Dada

I really enjoy Dada art because of its unusual and unpredictable nature. Dadaism started after world War One as a protest to the happenings of the times. Artists wanted to reject the traditional ideals of art to make a statement about politics, commercialism, and the chaos of society. Chaos was a sign of the times, which is reflected in the Dada art movement.

The work of Dadaism is very controversial and avant-garde. Dadaism showed up in sculpture, posters, collages, paintings, graphic design, and in most areas of the art world. The Dada movement seems ironic because it is known as the anti-art movement.

I really enjoy the looking for the meaning behind the works of Dadaism. The works usually convey a message and are often comical. I like the sarcastic tone of the Dada work. I also like the fact that there are no rules or particular aesthetics of this art era. People just did whatever the hell they wanted, calling it art, which it was.

I really like the composition of these Dada works. They look very modern but almost have a grunge look that I really appreciate. It is not an easy task to successfully do grunge work, I know this from experience. It takes artistic skill to create chaos that is unified. I also like the simple color pallet and different variations of font with in the works.

Julia McGrath

http://juliaswatercolors.com/

Julia McGrath is a local artist that is well known for her beautiful watercolor paintings. Her delicate brushstrokes and color pallets are her trademark. Her paintings are illuminated with light. Julia’s paintings portray a quiet peacefulness. Julia is very good at capturing the beauty in ordinary things.

Julia has been a huge inspiration to me as an artist. Growing up I spent a lot of time with Julia, aspiring to be like her. She had an art studio above her garage where I would admire her paintings. She also introduced me to furniture painting, which I spent many years doing.

This painting was done up at my families cottage. The painting was done from the view out of our cottage window. I thought it was interesting that Julia chose to paint the cottage next door when the view from the next window was of a beautiful inland lake. I suppose Julia recognized the unique composition that the little purple cottage would create, with our colorful towels on the line.

The painting of the purple cottage turned out to be a sought-after piece of Julia McGraths and it is obviously one of my favorites because of the memories it brings. I also really admire Julia’s painting of water. She has several paintings of ponds. The aerial view of the water captures the reflection of the surface of the water and the color and beauty of the fish and plants with in it.

Paolo Boccardi-Fashion Photographer

http://www.fashionphotographer.it

I found Italian photographer Paolo Boccardi while surfing different photography websites. Boccardi is an amazing photographer who does most of his work in the commercial and fashion world but also has beautiful work of his travels. Boccardi describes himself as an advanced Photoshop user as well as an art director, of what, I am unsure. However, I love his work in fashion because it has a fine art feeling.

Boccardi does much of his work using nude models. This is one of my favorite images of his fine art pieces. I love the lighting that casts soft shadows and gives high contrast and depth to the image. The light cascades down her body, showing her curves. The image is so beautiful and feminine added to by the high heels and tutu.

Boccardi's website is what first drew me to his work. I myself am a photographer and have been trying to create a sleek website for my work. I used this website as my model for a classic, contemporary design. I think the site is effective so that the information needed to navigate the site does not detract from the art. The look is clean and modern and the images are large and dynamic.

Boccardi has captured beautiful images in his travels. He not only captures the picturesque landscapes but also interesting people in interesting ways. Boccardi's portfolio demonstrates his versatility as an artist. Each of his images are beautiful and unique. My hope is that my work will someday be as dynamic and creative as Paolo Boccardi's.

My Pet Pig

http://www.valsartdiary.com

I found this artist's series of videos on youtube.com and find them very entertaining. The videos are an art diary of the creator Val. This is all I know about them. I don't know whether it is just her cute accent or her exaggeratedly cheesy personality that interests me, but I think Val is very funny.

In this particular video entitled My Pet Pig, Val discusses her asperations of beening a fashion designer. It is all very random and makes no sense at first. She rambles on about how her aunt think she's a lesbian and how she paints her fashion designs on valuptious women. She is very casual and funny which makes her character appealing. Throughout the film, Val is painting a painting of a woman. The title of the film starts to make sense when she paints a a pig in the woman's arms.

The painting that Val paints in the video is a very whimsical painting of a woman holding a pig. She explains why she used the color pallet that she used and the meaning behind different elements of the painting. I really love the childlike rendering of the painting yet the skillful technique the artist used. I love the randomness of the the richly colored strokes in the background of the painting.

Another reason that I like Val's videos is because of the style and mood of the video. All of her videos have beautiful lighting and vignettes. All of the videos that I have seen have a similar style that suites the artist. I think that the creator must have used Adobe After Effects for the text and special effects of the video. I also really love the artist's use of color throughout her videos. She films her pieces by really playing with the focus of the camera, which makes a beautiful effect. It is like her videos are like paintings.

Environmental Portraits in Second Life

This is an assignment that I did in Second Life for a new media class. For class, our assignment was to create an environmental portrait using Second Life. An environmental portrait is a portrait in which an environment of a person is portrayed. The environment says a lot about the person. By looking at a person’s surroundings, one can discover what is important to a person and what his of her life is like.

In my first environmental portrait I chose to portray a housewife. This woman is dressed as a stereotypical housewife and is surrounded by her kitchen. There are prescription bottles all over the floor and bottles of alcohol scattered to show her secret escape and loneliness. She is holding a baby, which is leaching onto her and a gun, which shows her security and vulnerability. There is a blow up doll in the scene to show the woman’s desire for love.

The second environmental portrait I did was of Britney Spears. She is shown in her living room that is scattered with alcohol, a wig, a camera, and her faceless children. The camera is meant to represent paparazzi and her faceless children are represented as objects rather than people. Britney is bald and wearing a school girl outfit with no underwear. She is performing on her living room stage because she cannot separate reality from fantasy.

Using Second Life can be very frustrating. I spent so long wondering different lands looking for objects for my characters. It is also very interesting to see all of the different characters that use Second Life. Building objects in Second Life can also be very frustrating but I found it got much easier the more that I practiced. I think Second Life is not something that I will continue to use but it was overall very interesting to discover this other world.

taralouiselle.com

www.taralouiselle.com

Tara Louiselle is a local artist who creates sculptures and models of horses. Tara Louiselle is a very good friend of mine who has amazing talent. She is a painter, sculptor, and fantastic drawer. I have known her most of my life and she possesses artistic ability that few have. Tara inspires me because she has used her talent and love of horses to produce beautiful sculptures that are all the rage in the horse world.

Tara is now making a living doing what she loves. Tara discovered the world of horse sculpting and that it is in high demand. Tara first noticed the popularity of these horse sculptures while surfing ebay. She saw many horse sculptures selling for thousands of dollars and thought, “Hey, I could do this.” Tara grew up drawing and painting equinine art so sculpting it came very natural to her.

Tara started sculpting by transforming Breyer horse models. These thick, plastic sculptures are popular collectibles among children, ranging from $30-$50 dollars. Tara purchased these models, melts them, changes their positions and stances, adds anatomy, sculpts intricate manes, and finally air-brushes and paints the models. These resculpted models sell for hundreds of dollars. In addition to resculpting Breyer horses, Tara purchases resin models from popular sculptors and paints them. These resigns can sell for thousands of dollars.

I am so proud of my friend Tara who has found a niche in the art world and ran with it. Her name is now very well known in the horse sculpture world and is often sought out for custom work. Tara’s sculptures are so intricately sculpted and painted with beauty. Her air-brushing is exquisite. Tara stands out in her field and has offered other horse sculptures very stiff competition.

Candidate # 1

Our university is hiring a New Media professor and allows their students to get in on the deal. Students are able to meet each candidate for a meet and greet lunch and also listen to a lecture by the each candidate. The University welcomes students' input and opinions. I think that it is really important for schools to include students in the hiring of a new professor since it could profoundly affect their education.

The first candidate that came to our school was very unique. This candidate is currently a professor at a Florida school where he also teaches in the arts. I think that this candidate was very intriguing and most unusual. He reminds me of a mad scientist of the arts. It was very apparent that this candidate is very intelligent. He seems to use many aspects of engineering and science incorporated with art.

Many of the first candidate's art was very experimental and technical. One example of the professor's work that I particularly liked was his study for children and the sounds of MRI machines. This candidate created a game involving toys and the different sounds of MRI machines so that children would be exposed to the machines noises before they had a procedure, thus desensitizing them to the machine's noises. I like that this candidate uses art for a purpose.

One of the candidates more simplistic works was a portrait he did of a friend. This portrait was unique because he made it with cups of coffee. He took a photo of his friend and reduced it to simple tones of brown. The artist then matched each tone with a specific tone of coffee, by adding cream to the coffee to change its color. He spent hours mixing the perfect tones of brown and arranging them to mimic the tones in the photo. The artist then suspended a camera above the composition of coffee filled cups and took a photo of them all in their place. The end result was quite amazing and represent the actual photo quite well.