Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Interaction of Color

Color is always being affected by colors around it.  This is the property of Interaction.  Even when a color is place on what seems to be a neutral background--such as white, black, or gray, this effect is taking place:

In visual perception a color is almost never seen as it really is - as it physically is. This fact makes color the most relative medium in art.
Images for reference for the concepts related to the in class assignment for "Interaction of Color"









Thursday, October 23, 2014

Assignment 08_Altered and Limited Palette

Altered and Limited Palette

Altered Palette- Another way to create cohesion among a group of diverse colors by altering each color with a small amount of an “outside” color.

Limited Palette- Limiting the number of colors used in your palette to create unity within a composition produces a variety of tones through intermixing two to three colors with the addition of white.

In Class Assignment-select a set of PRISMATIC complementary colors (blue/orange or Green/Red) and put each down on your palette plus a quantity of white.   From this complementary pair, create a “color dot inventory” to explore the palettes range.  A great deal of colors and tones can be achieved with the use of this simple complementary set (plus the addition of white).  Begin by mixing the complements in a visible color range of the following percentages.

1. 80/20
2. 60/40
3. 40/60
4. 20/80


Continue this muting the colors with white to mid-tone and high key range of values for this set of four.

Altered Palette:  Discordant and multi-colored schema can be unified using a secondary color to alter the original color scheme.





Outside Assignment

Create two compositions using an altered palette in one and a limited palette in the other.  


Composition 1 (limited)

Choose a complementary pair from the color wheel for your palette.  Create a variety of tones by intermixing your two complements with the addition of white.  You will need to include a wide range of colors in your design.

7x10 with a 1 inch border (mounted on 9x12)

Composition 2 (altered)

Choose 4-5 discordant colors for your palette.   Choose an outside color and add equal amounts to each of your colors.  The admixture should unify your colors.  You could use one of your neutral (earth) tones or white to alter your palette.

7x10 with a 1 inch border (mounted on 9x12)


Monday, October 20, 2014

Artists for Research

here is another artist list that I made for my Art Appreciation Students.  It has artists listed by category and perhaps tells a little more about what their art is about.  Hopefully, this might help you find someone that interests you.

Artist Research Topics_21st century Artists-Art Appreciation-Thomas Green


Contemporary and Pop
Roy Lichenstein
Andy Warhol
Yayoi Kusama
Cornelia Konrads
Felice Varini
Daniel Arsham
Bruce Munro
Yulia Brodskaya
Young-Deok Seo
Kumi Yamashita
Guy Laramee
Hebru Brantley
URNY
Alexander Mijares
Kenny Scharf
Tang Chiew

Sally Fuerst
Ron English
Charlie McCarthy
Austyn Weiner

Feminism
Cindy Sherman
Sandy Skolund
Ellen Lupton
June  Leaf
Liz Larner
Marina Abromovic
Paula Scher
Barbara Kruger
Judy Chicago
Andrea Bowers
Jessica Jackson Hutchins
Louise Bourgeois
Zoe Strauss
Louise Lawler
Adrian Piper
Jenny Saville
Mariko Mori

Racial Identity
Carrie Mae Weems              
Kara Walker
Xaviera Simmons
Nick Cave
Shinique Smith
Kerry James Marshall
Jean Michelle Basquiat
Kehinde Wiley 
Hank Willis Thomas 
Mickalene Thomas
Rashid Johnson 
Barkley L. Hendricks 
Iona Rozeal Brown 
Glenn Ligon 

Young British Artists (punk Aesthetics)
Jake and Dinos Chapman
Douglas Gordon
Marcus Harvey,
Gary Hume
Rachel Whiteread
Gillian Wearing
Mark Wallinger
Marc Quinn
Steve McQueen
Chris Ofili

COLOR AID PAPER

HEY EVERYONE, just a reminder.... PLEASE PAY HEATHER RAGLAND FOR YOUR COLOR AID PAPER!!!

She is in the business office at Gibson Hall (the administration building just across Poplar from Overton Park).

We will start working with this material this week, and I am unable to give it out until the material cost has been paid.

Bring me a receipt or have her send me an email.  

Thanks so much.   I hope your Travel Posters are going well.

Tom

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Color Trip_Artist Statement


Artist Statement.

For the Color Trip assignment we will be writing a short artist statement about our Travel Posters.

What are artist statements?

Artist statements are short (generally one page) statements that cover the basics about your art, or a work of art you have created.  Some of the things you might want to include in your artist statement include.

WHY YOU MAKE YOUR ART, WHAT INSPIRES YOU TO MAKE IT, WHAT IT SIGNIFIES OR REPRESENTS, WHAT'S UNIQUE OR SPECIAL ABOUT HOW YOU MAKE IT, and briefly, WHAT IT MEANS TO YOU.  

Since these are probably things that you haven't considered so much at this point in your artistic career, we are going to start off slow.  YOU WILL WRITE many many artist statements while you are at MCA.  For this particular statement however, we will be writing about the travel poster. 

For the statement please include:

1. The destination that you picked. 
2. The subject matter that you have selected to use in your compositions to represent your space and possibly how you have arranged this subject matter (design)
3.  The color choices (color schemes) and the way you have used color to effectively convey this destination in your travel poster.   Here is an example from a previous semester:




Artist Statement: Color Trip, Destination South Korea

            Overall, my artwork always has something to do with the balance, sometimes lack thereof, between nature and technology.  In this assignment, I chose South Korea as my travel poster destination both because a large fraction of my family is Korean, and because through my knowledge of the country, I know it holds a wide range of sights, geography, and weather.  There are many sights and landmarks that are both natural and manmade, old and new, in South Korea from the multiple mountain ranges, including the Dinosaur Ridge (as is added in my composition), to more modern architecture, such as the famous N Tower which provides restaurant dining and aerial cable car viewing of Seoul (seen on the far right).  I wanted my main focus in the poster to be the East Palace from the Gyongbokgung Palace--perhaps the only thing that defines the destination as an Asian country.  In the end, I also added the national flower of South Korea, the hibiscus syriacus, because its topical air contrasts with that of the cool mountains.  Likewise, I chose a color scheme that would describe the bright, diverse array of culture that can be seen in South Korea today, and settled on warm versus cool colors (also inspired from the national flag which juxtaposes red and blue, two obvious displays of the temperature at near opposite sides of the color wheel).  Warmth is created by the natural red accents of the N Tower and painted woodwork of the East Palace, but also by a sunset behind the mountains and a mimicking reflection on the cobblestone yard in front of it, with the previously described hibiscus flowers' natural colors.  Every other color used is a prismatic or muted cool color, being mainly blue and blue greens (that of the mountains).  The mountains become a backdrop for the man-made buildings, which then become a backdrop for the hibiscus and gradient. 




Thursday, October 9, 2014

Color Trip

Color Trip

So far in the course we have discussed the color wheel (primary, secondary, and tertiary colors) and the relations colors have with one another.  We have also covered intensity ranging from prismatic to muted and chromatic grays.  And finally, we have discussed common color schemes (triad, tetrad, complementary, split complementary, analogous, monochromatic, square, earth tones, warm/cool contrast, etc.)

For this project:
You will choose a country or destination of your liking to create a travel poster using an effective color scheme that you come up with yourself.   Each color scheme must use a variation of in intensity (a muted, chromatic gray, prismatic) in the composition.    Consider a place that might be your dream travel destination (Greece, Italy, Thailand, France, etc.)  Do a little research to find out what items might be unique to that location (including architecture, food, iconic buildings, agriculture, etc.) You might include images of these items in your composition. Please do not use words in your compositions. 

Sketchbook:  Create 4-6 sketches that will effectively convey to the viewer the country of destination that you have selected.  Carefully consider both an interesting and engaging design as well as effective combinations of color that you will be using to make your poster.

Create:  a 7x10” poster using shapes on Bristol board with Gouache.  Remember craftsmanship will be of great importance.  You are encouraged to use visual references.  You may google “travel poster” for inspiration, but the design needs to be something fresh and only yours (no reproductions).

Presentation:
You will present your work along with a short artist statement) about the work that you have created, discussing the subject matter and choices of colors you have made in the composition and why.   This one to two paragraph artist statement will count as one of your research papers.   


You will need to turn in a typed version of this artist statement along with your composition.













Monday, October 6, 2014

Sample Artist research

If you are having an issue or question about the artist This is a good example of what the artist research should look like.  It doesn't have to be all philosophical just put down in three paragraphs

1. Who the artist is?  (Short BIO--1 paragraph)
2. What kind of work they make? (describe it, its style, how its classified... ie. pop, minimal, etc.)
3. How does the artist use color in his work?

DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE AN IMAGE OR TWO OR EVEN THREE!




John Doe
Design Foundations
Thomas Green
Alex Grey
Alex Grey was born November 29th, 1953, in Columbus Ohio. Not the place you’d think a great psychedelic artist would originate. The vajrayana practitioner is associated with “the Age of Aquarius” a.k.a, New Age Movement. This was a period in which the art was based off of self-help spirituality. He is considered on of the founders of the contemporary visionary movement, and currently teaches at NYU.
            Grey’s work has a wide variety of: performance art, process art, visionary, installation, and paintings. The work I’m best familiar with is his album covers for the metal band Tool. When I was young, my mom would show me a lot of music and loved showing me the cover art as well.  I didn’t understand the heaviness of lead singer Maynard’s lyrics but it made sense with Alex Grey’s razor eyes and mandalas. His work and Tools sound complimented each other in a way gears to a clock did. Alex Grey also did the cover art of Nirvana’s in Utero and Beastie Boys’ III communication.
            I admire Alex Grey’s intricacy in his paintings. His work is so clean it looks like he made his painting in Photoshop. In Grey’s work he shows a lot of human anatomy and its interaction with his depiction of spirituality, energy and chakras. Grey always knew he was an artist to the point he dropped out of high school to pursue his dreams in New York. His anatomy drawing where so on point that he was recommended to do illustration in anatomy books as his first job. Grey considers his art as a form of meditation and attributes a lot of his work to LSD and his enlightenment. I agree with his idea of art being meditation,. Art is often used as a rehabilitation technique.

            In Alex Grey’s Overlapping of human anatomy, spirituality, and energies I find inspiration. We go in our own personal trance when we create. It is the physical form of our mind. Gray uses a great deal of vibrant color and progressive pattern, and also plays with figure/ground relationships and reversal in an always new and surprising way. I agree that finding your style of art is a form (if not the most important) of finding yourself, and in that way we can all connect with Grey’s work.