Unfinished

As I was working on my blog last night, I got an idea to use iMovie to synch my picture up to the music.  I got a little side tracked, and started working on a spin off of my original idea for this project.  Instead of creating pictures and then scanning them in and synching them to the music, I took several shots up close of my piece, uploaded them, and took the parts of my piece that the music guided my hand to create, and synch them with the song.  I spent about 5 or 6 hours on this last night, and I’m no wear near finished.  But I’m pretty proud of what I have thus far, and even though I’m  not able to finish this before the midnight deadline, I plan on finishing this in the near future; most likely after my last exam next week.  

 

Hope you enjoy!

Music Project

The Music Project was our last project.  We were assigned to pick a non-lyrical music composition, and to represent the song visually without using any recognizable objects and without color.  Because the piece was only allowed to be in black and white, and the values between, I felt like a metal song would fit these shades.  I chose the song Triad, From Tool’s album Lateralus.  I felt like this song could be accurately represented in black, white, and grays.  I also chose a Tool song, because their songs energize and inspire me.  The song consists of 3 instruments, guitar, bass, and drums, as well as some synthesized sounds.  

After listening to the song about 7 or 8 times, I thought about possibly drawing a lot of separate drawings, scanning them into the computer, and synching them to the music.  I chose not to do this because first, I didn’t know what program I could use to do this, and two, because of the time frame I had to do this project in.  Then I listened to the song some more before going to class, and I thought about representing the song from left to right, and attaching paper horizontally and vertically to represent how the song expands into space in both directions.  I started to do this in class, and took all my studio time the first day listening some more and doing this-

 

This is only the first 45 seconds of the song.  After leaving class, I decided to nix this idea, because I felt that following the song from left to right didn’t feel like the right way to do it, something felt wrong about it to me.  I don’t know what it was, but I just felt like it wouldn’t work, and I wasn’t happy.  

Next class I talked to Lee, and he suggested just taking the song for as long as it ran, and drawing to that.  I ran with that idea, but first, with his suggestion, I tested the materials, to make sure I knew exactly how I was going to use them.

I made the marks with charcoal while listening to the song to just get a feel of how I wanted to represent different parts of the song.

I took one sheet of that paper we used for the chess game, and attached it to the wall.  I used charcoal, ink wash, and two large brushes.  I only got through the first half of the song on the first sheet,  so I went and got another sheet quickly, not thinking about cutting it to fit, because I was in my zone.  I took the first sheet off the wall and put it on the floor with my new sheet.  I went through the second half of the song, making marks with charcoal and the ink wash.  Through this, I listened to the song about 10 or 15 times, pausing, rewinding, and fast-forwarding through different parts to get the marks the way I wanted them.  I saturated the brushes with ink wash and splattered the cymbals, dipped both brushes and played the drums, used the charcoal with the guitar and bass,  and used my eraser to represent some of the synthesized sounds.  And this is my result.

I learned a lot from this project.  My first attempt was all about trying to measure the music, and represent it from a perspective that I felt comfortable with.  My end result was representing the music the way it moved, or the way it moved me.  I really feel like I stepped outside of my own personal box with this project by allowing the music to dictate my movements, I gave up my control.  I didn’t allow myself to make since of this song my measuring it, I only allowed the music to move my body to make the marks.  At the beginning of doing this piece, I had no idea that it was going to look like this.  This project has given me new perspective of the creative process, and art itself.

Extra Credit $5

So this assignment was for extra credit, it was to take a picture of ourselves frivolously spending $5.  So, I went to the General Store and bought a pack of cigarettes.  I consider buying cigarettes as completely frivolous because I’m shortening my life span, and paying R. J. Reynolds to do so.

Both of my camera batteries were dead, and since my apartment is a wreck, I couldn’t find either of my chargers.  I borrowed my girlfriend’s camera, and I guess I did something really wrong, because this pick is, not so hot.  I would have gone back, but I already spent the $5, and I don’t have an extra $5 to just throw for a pic.  From this project I learned that I should always check the camera settings before shooting, and if shooting with someone else’s camera, I need to learn how the program is set up to get to different settings.  I’m not really used to the whole point and shoot digital cameras.

Missed assignment: Perspective credit card drawings

I think I was absent this day, because when I looked at other people’s blogs, they had these up from the first half, so I drew some perspective drawings.

Even though I didn’t do this project when it was assigned, because I didn’t know about it, I do understand why we did this.   I think the point was to learn how to frame objects in a space that is visually appealing.  I wish I had known about this a long time ago, because I would be able to judge the effectiveness of this project when it was done.  But, with that said, I still liked doing this project, I think it was a little challenging to find and frame objects.

Google images on mylar

I didn’t like this project at all.  I think the concept was to layer the images to match the values of our Diebenkorn like photographs.  I think I did it pretty well, but the reason why I didn’t like this project was for two reason.

First, we were not allotted a lot of time for this project, I think one studio day, of that, so I didn’t get to finish.  And since I didn’t get to finish, I don’t think I really got anything from doing this.  By the time I got my mylar back, I had thrown away my google images, and because it took me so long to find ones that I liked, I didn’t bother looking for them again.  My word was “spore” and a lot of the images that came up were from the game “Spore”, which I didn’t want to use.  So I spent a good two hours collecting all my images.  

Diebenkorn Credit Card Value

I think I totally zoned out when this project was assigned because instead of doing quick value sketches, I reproduced my pictures.  Since this was a very very hard task, I didn’t finish.  But here is what I did.

So then I went back home, and did the project correctly.

I didn’t really like this project very much because I don’t really feel like I learned a lot from it.  Although redrawing the photos on a smaller scale was tedious, I feel like I learned more, because I learned how to measure with my eyes to draw the picture on a much smaller scale.

Wood Floor Sculpture

I was absent for this day of class, so I looked through all the pictures of the wood sculptures and found this one to be my favorite.

I chose this particular drawing because I really like the way it is designed.  The design itself show that it was planned and thought through. I also like the way the wood is layered and the different tones of wood used.  The sculpture is also not perfectly square, as some of the wood bars run off to the side.  The bars also seem to create a space within a space, and frame many different shapes within.  Also, not all the pieces have sharp edges, or right angles, yet they still work within the design.  So this is why this piece is my favorite!!  Bravo!

Plexi Glass

For this project, we were pared up in groups in class and given different colors of paper to cut into shapes and put between different layers a of plexi glass to create a design.  Alex and Caroline were in my group for this project.  When we got our colors, I think we all were reminded of the 80′s, so we decided to do a lot of  geometrical shapes that were incorporated in many designs of the 80′s.

From this project, I learned how layering can enhance a piece by creating more depth.  I also learned that objects or shapes can be lost in different layers, and that too much layering can cause chaos, and be visually unappealing or appealing, depending on the artists intention of the piece.

I did learn a lot from this project about layering, and how it can affect the mood of a piece.  I think I would have liked this assignment more if we had more time to work so that we could explore the many different possibilities of layering and its effects.

Diebenkorn Drawings

So after playing chess, we, Chris and I, were handed a small black and white photocopy of a Diebenkorn painting.  We were assigned to copy this picture on a much larger scale, only using charcoal.  The chess project really helped me to understand how to get different values from the charcoal in order to replicate this painting.

Chris and I decided to increase the area of this small painting by a specific number. By doing this, we could precisely measure where to make our marks on this larger scale and we mapped out the lines using this method.  Although there was some opposition to this method by our peers, that measuring isn’t really producing art, was well thought, yet, I interpreted this assignment as to replicating the piece, rather than having a creative purpose.  I feel that in order to keep the integrity of the original piece, this method of measurement was required to do so.  I don’t recall any instruction that did not allow measurement in this project.

Aside from that, after mapping out the lines, Chris and I divided the piece in half vertically, and we each worked to reproduce the different values within the different spaces on our sides.  Each of us wold stop periodically to ask the other’s opinion.  We would each stand on a chair and look at the drawing on the floor, comparing our value to our photocopy.  After fine tuning each value, we were done.

I really enjoyed this project because it forced me to create different values with charcoal.  I had to draw, erase, redraw, smear, erase again, and redraw several times in order to reach the tonal value of the original photocopy.  I feel that now I have a better understanding of the charcoal medium, and how to use it.

Chess!

I had a lot of fun with this project, even though Chris kicked my ass, I held on for as long as I could.  I hadn’t played chess since elementary school before this.  At first, I didn’t understand the purpose of this project, but once we were assigned the Diebenkorn drawings, I understood the purpose.  This project taught me how to create value with charcoal in a fun and entertaining way.  I really learned a lot about the medium, and how to control it, and I was able to apply this knowledge when replicating the Diebenkorn drawing with Chris.  

 

In the first photo, I’m listening to some pointers Bryan is giving me; notice how I have none of Chris’ pieces.  

The second photo is the view from my side and the third photo is a spectators view.  Chris drew the little chess man at the top.  I’d really like to see Bryan and Chris play chess, I think it would be an interesting game.