Today I went to National Portfolio Day because my boyfriend is trying to transfer out from the local community college to an art school, preferably Tyler. The first and only time I had ever gone to Portfolio Day was last year when I was doing the whole getting-in-to-college thing. Going again definitely brought back some memories. Mostly the memories of the waiting, the long, long, longggg, painful waiting, and the anxiety and excitement of getting your work reviewed.
Besides Tyler, my boyfriend got reviewed by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, otherwise known as SAIC. I had never heard anything about SAIC, so it was interesting to see what their programs were all about. According to one of their representatives, SAIC is quite different from Tyler in the way that SAIC is less concerned with the technique aspects of art but much rather the conceptual aspects. SAIC reminded me a bit of Copper Union, who I went to be reviewed by when I went to portfolio day last year. The representative at Copper Union told me that my work need be to driven by an "obsession" and I needed to find that "obsession".
It's just interest how each school does their own thing and as their own ideas on how to go about the process of learning how to create art.
Portfolio day was also a great opportunity to check out the work of some on my peers and a get an idea of what other people around my age are up, and I got some good exposure to different ideas and methods of creating art.
After the Portfolio experience and after grabbing a bite to eat at Reading Terminal, we wandered around the city and moved over to Old City and checked out some galleries until we were completely arted-out for the day.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Tank Man Image Project
Oi, this project was so consuming, I don't even know how much time I spent on this.....For such a serious topic, it was a fun project to do. I got really friendly again with my old friend Photoshop. Here is some illustrator stuff in there ( I swear!) but I went over everything in Photoshop. And yeah, two squares unedited. I dunno, part of me just wants to leave them as they are, yeah the lazy way out.... I guess will have to fight that urge and try and get to them tomorrow!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Better Late Than Never: Wolgin Exhibit
Today, at long last I finally viewed the Wolgin Exhibit and it was mostly likely right before it's close, but I am extremely glad I got to see it before it was gone. Entering the gallery I decided to go in cold and just browse the works on display. As I wondered through each exhibit, I tried to think of what the works may have represented, and I often felt myself at a great loss. Each of the works was quite unique and of different styles, mediums and subject matter I had not yet explored. But after reading the descriptions provided, I felt much more aware and appreciative of the works. Each artist provided a very different perspective and I felt the exhibit was extremely enriched with culture. It really is such an amazing opportunity to be part of Tyler at such an important and prominent moment.
Tiananmen Square
It's kind of weird that fairly recent ago I watched a special on the Travel Channel about traveling to China, and one of the places they highlighted was Tiananmen Square. The hostess mentioned for something along the lines of it being more open and welcoming to tourists in light of the increased tourism from the previous Olympics. She also went to say how it was simply incredible in it's sheer enormity. Never once did they mention that this very Square had been filled with civilians that were mercilessly gunned down by the country's own government.
Truthfully I'd never heard of the incident before the video, so watching it was quite a shock to me. Sometimes I think it is very easy to simply forget (which maybe or may not be to strong a word) that there places in this world, and no matter how modern or sophisticated it may appear there still exists governments and institutions with absolute rule that forbid the freedom of speech. And there exists places where when the rule is questioned the consequences are so severe and horrifyingly merciless.
The outward courage of the "Tank Man" is just mind-boggling. I don't think I could EVER gather the nerve to stand before on-coming heavy artillery tanks. However, the image of the "Tank Man" makes me have more faith in the strength of the individual, the fact that the "Tank Man" appears to be an average civilian who was pushed beyond his breaking point and in turn became completely fearless. I think it makes a point to say that anyone has the ability to stand up to a daunting and seemingly indomitable opponent.
Truthfully I'd never heard of the incident before the video, so watching it was quite a shock to me. Sometimes I think it is very easy to simply forget (which maybe or may not be to strong a word) that there places in this world, and no matter how modern or sophisticated it may appear there still exists governments and institutions with absolute rule that forbid the freedom of speech. And there exists places where when the rule is questioned the consequences are so severe and horrifyingly merciless.
The outward courage of the "Tank Man" is just mind-boggling. I don't think I could EVER gather the nerve to stand before on-coming heavy artillery tanks. However, the image of the "Tank Man" makes me have more faith in the strength of the individual, the fact that the "Tank Man" appears to be an average civilian who was pushed beyond his breaking point and in turn became completely fearless. I think it makes a point to say that anyone has the ability to stand up to a daunting and seemingly indomitable opponent.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Toulouse-Lautrec
Most famous for his posters of for the Moulin Rouge, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was French post-impressionist artist who dabbled in various art forms such as painting, printmaking, and illustration. Toulouse-Lautrec lived from 1864 t0 1901. Due to a debilitating disease mostly from a family history of inbreeding, Lautrec only grew scarcely to five feet, with child sized legs and adult torso. Lautrec turned to art as means of passing his time as he was unable to physically take part many other activities, and during the twenties years of his art career he produced an estimated 737 canvases, 275 watercolors, 363 prints and posters, and 5,084 drawings (source: wikipedia).
Lautrec's work is best known for depicting the bohemian lifestyle of Paris at the time, and is mostly comprised vibrant buildups of color to create forms, heavily lines outlining figures, and noticeable brushstrokes to create an exciting and lively sense of movement.
Monday, October 12, 2009
PAFA and Welcome House
Last Thursday I met up with a friend that goes to the Academy of Fine Arts to attend an model drawing session at PAFA. It was open to the public for a few of ten dollars. Since I haven't had an ample chance to draw since high school it was a good opportunity for me brush up and break out the pencils that where collecting dust in my room.
I had never been to PAFA before so it was an entirely new experience. I had considered PAFA in my college search but I disregarded it as "too tradition" and I felt I was too unsure of my career path to be locked into a strictly art school. But after checking out PAFA I kind of regret writing it off so quickly.
Before the session started, my friend gave me quick tour of the cast hall, which was pretty amazing. One cast was so massive it nearly touched the ceiling and took up a good portion of the room. The foot of the statue was wider than the with of my body and my head barely reached its knee.
A few students where drawing the casts, and one of them showed me that they had complete control over the lightening of the room.
Many rooms and galleries at PAFA are only open to the students so that really limited where my friend could take me, which was very disappointing because I would have loved to check out the sketchbook they with their art vault.
This is probably where I would then compare PAFA to my time at Tyler but alas, I won't be able to do so until the spring. Then it will very be interesting to see how my experience compares with my friend's.
After the drawing session, my friend and I took a small detour to Love Park to check out the "Welcome House" that was still in the process of being set up. It didn't look like much then but I sure it would have been pretty cool to see the artists at work during the day.
I had never been to PAFA before so it was an entirely new experience. I had considered PAFA in my college search but I disregarded it as "too tradition" and I felt I was too unsure of my career path to be locked into a strictly art school. But after checking out PAFA I kind of regret writing it off so quickly.
Before the session started, my friend gave me quick tour of the cast hall, which was pretty amazing. One cast was so massive it nearly touched the ceiling and took up a good portion of the room. The foot of the statue was wider than the with of my body and my head barely reached its knee.
A few students where drawing the casts, and one of them showed me that they had complete control over the lightening of the room.
Many rooms and galleries at PAFA are only open to the students so that really limited where my friend could take me, which was very disappointing because I would have loved to check out the sketchbook they with their art vault.
This is probably where I would then compare PAFA to my time at Tyler but alas, I won't be able to do so until the spring. Then it will very be interesting to see how my experience compares with my friend's.
After the drawing session, my friend and I took a small detour to Love Park to check out the "Welcome House" that was still in the process of being set up. It didn't look like much then but I sure it would have been pretty cool to see the artists at work during the day.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Collections
Two images of nuts I found wandering around the grounds at my work. I scaned them on my home scanner and this is how they came out with little to no editing in photoshop. I found the images to be kind of interesting, and almost unidentifiable as nuts but this is probably due to my fairly basic scanner. Tomorrow I will try scanning them on the more high tech ones they have at the tech center.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Art Experiences
The week I was quite busy and had trouble making it out to some kind of outside art experience. I really wanted to go First Friday in Olde City and check out what was happening in the galleries, but I was really worn out after work so I decided to just rest that night.
I don't know if this counts as an outside art experience, but I do work at an art gallery as a visitor representative, I work Fridays and weekends at the Barnes Foundation in Merion. During my break I decided to browse through the gallery because I often don't a chance to look around because I'm so busy dealing with the visitors.
Most of the Art on display is French Post-Impressionists works, with some artifacts from around the world and and various time periods such as the ancient Egypt relics.
My favorite piece to see is The Postman by Vincent Van Gogh. The colors are very vibrant, it's interesting to the sort of trademark of Van Gogh, the small strokes of color that are used to build up the from and face of the "Postman" and the sense of movement that is created from those brushstrokes.
It's always an entirely different experience to see a print of something and to see the actually painting. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten such a great opportunity to be surrounded by such amazing piece of art on a weekly basis, and getting paid to do so is not so bad either!
I don't know if this counts as an outside art experience, but I do work at an art gallery as a visitor representative, I work Fridays and weekends at the Barnes Foundation in Merion. During my break I decided to browse through the gallery because I often don't a chance to look around because I'm so busy dealing with the visitors.
Most of the Art on display is French Post-Impressionists works, with some artifacts from around the world and and various time periods such as the ancient Egypt relics.
My favorite piece to see is The Postman by Vincent Van Gogh. The colors are very vibrant, it's interesting to the sort of trademark of Van Gogh, the small strokes of color that are used to build up the from and face of the "Postman" and the sense of movement that is created from those brushstrokes.
It's always an entirely different experience to see a print of something and to see the actually painting. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten such a great opportunity to be surrounded by such amazing piece of art on a weekly basis, and getting paid to do so is not so bad either!
Trip to the PMA
Because of some scheduling issues, I have not been able to attend the foundation lecture series. So instead I've taking a few art-related excursions to make up for that loss.
Though I forgot to document it here on my blogger, last weekend I took a trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum for an assignment for my Art Heritage Class. For the assignment we were travel through the galleries of European Art (1100-1500) and then compose a paper on the importance of the curatorial decisions made.
During my trip I saw many interesting pieces of those period works. Especially intriguing was the Virgin and Child in a Landscape by Master of the Embroidered Foliage. The hyper-detail included in the piece from ornate trim of the Virgin’s dress, to the actual words of the pages of the book held in her hand, and to the individual leaves upon trees and each painstaking blade of grass, it is just amazing. It’s Mind-blowing really, to just think about the time, patience and precision that must have went into this piece, it’s really hard to fathom.
Straying from my project, I explored a few of the European Art 1850-1900 galleries. My favorite piece hands down was At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It was just really lovely, with a myriad of warm yet softly subdued colors, and energetic lines. I kept coming back to it as I made my way through the galleries.
I also really enjoyed the prints and drawings, the fine etching and pen and ink works where really inspiring to see.
All in all my trip to the PMA was extremely worthwhile as always.
Though I forgot to document it here on my blogger, last weekend I took a trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum for an assignment for my Art Heritage Class. For the assignment we were travel through the galleries of European Art (1100-1500) and then compose a paper on the importance of the curatorial decisions made.
During my trip I saw many interesting pieces of those period works. Especially intriguing was the Virgin and Child in a Landscape by Master of the Embroidered Foliage. The hyper-detail included in the piece from ornate trim of the Virgin’s dress, to the actual words of the pages of the book held in her hand, and to the individual leaves upon trees and each painstaking blade of grass, it is just amazing. It’s Mind-blowing really, to just think about the time, patience and precision that must have went into this piece, it’s really hard to fathom.
Straying from my project, I explored a few of the European Art 1850-1900 galleries. My favorite piece hands down was At the Moulin Rouge: The Dance by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It was just really lovely, with a myriad of warm yet softly subdued colors, and energetic lines. I kept coming back to it as I made my way through the galleries.
I also really enjoyed the prints and drawings, the fine etching and pen and ink works where really inspiring to see.
All in all my trip to the PMA was extremely worthwhile as always.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
"Typography Fans Say Ikea Should Stick to Furniture"
This article was pretty interesting and it really went hand-in-hand with the previous Helvetica assignment and movie. It was nice to find an up to date connection to what we did in class. Again it was quite amusing to see people getting so excited and worked up by a typeface. I was surprised that a simple font change could cause such an uproar, I was totally unaware that so many people were so familiar and concerned with typefaces. I guess it goes along with the fact that different typefaces do in fact evoke different feeling from us. This change from helvetic to veranda could make a big change in Ikea's consumer interest.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Memoir Part Deux
...because sometimes i have really awful ideas.
New Memoir = There's no way to escape it.
A bit uninspired, but i think it's pretty fitting in a way.... just not fitting in the uninspired part i hope.
Pretty much the most frustrating experience of my life, word was so fussy.
New Memoir = There's no way to escape it.
A bit uninspired, but i think it's pretty fitting in a way.... just not fitting in the uninspired part i hope.
Pretty much the most frustrating experience of my life, word was so fussy.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Helvetica
"You can't escape if you try.”
When I read that in the description PBS posted about the clip, I thought I was going to have a very hard time taking this documentary seriously. I mean the idea of a group of people talking passionately, obsessively, about a font is pretty silly. But after watching a few clips on you tube, my interest was piqued to say the least.
Helvetica as a font is very clean, smooth and simplistic. It's perfect for advertising and for government documents. It entices you as a consumer yet when it needs to, helvetica stays completely neutral, impressional, and professional. This idea was reiterated various times throughout the clips.
I felt the many montages of Berlin where very fitting to display Helvetica around us. I dunno, to me the font seems very “European”, IKEA-like (if that means anything): simple and clean, modern.
When I read that in the description PBS posted about the clip, I thought I was going to have a very hard time taking this documentary seriously. I mean the idea of a group of people talking passionately, obsessively, about a font is pretty silly. But after watching a few clips on you tube, my interest was piqued to say the least.
Helvetica as a font is very clean, smooth and simplistic. It's perfect for advertising and for government documents. It entices you as a consumer yet when it needs to, helvetica stays completely neutral, impressional, and professional. This idea was reiterated various times throughout the clips.
I felt the many montages of Berlin where very fitting to display Helvetica around us. I dunno, to me the font seems very “European”, IKEA-like (if that means anything): simple and clean, modern.
I had never realized that we see helvetica in some many places and that it is used many things we see on a day to day basis. I certainly had no idea that it also effected so many people. I don't even think I have that typeface on my computer at home....
Well, speaking of it effecting people, I also like enthusiasm of those interviewed. It was very amusing to see that they were just so passionate and excited by something as simple as a typeface.
In all I found the clips I watched to be very interesting and I would like to check out the full version of the dockumentry.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Gatherings and collections
So for my collections I've been gathering things that have fallen from trees: pine cones, leaves, nuts, acorns, tree bark and seeds. The trees are from all over, from around my house in Drexel Hill, to some in Media, and from the grounds around where I work in Merion.
I'm pretty behind in the times (read broke) and I don't have a camera to show some solid, hardcore documentation but I've keep all my findings in a nice little plastic baggie and intend to bring it to class tomorrow if that means anything!
I feel like my collection is a little, um, lame....but I dunno, some of the objects have interesting textures like the insides of the nuts and acorn tops. I think they would look pretty interesting scanned and blown up to huge scales.
I was thinking about branching out from the trees to just nature in general, expand the horizons.....or maybe I should go out in search of more trees in more exciting locations for more interesting finds....more, more, more....
OKAY!
I'm pretty behind in the times (read broke) and I don't have a camera to show some solid, hardcore documentation but I've keep all my findings in a nice little plastic baggie and intend to bring it to class tomorrow if that means anything!
I feel like my collection is a little, um, lame....but I dunno, some of the objects have interesting textures like the insides of the nuts and acorn tops. I think they would look pretty interesting scanned and blown up to huge scales.
I was thinking about branching out from the trees to just nature in general, expand the horizons.....or maybe I should go out in search of more trees in more exciting locations for more interesting finds....more, more, more....
OKAY!
Six Word Memoir
I think I cheated with a hyphenated word.....
I’m the scatterbrained, harebrained, right-brained sparrow.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Tyler Experience!!!!!!
Hello, I'm Melissa, it's nice to meet you.
I guess I'll get straight to it, I decided I wanted go to Tyler way back last year in my senior art class when a representative from Tyler came to talk to our class. However at the time I also decided that I wanted to go any other art school looked up on the internet. Needless to say I was very confused about applying to schools and about what exactly I wanted to do. I was also and still am procrastinator by nature so when I finally decided that Tyler was were I would like to be, I found myself on the waitlist.
So for this semester my days at Tyler are spent completing some of my GenEd requirements for Temple, with the exceptions of Mondays with Art Heritage and Foundation computers. I still live at home which is almost exactly an hour away from campus by trolley to el subway to broad street subway. It’s annoying and tiring commuting and I would really like to live on campus, but I’m trying to save some money, and ease up the college debts so I’ll be a little freer to maybe move about afterwards (maybe New York, California, Europe, Japan… Hahah I’ve got a few dreams I’ve been holding for a while!)
I’m very excited to start my time in Tyler, and to get to know everyone!!!!!
I guess I'll get straight to it, I decided I wanted go to Tyler way back last year in my senior art class when a representative from Tyler came to talk to our class. However at the time I also decided that I wanted to go any other art school looked up on the internet. Needless to say I was very confused about applying to schools and about what exactly I wanted to do. I was also and still am procrastinator by nature so when I finally decided that Tyler was were I would like to be, I found myself on the waitlist.
So for this semester my days at Tyler are spent completing some of my GenEd requirements for Temple, with the exceptions of Mondays with Art Heritage and Foundation computers. I still live at home which is almost exactly an hour away from campus by trolley to el subway to broad street subway. It’s annoying and tiring commuting and I would really like to live on campus, but I’m trying to save some money, and ease up the college debts so I’ll be a little freer to maybe move about afterwards (maybe New York, California, Europe, Japan… Hahah I’ve got a few dreams I’ve been holding for a while!)
I’m very excited to start my time in Tyler, and to get to know everyone!!!!!
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