Monday, November 23rd Workshop

Today's workshop involved a lot of stuff. It was very productive. Lizy went to the computer to test out fonts for the front. I went over to the computer she was on and watched her. Then I toyed with what she had and the result was something that the group really liked. It's what the group chose as the final one. I was pretty proud of that.
A few other girls chose color schemes for the pages. I didn't take much part in that because my opinions would have conflicted a lot, but I wasnt unsatisfied with what they did.
Juliana was trying to set up her spread with the window shopping thing. I hopped over to her and helped her make some decisions, but i pretty much just watched her.
So today was a productive day and everyone was doing a lot of different things. I cant wait to see how everything comes together.

Last week's regular art post.

Last week was hectic. I wish I had more time to make the movie for my college apps. I just had a lot going on. It hasn't been the best past few weeks for me. But regaurdless, I still want to make the movie before this year is over. Soon, preferably. I still have to cast it. But I'm thinking Alex and Doug. Or maybe Alex and Zach? I don't know yet, but i'll figure it out.

Friday, November 20th Workshop

Today's workshop was productive. Catherine brought in samples of the ideas we chose on Tuesday on "mock" magazine pages. It was helpful to see it all lain out. We revised some of our decisions and made new ones. I specifically designed some ideas for the fashion spread that Dina wanted. We didn't have time to present them, but i showed them to Catherine and she said she liked them. I didn't feel like this workshop was super productive. It was just a lot of "go off and get some ideas and bring them back" as opposed to "go off, make ideas, share them, revise them, and make more." But i still got stuff done and made things I'm somewhat proud/content with. Or happily discontented? Haha.

Magazine Workshop- Tuesday, Nov. 17th.

In today's workshop, we created possible designs for the table of contents of the magazine and designs for the inside of the magazine (design ideas that could be common throughout the whole magazine to tie everything together). The group was divided in two and we each worked on these aspects of the magazine. I worked on the designs for the inside of the magazine. I came up with two ideas and people seemed to like the concept I came up with in one of them. After sharing both groups' work, we started to look for ways to incorporate all the ideas we liked together into one coherent design for the table of contents and the inside of the magazine. I learned that in order to make good ideas, you need a lot of them. And i kind of related it to how when the group came back into the stac room yesterday after making their commercial, Luke told them to go make another. You really don't know how much better something can get until you create more and brainstorm more. And i realized it applies to anything in art. Moral: don't be afraid to re-do your art. The next thing create can be better than the previous thing.

COLORS- The most important thing I learned in STAC all quarter.

I am absolutely in love with and in awe of all the newly learned facts you've taught me about color theory and colors in nature. I used to be a victim of "symbolic painting". The grass is green, so I made the grass really green. The sky is blue so I made the sky really blue, etc. I always knew these things didn't look right, but I never really knew why. And the answer was so simple and it's just so amazing how much of a difference it can make. Colors are way more important than outlines and shapes. Both do make a realistic looking picture, but a correctly colored picture with misshaped figures will look much more realistic than a discolored picture with correct shapes. I'm just in awe of how powerful color and the use of color knowledge is in creating art.
My STAC Art project is proof of how much I've learned (and have yet to learn). Ha! My tree isn't brown! It looks like a real tree. My grass isn't green. It is a lot of brown actually.
One of the most fascinating things to me is that mixing the color brown into a color will create a totally different effect than mixing it's opposite color to make a brownish color. Using the opposite color makes a truer, realer, more naturalistic looking color. For example, when making the grass, instead of just mixing brown into the green, I mixed some red as well as brown. The resulting color looks more like grass and less like...mud. Which is odd, because opposite colors make muddy colors, I think. But just adding a tiny bit makes such a lovely difference while still keeping that green strong and potent.
My knowledge of color theory will greatly influence my art, whether it's painting, photography, or even film. I'm kind of excited to experiment with it in disciplines outside of painting. And I can't wait to learn more about it in STAC. I'm not sucking up either. I'm totally interested in this. Thanks :)

Kontroll

This was a pretty neat movie. I give it credit just for achieving simultaneous uniqueness and greatness amongst all modern movies. Lately, I'm seeing the same movie over and over again. And although it may be interesting, it can't be THAT interesting.
But this movie is different.
I love how there's so many interpretations of all the events in the film. One of my most recent areas of fascination is whether Buschu is the killer or not. At first, I didn't think so because they were physically portrayed as two different bodies. Then after some class discussion, I thought that he might be because it makes symbolic sense and it makes it a little more interesting in a different way. But after even more discussion, I came to the conclusion that it doesn't really have to be a black or white interpretation. The movie is entirely symbolic with parts of it that are based off realistic events and actions. If instead of looking at it as a realistic piece with hints of symbolism, you look at it in the way that I described, you can get a much different analysis of it. It's really interesting.
The way I see it, Buschu is his own character as is everyone else. The Pusher is this symbol of violence, intolerance, anger, frustration, and authority within everyone in the film. The film focuses more on how the pusher is apparent in Buschu at the time. Before Buschu, it was apparent in Leci (I think that was his name?). After the scene where Leci cuts the guy's throat, Buschu, if I'm not mistaken, goes to sleep and we follow his dream sequence through the tunnel, where he meets the Pusher. This is a symbol of him meeting his own newly apparent violence, intolerance, anger, frustration, and authority that Leci once had. Once these emotions are dealt with, they get passed on to the next person. Leci dealt with his by taking it out on a nasty Metro rider (murder = Hell). Buschu ends up releasing it through letting go of the environment that caused all of these emotions (Heaven).