Exercise: Zen

This was a good exercise on using the blend tool, and creating original lettering. I got a pretty cool effect.

Poster Project: Dances with Squirrels

The goal of this project was to combine different elements from different photos to make one convincing final piece. I had an idea for an Alice in Wonderland type piece from the beginning, but my idea changed several times. In the end, I Photoshopped my sister dancing with a squirrel in the moonlight. This piece was very technically challenging for me. None of the photos were taken at night, so the lighting had to be completely changed. Also, I had to take reflective light into consideration to make the final product a coherent one. The dress is actually made from elements of a different dress, and the squirrel is actually a composite of three squirrels. In the end, I'm quite happy with the peice as a whole, and I believe that it came together nicely.

Exercise: Snowman

Merry Christmas! An Illustrator Snowman just in time for the holidays. I took the liberty of straying from the tutorial on this one to add a nice big smile and a hat. Hope you like it!

Exercise: Flying Eye

This is a pretty creepy image, but I had to use so many tools that I feel a lot more comfortable in Illustrator now. It took a long time, but it was definitely worth the learning experience.

Exercise: Smoke Type

This was a good practice in Photoshop, but - again - I was unable to downlaod the necessary elements to do it correctly. However, with what I had, I think I did a relatively good job.

Exercise: Illustrator Owl

This exercise only took me forever. It was absolutely tedious, but it covered so many tools in Illustrator, that it was worth it in the end.

Exercise: Light Text

This one took me longer than it probably should have, but once I understood how to use the Color Dodge Mode (in Photoshop), everything fell into place.

Exercise: Casino Lights

I had a few problems with this exercise, mostly because I was unable to download the necessary elements to do it correctly. But overall, I learned a lot of the fundamentals about working in Photoshop.

Exercise: Bristle Brush Apple

This was a pretty cool exercise. I learned about using different brushes in Illustrator, and I came up with a nice, painterly result which I would not have expected from a computer.

Book Project: How to Get a Date

This project was my first experience with Adobe InDesign, but I also used Illustrator and Photoshop. My idea was to create a step-by-step parody on how to get a date. I had my sister and her friend dress up for a photo shoot. Then, I manipulated the figures from the photos in Photoshop and the backgrounds in Illustrator. Here are a couple of pages from the final product:

After I was finished with my images, I placed them into InDesign to lay everything out with text. I am quite happy with the result.

Digital Imaging 2

A new semester with new digital images... Enjoy!

Exercise: Mailer

Experimenting with InDesign.

Happy Fathers' Day!

To my most loyal - and only - subscriber,

Thanks for your devoted attention to my silly blog. Expect more art work soon. I'm working on some stuff. Happy Fathers' Day, Daddy. I love you! Stay cool.

Elena

China Cat Sunflower Book

My idea for this project was to create a visual acid trip, so to speak. The poem is very visual, and for as long as I can remember, that is the only way I have been able to interpret it - as a series of images. To make it the personal piece that it is, I drew my own images and put them into Photoshop to enhance them, and to add photographic images. I tried to combine the sketches with the realistic images as well as I could. For example, the sunflowers on the first page are drawn, but the centers are distorted centers of real sunflowers. All together, this combination created the very surreal effect that I was trying to achieve. My Photoshop skills have greatly improved since the beginning of the semester, so I was very comfortable using it. Illustrator is a different story. All I wound up doing on illustrator was typing the text, but even that gave me trouble. Manipulating the path of the text took me almost as long as creating the images on Photoshop. In fact, that would become very obvious to anyone who saw my Illustrator file and highlighted the text paths - they are twisted and turned to say the least. But enough about the problems I had; I used the Myriad Pro font and placed it on a curvy, flowing path to give a sense of fluidity and movement. To complete my '60's effect, I printed the project on thick textured paper to make it look like an old sketch book. When I was printing, my printer apparently was not accustomed to printing on such thick paper, and so the ink splattered a little in some places, which definitely enhances the look I was going for. Overall, this project was very challenging, but I am very happy with the result, and plan to keep it for a long time.

Word Visualization Exercise

Hyper! This is the word I chose to visualize. It is supposed to look like kids at a playground, going down a slide... because we all know that kids at a playground epitomize the word "hyper."

Poem for Book Project

China Cat Sunflower
by,
Robert Hunter

Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower
proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun
Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono
like a crazy-quilt star gown
through a dream night wind

Crazy Cat peeking through a lace bandanna
like a one-eyed Cheshire
like a diamond-eye Jack
A leaf of all colors plays
a golden string fiddle
to a double-E waterfall over my back

Comic book colors on a violin river
crying Leonardo words
from out a silk trombone
I rang a silent bell
beneath a shower of pearls
in the eagle wing palace
of the Queen Chinee

Self Visualization Project

The Basic Concept:

This is my self visualization project. The three panels are intended to be seen horizontally, in the order they are shown here, from top to bottom. The main idea is past, present, future. The middle image is my present; an isolated image from a hectic time in my life - college. The quote is from George Orwell's novel, 1984: "Sanity is not statistical." This quote is the central idea of the piece, meaning (in my own interpretation) that, while the majority rules, the majority is not always right. Growing up, I have always found myself out of place. Unpopular in a private school, white in an urban public high school... too rich for the inner city, too poor for suburbia... a pianist who can't read piano music, an artist in an academic school. Essentially, it is a rare occurrence that I am a part of the majority. Yet I am never fazed because I realize that not thinking like others does not make me wrong. This is where the quote comes into play. In the "past" and "future" images," I am surrounded by people. The "past" image is set in Jersey City, in front of a very typical scene of any inner city - a dry cleaner. As I've mentioned, I've never exactly fit in there. The "future" image is set in Paris (a very surreal Paris) because I aspire to end up there one day. Of course, I face the inevitable cultural barrier of any American among Parisians. Luckily, I have been prepared for it my whole life. Over all, my concept is my quote; though I may have a different mind set from the people who surround me, I can feel confident and secure that I am not wrong. And similarly, there is nothing wrong with being a part of the majority. I am just as different as any other person I meet.

Illustrator Photo Exercise

This is an edited photo of me and my friend, Char. In the original, we have orange slices in our mouths, if you couldn't figure out what we were doing. I really enjoyed using Live Paint in Illustrator, though it took a while to get used to it. This is a whimsical photograph, so I wanted to use bright colors. I was working on filling the entire picture with color, but it quickly became overwhelming. I much prefer the splattered-paint look that the patches of grey and black give. Overall, I am very happy with the result of this exercise.

Illustrator Exercise 1

This is my first Adobe Illustrator project. Before beginning, we were told that we would either be good at Photoshop or Illustrator. It is now clear to me that Illustrator is going to be quite a challenge for me.

Analysis: Abramovic, Kahlo, and Xiuwen

These three artists are women from very different backgrounds - Marina Abramovic is from Yugoslavia, Frida Kahlo from Mexico, and Cui Xiuwen from China - yet they all display a similar portrayal of women. Each artist concerns herself with depicting women in untypical circumstances, whether it be an uncommon role for women, an unusual setting, or a hidden side of the female psyche. Abramovic, Kahlo, and Xiuwen all use surreal subject matter to convey their messages about women.

Marina Abramovic: Abramovic’s pieces are all distinctly hers; not only because her body of work is nearly entirely comprised of self-portraits, but because she has a recognizable style. Compositionally, the majority of her pieces are centered, and relatively symmetrical. She carefully crafts each scene she captures, precisely placing every object in the composition, and leaving no detail to chance. Most of her pieces concern discomfort, or a feeling of being out of place. Abramovic portrays a woman who is uninterested in her expected role as a submissive housewife by placing her in unnatural scenes and using minimal, dull color.

Cleaning the House, Marina Abramovic

Frida Kahlo: Kahlo is also known mostly for her self-portraits, but, just as Abramovic, has a very recognizable style. She paints in earthy colors and generally depicts robust, weighty figures; these are not women who exude feminine beauty, but are nonetheless confident in appearing front and center in any painting. Kahlo’s women are usually placed in grim, foreboding scenes, which often make a political or social statement. Her figures never smile, nor do they frown - regardless of her surrounding scene, Kahlo’s women wear neutral faces. Her paintings evoke emotion in viewer through the lack of emotion in figure.

Tree of Hope, Frida Kahlo

Cui Xiuwen: Unlike Kahlo and Abramovic, Cui Xiuwen portrays soft, feminine figures. Her use of vibrant colors and angelic figures enhance and contrast the serious, severe situation of each girl. Xiuwen focuses on the hardship of young pregnancy, and is primarily concerned with portraying the emotion of her figures. Unlike Kahlo, she evokes an emotional response in the viewer through the emotion consuming the depicted girl in the piece. Lonely, solemn, pale, pensive girls are focal points of each piece. Every girl remains isolated even when there are other figures in the scene. Xiuwen’s works embody the hopelessness and despair of young pregnant girls to which outsiders are usually blind.

Angel No. 11, Cui Xiuwen

Overview: Each artist has a very different, distinct style, and it is very interesting to see the variety of ways in which each artist conveyed her message. All three have a great talent for communicating with the viewer. I thoroughly enjoyed analyzing each artist's body of work.

Photoshop Project 1

This is my first Photoshop Project, and my second time using Photoshop. This time around, I was forced to use many of Photoshop's tools, and ultimately learned how to be more creative on the computer.

I took the three pictures without an idea of what to do with my project, except that I wanted to incorporate the Pixels on campus (they're not that bad, get over it). While working, I started thinking about the power of Art in an artist's life, and it gave me the idea of this sort of magical fountain hidden away in another universe. Something like that. Feel free to see it how you want. Anyway, I hope you like it! Because it took forever.

P.S. I don't know why this is all underlined, and I really wish it wasn't. If anyone knows how to make it stop, please let me know.

Photos for First Project

Analysis: Artists Analyses

While reading everyone's artist analyses, I found myself much more interested than I would have expected to be. Though, generally, the same concepts found their way into each critique, each of my classmates was able to give me a little more insight, and express ideas that I could not quite imagine on my own. Here are some of my favorite descriptions of each artist, as worded by my classmates:

Wall: "interesting lighting," "everyday life," "subtle," "philosophical," "lyrical"

Hocks - "interesting process," "whimsical," "interesting subject matter," "surreal," "off-beat," "curious," "dream-like"

Crewdson - "dark," "vacant," "dreary," "powerful," "deep tones," "unique," "cinematic," "painstakingly intricate," "mysterious," "haunting"

Sherman - "appealing," "vintage," "innocent yet devious," "eerie type of glamour," "classic," "feminine beauty"

Thank you, class, for your interesting analyses! I was pleasantly surprised.

Exercise 1

This is my first experience with Photoshop, and, admittedly, it was a little intimidating. But once I got the hang of it, I really enjoyed using it. I wound up creating this piece of my sister and some lions. It is a composite of 5 pictures: one sassy picture of my sister, which I turned black and white, 3 different angry lions which I sized as I felt appropriate, and a safari scene in the background. I enjoy it very much, and I hope you enjoy it too.

Review: Inherited Traits Exhibit

The Inherited Traits exhibition was an appropriate combination of conceptual art and this year’s TCNJ theme - family. The show was a very tasteful way to open the new art building’s gallery.
While walking around before the presentation, I was very struck by one piece in particular. In the middle of the back wall, I saw a large, thin metal structure with what appeared to be a bowl with legs suspended from it. The complexity that the overall simplistic structure embodied was very beautiful on a visual level; it had a captivating presence. I was intrigued, but did not understand it. I later learned that this piece was Heidi Kumao’s Translator. Kumao explained in her presentation that Translator was a commentary on the impact that domestic disputes have on a young child - a girl, in this case. This girl is seen switching back and forth between parental figures, each’s words seeping into her bones. Kumao portrays a very raw picture of family in her art, without neglecting the piece’s aesthetic value. After learning the meaning behind Translator, I found a deeper appreciation for the piece. By far, this was my favorite piece in the exhibit.
Overall, it was a terrific show, and I was very glad to have been a part of the experience.

Analysis: Wall, Hocks, Crewdson, and Sherman

Jeff Wall: While the viewer is aware that the scenes created by Wall are staged, the figures in the scenes are strangely natural, as if not noticing that they are being photographed. Wall’s false realities are intriguing and beautifully portrayed. Each piece conveys a narrative.

Picture For Women, Jeff Wall

Teun Hocks: Hocks’ photos are set in a sort of dream world. Each figure is dropped into a fantasy, leaving the viewer to imagine what is happening, and what the outcome of the figure’s quandary will be. Hocks’ use of color and subject matter are entertaining and thought-provoking.

Man With Hats, Teun Hocks

Gregory Crewdson: Crewdson’s use of vivid colors, and overall precision make his photos look as if they are movie stills. It is clear that the artist had a vision and was very precise about placement of every aspect of the shot. As Hocks’, Crewdson's images have a fantastical quality, but in a darker sense.

Dream House, Gregory Crewdson

Cindy Sherman: Sherman uses black and white photography to portray beautiful, classical women in a quirky light. Each of her photos implies a certain, but vague narrative, inviting the viewer to guess what is really happening behind each pretty face.

Untitled Film Still #3, Cindy Sherman

Overview: At a first glance of each artist, I was sure that Cindy Sherman’s work would be my favorite because it is very much my style. However, while I do find her work beautiful, I am not sure that I can say I prefer one artist over another. Each photographer has incredible work, and in each one of their portfolios, I found several pieces which absolutely captivated me. I was pleasantly surprised by each portfolio, and I hope to see some of these collections in person some time in the near future.

Inspiration

Black and white photographs, such as this one of the Brasserie Lipp by Henri Cartier-Bresson (left), have always inspired me. I tend to use limited color in my drawings, so the level of expression achieved in the monochrome of a black and white photo is one I aspire to in my own art.

Another one of my long-time inspirations is Edgar Degas. Degas' mastery of the human (left) form has inspired me from a young age, and even is a reason that I am so

interested in art today.

About Me

I am a freshman at The College Of New Jersey, and am currently minoring in Fine Arts and majoring in French. Art is something I have been passionate about from a very early age, so I am very excited to be studying it in college and taking this course.