Favorite Painting

For my blog I chose art by someone who I actually sort of know. His name is Brandon Kari from Florida.

www.melodyofthesoul.com

He found my band on the internet years ago and I ended up mailing him a cd. I asked him if he’d be interested in painting something for my band, and how much it would cost. He responded saying that he’d love to do it and that’d he do it for free just because I mailed him a cd! What a nice guy. The painting on the left in the painting he made for my band, the one on the right was another one of him that I also liked. I’ll discuss the painting on the left. I only posted the other one so you could see something else he’s done in case you don’t want to view the website. I like how he chose to use red for the sky rather than some shade of blue, it makes things different, gives it a warmer tone, and presents a different mood. I did find it funny however that it seems like the wave is so big that it is going to come wash us up off the shore! I noticed that he put some red streaks in the blue part, and also the white parts of the water and the wave. This resembles the sky reflecting off the water. Also I thought the small hint of the moon in the center of the sky was interesting, I think that if it was done any differently the moon would have stood out too much; he left it settle so that it didn’t distract the eyes from the main focus of the painting. Brandon Kari did a good job at creating the spray effect on both sides of the breaking wave; you can see the water spraying from the wave get thinner and thinner as it goes off into the sky. Something that I’ve noticed when I look at this painting in more detail is how much I like the texture of the sand the band is standing on, as well as the sand / grass right below the closest tree. It isn’t the focus of the painting, but to me both the grass and the sand look realistic. I also imagine that fire would be a hard thing to paint. The shape of the flames and the colors he used for this are convincing to me, I also noticed the shadow he put in created by the large frame. Overall this painting presents a good mood, which I think is what I like about it the most (and I guess the fact that I’m in it! Haha.) I like beach related art, and always respect it because I’ve always found that waves are the hardest thing for me to paint or draw.

Thomas Kinkade

I think all of this is coming to him because for some reason people like to start looking at people in a different way when they start getting to a point of extreme success. People start looking at a very successful person like they’re greedy, and don’t need to make that much money. Basically I think people are jealous. I know I’d like to make to make $100 million a year, but then again I don’t think you could really help but be high maintenance when you’re making that much money. So maybe I wouldn’t want to make that much after all! Obviously Thomas Kinkade didn’t start off as a “money making machine”, he was once an artist that painted because he loved to paint; in the beginning making no money just like every artist starts. He became successful and started making this money; I don’t think that takes the artist out of him. I do disagree with the fact that Kinkade hires other artists to apply paint to “prints” of his paintings that are made so they mimic his style. But, at the same time; I’m sure that there is a popular demand for Kinkade’s paintings, and surely he couldn’t produce paintings at the same rate that people are buying them. I do think there are other ways though, I don’t know what they are; but surely you have to expect to get pinned as a sell out when you’re doing this. He should just sale paintings that he actually paints, but this would make the price go way up; and he wouldn’t be making as much money. This goes to show that maybe somewhere along the line it may have become about the money rather than about the art. I read the information on the website provided about the FBI investigation, I don’t really know how to feel about it. I can’t decide if I think Kinkade and his company is actually pulling something or not. I would never spend that much money on a painting anyway, so it doesn’t matter to me. It’s funny how I started this blog entry defending Kinkade, and now that I get deeper into it I’m thinking that he is a sell out. I agree with the fact that if you keep producing the same exact style of art over and over again, well then something is going on! He must not be getting out to much to be inspired by new things, because they all look the same. So in the end I think I’m going to have to side with the people who think Thomas Kinkade is a “schrewd capitalist who has mastered the ‘art’ of money making”.

Analyze That!

I chose this image from Adele Murphy’s blog, who got it from Mary Le’s blog! This image is really cool. My band performed at an “art walk” they have downtown where a bunch of “sidewalk artists” (I guess you’d call them that) came out and chose their space and produced pieces of art like this! It’s crazy to me how this artist created depth in this image. It looks as though you can actually step into that little pool and get wet! The motion the artist created in the image is also very impressing. There is motion you can see in the water, and also in the women. The women is lifting her left leg up, which is movement, and it also looks like she’s trying to keep herself from sinking any deeper than she already is. I can tell this partly from where her left hand is and what it is doing. Texture is also created in the water of the image; you can tell that it is water. Texture was also created in the tile; you can see a good example of it right in the center / bottom of the image. Where the artist has the tile slightly cracked. I notice that the artist uses light and shadows very well also. You can see deeper and darker shadows towards the edges of the water, where the water isn’t getting as much light at it is in the middle of the pool. Also shadows are created and present on the women’s leg, and on the beach ball floating in the water. It seems as though this artist might be sponsored by “coke”, or maybe is making an advertisement for “coke”. I say this because there is a Coke at the bottom left of the image, in the women’s hand, and in the artists (assuming that’s the artist) hand; kind of interesting. I wonder what that is all about.

Same picture, different light

For this assignment I chose to use my little brother and sister, Brenden and Annicka. I took the picture outside under a light in front of my parents house. I did this because I knew that my camera wouldn’t take a good picture at night unless I had some sort of light. I found this assignment to be pretty interested. It’s crazy how you can take the same picture and change it’s mood so much just based off of the light used. The picture with light seems happy, they’re both smiling and the sky is blue. In the picture taken at night time the mood is more serious. Unfortunately they’re smiling a little less in the darker image. It was hard to have them make the same exact face. Guess that’s the challenge of using people at your target for this assignment. The color is also effected when the light changes. In the picture taken during the day time the colors that the kids are wearing are bright and clear, they are a lot more intense. As apposed to the nighttime picture, the colors all get a lot more dull and dense. The actual light in the daytime picture kind of washes out the top of the image; it doesn’t necessarily steal your focus, more of a cool effect if you ask me. In the nighttime picture the light above their heads almost gives the effect of the sun glowing down on them. You can see rays created from the light. The light above their heads also brings out the color and adds highlights to both of their faces, and creates more shadows. Because both of their faces obviously have curved and round lines on them, chiaroscuro is present; which means that it represents light falling across the curved and rounded parts of their faces.

Analyze This!

check out the full size image here: http://img1.nnm.ru/imagez/gallery/8/1/8/6/e/8186ee3a3e00d152aa22558c4edfe559_full.jpg

Line & Space

After reading this week’s material I did find myself looking around for and noticing key terms that we’ve learned. Just like after I took an earth science class, every rock I would see I would try to identify it, same idea. My apartment and every other house or building I’ve been in for that matter has linear perspective all over the place. In any room I would come across. I also noticed a lot of linear perspective when I was driving. I drove to Tahoe and back this weekend so I noticed a lot within all the roads. My surroundings have become more visually interested. I have found myself looking at things differently. From an artists perspective I guess, or should I say an art appreciators perspective. As far as work goes I did also see a lot. I work construction, and the other day we framed up a couple of walls. Which I saw linear perspective, and contour lines. The picture I posted represents some linear perspective I saw while driving. And the other is of a couple framed up walls at work.

Something i've been working on...

Acrylic paint on a cut up piece of plywood from work. Haha. You can't really make out the cuts in the picture though.

Controversial Art

For this weeks blog post on controversial art I decided to discuss the controversy that arose over Maya Ying Lin’s “Vietnam Memorial” in Washington, D.C. in 1982. This piece was done on polished black granite, and was 492 feet in length. I think there are a lot of benefits to having controversial art exist. First of all, the most obvious reason is for the people who are fans of controversial art. If every piece of art that was done and published had guidelines and standards then art as we know it would be different. Art would be more limited, and I don’t think anybody would like that. I also believe that maybe artists would be reluctant to do certain pieces, fearing that maybe in somebody’s opinion it was controversial. I do not believe that the world would be a better place if all art was done based off predetermined standards. Art is one of very few things that has no rules, that’s what it unique about it. Anything is possible when it comes to art. I don’t think it is even possible to have standards and regulations put on it. Somebody somewhere is going to be painting or sculpting whatever they want. If it was possible then saying that we live in “a world of art” would slowly start becoming less and less true. Like I said before art is art because it has no rules. I’d feel like if the world had walls around it, the walls would slowly be closing in on us; if that makes sense. I was surprised on a lot of people reactions to certain pieces of art. Some considered Maya Lin’s memorial to be “an insult to the memory of the very soldiers to whom it was supposed to honor”. Personally if I see art that I don’t like; whether it’s because I don’t agree with what it means or if I just don’t like the way it looks, I simply won’t look at it anymore. I won’t raise issues and create problems over it. I think more people should do that if they disagree with something. I do however kind of understand the controversy that arose over Chris Ofili’s piece titled “The Holy Virgin Mary”. From a viewers standpoint it is pretty absurd to see that the artist used elephant shit in the piece. It’s hard to see any well meaning in that. But, Ofili said that he wanted to bring “their beauty and decorativeness together with the ugliness of shit and make them exist in a twilight zone.” Which goes to show, like the book said, there are many factors that go into the arts value.

Week 2 Reflections

In my first two weeks of art appreciation I realized that I learned a lot now that I’m looking back on it. I learned that pieces like “The Gates” can also be art. They’re just on a lot larger scale than most pieces of art. The part of chapter one I enjoyed the most was Robert Smithson’s “Spiral Jetty”. Again, this piece is on a lot larger scale than most. I think it’s amazing when artists create art using the earth and things from it. The material from these first two weeks that has been the most meaningful to me would have to be Andy Warhol’s “Race Riot”, which I chose for my second blog post. In that one painting there is a lot of history, feeling, and just a lot going on. There are many different views you can have on it, and a lot of different emotions you can have when looking at the painting.

Getting Critical About Art

The image I chose is called “Race Riot” by Andy Warhol on page 16 in our book. He uses acrylic paint and silkscreen on canvas. This piece of art was inspired by an event in 1963 where police officers attacked a group of civil rights demonstrators led by Martin Luther King, Jr. The civil rights demonstrators were attacked with dogs (as seen in the image), and fire hoses. The image has four squares in it. The top left is white, top right is blue, and the two bottom squares are both red. Maybe he chose to use the color red twice to resemble blood. That is the only thing I can think of. I think that the images in the painting kind of contradict the colors he chose, which I feel he did on purpose. Each square has the same image inside of it. Two white police officers with two German Shepard’s that look as though the dogs are about to attack a black man running away. The black man that is running away from the dogs looks like an older man in his fifties or sixties, he looks as though he isn’t trying to cause any harm. Yet the dogs are still going after him, and the police officers are letting them. There is also a group of about thirty African Americans in the background of the image. They’re all looking in the same direction that the police officers with the dogs are. Except beyond them where we can’t see. I assume it is more police officers. The images in the squares are all black and white; the only colors used are the red, white, and blue in the background of each square. All of the visual aspects in this piece of art seem important to me, they all give you ideas and clues of what is going on at the time. The police officers with the dogs are very important because they are showing the attack and racism that is going on in this piece. The man being chased by the dogs is also important, I feel that it shows that the police officers don’t care if they are a threat or not, it shows that they only see color. But, like Bob Marley said; the color of your skin should be of no more significance that the color of your eyes. Another important visual aspect in this piece is the younger black man standing slightly in the background, it looks as though he is somewhat flexing with his arms up like he is ready to fight. This is showing they are not willing to back down, even though they may have to. To me this piece by Warhol is contradictory, like I said before. He uses the colors red, white and blue; which resembles many things. Like freedom, liberty, equality, etc. But, in the images he uses in “Race Riot” we see racism and many other things that contradict the colors of our American flag.