Each week will have a theme or a question that relates to the course content.
Every student will contribute one blog post per week, due by 11:59 pm on the Monday night before class.

Your posts should include images, a short text, and your name.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Visual Texture

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh is a great example of visual/implied texture. You cannot physically touch what's in the picture because it is flat, but it looks like you can.  The small brush strokes in the sky makes it look very rough.  The blue and yellow combined also gives it a 3D effect. It creates an illusion and does not try to depict the texture of the sky itself. It tricks your mind into believe that there is something you can touch.

Vivid Mountains

This is a very colorful water color painting of mountains and a sunrise or set. It uses conour lines to make the mountains and creat implied space by the way that the mountains overlap eachother. it is very abstract in the sense that it plays with the colors of the mountains and in the sky. it also shows atmospheric pressure because the mountains in the background have a lot less bright colors than the mountains in the front of the picture.

Actual Texture

This is a acrylic painting by Carol Nelson. This is a good representation of actual texture because the edges of the flowers and other parts of the leaves are raised. If you were to run your hand along the surface of the painting, you would actually be able to feel the raised parts of it. The raised edges of the petals make the flowers look more 3D and look like they are popping out of the painting. I also thought it was really beautiful!

-Leah

Pattern

In this artwork, the formal element of pattern is used.  In the image you can see a repeated motif/ design that is used.  You can depict a repetition of lines and color.  In this piece, there is a use of a turquoise background and a white curved design.  You can say that the image shows symmetry because the repeated design shows a reflected image both horizontally and vertically.

-Dana-Lynn

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

John Marchetti

This painting is done by Jean Baptiste and its called "The Solitude". This piece has implied texture in it. The trees all the way on the left could like you can stick your hand out and touch them.  It also plays with the element of space. The grass at the bottom of this painting and of the woman leaning on the tree is the foreground. The middle ground is the water and the background is the clouds. It also has linear perspective,  which is in the middle of the picture where the water meets the clouds. Also, the foreground, middle ground, and background seem to overlap each other, making the tree in the middle stand out.
- John Marchetti

Texture and Perspective

This is a painting done by my father. I has one point linear perspective, but unlike most paintings the horizon line seems to be at the bottom of the canvas. it has atmospheric perspective, the flowers get smaller and grow out of focus to create a distance. it has impasto texture, the paint is thick enough to create an actual texture.

Texture

This painting is a piece that represents the formal element of texture.  Since it is an impasto painting, meaning it is made using thick oil paint, the brush lines left behind give the painting an actual texture.  Certain brush lines are physically raised up which gives the piece a bumpy feeling when physically touched.  The artist of this piece used this texture to show that the elements of the piece have texture in real life.  The raised brush strokes are placed in a specific manner to give an extra dimension to the trees, clouds, and hillside which gives the viewer a sense that this could actually be a full 3 dimensional work and not a 2 dimensional one.

Atmospheric Perspective

This picture from devianart shows a good example of atmospheric perspective.  As the figures in the background recede, the air quality gets less pure and the images looked blurred and fuzzy.  Also, the images look angled in to the horizon line which vanishes in the distance, so I believe the artist was trying to go for a bit of linear perspective too. This is very detailed and the only way to enjoy this art is to blow it up large and look at it.

AnnMarie Pollock

This piece of art is an example of foreshortening drawn by Laura McGhee. It is foreshortening because it looks like there is depth in the drawing and a difference in how close the girl appears. It looks like her finger touching the bug is very close to the viewer, yet you can tell she is laying down with her body layer out behind her.
-Rose Migliara
This is a poster of Big Ben by Roy Avis. The artist uses linear perspective very well. The horizon line is just about where the water meets the land, this is where all the buildings become apparent. And as you can see, the vanishing point is right next to tall tower. The buildings and bridge all go back to this one vanishing point, making the viewer naturally focus on the main purpose of this painting: Big Ben. The artist most likely used this technique on purpose to draw eyes to the focus and show space at the same time.

--Alexis Swoyer

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Chop!


This work of art demonstrates foreshadowing in both the butchers arms.  The first arm looks as though it is coming at the viewer and off the page, and the second arm looks as though it is behind the body of the butcher.  The way his arms are placed and the awesome use of foreshadowing used here gives a great idea of space as well.  The eye continuously moves from the “front” of the paper to the “back” of the paper. 
Emily

Foreshortening

This iconic American poster is a great example of foreshortening.  Uncle Sam's hand pointing at us and arm approaching us, gives us the illusion that they are truly extending, although on a 2D surface.  James Montgomery Flagg based his drawing on the Lord Kitchener recruitment poster used by the British in WWII as well.

Implied Space



In this watercolor painting by Margaret Hamlin, there is evidence of implied space by the way the trees are set in the foreground, middleground, and background. In the foreground, the white trees appear to be closer because they are bigger. The trees behind them, in the middleground, appear to be farther away because they are smaller. In the background, there is atmospheric perspective because the trees are barely identifiable and resemble little sticks rather than trees. There is also pattern in this piece in the swirls in what appears to be the yellow sky. Complementary colors are used (red and green) as well.

Atmospheric Perspective

This piece of art is done called The Passage is done by an artist by the name of Natasha Lotona. This particular piece of hers is done with charcoal and shows great depth of atmospheric perspective. The fogginess of the trees as they go back into the background really gives the illusion that the drawing goes beyond the paper. In this case there is also fogginess towards the foreground of the picture which gives the idea that the scene goes  further forward as well as backwards.

Implied Lines

         In this image of flowers, leaves, and a butterfly; one can also see a woman's face. This is because of the implied lines the artist put in it. The two leaves on the top create her eyebrow and eye, the butterfly is her nose, and the flower is her lips. The negative space emphasizes the face, and makes you do a double take because at first it only looks like a face.

-Hanzala Jamil

Monday, February 13, 2012

Lines

This is a sketch of a fist. It uses contour lines and implied lines to form the fist and to show the detail between the fingers. It also uses the lines to show the creases in the hand helping the sketch to appear to have depth as well.

Waterfall

This work by MC Escher shows how lines can play with your mind. The way they are arranged gives an illusion and you can't tell where the waterfall begins and ends. The pillars in the picture are vertical while the flow of the waterfall is horizontal. There also many geometric shapes in this image which give it depth and show space.

Lines: M.C. Escher

This was a lithograph by M.C. Escher without a title in 1956. There are lines everywhere in this work. There are directional lines that make a viewer follow the work in a certain way. There are lines that are the edges to shapes. There are lines used to make some geometric shapes, such as circles, squares, etc. There are also actual likes that make the buildings, parts of the ship, etc.
-Tara


This picture is an optical illusion. It plays with the element of negative space so that the image may be perceived as more than one image. The artist makes use of contour lines to express his images and shapes.

"Good Dog!"

The drawing i chose is actually three drawings in one.  This shows the process of the work of art using lines. You can easily see the dog's facial proportions according the artist and how he/she completed the contour drawing.  The dog's fur looks extremely realistic because of the use of lines. Then, the artist added texture to the dogs face with cross hatching. Overall, I enjoyed viewing this piece of art because I have very little artistic ability. I am not very good at looking at a final piece of art and determining how it came about. Yet, this artwork allowed me to understand the process of how it came about.

Lines

Lines are vital to any painting, especially one of a city night. This pictures uses lines to recreate a busy night in New York City, not only are the lines used to create buildings and bridges but also the lights on in each of the buildings to give it the busy night effect. The buildings are 3 dimensional along with the bridge and are reflected perfectly in the water. The picture is not a complex one of N.Y. but its use of lines is great.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

The Magic of Lines

I chose this picture to show an example of how lines can be used. The lines in the wheel bring your focus to the center of the photo. It simply draws you into the bike. The outer rims of the wheels are the contour lines. They are completely circular and the pole connecting both of them is an example of a curved line. The darkness of the shading allows you to see this picture in 3 dimensions. I though that this work of art was simple yet very interesting.
-Michelle Ketcham

Contour Lines

cross contour line drawings This drawing by Tornwing is an exceptional demonstration of use of lines. This entire drawing is made of contour lines of different thickness, darkness, and shape that creates a beautiful drawing when put together. The fact that there is nothing else besides lines put together in this drawing is very interesting because there is no color or anything to make the drawing stand out, yet it is still very good. The lines on the shoes especially give a certain look to them because they are not touching and there is white in between all of them. This gives an interesting look that shows a certain originality that i believe the artist was searching for when they created this drawing. And the fact that the drawing is of a pair of converses I feel as though it helps the viewer relate to the drawing which is a bonus.

Lines, lines, and more lines

The artist Heike Weber displays the use, and power of lines in her installation artwork. by using a permanent marker she draws all over a plain room, covering it from floor to ceiling. In this piece, titled "Utopia" she has used only contour lines to create an awe-inspiring piece of art. This example displays the importance of line and how it can be used to really define a piece. 

Focus on Line: Woman with a Parasol

Woman with a Parasol is an oil painting by Claude Monet.
Monet used contour lines in the distinct geometric shape of a  large triangle in painting the woman (his wife) and a smaller triangle in the image of his son. The parasol's underside is also made up of triangles in a circular fashion. These lines are darker for the shadowing effect. The contour lines of her dress are dark, drawn diagonally to show the shadowing of the parasol from the sun overhead. Short vertical lines make up the grassy area below her. The soft, cool colors used for the clothing of the woman blends with the negative space of the sky behind her. There is an additional patch of yellow on the arm of the woman, also in the shape of a triangle.

Eileen

Lines, Lines and More Lines

This painting is created by Piet Mondrian, who utilizes lines and shapes in all of his abstract pieces. This painting is made up of nothing but parallel lines from horizontal and vertical to make all of the shapes, squares and rectangles. A majority of the shapes are created using the negative space, or the white background. Only six of the shapes are filled with primary colors. But the bottom shapes, (the three blue rectangles and the small red rectangle to the bottom right corner) have two edges on each side of the shapes, since these shapes are created only by the paint itself.