Poster Artists

I love looking at old postcards and posters from countries around the world. The artists (usually anonymous) are quite talented. Anyway, I recently came across Maopost.com which features propaganda posters from China. Propaganda posters (in any culture) were generally a cheap way of reaching a large population, promoting a strong political message.


"Liberate Taiwan". printed in 1977
Taiwan has inspired many a propaganda poster in China. Two main themes are evident: Protection of the coasts and re-conquest of the island.

I'm not so political, but I think these posters can be interesting windows into a culture. Most cultures have them, including the U.S. (look for war posters). The funny thing about this website is that if you send them a photo and some money, they'll have your face photoshopped into a poster and actually painted on canvas by someone in China. Kinda funny and weird too.

-cr

Edward C. Curtis

I went to Edward C. Curtis' photo exhibition of American Indians. The pictures were scarily detailed, especially on things like hair and skin texture; they were much like layered charcoal drawings. Curtis even, after developing his photos on gelatin sheets, developed them on gold and silver, producing bursting images. I took a picture with "Chief Joseph" but the picture won't load on my comp. I'm gonna hunt down Shu.

Afterwards, I went to see the Taiwanese Aboriginals exhibition and found my grandfather's tribe. Yay! They're almost extinct though. Out of the tribes in Taiwan, the Tsou tribe is the fiercest and kinda the weirdest too; they chopped off people's heads and loved revenge (sounds like me) and had a thing for mundane colors and simple tattoos. One of the aboriginals looked like my dad and I my brother insisted that it was him.

I wonder if I should dress as Pocohontas on Halloween.

Hiya hiya yippee yi yi yi
yipee yi yi yi hi yi
ho!

American History X- Filming

Im really interested in filming and the other day we had an assignment with finding an academy award winning film director, I chose Sydney Pollack and i analyzed The Talented Mr. Ripley which was a movie of his I really liked. Well this weekend I was watching American History X and I realized I was kind of analyzing it as I watched it (if you havent seen it I would cause its really good) and i realized some interesting filming techniques i never noticed before or that i noticed but never really thought of. For example when Edward Norton thinks back things turn black and white but somewhere while he's thinking back it just becomes color except its done so well that i dont even really notice the transaction till its already back to the present in the movie. I dont know i just thought it was really interesting how the movie was filmed and how that really added to the impact of it.

different medium?

I was bored and i came upon this on youtube... i thought it was interesting and kind of related to our last homework assignment(the different mediums)... I hope this "amazes you"... Its basically a guy "drawing" with Microsoft word... he uses "x" and "o" to fill up the page and make an image

Heres the link
if you dont see the picture, i could show you in school. its supposedly a face... the black parts would be the shadow... and the white part would be where the light is coming from.

I recommend letting it load and skipping to the end for the final product.. its not very interesting watching a guy type rows and rows of words XD

Jeremy Scott

While I was randomly surfing through the net, I accidentally came upon a really inspirational designer. I really love the bright colors and comical images he uses on his fashion. His collections feature some really "wild" things, from junk food to guitars, armed Care Bears to mummies. Anyway, for more info go visit Jeremy Scott.

PS: For all you candy lovers out there, I would like to ask for a favor! From now on, when you eat candy can you please save the wrapper and give it to me (except for the ones that are sticky of course)? Anything will do, I plan to use them on my next project, THANK YOU!

street painting # 2 and more...

On my other post i found that the artists name is Julian Beever. I found him on another webiste i was searching for psychology.

Anway i found more cool illusions becuase I thought i would link to other peoples posts. The pics on this site are so cool. This car is infact a red car painted onto a black van. Its really weird. Good website for illusions too, take a look:

http://www.optical-illusion-pictures.com/art.html

3D Street Paintings

I think Mr Reyes showed some pictures like this to us not long ago. These are some really cool pictures I found while searching google images. They are done by a man ( I dont know his name unfortunatly) with chalk I think, on the streets pavement. They look so 3D and as if you can just dive into them. I particualry like the optical illusion 2, called summer time. http://www.sudokuz.eu/illusion/illusionen.php is the website, there are a few pics on there, not all on pavement either.

interesting artcutecture

This picture is of a building designed in france around 1685 ish. That man who invented it at the time simon vollant, planned out this whole town. I think this building looks really cool. Most of his plans weren't normally like this they said that his was one of the first times he did something like this. I think its really interesting.

oh anf this one is one in london its a city hall there. its really cool. and it looks really funny. this is a picture of the outside of the building, and then the following one is of the inside. Its kind of cool to imagine walking around stairs like that.

Word could be illusioned too!

what do you see....? Do you see the face of a man? Or do you see the word "Liar"

After i had fun with optical illusion paintings... i started to realize that not only painting could have that effect, but also words too. Simply just a word could have the same effect, but words are easier to recognize. I realize that it's all about the way we perceive the painting. If we concentrate on it, we won't see it.. For example this ....

Do you see alot of blury black spots? Or do you see the word "lift"?... I realized that when we examine a picture, different effects are influenced due to our personal mood. If we concentrate hard on it, we see black blury spots. However, if we sit back and relax, and see the whole picture, we would notice the word. It is all about your perspective on the picture that sends out the effect of optical illusion. I realized that this goes the same for all paintings, and artworks. Any painting could be percepted in different perspectives because everybody has a different perspective. This is interesting because ... the same painting, could mean different messages to everybody. Therefore, i think that optical illusions whether in painting, or word form are both a way of testing our observation skills and determines our skill of observing different perspectives.

Tricky Tricky

What do you see?



Here is a test your sense of observation! I can only have 9 faces.. have a go at it:)



... I think art that makes you think is so cool! Optical illusions are one of the hardest type of art that could be made. I dont even know how anyone could think of how to make this..

Here is an artist that explores the style of optical illusion.
He is Rob Gonsalves... THe most interesting thing about this artist is that all of his art are optical illusions, however they are obvious. I examined all of this paintings and realized that his paintings are usually separated into two scenes, and it is the connection that makes the paintings illusioned. It all depends on the perspectives that you view the painting



this for example... if you look from the top, you would see ships in a sea... waves...and a beach. However, if you look from the bottom perspective, you see a person in a desert, and a sky full of seagulls and flying ships. So which is it?


same thing.. if you look from the top.. you see a waterfall.. if you look from the bottom, you see alot of weird people in white searching for something..
I think Rob Gonsalves mastered the techniques of opticall illusions for painting. The way that two very diverse scenes could be connected is in need of high level of skills and techniques. Therefore i think that artists that are able to express their art through optical illusions is fun for the artist and for the viewers.




If you want to see more of Rob's paintings... press this link
http://www.hrosecure.com/firstclass/store08/page14.html

If YOU want to see more of other fun and cool optical illusions.. press this link
http://www.frogview.com/show2.php?file=1190

about the return

i thought id show you guys these two pictures, because yuka showed me a picture of Ivan from the return the other day. I thought it was really neat so i went and looked for more, its interesting because you can see how his mood throughout the entire movie with just these two pictures. which is what were doing now, i know caputring things in just a couple of images that have a greater meaning or a kind of story. I thought these two pictures were sort of funny too, but it is sad that throughout the entire film he was never really happy. Its also really neat that peoples expressions give off so much about them. By just looking at these pictures of him you can tell he's not agreeable or that he will go with the flow. In the first picture you can tell how subborn he is, becasuse you can see his father to the right and there staring each other down. He was very persistant though, if i were him i would have given in because when your out in the wild with only two people you know for gazillions of miles it would proably be alot easier to give in, and go along with everything. i think that if someone had never seen this movie and they just looked at one of these pictures that could maybe decribe to you ivans characher, or what his mood was like throughout the film. (anyway this is kind of my test blog i hope it works!)

Photography

At the moment I'm into photography, and I was on mypace (again) and found that my friend made a webiste of her shots

Shes very good at it too. Her name is Lucy, and she took most of the photos on a school trip to Thailand last year.

There are alot of tree shots etc, but there are some really interesting pics on there, thought people might want to take a look, if so her site is :

http://www.yourmyteaparty.blogspot.com/

What is with all this food?

Guys... the food topics are making me really mad because I gained three kilograms. But anyway, I talked to Ev some time ago about one day when she's rich and famous from designing graphic Tees. And I'm obsessed with Rupert Grint. So bang! the two topics became one. Just showing Ev some boyish stuff because she's never talked about designing boy clothes.

Of course, makeup is also an art. If that isn't convincing to Shu or Jeff, then check out the body art way down below.










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Jason Kronenwald

CANADIAN ARTISTT * (YAY FOR CANADA..FROM TORONTO too SU!)

Produces ART without paint
100% gum, every inch of it!

No paint or dye is used: all colour mixing takes place behind closed mouths and the only tools needed for the application of the medium, other than a Swiss Army knife and a plastic roller, are fingers and thumbs. The final product is sealed in epoxy resin. Gum Blondes is the name of his series which includes Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Brigitte Bardot. From bubble gum pop to bubble gum pop culture. Kronenwald has a dedicated team of chewers (kids from a local karate centre) and prefers the texture of Trident. *(HAHA I thought this was hilarious) however, he does not chew gum himself unless he must.

Hmm...kind of interesting, and definately creative. Just thought I'd post this since the food art discussion is still going on. These works challenge the nature and purpose of their materials and present both technical and conceptual versatility.

BTW, to check out the Jason's "GUM BLONDE GALLERY" visit: http://www.gumblondes.com/main.html

-karen

Noguchi!!!

Some of you know I love Isamu Noguchi's work. He's not alive anymore (moment of silence please....ok), but we can still enjoy his work. The first image is a sculpture that exists in the Met, the other two are models of playgrounds that never got made.

Myong Ho Lee

This young South Korean artist does kind of a magic trick: it's simple, it's engaging, and it makes you wonder how he did it.





Find more of his work at this site:
"Myoung Ho Lee, a young artist from South Korea, has produced an elaborate series of photographs that pose some unusual questions about representation, reality, art, environment and seeing.

Simple in concept, complex in execution, he makes us look at a tree in its natural surroundings, but separates the tree artificially from nature by presenting it on an immense white ground, as one would see a painting or photograph on a billboard."

Fashion Designer

When I was still in Australia I used to go shopping at this really nice dress shop. I was looking at the brands on the tags, on a dress that I liked and saw the deisgners name- her brand is called Knight Cat (her name is Cat Knight). Anyway i found her on Myspace, and she has stuff all about her brand and being an independent deisgner. Shes only in Australia at the moment but hopes to branch out and sell all over the world. But she doesn't just design her dresses she also makes them, by hand. So there are only about 3 made, unless she gets speacial orders. So her dresses are unique, and really cool becuase they are different from other dresses around Melbourne, they are nice and simple. She uses bright fabrics, and materials of all different textures. Though they can be expensive, I still like them :) so heres the link to her myspace, which is just about her dresses. You can probably only view her myspace if you have your own account, but there are some pics here anyway. (Cat is the girl in the photos)

MySpace URL:
http://www.myspace.com/knightcatdesigns

Rollercoaster

I really like architecture because they are so beautiful and interesting. However, today, I’d like to introduce a rollercoaster to you guys(I think they are quite related). I assume that a lot of you already know this famous rollercoaster. It is the fastest and the longest one in the whole universe. It is called”Kinda Ka” which is in “Six Flags Great Adventure” in the states. This Thing can speed up to 0-128mph in 3.5 sec!!!In addition it only takes 50 sec per ride. Anyways, the max height of this rollercoaster is 456ft. Look at the freaky design of the rollercoaster.The color is so beautiful. It falls in 90 degrees. It is different from other designes of RC,it's simple but fierce!Do you guys dare to get a ride? Ahahahaha~ KINDA KA ←click★

Tortilla Heaven

I'm not sure if this has ANYTHING to do with art but after reading Karen's post about the potato that looks like a bird(personally I think it looks more like a slug) I had to share this. I found this trailer for a movie about how one guy makes a tortilla and jesus' face appears in burn marks. The plot seems about how he exploits his "small miracle" by charging people to see it and with merchandise. However comical the movie may sound, it seems like it does touch upon some serious issues. Heres the trailer.

UH OH, another blog about food!

First, I'd like to show a picture designed through adobe photoshop that I randomly came across while looking for food art..haha and this is to all the fans of graphic designing..(ahem*Shu and Jess) It really caught my eye because this design has alot of things and has no focus, which could easily distract the viewer or create a messy look. But the visual presentation was don well, and it looks very completed and "right" I love it because it includes famous "artworks" around the world, including architechures such as the colloseum in Rome, the leaning tower of Pisaa, or simply just a kangaroo, which is a symbol for Australia. Click: http://www.notcot.com/images/aroundtheworld.jpg to see a clearer picture

Also, In response to Jeff's post on making art with french fries, I found a similar video of some guy who decided one day to make a portrait of Marilyn Monroe out of Cucumbers. It's very exquisite because he has to cuts the sizes of cucumbers with a knife personally. It's very cool, hope you guys likee it!

CUCUMBER ART

"A SWEET POTATOE MIRACLE"

Also since people have been blogging about assembling food to make art, I thought maybe I'd post something opposite, such as this bird, which is an artwork of food. It's actually pretty funny, because the artist who made this did not intentionally try to make a potato bird. Here is the actual story (artist's own words) :

"Last night I was making my new favorite recipe, sweet potato quesadillas, when as I was peeling I realized that the sweet potato i was peeling looked just like a bird. Well, I realized right away that it was an important sign maybe even a minor miracle, because I was suppose to be finishing the project I was going to show my art kids the next day, and I kind of side-tracked with a hungry desire for sweet potatos.

This story makes me think that one cannot escape the fate of creating art at any given moment, HAHA and it's pretty true, all around us, art is happening.

Anyways, that's alll I wanted to share..OKay, sorry about this food fetish everyone is catching..haha....But hey! food IS so interesting to use to create art. materials+ideas+skills= good art right? haha well food is a very unique material, with the only downside that it can attract unwanted spectators (insects) and it's difficult to preserve and keep for memories.

-karen

Okay there seems to be a lot of food related things going on here and it made me think of this advertisement my mother showed me. The advertisers used the food and created clever images that are set up to draw people in to them whereas usually you wouldnt spend all the time in the world staring everyday things like watermelon or cheese. This italian advertisement did everything that i think an image of any kind should do, which is draw the viewer in. This is true not only in the visual form of art but also literary arts where the writer needs to catch the readers attention.
I tried to upload the pictures on here but there seems to be some sort of error so i looked around and at the link bellow you can see some of their ads:
http://ladykilling.blogbus.com/logs/10284840.html

candy wrapper dress

This is a dress I found on the internet. By a girl call Carlie Barrett whos a senior. Its made of candy wrappers, which I thought was kinda cool and different. Carlie was looking at candy bars in a magazine, saying which she liked and didnt like the look of. She realised that thats the way others can look at women, judging from the outside. So she decided to do a project with a candy wrapper dress, choosing bright designs for happy woman to wear etc. Anyway heres the site if you want to read more :

http://www.mytruespace.org/who.htm

Creature of the Week

A couple years ago I find a website that was used by artists to basically communicate and help each other out. The site mainly focuses on digital concept art, this form of art is mainly done on a computer through programs such as photoshop or painter with the help of a tablet or something. Concept art is not really anything special in terms of being a whole new form of art. It is really just a term to describe how the art is meant to be used as a template of characters/mood/environment for future production. This website allows developing artist to bring their skills up both as painter and as a thinker of concepts. I found this really interesting thread in the forum named Creature of the Week. Basically every week, a topic for a conceptual "creature" is chosen and announced to the public. The artists then proceed to paint and illustrate what they interpret the topic as. The results are amazing, both visually and thoughtfully.

The topic for the piece above is "The Secret of the Bermuda Triangle." Click the image, the description makes you really understand why it looks the way it does. There have been tons of topics over the years, from "Iceberg Devourer" to "Pinkish Peaceful Treehugger," if you can imagine what those look like.
Heres the Link: Creature of the Week
Theres threads for: Character of the Week and Environment of the Week

Food-related Jewelry

Recently, there has been this new trend in where people wear food as accessories. Well, not real food of course. I've spotted a couple of icecream and donut keychains on magazines, so I decided to look it up. Instead I found this wonderful site where they sell handmade food accessories, jewelry, and buttons! They are extremely creative and look really yummy. It's making me really want to make my own! Does anybody know how I can do that? Like..aren't there people in Japan who make food displays out of gel-like things? Anyhow, you can check it out here if you want : )

Portraits again

Hm... Here is the guy that drew the portraits out of ketchup chocolate and the grey markers. He talks about how the brain uses symbology when we're drawing. Basically like i said early this is what makes us make up stuff when were drawing, so draw from observation! Most importantly, hes analysizing drawing in a scientific point of view, he teaches you what your brain is doing and such... It takes a little while for him to start teaching the "drawing" and i dont think he has made any videos of him actually teaching us how to draw.. but his videos so far make good points about the mistakes people make when drawing. I look forward for his next videos
... heres the video :)
I think its worth it to check it out if you have time... though there are 3 videos T.T haha

HAIR ART

hello
this was on the news paper last week
i just thought its interesting and a little disgusting haha
but its fun to look at how some artist create things that are so unique !?

...artist Wenda Gu's latest installation provokes aren't because of its size, but its contents: 420 pounds of human hair. A viewer's first impulses are to lean forward and scrutinize the swirling, flattened locks; stealthily sniff (it doesn't smell); and fight the urge to touch it — and perhaps quickly recoil.

Hair for the 80-foot-by-13-foot banner was collected over several months last year from 42,000 haircuts of Dartmouth students, faculty, staff and local residents in Hanover. It was shipped to China, where workers in Gu's Shanghai studio dyed and shaped the locks into paper-thin panels held together by a film of Elmer's glue and tied together with twine. It and a second work, ''united nations: united colors,'' displayed in another part of the library are the latest installations in Gu's worldwide ''united nations'' project, begun in 1993 and all made from human hair.

The Return was all about the messages sent to us the viewers. The way I see it every image sends a message. True that some messages are more profound or meaningful than others, but that doesnt mean that the trivial messages dont count. The image above really caught my eye because of its bright colours but looking at the image you can see that its not H2O but H1/2O and under, I dont know if its big enough to read but it says that "In the last 30 years, the world's water supply has halved" The message this image sends is that we need to start taking more responsibility and stop wasting resources such as water. Currently in the world, issues such as global warming or saving resources or rain forests have become increasingly popular and have gained more awareness. I see that as an obviously good thing, but i dont think that people are really hearing it. I know we see or hear things like the image above all the time, but I dont think we really process them because in the end we're still pretty wasteful. I feel people dont really get the magnitude of the threat that not taking care of our plant poses. But i do believe that in the future people will find a way or change in order to survive

My Project!!

Hey guys! I bought an iMac so I tested out iMovies and there ya go! It's my project... instead of doing only one canvass, I did four (in the film there's only three because I forgot to take pictures of the last one) so it's more like photographs. I lied, Karen... I'm not almost finished. I just enjoy scaring you.

The little blonde boy is my friend, he loved water. He did daring stuff. He was skinny and tall and had two twin brothers and a sister and two very liberal parents. When he smiled he looked like a whale. He liked strawberry jam with rice. He has a sad story.

In The Return, we kept seeing snapshots and photos, and the two boys were keeping a diary. They also spent a lot of time around water (the lake, rain... etc.). So I'm "documenting" a story about my little blonde friend through a series of paintings that represent photographs. Sad thing is, I browsed through my diaries and photo albums and I only found a few entries and no shots of him. So, I had to dig through my mind searching for the truth.

Enjoy~

mere existence

Oldest Painting looks kinda Modern...

Hot off the press, I saw this story in yahoo news: Syria Painting discovered.