc.  Intensity is a color’s purity or strength.  This means weather the color is bright or dull.  Value is the addition of white or black to the color.  Adding white or black creates different tints or tones of the color.  Colors can affect our mood in so many different ways.  The intensity of a color can make you feel happy if it is a bright color or sad if the color is very dull.  Certain hues can make you feel angry (red), sad (blue), awake (yellow), or even depressed (black).  

2. What is a theoretical aspect of color that most intrigues/fascinates you? Why?
Emotion fascinates me the most because you never really think about color matching up with certain words we use all the time.  It was hard for me to picture a stop sign being any color other than red.  Imagine how the world would be if the sky was green and the grass was blue.  It is crazy to me to think that reversing colors like that would change how we think and feel so much.

3. In the Color video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and its effects on emotions?
When June Redfern said that the colors in her painting made it look violent instead of soft and mysterious, it got me thinking about different shades of colors.  Her painting had a lot of dark colors as opposed to light.  When you think about it, it makes sense for dark colors to give you a feeling of violence and hatred.  Black gives you a sense of evil.  When you have a lot of dark colors in the same painting, it would give you the impression of violence.  

4. In the Feelings video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and its effects on emotions? 
 The biggest impact on me in regards to color and its effects on emotion was when they showed Goya's painting.  He used to paint very bright and colorful scenes, but later ended up painting very dark and gloomy paintings.  Here I could see just how much colors can affect the mood of a painting.  In the bright and colorful paintings you could feel the happiness and joy of the people.  However, in the dark and gloomy pictures you could feel the depression and hopelessness.

Elements and Principles of Art

http://s1377.photobucket.com/user/shadow929/library/AED200%20Elements%20and%20Principles%20of%20Art




 This project was great to do because now I understand the difference between balance and unity.  Also, now I finally have a camera that is fully functional.  I ran into a few problems when doing this project.  The first was that I needed a new camera because my old one wouldn't zoom in or out anymore.  The second was a few of my pictures ended up getting corrupted on the new camera.  I never knew that you had to format a new camera before taking pictures.  However, after both of these problems were fixed things went smoothly.  My dad and I went to a park where we would take pictures of the waterfall every summer.  This time I got a chance to really look at nature and just take it all in.
 The first picture shows balance because the trees in the upper section of the photo balance out the water in the lower section.  The second picture demonstrates color because the purple flowers in the front really bring out the yellow flowers behind them.  The third picture has contrast because the shadows from the trees creates an interesting design the holds the viewer's attention.  The next picture shows emphasis on the log that is laying down.  Your eye gets drawn to that spot because it is so different compared to the rest of the picture.  Now we move onto the picture of form.  This demonstrates form because the object is a sphere.  The picture after this is a fence used to show line.  Next we move onto my favorite picture, the waterfall.  This shows movement in the water as it falls over the rocks. 
After the waterfall, there is a picture of bricks from the side of a bridge.  This demonstrates pattern because the brick outline keeps repeating.  The next photo is of two ducks sitting on rocks near a pond.  This shows proportion because you can see the size of the ducks relative to the size of the rock they are on.  Now we move on to shape.  Shape is a 2-D object like the circle seen in the photo.  Next is a picture of the sky between the edges of two trees.  This demonstrates space because the sky really brings out how we see the edges of the trees.  After that we have texture.  Here is a close up picture of a rock with lots of bumps and jagged edges on it to show texture.  The second last photo is unity because the trees, water, and waterfall come together symmetrically to make a harmonious picture.  Finally, the last picture is of value.  The tree in the sunlight pops out on the photo because of the trees in the background that are in the shade.

Aesthetics Videos and Article

1. For each video and article list/discuss the key concepts you learned.

Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts

I learned that there are many ways to interpret what aesthetics really is.  During the 5^th century, Plato felt that people are attracted to beautiful things.  From his point of view, art had to be beautiful for someone to love it.  However, Francis Hutcheson believed that people had to be intelligent to notice beauty in art.

 CARTA: Neurobiology, Neurology, and Art and Aesthetics

I learned that works of art can be as simple as artifacts and not just human productions.  I also learned that we process imagines from the bottom-up. It was interesting to learn why people see different images from the same works of art.  I learned that the point of art isn’t to make something realistic, but in fact it is to distort the image so that it is appealing to the human brain.  This is because our brain is more interested in things that are distorted.  

CNN Article: Art and Neuroscience

I learned that in art we recognize people, animals, plants, food, place, lines, and faces very easily.  This is because we see them every day all around us.  I also learned when there is color contrast; there is not always luminance contrast.  The thing that caught my eye the most with the article was when Picasso stated that art is really a lie that makes us realize truth.

2. Which philosopher's theory on aesthetics do you feel is most important? Be sure to mention the philosophers name, era (time in history), and contribution to the aesthetic theory in your response.

I feel that Francis Hutcheson’s theory on aesthetics is most important because he was the first person to come up with a modern theory on aesthetics.  Hutcheson was a philosopher during the 18^th century.  He wrote a paper called an Inquiry Concerning Beauty, Order, Harmony, and Design.  This was the first systematic philosophical treatment on the subject of aesthetics.  Morality was central to his work on aesthetics as well.  He believed that moral sense is important, but also that people have a sense of beauty and harmony.  For someone to experience aesthetics, the person needs to be intelligent and have a refined sensibility.  Hutcheson believed that these traits weren’t necessary but sufficient.

3. What do you think about Changeux and Ramachandran scientific view of aesthetics and art? What was the most interesting fact you discovered from each speakers lecture? 

It was hard to understand what Changeux was saying at times.  However, I felt that his speech was interesting to think about.  When you look at art you never realize what goes on in your mind.  I enjoyed the pictures of the brain to show the different areas that were lit up in different situations.  This helped me to understand what he was talking about.

Ramachandran’s speech was very interesting to listen to and funny at times.  He raised good points at how we see art today.  The works of art that sell for the most money are typically not as “difficult” to make when compared to works of art from centuries ago.  I disagreed with him, however, when he said that kid “art” is not really art.  I felt that the Monet and the kid “art” that he showed were both art.  Both paintings were appealing to look at and equally beautiful.

The most interesting fact I learned from Changeux was how our brain processes images.  I always thought we processed them from the top-down instead of bottom-up.  The most interesting fact I learned from Ramachandran was the different between how Indian artists and western artists see art.  Indian artists thought distorted images of people were art, while western artists felt it wasn’t.

4. How do the videos and article relate to the readings in the text?

The videos and article related to the part in the text that focused on aesthetics.  It also helped explain why certain works of art shown in the text were seen as beautiful during their time periods.  I feel the videos also added some depth to certain themes of art like The Human Experience.

5. What is your opinion of the films and article? How do they add depth to understanding of the topics in your reading in the text?

I felt that the films and article made me think about how I see aesthetics.  I realized that I find different things in art that, to me, make it beautiful to look at.  For example, I feel art is beautiful when I think to myself, “I wish I could make something as great as this”.  I tend to see beauty in things that are difficult to accomplish.  The films and article helped me understand what aesthetic really is.  When I read about it in the text I was a little confused by its definition.  After watching the videos and reading the article, it all came together.