This weekend I took a trip to the Gallery in the Vault of Wooster for my second art related experience. It was actually a pretty neat time because Vault was a gallery and a thrift store. The store was mostly filled with works and crafts pieces by local artists. There were a large selection of pottery pieces available at moderate prices, and the store was having a special on Christmas themed art. They definitely had more art than I was expecting to see, but I was also hoping for a larger gallery in general as it was very cramped inside. I also found out that they did custom framing for any works among a few other art services. It was a nice cozy place that I had no idea existed, but I'll have to stop by again sometime, especially since there were a great amount of cool stores and restaurants on their main street.

I've started the final piece for my series of a large dam obstructing the flow of the water and carving out the surrounding valley. The dam gives off the effect of successfully splitting the river into two and takes a dip of elevation that would otherwise not exist. I really enjoy building this piece because I get to design an original piece of technology with the help of existing images and concepts while still trying to show that our creations are scarring the land around us.

If I learned anything from Keith's interview it was that a little more research into artists couldn't hurt since he sparked such an interest for Piranesi in me. I checked out one of the books displaying his work at the library and was pretty into it. He used fantastic, unreal landscapes and buildings to display his own interest and skill for designing. Throughout this piece I am hoping to show some of the clever architectural prowess that Piranesi had and use it in setting a scene for my own work. It will include designing structures that I have no in depth means of knowing how they function, but placed in areas appropriate for what would seem logical when examining things. Many of Piranesi's pieces were inspired by taking multiple achievements of art and architecture into consideration for another work, similarly I can present my own blend with modern structures and machines.  If this piece turns out well I will plan to make another design instead of a prior attempt.

Most of the info I got back from our critique today was pretty helpful in forming my final ideas for my pieces. As I've put a good amount of work into my latest "train" piece, I focused on it the most during the talk. For one, I need to desaturate some of the colors in the pieces, namely the train itself, the rock bed under it, and something needs to happen with the water as well. There's also a number of basic changes and fixes I need to make including placing the wiring behind the transmission towers and making the gash where the tower fall larger in order to emphasize the destruction of the forest. Another good point that was brought up was to make an elevation change for the forest to follow in order to see the gash for a further amount in the distance; have it follow a mountain or something.

As far as my quarry piece goes, I need to roughen it up a bit. Right now it seems like a play on geometric space, which it essentially is, but it needs a touch of art finesse as well. Obviously I haven't spent as much detailed time on it as some of my other works, but its getting along. It will most likely be the next piece that I focus heavily on. 

Going back to the tall, overarching and blatantly apparent structures that set me off in the first place, I wanted to go for a more suburban environment and showing its industrialization on the fringes of wildlife. I'l have a small town in the background behind the raised platform train tracks to show man and nature coexisting very closely to each other. At the same time, I'll have these large, grandeur, transmission towers looming over the habitat, making a clear path of destruction where the tree line no longer exists. I like the concept throughout my pieces that while we may see our advancements as beautiful and life changing structures such as cities or highways, that to an unaccustomed eye, these same objects are tools of destruction and impedance. I want to show this clash, and I think that this piece will do that well with being able to show both sides, and the divide between them

I've also decided that I want to get all of the framework and base put on this last few pieces so that I can put the finishing touches on all at once, and have the final products look a bit more similar to each other. I want a fluent style between the set, and I think if I do them all at different intervals with different ideas coming in over time, that this style might change too much. I am actually hoping that my final product can look more similar to Sweeney and Apostolescu rather than my initial completed piece. I think color palette and outline detail will be a large factor in this respect

I'd like to use this blog post to talk about one of the artists I've been interested in lately. Will Sweeney is a storyboarding and illustrating artist that uses offbeat colors to portray worlds of fantasy and outlandishness that I first noticed while watching Birdy Nam Nam's "The Parachute Ending" which was designed and produced by Sweeney. With further research, I realized that I had seen Sweeney's work many times beforehand in the past few years, mostly just on the internet, but also for the fact that he draws cartoons and comics in popular media. One thing that really strikes me about Sweeney is his retro style of art direction, the colors and methods he uses are from an age past, but a classic one at that, and the intensity and boldness of his work really jumps out at the viewer. His wide use of fluorescent colors blends well with his 80's palette and often shows off his comic book influenced background. While his work can appear crude, it has a sense of refinery in the way the color and outlines seamlessly blend on very simple surfaces and textures. I'm thinking that for one of my books, I'd like to grab his one of his comic books, "Tales from Green Fuzz"

Below is some of his artwork as well as the fantastic music video for "The Parachute Ending"

The Parachute Ending

I'm trying to add some lighting and texture to the piece so I can get the overall effects that I achieved with my first one. It'll hopefully all come together when I start flattening layers out and getting the proper blending modes for everything. The file size is pretty large right now and its slowing down work in general with the processor trying to keep up. I've been putting in work almost every day now, even if its just a little bit so I can try and get everything done on time

Since I am doing a rather traditional type of artwork this semester, my presentation plans are most likely set on framing my pieces with basic, but clean looking frames. I don't think it needs anything too fancy as I like to display my work as crisp, and sleek, reflective of the artwork itself. I already planned to have these images framed from the beginning of the year, as I've standardized all the sizes of my pieces that I've started so far, in order to not worry about custom frames. Due to it being a series, I'm thinking of getting the same type of frame for each piece, and laying them out in a simple horizontal manner. Below is the begininning of my newest piece concerning a quarry

correct lighthouse width, cap
clean rooftops and building edges
add lighthouse light source, moon light source
add waves, water depth
water loss details
erosion
more boats
more contour lines, cliff, ocean

For my first art related visit, I was able to go to one of my uncle's art gallery displays on our Monday off, which was a treat since he hadn't done one in almost seven years. He deals with a more contemporary approach to his work, and this particular display dealt mostly with the use of paint on canvas and wood. The majority of his work was similar to what I remember he had produced the last time he had a show, which was a series of shapes and painted piece work that bear a striking resemblance to mandalas and targets. He used contrasting colors to bring the layers in and out, and the colors schemes were pretty engaging to look at. The gallery itself was fairly small, and plain, but he had it all to himself so all eyes were on Bruce Buchanan. I wanted to buy a piece of his, but I'm not really well off enough to do so. My mom got one of his big pieces so he said he'd be more than happy to send me something original, which was uplifting to hear. There were only about 30 people there throughout the two hour showing, but it was fun to go to something besides one of the AU galleries and see what happens in the more general scene.

While I was visiting him in Cleveland, I also got to talk to him about for a bit about my own artwork from this semester, and some of the pieces I've done in the past. He actively looks at all my works through Facebook, and he was happy to engage me about them. I got some good information, mainly about the direction of what I want my work to mean, and a few pointers in general landscape design. He actually does commissions for building drawings and design as well, so it was great to see some of his sketching and blueprint designs when we hung out after the show.

 I'll get a picture up of some of his work once I rip the photos off my camera. On Friday night this week though, I plan on trying to go the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago when I pass through to Wisconsin for weekend. I think it'll be pretty great if we get a chance to stop in

I liked the lighthouse, so I did some free work

I've just ordered Emmet Gowin's most comprehensive book on his work, Changing the Earth. I chose this book because, besides showing a good deal of his professional work, it talks about why he chose to  go to these specific locations and take these photographs. From the premise, the book sounds quite political in its direction, and I think that while I share many of the views Gowin is going for with his own work, after reading I'll probably realize that his reasons for his art are a bit more deep than my own. In any case, it does discuss the corruption and scarring of the Earth that mankind has been causing over the past few centuries, but I imagine that I'll learn more than I originally bargained for.

My own piece is coming along alright. I've been away from school and class and haven't worked on it as much as I'd like to. As the semester is officially in its second half, I feel the need to try and churn my works out a little quicker than with the laxness I've accepted throughout the first half. Hopefully I'll have this piece done by next Friday, thats the goal at least. After which I'll go back and finish my previous city scape piece.

This needs a bit of cleanup and refinement but this piece is essentially finished. I may add more in at a later point, but I haven't decided yet. I'm getting a good amount of ideas from just examining pictures that have to deal with natural landscapes and then trying to break them down into a format that suits my own. The inspiration for the last two pieces that I drew came from wanting to show a landscape that had been changed by man's touch. Since its difficult to create a landscape without reference, I searched for images of the Grand Canyon for my initial piece since I was focusing on the American for the scene. For my second piece, I decided to show our destruction in another part of the world by focusing on the ocean. For this I referenced images of the Italian and Greek coasts as the Mediterranean sea level has been steadily dropping for the last few decades.The cliffs are aesthetically eye catching when comparing the height differences to sea level. The barren cliffs jutting under the city indicate how global warming and our need for fresh water are lowering sea levels each year. What was once a stunning chain of easily traversable peninsulas is now rough hike with rough waves and undertow below.

My updated first piece of this series now has some beginning texture to it to emphasize the details between nature and man made structure. In my artist statement I hope to clarify whats been the focus of my work in more detail, but I am having a good time getting closer to the finals stages of my work. With the comments made during my critique session I intend to tweak and add a few things along the way to ensure the viewer can relate to my work more clearly. 

Going in a new direction, I'd like to start looking at the topic of man's effect on nature. What I've laid out so far in this first piece is some scenery similar to the grand canyon and a large highway road running right through it. I've got some futuristic telephone type lines following it as well on their path towards civilization. I'm really going towards trying to make a contrast with the rugged, natural forms of nature in comparison with the sleek, smooth forms of manmade technology strewn among it. I would really like the viewer to realize this difference and get the impression that mankind is intruding on the beauty of nature. This depiction goes along similarly with Emmet Gowin's aerial pictures of how the progress of man has scarred the earth forever with its constructions of convenience and methods of plundering the planet for its treasures such as oil or fresh water. Even though he was a photographer, I'd like to share this feeling with the viewer, but in a style more similar to what I've been working with

Apparently I only drafted this on Monday so its late now, great

I'm still looking to get some type of contrast to show the presence of man impeding on nature and what they have done to change it. When I was browsing the internet for some inspiration one thing that really struck me was a single image that showed a scene of nature and then the abrupt change in environment from forest to city. I really liked this set of images by Ilkka Haslo showing his ideas on the preservation of what nature we have left and how man is striving to save it, but its somewhat the opposite of what I'm going for myself.Gowin does a better job of portraying the brutality and ignorance of man and what they've subjected nature to, Haslo goes for more of a cherishing effect of what little natural settings we have left

As I mentioned in my critique, I'm going to be doing a timeline of events with my android series. The sketch I have drawn out will be for the first image in the set. It depicts a car crash from the robot's point of view. It will be saving the female victim, and then helping her to recover through its robot transformation that I worked on in my first sketch.

The artists that I've been looking into this semester have all have had a more new age focus in digital art with more of a technically focused genre. The one that still interests me the most is Matei Apostolescu, his style is so original and unique and covers such a nice field of subjects. They aren't necessarily very deep in the meaning, but his skill is what really catches my eye. I'll most likely want to change what I'm doing halfway through the semester, because even now I feel like I don't like where I'm headed. Once I find something that I really want to do, I'll be able to, I just haven't pinned it down yet. I think with this second piece I will radically change the artistic style of what I was doing previously. I want to present it in more of an stylistic fashion like Matei but still make it my own. 

I've started to tone out some of the features in my portrait of this android at this point, and will continue to do so over the next few days. I haven't added any really distinct features or played with the blending modes of each layer, but when I do, each portion should stick out a bit more distinctly. The edge between the grey plating of the body and the flesh will have layer of color emanating and glowing from it to signify some type of radiating energy presence, sort of like iron man, or any type of regulating engine that produces a heat emission. The main focus on this will be showing how the figure is a living thing, but not entirely different from a machine itself. In the near future, I'd like to correlate this relationship with how we are becoming increasingly dedicated to the presence of technology and machinery in our lives. The presence of these objects is not entirely necessary, but we choose to constantly implement them into our lifestyle. More and more we'll vie to depend on technology to keep us going throughout our life, whether it be setting an alarm to wake up by in the morning, or replacing a body part such as an arm or a heart with a prosthetic instrument.

Current event post

While it may not be the most interesting or stunning news in the world of art right now, I'm extremely satisfied with the release of Adobe's CS6 package. Over the past few months Adobe and popular art media outlets have been publishing all the great stuff that has been coming along with the debut of CS6 and its beta, namely the major changes to Photoshop, and users are in for a surprise with some of the great new things coming their way. Having already downloaded the standalone Photoshop version, I can say I'm quite happy with what new things I've encountered so far.

For one, almost everything runs much smoother than the previous version. Large format works process much more quickly with tools such as smudge, filters, content awareness, and blur effects as long as the hardware  you're using can keep up with Adobe. The CS5 version was severely bottle necking the user's CPU, especially on Windows machines, but the improved algorithms have been showing off quite nicely, even in 1920x1080 resolution and higher. I was curious on how much better these changes might be so I opened up the same file in the CS5 version as well as CS6 and applied a complicated pointilize filter over a 3x3 foot image. CS6 blew away CS5 by almost 5 seconds. I tried it again at 5x5 foot and it was almost 10 seconds faster during that application.

Something users will recognize right off the bat is that the interface for CS6 is slightly different. A couple of the tools on the left side of the UI have different looking icons, and the default windows and options on the right hand side from CS5 are nonexistent until you activate and customize them in CS6. However, the windows blend together very smoothly and get minimized nicely. Another noticeable tweak is that your background colors are now a muted gray color instead of the standard white of every other version. The feedback is much lighter on your eyes, and makes your own work pop out much more clearly. Personally, I think it gives the whole UI a nice, updated and refreshing look.

The last thing I'd like to mention about CS6 is the huge improvement to the content awareness tool. Taking unwanted portions out of pictures or elongating sections has never been easier. In July when I made my "8 Bit Blast" piece I literally recreated half of my right chest with the content awareness tool and it looked just fine after I smoothed and blurred everything out. Some of the demos I've watched in recent weeks have been absolutely stunning, even on complicated images like forests and seascapes. The tool is now basically foolproof and can be used for tasks of all ranges as long as you remember to try it out.

There's plenty of other fun and exciting new things for CS6 including lots of 3D imaging techniques and video editing applications, but the things that I mentioned previously are the ones that I've had the most fun with as of yet.

Asa 9/10

Framework for a female android I started today

9/7

I got some free time work done with the tablet after renting it out and using it at home for a bit. I learned a couple important techniques from following some tutorials that are making things easier and more realistic. Just trying to draw out real life objects around my room proved to be pretty fun, and I got better with each sketch I did.

I'm probably going to start this second attempt for a piece over with a picture of a real face to reference from, I really just used a skull and some mis match people parts when drawing this one out so its not as proportional as it should be. I'm sure my housemate John will be more than willing to pose. But I've got free time this weekend so I'll be working again soon

Animatron update 1

I redrew my first piece with a bit more detail and started coloring. Since it is my first real stab at digital painting I am constantly going back and forth between blending modes and brush values trying to decide on what to do. I have been looking online for some help and tutorials and what I've found has helped quite a bit so far. I think I will need to get some real definition down before I can start making some stylistic changes that I'd like to implement, but I think I'm on the right track. I'm beginning to notice that, like regular drawing, this is a very time consuming process, but it seems to be going alright so far. As long as I keep creating new layers instead of erasing it seems to create a more natural transition of color.

the animatron

Very quick sketches of what I've been thinking about doing for this semester.

In keeping with my theme of drawing machines and their inner workings I wanted to introduce some looser drawing to my approach. The pen tool feels very stiff and can only produce so many results even after working it over with filters and whatever else techniques. The direction I want to take with this semester is a bit more surreal and fantastic and the bleak and crisp format of last semester won't accomplish this goal as well.

I would like to do most of the base work through drawing by hand and scanning it into photoshop, only to do some more creative digital painting instead of fill in the space coloring book style of last semester. This is something I've always wanted to try but never really had a reason to up until now. I have done digital painting in free work but have never used a physical stylus and tablet before.

Taking inspiration from the works of Matei Apostolescu, complicated and cluttered yet extravagant, I would like to focus on a possible short story of a man and machine and what becomes of them.  It would be a setting of a future where man is on the edge of dying out and technology is prevailing. A new race of robotics is emerging where man and machine become one, animatrons/androids/cyborgs or whatnot. In keeping with the theme of last semester, I'd like to show the intricacies of how these robots and new animatrons may function by giving detailed, yet gritty and unrefiened representations of a their surreal nature.

Matei Apostolescu works

http://www.013a.com/html/general_ah64.htm

http://www.013a.com/html/strange_spring_trap.htm

http://www.013a.com/html/thermo.htm

http://www.013a.com/html/diver3.htm

8 bit blast

I didn't work on a lot of shopping this summer, I was too busy reliving my youth in the NES age

Zebes

The Williams I

Final pieces for spring semester

The Analog Age

After getting the ear full that my professors provided from my junior review, I've decided that it might be good to move my project into a more organic direction. By this is I mean possibly stepping back an age of technology into a more analog feel. The clock is a good start for this, and adding a few more pieces such as a printer, pistol, lawnmower or even a typewriter. Something with physical moving guts and parts. The newer age things that we have today seem a bit static, and something such a clock seems more alive and active which gives a lot more interest