Using my hand to as a subject manner for my drawing was more difficult than i had first thought.  I saw how disgusting and what a 18 year hockey career will do to your ands and fingers.  Getting all the lines and drawing the hand a a angle turned out to be very difficult.  I choose to use pencil in my drawing because it was easier because i have never drawn anything before.  Creating a drawing with your non-dominant hand was difficult at first but once i got used to it it was not that bad.  I like that using your non-dominant hand it was easier to make non-uniform line that are all over you hands.  When using my dominate hand the lines that are on my hand turned out to be more uniform looking.  I think this was a successful study one can definitely tell the different in the drawing on what hand i used to draw what.  I would consider using my non-dominant hand in the future but it would have to depend on what kind of piece i am trying to create.     

Video Review

The first video that I choose to review was the Drawings of Michelangelo.  I choose this video because I am not at all familiar with his work.  I do know that he is famous and I would like to learn more about his work. I learned that is work is very sacred that it is only viewed by a few serious scholars.  Michelangelo was his biggest critic he drew many drawings and works but only a fraction of those exist today.  His works throughout his lifetime were based on the same elements and were consistent in that the form is the same in his work at a young adolescent age all the way till his elder years.  He used his works to look back on and learn about himself and his drawings and improve and take things from them.  Michelangelo taught himself to sculpt and his works have survived and some are still in churches and museums.  This video did not really relate to the text.  The text did not go near as in depth of the level that the video did.  The video focused on how his works were created and evolved.  The film for me was very interesting and I learned more from watching the video than I could have from reading the book.  The video actually shows how he incorporates elements and such in his works.

The second video that I choose to watch is Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance.  I choose this video for many of the same reasons I choose to view the first video.  I know Leonardo de Vinci is very famous but I do not know much about him other than the few paragraphs in the book that I had read.  At a very young age Leonardo showed a passion for drawing and comprehension of understanding complex concepts.  This guy was brilliant he whore so many hats such as painter, sculptor, scientist, engineer, inventor, and many others.  He sketched many things that we still use or did not use until todays times.  Leonardo was very criticized in his times and his work was not really appreciated for many years.  He started out slow and I’m sure he did not realize his work would still be studied centuries later.  I found the video particular interesting when it showed how de Vinci created and designed tools for War.  Like the Michelangelo video this video really expanded what was in the book.  The book talked about how he was so good and renowned in so many fields but the video really puts more visuals on this.  I enjoyed watching the video and I feel that I have a decent understanding of how important De Vinci was and why his work is still affecting us today.

The third video that I choose to watch was   El Greco: Rediscovering a Master.  I choose to watch this video because I know nothing about the title and do not understand what it even means.  I learned that in fact El Greco was a painter, and a very famous one at that.  He was a master “self-taught” painter that came from a wealthy family.  At a very young age he had much artistic recognition and lived during the Spanish renaissance. He really lived all over Europe, primarily in Venice, and in Spain.  El Greco existed after Michelangelo’s and other famous artists and wanted his own mark in the art world and history.  He had high political ties and I wonder if this helped him to be more well-known and was easier for him to receive a claim to fame.  The video goes along with the text book.  I did not find this video as informative as the first two videos that I viewed.  It seemed that El Greco copied and really did not come up with any original ideas.  The video talked more about his background than work that he did. 

The last video that I choose to view was The Night Watch (Rembrandt).  I wanted to view this clip because like the other I do not know anything about Rembrandt and what he was famous for.  I am not familiar with the Night Watch and it sounds interesting and I would like to learn more about it.  I learned that the Night Watch is a painting that depicts Frans Banning Cocq’s militia company.  This picture has been stabbed, acid has been throw at it, and soaked with water and it still survived.  The detail and expression that is visible in this piece are what make it famous.  Over 1 million people go to the Museum a year to view this piece.  This video showed the picture that helped to preserve much of the history that was created by the civic militia.  I did see this piece in the book but the history that this video goes into about the piece is not explained in the textbook.  I enjoyed viewing this video because it went into great detail about the history and the thought behind this piece.  This piece just does not show a militia it depicts a major historical time period and famous people from centuries ago.  This video took a paragraph in the book and expanded it to a great understanding.

Week Eight Video Reviews

The first video I chose to watch was The Birth of the Middle Ages.  I was interested in this video because I did not know much about the Middle Ages and I wanted to learn about the artwork from that time.  In all these videos I choose to view I choose the ones in which there topics were not related.  In the first video about the Middle Ages I found it interesting how Taxes were collected and divided up in that time.  In this time everything done on a daily basis was based on religious practices.  I enjoyed that part showing how the people of this time celebrated with their festivals.  There were a lot of celebrations with horses and sword fighting that looked like they would still be fun today.  This time I thought was mostly farming and rural villages but during this time there was populated townships with markets and churches.  This video really does not relate to the textbook.  While the textbook may have some history about the middle ages I learned a lot more about the middle ages from watching the video than reading my textbook.   Our text is mostly about art and things about art movements and periods this video showed everyday life in the Middle Ages.  While this video really didn’t enforce art concepts from class it did give me the understanding of the cause and basis of some of the art works of this time period.  I thought this video was very well informative and a great general overview of the Middle Ages.

I choose to watch the Cairo Museum because I was always interested in Ancient Egypt and the artifacts of the time period.  The stories and history that are behind the works and the artifacts are the most interesting.  If these works of art could talk and tell you about the history that they witnessed it would be incredible.  I learned that much of the history of the time is not yet discovered and the museum is home to so many things that is hard to decide which pieces to display.  The museum is always getting new artifacts from excavations that always occurring.  The videos relate pretty well to the text but the video has more history of the artifacts and the time period.  There is really so much material from the period that makes it hard to organize let alone display.  I enjoyed this video it was interesting to see that the work of this time is overwhelming and very time consuming.  These objects need to be restored and could have been lying in storage for many years.

I watched Greek Art and the Human figure because I am interested in how people make sculptures of Humans.  This process sounds very time consuming and tedious.  The video shows how these works involved a lot of emotions and feelings that I didn’t notice on the sculptures before watching this video.  I learned that the sculptures had to be careful to not crack the mediums that they were using to create the piece.   Out of the videos that I viewed I found that this one was the most related to the textbook.  The explanations that were in the video were almost identical to the ones found in the book.  I thought this video was good but it was a little over my head.  I couldn’t really grasp some of the concepts that were being explained.  I did however enjoy viewing and learned what to notice when looking at a sculpture.

Installation

Installation art is a three dimensional work with the purpose of transforming a viewer’s perception of space. Installation really can involve any media or materials as long as they are three dimensional everyday objects can be involved in installation.  Installation art is created to enhance the appearance of the room.  The installation piece that I found most interesting is on page 257 in the text and is called Red Room by Louise Bourgeois.

I felt a connection with how the red spools in the work above enhanced the look of the room.  I want to explore consumerism in my installation.  I would like to use balloons.  The location will be in a store.

My installation revolves around balloons in a public store.  My basis for the installation was space and proportion. Installation is a very hard form of art to successfully complete.  It looks pretty simple and can really be any and everywhere but it is hard to find the location and materials for a good installation project.  Installations are almost to broad to try to create there is so many different possibilities one can do when creating an installation.

Peer Review

Blogs I reviewed.

http://lmccarthy56.blogspot.com/

http://monicawhite420.blogspot.com/

When reviewing the photo selection in project #1 I agreed with most of the images that the artist listed.  I don’t have an expert perspective on art by any means but they did seem to fit the criteria of the element that the photo was describing. I did see other elements and principals in some of the photos.  I don’t think you can take many photos without representing multiple elements and principals of design.

When reviewing the photos for project two I did find that me and my classmate shared similar views on a piece that was at the Art Gallery.  We both wanted to know more about Zhan Wang's "Urban Landscape Buffalo.”  This work involves stainless steel pots and pans stacked up and is defiantly a sight to see.  The reason we selected these works were for the same reason we just wanted to know the back ground on why the artist created a work like this.

Yes there is images from the galleria that pique my interests now.  Claes Oldenburg, "Soft Manhattan #1 interested me particularly because of the medium that used in creating this piece.  The artist used stones were very creative and I have not seen that type of work done before.  It is unfortunate that I passed over the piece on my visit and will check it out on our next art galleria visit assignment.

I think the peer review process is very helpful when creating art because you can see the work that others with your artist abilities are creating.  The collective critism helps for the next time you work on art with what maybe you need to focus on doing better at.  The process of peer review is valuable because you can use methods and such from your peers the next time you create a piece.

I found my peers comments encouraging as well as helpful.

Sculpture, glass, installation video review

1) In eyes through a sculpture I learned there is a lot more steps to sculpting than just carving a medium.  It is not just about the carving there is a lot of sketching and planning that needs to happen beforehand.  I learned that a stone carving was a very prestigious career.  A sculpture is very rare to have been worked on by just one artist many people work on most projects.  That makes the works better because certain sculptures are better at certain things than other sculptures.

While watching the glass and ceramics video I was festinated by all the functions and uses of ceramics in our modern world.  I also learned there is a lot more to glass blowing than must glass blowing.   Glass works involve a lot of painting and other art to make the glass a work of art.  These craftsmen also paint and sculpt the glass to make a one of a kind piece.  Ceramics have uses in electronics, medical, aerospace, and automotive industries.  I never thought bullet proof glass would involve art forms as well.

Before watching the installation video I was really unsure of what installation was.  After watching the video I realized that it involves many art forms that are unified.  Most of the installation work is modern and involves a lot of video and computer work.  The filming involves art itself from camera angles to lighting it all has to do with the outcome of the piece. Installation also uses a medium that many other art forms do not.

2) The video do not really go along with the book in sequential order but they do reinforce the concepts and ideas that were displayed in the textbook.  The book does not really portray the amount of work that goes into the sculptures but by watching the video you get hands on perspective and realize that it is not easy and the people that call themselves sculptures are very hard workers.  The book does not really show the different parts of glass blowing and about how there is many different step to make a piece out of glass.

3) The videos defiantly helped me to understand the concepts of glass, sculpture, and installation.  I reinforced the concepts in the book with a visual.  The may have been a bit lengthy and a bit over my head at times but the core knowledge was there and just the perspective that these videos had on art is what made me learn from them.