class reflection

1. What were you expectations for this course and where they met?
2. Now that you've been through this course, What is art? How would you define it now compared to your intial posting?
3. Who was your favorite artist in your original posting and who is your favorite visual artist now? If there is a difference, why do you think so? If you have the same favorite artist, why do you think so?

4. Now that you've completed this course, how do you feel about taking an online course? Is your answer the same as it was in your first posting? How is it the same or different?

1. In my first blog, I stated I wanted to learn about art and hopefully crete art. I did learn much about art from the book and video. I also got to create different types of artwork, which was my favorite part of the course.
2.I would describe art the same way I think. Art can be anything. You can make art out of anything, just use your imagination and create art as you want. I learned this by the different project we did throughout the semester and also checking out other people's projects, everyones was all different, yet it was all art in its own way.
3. I didnt have a favorite artist before because I havent really learned about art much before this, but now my favorite visual artist would be Paul Pfieffer. We didnt learn about him through the book, but I saw his exhibit at Albright Knox, In the Zone and it really caught my eye and I remember all the information I read about him and it stuck with me.
4. I stll enjoy taking online courses. You learn at your own pace and do the work on your own time. It did take me a while to get organized and remember when things were due, but there was a pattern and I tried my hardest to follow it, but I did lose some points for turning things in late, which was my own fault. But overall it was a great semester and I enjoyed the course.

art galler visit 3

For this gallery visit, I chose to go to the Burchfeild Penney. They do not allow picture to be taken, but i did explore some self portraits there.

I saw two self portraits there and one at the Alrbight, which I have a picture below. The other two that I dont not have pictures of, I have the information for.

1. Lars Gustaf Sellstedt, Self Portrait, 1899, oil on canvas
2. William John Wilgus, Self Portrait, c. 1837-1842, oil on canvas

Both of these men were important to Buffalo's history so I found them pretty interesting.

3.

Next, I took a photo of myself to use as a reference for my drawing:

Lastly, I tried to draw a self portait of myself. I did a horrible job and made myself look very creepy.

Step #6
Create a reflection journal on your Blog and answer the following questions:
1. Why did you select the inspiration pieces?
I selecte the inspiration pieces at the Burchfeild because they were people who were important to Buffalo's history. They also were very realistic and non abstract  portraits. I chose the one from Albright Knox because it was abstract and I wanted to have different inspirational paintings to be able to have a variety of styles to chose from.
 


2. Why did you select the media to create your self-portrait?
I once drew a self portrait in freshman year of highschool and it turned out pretty good. I wanted to draw myself because I wanted to see if I could still do a good job, which I learned I cant.

3. What challenges did you face in creating your self-portrait and how did you overcome them?
It is very hard to judge how big your face is and how big your features are and where to put the features on the face. If they are the slightest bit off, it will through the whole picture off. I tried a couple times and didntovercome this problem, therefore my drawing looks the way it does.

4. How does this piece represent you?
I did my best to represent myself. I love black and white photos therefore I didnt want to draw in color and I only used a charcoal pencil. It doesnt really look like me , but i tried my hardest to copy the picture of myself. I chose a picture with a silly face because thats my personality, silly and outgoing.

5. What elements and principles of art did you apply in this work?
I used lines for my face and hair. I also used value of blacks and grays to do the shadowing in my face. I also used shape for my eyes.

6. Did you enjoy working on this project?
I enjoyed doing this because it was a challenge. I thought it would be pretty easy, but i was wrong. It was hard to draw my face to match the picture and like I said earlier it was hard to place my features in the right spot. I did enjoy doing it though, as I did most projects this semester.

7. What do you think of your final artwork?
I think my final artwork is pretty funny. It is a bad drawing, but it is amusing and makes me look very creepy!

extra credit

COURSE CONTENT
1. Which assignment did you ENJOY working on the best? Why?
I enjoyed making the mask the best. I thought it was something that I never get to do anymore, being older you never get a chance to be creative and just enjoy doing something simple and fun.

2. Which assignment did you ENJOY working on the least? Why?

I enjoyed the video blogs the least. It was very very time consuming to watch the videos and write a review on each one every week. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it wasnt every week and only once in a while.

 

 

3. How did you like using ANGEL?

I like using angel. I have taken many online courses and courses that use angel so I am very comfortable with it. It is nice to turn thing in online rather than in person and it allows you to do work on your own time.

4. If you had the opportunity to change this course:

What would you keep? I would keep the course discussions because it actually makes you read the book and chapters and think about the content. I would also keep the projects because I liked and enjoyed doing things with paint and drawing and things like that.

What would you remove? I would remove all the gallery visits because it was time consuming as well and hard to fit it in my schedule with school and work. It would have been nice to just go once and get all the information I needed to the first time around. I would also remove some of the video reviews.

What would you add? I would add some more projects because I think it give the student a way to show their creative side.

5. Would you recommend this course to your peers?

I would reccommend it because it was an enjoyable class.

6. Please list any other comments you would like to share.

The only comment I would have is that it is a very demanding course, being a 200 level art elective. It was a lot of work and there was a lot due throughout the week, it was hard to get it all done and remember to turn things in on time, considering there is a 25% late fee. Other than that is was a good semester and I enjoyed learning about art.

art criticism journal

1. Which projects did you review?
I reviewed Karen Hill's Paper or Plastic, Jamie Milligan's All the Small Things, and Dan Collin's The Art of Nature

2. Why did you select the Exhibit you critiqued?
I selected Paper or Plastic because I thought the title was catchy and it was a very different and creative idea.

3. What challenges did you face in writing the critique article and how did you overcome them?
At first I thought it was going to be difficult to write two pages on the exhibit because I wasnt sure if we were critiquing each piece or the exhibit as a whole. I thought that the curator was supposed to analyze and describe each art work so therefore I did it as a whole and was able to make it long enough byt not exceed three pages.

4. How do you feel about critiquing your peers work?
I dont really like to critique other people because I feel bad about saying things that I find that I dont like. I feel like I wouldnt want other students to think bad about my work therefore I dont like to say anything about theres. But, critquing is different because its more opinion and constructive than being destructive.

5. Would you like to read the critique your peers wrote about your Art Curation Project?
I wouldnt like to read a critque on mine.

6. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate your finished article and why?
9 I feel like I included everything that I needed to and I also painted a picture of the exhibit by describing it and if people only read the article without veiwing it, they would be able to picture it in their head.

7. Did you enjoy working on this project?
I did enjoy this project because it gave me a chance to see other students hard work on the big project. I know I put a lot of effort and time into my project so it was nice to see otehrs as well.

video review

Greenberg on Art Criticism: An Interview by T. J. Clark
This video was basically Greenberg speaking about all types of topics. He talked about art criticism and how it is harder to write about art than literature and music because art is mostly abstract now days. He spoke about other art critics such as Ruskin and Degaro. He also spoke about his own writing and the things he liked to write about back in the 1940s. I think this video may be related to our art criticism project depending on the project we pick to critque. This video talked a lot about modern and abstract art.

Greenburg on Pollock
This video was similar to the first video because it was an interview with Greenburg. Instead of discussing art critics, he discussed Jackson Pollock. The first half of the video is bascially about Pollock and easel painting. Pollock didnt want to consider himself an easel painter. He wanted to transition to mural painting, but Greenburg stated he did easel painting til the end. The second half was about his technique and what worked and didnt work. Also about his realization that his work was never considered a painting. This  i dont think really pertained to the project very much because we are not going to be criticizing the life of the curator, just one project.

Introduction to Italian Renaissance
This video was about the Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists. It was the basis of art criticism since the 16th century. Vasari and his apprentice discuss the different artists, from Giotto, Botticelli, daVinci, Donatello, and how they learned from the people before them. This was written about the Italian REnaissance and they discuss in the video about how they used Italian influences in their work. I think this is related to the project because it is a art critics piece so we can see what an art critic really does first hand.

The Critics: Stories from the Inside Pages
This video is basically the likes and dislikes of art critics. It goes through what art critics really do and is opoinions from both sides, the artists and the critics. Critics believe they keep artists on their toes and may give them the break they are looking for but artists believe show they negative aopinions toward them. The video goes in depth about art criticism as an art, its social value, and how reknowned critcs got to be where they are. I think this helpw ith the project because it puts us in the mind set of becoming a critic for the project.

The Colonial Encounter: Views of Non-Western Art and Culture
The title basically explains this video good. It talks about the world fair and how it showed its nationalistic feelings. When it was held in France, half of it was French art. It then goes into colonialism and how it is justified because of the violent tendencies of the african.The video also spent a lot of time on Dahome and art vs. material culture. I didnt really see how this tied into our project because although it was criticising the world fair, it wasnt doing much else related to the project in my opinion.

Jackson Pollock: Michael Fried and T. J. Clark in Conversation
This was a video about the discussion had between T.J Clark and Michael Fried about two of Pollock's works, Autumn Rhythm and Lavendar Mist. They tried to find common ground. Clark believes Pollock was more abstract whilfe Fried believes he was focused on pictoral elements. I thought this one was interesting to watch because it was almost like a debate. It also shows contructive criticism from two people. This helps to show that for the project that criticism is not right or wrong its the way you go about it and it can be different for everyone.

art curator project

When we were assigned this project, I knew right away what my theme was going to have to do with nature. It wasnt until after I started looking for pictures that i decided how to set up the exhibit. As I was looking at the different artists' nature scenes, I liked how the artists had a variety of works. Artists didnt just pick one type of scene. So for the project I decided that I would use to paintings from each artists and they would be opposites of eachother. For example, if one was a winter scene, the other would be a summer scene, if one was a water scene the other would be a land scene etc. I thought this would give variety but also unite the paintings under nature. Instead of all painting being of one thing, i made sure there were opposites.

For my exhibit I hused white backgrounds and black font. This I thought would keep the attention on the painting rather be distracted by other things. I also used a font easy to read so the viewers experience would be as simple as possible. I bolded the artist name and italicized the title of the work. I also moved the painting around on each slide so it would give the exhibit a little variety as well, but not take aways from the works. I found all my painting from the AskArt link in the course resource file in angel, therefore I didnt post the website on each slide. I also used a couple photos of painting that I viewed while at Albright Knox.

I enjoyed doing this project because it gave me all the power and authority to do what I wanted. I could go any way I wanted with my exhibit and I was the creator and could used my imagination.

video blog

This is the second time I had to write this because I pubplished it and it all was erased for some reason. :(

The Lowdown on Lowbrow: West Coast Pop Art
This video was all about the Lowbrow, also known as pop surrealism. The era was influenced by different things in pop culture at the time, such as rock and rool and comic books. The video is basically about interviewing curators and explaining what lowbrow was, how it started and what it meant to the artists and curators. It contained information on how it adapted from surrealism and how women were introduced as well. It also went throught the different phases and artists of the time. I found most interesting was the part about how it was percieved in the music industry through punk rock and how artists used cd and album covers to display their work. It really didnt have much to do with my project though.

George Eastman House: Picture Perfect
THis video I found interesting because I never knew how close George Eastman lived to Buffalo and knowin that the museum is right in Rochester, its only a short drive if I ever wanted to go visit it. The video starts by talking about the house and the contributions the he and Kodak has made to the photography world. It explains how he was the first to invent an affordable camera and how that was like a revolution for the time. I found it most interesting that the video showed the different rooms of the house and how there were pianos in still working condition and everything aftert all these years.I  also hound it interesting that the George Eastman house contains about 5,00 cameras!

Tate Approach
 I thought this video was a good video to watch while having to do project four. Although for the project we do not have to place art on display, it is really interesting to think about how I would actually go about doing this and if I would use the Tate Modern approach for my exhibit.The video starts by talking about the Museum for Modern Art and how the art was displayed in chronological order and by era. It then talks about how the Tate approch was something different and was displayed int themes. I found it most interesting that the 4 themes were history, nude, landscape and still life. I didnt get to finish the movie because it kept freezing at the end.

Bones of Contention: Native American Archaeology
I found this video the most interesting. It was different than the other three videos in that it was more scientific and instead of art such as paintings and photographs, it was artifacts and bones. I can relate it to my project becase my theme is things in its natural habitats. Buried bones and artifacts in a sense are found from their natural habitats andthat is basically what the whole video is about. It was a dillema wheter these bones should be studied or put back and buried with their ancestors. Although there was a lot of controveries, both the natives and scientists have learned a lot from the bones and most bones needed to be studied in order to put back with their right ancestors, therefore in my opinion, it is benefitial to study the remains.