Larry's Logo Design

1. Discuss what you thought about creating your logo.

• This assignment was great, I enjoyed doing this. It allowed me to be creative and hands on which I love to do. I really enjoyed making a logo that I would be able to call my own. If I ever needed a logo design for something to represent me I would definitely use this. I know it's not a crazy design, but this is a nice simple one and it fits me perfect cause I'm a simple guy.

2. Describe the process: creative thinking skills and ideas you used in the logo creation.

• The process thought I used was finding different font designs for creating clean lines in my logo design. Using tracing paper and tracing the fonts and being able to decide what way I wanted to do my design. When I overlapped the letters I had to decide how I wanted to overlap them and what letter I really wanted to stand out when my final product was finished. The design I used was a zen tangle type of pattern. When doing this I picked a few colors of the color wheel. The tracing paper was used to assist me in overlapping the letters in my design better.

3. What was the most important discovery you made in the creation of your logo?

• I discovered a more creative side of myself that I didn't realize I could do. This project was great because I was able to create my own image and not have something provided by someone to create.

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?

• I didn't really get a whole lot of information out of the videos. I found I learned more stuff from my wife whom took art classes and had her notes still and was better able to explain this to me. I thought the video was useful but it didn't wow myself. 

Art Gallery Visit #1

Albright Art Gallery Visit

1.) Which artworks make an impact or impressions on me? Why?

Artist: Giacomo Balla

Title: Dinamismo di un Cane al Guinzaglio

(Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash)

Media: Oil on Canvas

Year: 1912

This piece by Balla caught my attention by how cool the feet of the dog and women looked. I never really saw such a great way to show that a person or thing was running or movement in a picture. First thing I thought when I saw this was it looked like a scene from the Titanic movie when the people are running while the ship is loading and during the time boat was sinking. I thought this was a fascinating way to show an action or movement in a piece of work.

Artist: Lawrence Weiner

Title: A wall stripped of plaster or wallboard

Media: Language and Material

Year: 1969

Lawrence's piece A wall stripped of plaster or wallboard impacts me a lot. I first saw this and thought of the time when I was in the Tom Sawyer play at my school. This definitely looks like the fencing that was painted, obviously this isn't a wall. This totally grabbed my attention and I thought hey I can relate to this so much.

2.) Which artworks do I feel a connection with? Why?

Artist: Jan Dibbets

Title: Big Comet - Land/Sky/Land 

Media: Chromogenic color prints mounted on wood

Year: 1973 (Reprinted 2007)

I felt a connection with this piece. It reminded me of a scene from a movie I like to watch called The Truman Show. The image I saw when seeing this work of art, I thought it looked like stairs that would lead to heaven or just above the clouds in the sky. I really liked the detail in the block, at first before I looked at the art description I thought they were pieces of glass with the way they looked. This was one of my favorite works of art that I took when visiting.

Artist: Unknown

Title: Maquette 

Media: Photographic enlargement

Year: May 1957

This was my favorite piece that I found at the gallery. I love to do activities that are hands on especially building things. I connected with this picture, like I said I love to build things and this one he's building a house model. I also felt connected to this because it's engineering and I am going to get my degree in Mechanical Engineering. 

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

Artist: Amedo Modigliani

Title: La jeune bonne (The Servant Girl)

Media: Oil on Canvas

Year: 1918

I would like to know more about this piece of work of The Servant Girl. To me this girl reminded me of one of the characters in American Horror Story, but I know that's not what it is. I would like to know more about what the meaning was behind this art work. I really liked the detail and thought put into this one.

Artist: Phillip Clarkson Elliot

Title: Shelcota, Pa

Media: Oil on Canvas

Year: 1943

The detail in this picture is pretty cool. I love the colors used, when I saw this I thought right away of a part of "downtown" North Tonawanda, NY. Once I saw this I thought of a canal going underneath the bridge and the area I thought of was the bridge over the canal on Webster St. I would really like to know more history and background information with this one. Also I would love to see this in person in Pennsylvania to see how well the true image and the art work here are matched together. 

Art Making/Material Exploration

1. Discuss what you thought about creating the Value Scale and Color Wheel.

• I really enjoyed the color wheel, because I was able to learn more about the primary and secondary colors. I thought it was neat how mixing certain primary colors together to get the secondary colors. I remember doing this in grade school, but I don't recall learning as much as I did when working on this project. 
• The value scale was really cool. I have never done one of these and I was amazed how you could make that many shades with a pencil or charcoal. I'm glad I was had the opportunity to work on a value scale. It took me a bit to get id down to what I wanted. I also had some help with this seeing my wife did study some art at NCCC, it was a help with understanding how to create this.  

2. Which media did you enjoy working with the best and why?

• My favorite part of the project was the color wheel. I had always been in the curious state on how all these different colors are made, only to find out with the right color combination. You could make just about any color you wanted and that was really cool to me.

3. What was the most important discovery in the creation of these studies?

• The most important discovery was how different colors could be made by mixing other colors. This activity showed me that the primary colors are called primary colors for a reason! You can start off with them to create a complete color wheel!

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 that I learned was, learning the difference between the secondary colors of red, blue and yellow and the primary colors of cyan, yellow, and magenta. Without that information I would of struggled harshly making my color wheel.

Elements and Principles Slideshow

When thinking of what to gather pictures for each element, I found that I learned more information than I didn't know.

When finding the following elements and principles this is what I was looking for:

Line - Marks made by moving points and that were longer and flat in photography.
Value - Black and white, add drama and impact to composition.
Shape/Form - contained area and also geometric, organic, 2D and 3D dimensional.
Space - Area used or un-used in composition , positive and negative space.
Color - The artistic and scheme in pictures providing different shapes, forms and space.
Texture - How the object felt and the quality of the surface.

Balance - Sense of stability in the body of the work.
Contrast - A likes and differences in the work, use different elements.
Movement - Something involved using an action or excitement.
Emphasis - What was the main focal point of an object.
Pattern - Elements which occur over and over.
Proportion - The main picture is bigger than the objects in the picture and are made to look smaller in an image.
Unity - Found something that has many parts to make equal or whole.

*The required way to link the album wouldn't work for me, when trying to embed the pictures that didn't do it either. I have attached a link below, I hope this works and will give me the credit needed.


Photobucket Slideshow

Color Theory and Emotional Effects

1. Describe Color and it's effects on emotions. Use the appropriate vocabulary of color in your posting.

Color is a strong but a hard concept when it comes to paintings. We believe color is to describe what artists see as inspiration, but it's more than that. Colors have meaning, colors are meant to describe the picture more than the painted lines. Artists add color to represent the mood and how the viewer should feel and think about the work.

2. What is a theoretical aspect of color that most intrigues/fascinates you? Why?

The most intriguing part about color to me is how certain values of color and different colors (warm and cool) can work together in setting the mood of a painting. We know how to associate certain colors and shades to specific feelings.

3. In the Color video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions?

In this video, the most impact on me was how the artist first captured the color in person and made a quick note of what was there and how bright or dull the colors. She then went back to her studio to create the actual painting based on what she captured earlier. Her paintings are bright and provide a welcoming attitude.

4. In the Feelings video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and it's effects on emotions? 

I noticed in this video that when the artist wanted to convey a dark, depressed mood, they used dark colors to represent the dark and dullness of the time. When in good times, they used lighter, brighter colors to show power and happiness. They also used colors to represent things, like purple and red which represent royalty.

CNN Video and Article Blog

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

Aesthetics Video key concepts:

• True nature is an idea
• Plato had a low opinion of the artists and poets
• Philosophers discuss the difference of reality and illusions in art
• It was argued by Plato that there is no art to write in poetry
• Aristotle focused on tragedy in his art work
• Strickly speaking there was no aesthetics in the middle ages
• During the middle ages there was a dedication to God
• Beauty is harmony and perfection
• neoclassical aesthetics proportion symmetry, harmony, and order
• Harmony is a sign of divine order
• Almost nothing you can't treat as beautiful in art and poetry
• According to Schiller art is what makes us human
• Romanticism in the 19th century was the last of aesthetics
• Art imitates nature
• Spiritual core of art is mythological
• Only art can replace mythology
• Art is the expression of emotion

Changeux key concepts:

• Discovery of tools - 2.5 million years ago
• Discovery of Symmetry - 1.5 million years ago
• Discovery of Symbolism - 300,000 years ago
• Discovery of Artistic Composition - 100,000 years ago
• The work of art is human productions

Ramachandran key concepts:

• Art meets in the brain
• Goal of art is to distort an object and make it look interesting
• Picasso dileberatly distorted images
• Culture plays an important roll in Art
• Art is also known as visual aesthetics
• A cube can be seen as a 2-D object or a 3-D object
• Artists distort realistic images and make them stimulating to the mind
• Artists can hide images with in a work of art and as you study it more you'll start to see pieces of the hidden object
• What , How and Why 

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.

Plato often created his art through poetry. When it comes to the aesthetics of him, he's more the vocabulary and and focus on the issues of the aesthetics. Plato was from the 4th century B.C. his idea was about the true nature of art. He liked to use confusion in the authentic and fake pieces of art. His art was an influence among many people. Plato displayed his art in the act of treasion. 

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? 

After watching the videos of Changeux and Ramachandran, the information they both provided was very informative. Personally I think Ramachandran had a better theory and explaination when it comes to aesthetics and art. His presentation grabbed my attention more, because he showed images in which you had to really look at to find what the art really was. Changeux gave more of a historical background of how art came about and was developed. 

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

The readings and videos related in a way they all in my opinion flowed pretty well together. If there was something you felt you were missing you were able to pick up and understanding through other information learned. I don't think there was anything more fitting than the videos and article to go along with the text in the book. All the content had a nice flow to it and I learned a lot from the information gained.

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 learned more information then I knew about Art and aesthetics than I did before watching the videos and reading the article. The information was very informative, I thought that all three flowed well together, there was some repetitive information, but not enough where you're thinking jeez how many times will I hear this or read about it. After reading Chps. 1-3 I thought I had gained a lot of knowledge, but then when watching the videos and reading the article I learned more to some questions or things that may have been unclear to me after reading the text.