Task 2 - Practical excercises and Essays
The first exercise was to analyze a peice of work from the Abstract Expressionism art movement, this was an interesting a fun task as I got to look at this movement more thoroughly, and I feel I was able to eloquently communicate my opinions and observations quickly and precisely. I love doing research and looking at the movements that contribute to our societies opinions and theories surrounding art and artistic expression. I feel that I analysed and researched thoroughly, even if the final write ups skip a lot of facts that may be considered fundamental in these essays, I believe that with the help of my tutor, my focus was on the right and most essential facts, that my essays and research are to the point, while there is a lot I could still add, I feel that the essays as they are now are perfectly adequate. I learned a few things while researching that definitely helped me research certain artists and pieces from those movements and eras.
Practical Excercise 2
The goal of this task was to succesfully combine two images to make a new one, to do this I used the quick selection tools, the masking tool and the eraser tool, also the layers palette and transparency settings to combine two images together, I first created masks from either image, and then pasted said layer masks into another photoshop document and then combined them using positioning techniques, the eraser tool, the layers palette and the layer transparency settings.
At first I thought about combining images of objects to make a new one, but then I thought it would be easier and much more fun to combine different types of animals, or an object with an animal, so that's what I did, I chose a lynx (wild cat) for the first image, and a deer for the second, on the second attempt at this excercise I took an image of a wolf and combined it with an image of a motorbike.
I had a lot of fun doing these, the inspiration for this excercise comes from the surrealist game called Exquisite Corpse, despite it's nonsensical title, it is nothing too morbid, you would draw one image on a peice of paper, fold it over, pass it to another person, and so on and so fourth until the page was completely used up or covered. The ending image was then examined and admired.
At first I thought about combining images of objects to make a new one, but then I thought it would be easier and much more fun to combine different types of animals, or an object with an animal, so that's what I did, I chose a lynx (wild cat) for the first image, and a deer for the second, on the second attempt at this excercise I took an image of a wolf and combined it with an image of a motorbike.
I had a lot of fun doing these, the inspiration for this excercise comes from the surrealist game called Exquisite Corpse, despite it's nonsensical title, it is nothing too morbid, you would draw one image on a peice of paper, fold it over, pass it to another person, and so on and so fourth until the page was completely used up or covered. The ending image was then examined and admired.
Practical exercise 3
I thought this excercise was quite fun to do, it was interesting how such a random combination of words could work so well together. I think that, going on the random material I had collected and the images, words, sentences and fonts I used, the cover would be suitable for a goth-rock band, the contrasting black and white fonts and the piercing gaze of the owl give it a creepy, macabre and unsettling look. The "band name" is the text in black, and the album name is the text in white, the black text is a type of butterfly species, and the white text is a quote from a book I think. I think the image is from Flickr or a similar site.
Collage Journal And Essays
These tasks included creating a collage made of used objects, writing an essay on that and also writing an essay researching an Abstract Expressionist career and effect of their work on the public and artistic politics at that specific time.
I had a bit of trouble with the collage, as I didn't feel that the objects I chose were particularly interesting, but what struck me about this way of making art/technique, was that it features a level of artistic honesty which is raw, unglamorous and most of all, real. This techinique wasn't about aesthetics, it was about showing to truth of an artists poverty and giving others a window into your life through analysis of your work and showing what things are prominent objects or features in your culture. I would've preferred to do this manually using a paint board or canvas of some kind, however, due to my lack of artists supplies and glue etc, I decided to do it digitally. I feel that I could've been more creative with this task but I struggled to find ways to make such mundane and casual objects interesting or organise them in a way that looked aesthetically pleasing.
When it came to the Yves Tanguy essay, I had a little bit of trouble finding facts to flesh out/fill the essay with, but I despite this barrier, I feel I did a really good job at cutting through the facts and making sure I included facts and research that were consistent and helpful to the person reading. I chose Yves Tanguy for my essay/research because he is a lesser known Abstract Artist, and writing about Salvador Dali is very overdone and obvious. I also wanted to do an artist that I knew nothing about, so that I would learn more throughout the process of writing my essay and doing research on said artist. I am satisfied with my research and hopefully the person analysing and evaluating my work will learn something knew as well.
I had a bit of trouble with the collage, as I didn't feel that the objects I chose were particularly interesting, but what struck me about this way of making art/technique, was that it features a level of artistic honesty which is raw, unglamorous and most of all, real. This techinique wasn't about aesthetics, it was about showing to truth of an artists poverty and giving others a window into your life through analysis of your work and showing what things are prominent objects or features in your culture. I would've preferred to do this manually using a paint board or canvas of some kind, however, due to my lack of artists supplies and glue etc, I decided to do it digitally. I feel that I could've been more creative with this task but I struggled to find ways to make such mundane and casual objects interesting or organise them in a way that looked aesthetically pleasing.
When it came to the Yves Tanguy essay, I had a little bit of trouble finding facts to flesh out/fill the essay with, but I despite this barrier, I feel I did a really good job at cutting through the facts and making sure I included facts and research that were consistent and helpful to the person reading. I chose Yves Tanguy for my essay/research because he is a lesser known Abstract Artist, and writing about Salvador Dali is very overdone and obvious. I also wanted to do an artist that I knew nothing about, so that I would learn more throughout the process of writing my essay and doing research on said artist. I am satisfied with my research and hopefully the person analysing and evaluating my work will learn something knew as well.