3:6:9 Assignment

This is a small assignment we were asked to do to give us practise on using different shots in a film and creating the different shots. Ths subject I chose was a sculpture student, and I wanted to really focus in on the clay sculpture she was making rather than her. I created a beginning, middle and end by showing the evolution of the sculpture coming to be. You will also notice as she starts to put more detail into the clay I have zoomed in closer. I am really happy with how this video turned out even though it is only a mini assignment but I am pleased with the shots I was able to create. For example the last extreme close up of her fingers; I put her fingers and the tool into focus but put everything else in the shot out of focus to put more focus on her fingers abd to create a sense of depth.

Daily Create: Something that makes you anger

This week for the daily create I decided to photograph something that makes me anger. This right here makes me so mad and I think it makes me so mad because it happens on a regular bases. My brother is very unorganized and not neat which is the complete opposite of myself. This is a photograph of a empty toliet paper roll which on many occasions seems to happen to me. The solution to fixing this problem is very simple yet very challenging for my brother to remember. Which is why I think it makes me so angry. 

One thing I like about my compostion is how I made the roll look in focus and detailed while the handle holding the roll is out of focus. Lately I have been trying to create this effect in my photos because I really like how it creates depth and keeps the photo from looking flat and 2D.

Daily Create: An object with a unique texture or pattern

This is one of my favourite daily creates at the moment because I love how I created a contrast between the white and black. Now you are probraly wondering what is this a picture of, well I want you to think about it and I will tell you at the end. The one aspect I really like about this photo is at the top, you can see small lines of white almost coming out of the black. It creates a depth to the picture and gives you a unique perspective on the texture.

Now that you have thought about what this texture could be I want you to guess. This is a extreme close up of the fur on my cat. Amazing right? I was actually going around looking for a another idea and my cat jumped in front of me and layed on his back. Then it came to me, I focused on the fur and here it is.

Daily Create: Grid Pattern

Today we went ot the applied arts expo at the Wych woods  Barn near Christie pits. We were looking at different graphic art peices and college and university booths. But the one thing that caught my eye the most was the archetecture of the building. The lower part of the wall was made out of old worn out bricks. These bricks really added to the feel of the building and for one of our daily creates we had to look for a grid pattern and take a interesting slice of it. I zoomed in close enough that you only see parts of a few bricks and that you could see the very details within the cracks between the bricks. I really like the compostion I chose because I toke multipe shots before I got this one and using the rule of thirds I have created a visually pleasing compostion. Where the cement connects the bricks, the line guides you through the picture. My favourite part of the photograph is that I did not edit anything, this is the very photo I shot. I was able to capture the details etched in the bricks and the shadows where the brick sticks out just a little and hangs over.

Video Project: Sharpie art

We are creating a video with a concept that will  be paired with the piece Palladio. We are in the brainstorming stage and just trying out different ideas. For this one we used a sharpie pen and 4 people. We started at the 4 corners and slowly made our way towards the middle,  then when they met in the middle they would bounce back in a different direction. We took shots every 4-5 lines and created this stop motion.We used imovie to create it and put the film in reverse.
 For the first one I like the speed we put it at, it made less of a pause, I didn't feel like I was waiting for the next part of the drawing to be shown. The second video has more pauses in between each jump and I feel it doesn't work for the video because of the pace. If we were going to use this in our film I would definitely say it should be scattered in sections and fluctuating speeds throughout the video with the theme we choose. We have been thinking about evolution and change as our concept for the video. The way the drawing grows toward the middle would show change and how we are changing as a society. We were also thinking of how the advances of technology are damaging our planet. 

Movie Trailer Parody

Original Trailer:

 

New Trailer:

Walt Disney s Tangled is a sweet action comedy about the innocent girl Rapunzel who has lived in a tower whole life because she has magical hair that keeps her youthful. Flynn is a wanted thief who happens to find to come across her tower and they make a deal. Flynn will take to see the floating lights she see's each year on her birthday. They face challenges but the movie ends with a happy ending. My remake of this movie makes Rapunzel the evil character who is trying to take Flynn captive after he releases her from the tower. Overall I change the sweet, adventures and comedic theme into a race against time, action where Flynn is trying to escape this evil character. The theme because more of a dark thriller.

To begin I thought about different clips I could use to make Rapunzel look like the villain. I started the trailer off with Flynn coming into the tower, which in the film is not as serious but in my trailer I added the thriller music from Halloween to make the entrance more dramatic and create the dark feeling when you meet Rapunzel for the first time. I eventually put more of a action soundtrack mixture that was supposed to make the next clips more about Flynn fighting for his life.

Some clips I used to create the dark and sinister feel of Rapunzel were when she pulled Flynn of the cliff, when she is walking out of the shadows, wrapping Flynn in the chair and throwing Flynn out the window. I was able to make her intentions in the scene more about trying to put Flynn into harmful situations verses her trying to save him from the situations. I also was able to make the horse  which is also trying to harm Flynn in the original movie part of Rapunzel's evil team. 

I didn't put any talking in the trailer because I didn't feel I could successfully help it reenforce the new theme. But I did change lighting in a few scenes which I thought effectively helped change the theme. But I also found it challenging to use a lot of the scenes fro m the original trailer because they are so bright and lively and I wanted to make the new seem dark. You will notice I used a lot of quick little scenes because I felt this was more effective and gave the feel of a what a actual trailer actually looks like. 

Overall I feel I effectively changed the mood in my trailer from a sweet action, comedy to a dark serious action. I also feel I used the music, and visuals effectively to help dramatically change the theme.

 

Daily Create: A spinning object

Here is my picture of a spinning object, it's not necessarily the object that is spinning verses the contents in the toilet that are spinning.I really found this effective because it isin't the first thing that would come to mind when you think of a spinning object, but the swirl of the water creates the effect. 

Video Brainstorming

So I was looking through videos on ideas that we could use in our conceptual video.  I found this first video interestiong I thought we could incorperate this concept in some way.

 

This video was very interesting and a few objects got my attention. the lightbulbs filled with colorful liquid being dropped. the wine glasses being shot through. the lighter being lit. the paint being shot at the person and the regular light bulb being shot straight through.

    
                                                   https://vimeo.com/terjes/themountain

Now we already talked about the time lapse but we could take videos of interactions instead. whatever goes with our theme.

list of ideas (to be contuined)
- dropping water balloons with paint onto a canvas
-

 

 

 

Vincent Goghs' Starry Night recreated in Dominos

Technical and Artistic reflection: Website Portfolio

The purpose of my website is to show the audience my portfolio. My Portfolio is displaying what I feel is my strongest pieces. The program I used to create this website was Wix. I personally found the site very interesting in the beginning with all the customizing we were able to do but near the end I found Wix very annoying to work with. For example I wanted to show my Kinetic Typography on the site. The problem we had was the site would only allow us to up load flash action script 3.0 and my typography was in action script 2.0. This was very frustrating because a lot of time was spent trying to add the play/pause to the typography and making it able to be viewed on the web.

The pieces I have Included in visual art were, my chess piece drawing, my skull drawing, my prints, and my Chinese ink drawings. I feel all of these pieces show my abilities in different mediums. In the technology section I have included my pixel portrait, my bezier assignment, self portrait, Shazam T-shirt design, some photography and my public service announcement. Again each of the pieces show different areas of the technology portion of class and I think they show my strong ability using the different programs.

Although I had many problems with using Wix I am happy with how the website turned out. I was looking at other portfolios when I saw a artist had taken photographs of himself and made them large scale and used them on the site. He was seen doing different poses. For example in his biography section he had a speech bubble coming out of his mouth. I found this very engaging and made me want to see what else was on the website. I took this same approach and throughout I have added similar photos. I added the photos because I really wanted the portfolio to reflect me and my happy personality.

I was able to customize a lot of the site and I'm happy with the layout I have created. I feel the layout is not to cluttered and I have included enough pieces that the site doesn't feel like it's empty. One challenge I had was putting the large scale images of me on the site because although I went in to Photoshop and changed the background to a transparency, the image would still show up on the site with a grey background. I was about to completely stop that idea when I started to play around with the frames and I found I was able to have a transparent background. One other challenge I had was uploading my typography, Initially the typography was in action script 2.0 and Wix would only allow action script 3.0. Although I wasn't able to upload it at all I still tried to trouble shoot and fix the problem. I felt this showed my ability to try trouble shooting even though the outcome may not be successful.

Overall I am very happy with my website portfolio  and I hope you enjoy it too. Below I have included a link to the site.

http://kborne44.wix.com/kassywithak#!home/mainPage

Forced Perspective Photography

This is a technique I found  that makes object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. You find it mostly in photography, films and architecture. It changes your perception using the objects and how they are placed in front of the camera. I found this really interesting because it looks like the objects are actually part of the photo and it seems almost natural. In the one photograph below the flower looks like the ballerina's skirt. In the second photograph the girl running up the stairs looks so natural and realistic. Below I have posted the link to a website that can further explain this concept and has links to more photographs using forced perspective.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/excellent-examples-of-forced-perspective-photography

Magical Rainbow Adventure

Hey everyone, Here is a tutorial I found that takes you on a magical rainbow adventure. But actually this is a cool tutorial on created melted crayon art. The process is actually quite simple but the result is amazing. You have to gather crayons of different colors and schemes, depending on what you want to create. In the video they are using the colors of the rainbow but it's up to you and what you want to create. Next you glue the crayons on a board, canvas or whatever surface you are going to be using. Now you can just have the crayons by themselves or you can put images on the surface but you have to remember they have to be raised from the surface because if not, the melted crayon will run over top the image. I recommend to put the image on a piece of cardboard. Lastly you grab a hairdryer and melt the crayons. You can get some creative and interesting results as seen below.
What I liked about this tutorial was it was informative with all the steps you had to take and the person teaching you the steps, made the video engaging to watch.

Epic Sidewalk Art

By Nick Canon

 I was stumbling through the web when I found this epic sidewalk chalk artist who went around and did these amazing chalk drawings on the sidewalk. Each one that he did is very different yet both give the same 3D effect and make you believe the object is there or in the case of the photo above that the block of the sidewalk is actually missing. What I find most mind boggling about these drawings was how realistic they look in relation to everything else in the setting. The drawings fit into the surroundings well enough that they are almost part of the scenery itself. The artist was able to really grasp the 3D concept. Below I have posted the link to Nick Canons' website, where he has posted many photographs of his amazing sidewalk chalk art.

  

http://www.stumbleupon.com/www.nickcannon.com/post/insane-sidewalk-chalk-art/

Culminating Presentations

My portfolio presentation

Hey everyone, This is going to be one of my last posts for my second year in CyberARTS. Last week we had our culminating presentations which consisted of us gathering at least 7 pieces of our best visual and technology art and displaying them. We had to find a creative and effective way to clearly display the pieces and had to formally present and talk about each piece of art. I would have to say my favorite piece out of this year would be my Chinese ink panda painting, 'Contemplating Tradition'. I really worked hard on this piece and I felt it challenged me.

Blog post: Inspiration

Hey everyone, this is a fun and creative art experiment I found that someone had tried. This person toke a bowl of gum balls and put it under splattered wet glass and this was the effect they got.I think the use of household objects to create this is creative and well thought out if can notice the camera and lighting equipment set up in the background. I thought this would be cool to share because it's creative and you could try it at home yourself. I actually think I will go home and try this myself.

Photoshop expiermenting

Here is one of my ink painting's that I did, I decided to play around with the effects in Photoshop and this is what found. I thought it was cool and encourage you to experiment with Photoshop yourself.

Technical and Artistic Reflection: Self portrait

Self Portrait

Title: Under pressure

Medium: Adobe Photoshop

For this assignment we had to create a self-portrait of ourselves with a concept of something we are feeling or experiencing at this point in time. My concept behind my self-portrait is feeling the pressure of having all this stuff to do and having no time to do it. The idea I started with was feeling the pressure of always being the leader in the sense that I was expected to do well at school. For me right now I’m always feeling the pressure of making decisions and especially now when I’m at the end of grade 10 and I need to decide what I’m going to do after high school, and honestly I really have no idea what I want to do.

My portrait is very simple yet complex at the same time. The idea of me being inside the hourglass seems almost like a dream or a fantasy. First I'll start with the picture of myself, well first off I know I look really sad but I'm trying to show how all this work is piling up on me yet I'm almost able to handle it, but I'm on the edge. I am supposed to look calm. As you work your way out you can see that the sand covers my feet and sand is piling on top of the textbook on my head. The idea is that everything is swarming me but I have a barrier to stop it; which represents the textbook. The hourglass is a representation of time, I didn't want to use a clock because that was very generic. I almost thought about incorporating a scale they used in the past to weigh gold and money. But I feel I was able to use the hourglass effectively in the self-portrait. My background is very simple but I think it goes well with the entire piece of art. I am overall pleased with my final self-portrait.

The art style I choose was surrealism, I found it difficult to find an art style to go with my concept previously stated above. I immediately had an idea for a concept but was unsure about what art sly would best represent it. I worked backwards and had my idea and concept ready before the art style, which, I don’t think helped, but I feel surrealism is effective in my piece. Surrealism is defined as a fantasy or dream-like state, which you are almost transported. You are given the thought that this would never happen but maybe it could? You aren’t sure. Having me in the hourglass makes you believe that this would ever happen yet maybe it could? Although the portrait is not comparable to Salvador Dali or Joan Miro in the idea that the whole portrait is surrealism, I feel the focus was put on me inside the hourglass and that clearly represents surrealism.

I am very happy with my final product. I am not technical inclined in the least and just the idea that I was able to make the portrait look realistic pleases me. When I first thought of ideas even the one I choose I always swayed when I thought about how I was going to create it in the program. I would say all my planning helped in the execution of photography and the computer work. I am most happy with how the hourglass turned out, I had to shoot twice but I think trying it a second time really helped with the photography. The one thing I would change is the art style I chose because I really found it hard to use surrealism because it is unlike other art styles such as, impressionism or art deco. I do feel surrealism was successful in my work but trying something different may have been better. I also like the simplicity of the piece but I would have liked to have more content in the piece. For example the background could have scenery or multiple objects.

One of the challenges I found was the photography. When I did my first round of photography I wasn't fully prepared for the photo shoot which did not help and that is why I think I was not happy with how the photos had turned out. Also I used the green screen the first time and it didn't work the way I wanted it to. The way I fixed this was with a clear head and a better plan. I went back through my plans and made the details more concrete and re-shot the photos. I tried the photography in a new location to also see if that would help and it did. I am very pleased with how all my photography turned out.

Overall I enjoyed this assignment and felt it really challenged me.

Canadian design Resource

Pressed Ginko Necklace

Design: Grace Lee
Client: Eikam
Date: 2011

For this assignment we were asked to look through the Canadian Design Resource Website and find a ceramic that you favor. I chose the pressed Ginko Necklace. What makes these necklaces stand out from everything else is the shape and color. The shape reminds me of a old fashioned fan used by the royal family because of the semi  circle shape.The faded colors remind me of a sting ray because stingrays have a  faded gray color and the necklaces resembles them.

Skull drawing

Kinetic Typography Artistic Reflection

Kinetic Typography Assignment

TGJ20P

Title: Skyscraper

Medium: Flash 2.0 and illustrator CS4

The song I chose was Skyscraper by Demi Lovato. She previously went through an eating disorder and she got a lot of criticism about here weight. She came out with many songs talking about how she won’t let people judge her because of her weight. The idea behind the song I chose is that she is strong like a skyscraper and she isn’t going to let people bring her down. She is happy with who she is.  Although I am now sick and tired of hearing this song I like to relate to it because as a kid I found it very hard to fit in but now I don’t let to let people tear me down because of who I am and what I look like. The whole concept of my design was to have the lyrics of the song build up into a skyscraper and I think my final product came out very well. 

The thing I like most about my final product is how all the words come together to create the skyscraper and although my vision of how the animation didn’t come out exactly as I planned I still think the shape of a skyscraper is clearly visible and easy to identify. If I could change one thing though it would be to have the animation zoomed in at the beginning and then have the final product be revealed at the end for anticipation. I should have asked for help when I first started because I was a little unsure with how to create the effect but this is my first time using this program so I still think I did very well.

As I wrote before my overall concept was to have it build into a skyscraper, but I didn’t just want to have the words show up. I made the words come in at different directions and different speeds depending on what the word(s) was. For one line “like I’m made of” instead of having the same line reappear I had the one line change color to represent the repeated line. I was very happy with this effect. I hoped to make the overall building of the skyscraper more appealing and not feel like it was being dragged on.

I am not very tech inclined so I found using this program difficult at the beginning. What I found most challenging was getting the words to all fit together in the entire skyscraper because I spent about one full class just rearranging the words to create the building so it could be identified as a skyscraper and knowing where and how the words would come in. When I faced these challenges I usually asked for help from another student or my teacher and although the challenges may not have been that difficult to most, for me I felt very satisfied when the whole process was over even though it looked relatively simple. When I figured out how to get the text to fade in/fade out from a helpful tutorial, I was satisfied and was able to recreate the effect again without the tutorial. You can look for the link I posted on the blog.

Tips and Tricks: Tuesday April, 17. 2012

Flash Tutorial: Fading in and fading out text

Will working on my Kinetic typography in flash I wanted to have the word "glass" fade out. I looked through many tutorials and they all said the same thing but I found this one the most helpful because it was straight forward and it gave a example of what it would look like at the end. I would recommend Flash text effects to other people.

Class visit to the AGO

On Thursday march 22, our CyberARTS grade 10 class went on a trip to the AGO. We looked at contemporary, modern, Canadian and renaissance art. I have chosen three pieces from the gallery that I enjoyed and thought stood out in the medium and scenery the artists chose.

Younger by Kori Newkirk

This is a contemporary piece from the gallery and  an interesting thing about this art is that although you cannot see it in this photograph, the medium used is many strings of beads. This really caught my attention because of the medium used but also how the artist used the different bead colors to create different values and shades that make the piece look  realistic.The spots where the different values really stick out are the clouds and the trees. The change from white to blue is very gradual in the clouds and  the darker parts in the tree show where there is shading. Overall this is a very unique piece.

Maligne lake Jasper park By Lawren Harris

 This is a piece by the Canadian artist Lawren Harris of the Maligne lake in jasper park, Alberta. What I find interesting about this piece is how the artist uses darker tones to create the different values in the reflection of the lake and the shadows. I also think the reflection of the mountains in the background make the painting more interesting to look at and unique from  other paintings Harris has done. Harris has painted many Canadian scenery's but you always see the landscape itself not the reflection.

Fine weather, Georgian bay by J.E.H MacDonald

I don't know what really makes me find this painting interesting, but I just like to look at it because I feel like I'm being transported to the actual lake. I like how the focus isn't on the actual people but on the overall look of the lake.

Reduction Printmaking: Here comes the sun

                  Describe which print you were most satisfied with?

I was most satisfied with print 7/9 because the colors printed well on top of each other and except for a few spots where the colors overlapped where they are not supposed too, the print still looks clean and finished. I wanted to use bright colors to make the bird contrast with the background and I think the colors came out very well. One thing I am very happy about is the clean sharp shapes that I was able to create, I knew to make it easier on myself I should use sharp lines and shapes. Lastly this print is very eye catching in the sharp lines and shapes, the contrasting colors and it's simplicity.

What was the most difficult part of this assignment?

The two big challenges I faced with this assignment was the variety of colors I used and all the negative space. The subject I chose;the toucan, is a very tropical and colorful bird and I even took out colors to make mine simpler but I still think I had too many colors. I had five colors which made the process long. I also found becuase my print was simply I had a alot of black space with no detail and when it came to carving out the colors more specifically the green it was very time consuming although I will be honest I cheated a bit. Although I faced these challenges with my prints I still think they came out well.

Describe what is strong about your design. Why is it a good design?

My design is very simple and I think that is why it is strong and effective. The shapes, colors and placement create a clear image of the bird. The shapes and colors  make the subject eye catching and yet simple. Also the placement of the bird to the bottom left corner makes the print more intersting than if it was smack dab in the middle. Lastly, although I don't have alot of detail in the background I think it puts more focus on the bird.

Describe how you used the elements and principles of design in your prints?

I used many principles  such as shape, color, design, placement, contrast, balance and unity. The shapes created the clear image of the bird and the bright colors contrasted with eachother. I placed the bird to the bottom left cornor to make the entire print more pleasing. I balanced the colors in the bird to make it look realistic. The colors created unity in the whole design and made it more eye catching because if the print was in one color it wouldn't be very eye catching.

If you could change one thing about your artwork, what would it be and why?

If I could change one thing it would be to have used less colors. I am happy with how the print came out and all the colors work well but having the multiply colors made it very time consumning with printing and carving. If I could also change one other thing it would be to have a design in the background becuase I had a lot of carving to do and although I did cheat a bit and cut out the background it still  made the entire process very time consuming.

Helvetica Movie quotations

"Typeface is your main weapon in modern communication" Neville Brody

    We see typeface everywhere on walls, cars, buildings, in the sky and we don't even realize it and if you started looking around at the different typefaces you will notice that you will constantly see Helvetica. Even now you are reading this blog post in helvetica. In all of our advertising designers are faced with a big choice of what typeface they should use to express the message or feelings of the advertising, company or campaign, etc. Typeface is our main weapon in modern society today. Neville used this example to describe his reasoning, If you had a jeans sale and one advertisement used ragged and rough typeface, and the other used clean and sharp typeface they would both display different messages. The rough and ragged typeface would stand out and advertise that the jeans on sale will make you stand out. The sharp and clean typeface will show that the jeans are nothing  but normal and they are just regular jeans. 

   I agree with Neville because you could use any font to advertise or express something , you just have to choose the right one and sometimes it can be difficult because you don't know what would be the best. In the film many designers agree that you can use helvetica for most things. You can make it bold or give it italics to express the specific feelings.But some designers disagree and some are in the middle.

"It's air, you know. It's just there. There's no choice. You have to breathe, so you have to use Helvetica" Erik Spiekermann

Speikermann is on the opposite side as Neville and believes helvetica is too over used. He compares Helvetica to air and mentions that like air Helvetica is just there and it is now in our world just like we need air to live. It's everywhere and now we can't take it away. Spiekermann uses the example of a person heavy in the middle walking around in a tight shirt, it would look weird. Helvetica is like that in the sense meaning it won't always work for everything but most people just go to helvetica because it's there.For me specifically I need to choose what typeface represents my work that I am creating and make sure I am conveying the message I should be conveying. Spiekermann just wants something different. I don't agree with Spiekermann but I am also not a typography designer and haven't been creating different typefaces for years.Until watching this video I really didn't see that most print I read or saw was in Helvetica but now that I have recognized it everywhere I have noticed that even though most brands and company's use it, they add something or do something to it to show it represents there brand or company. For example American Apparel and American airlines both use helvetica but they both give off different expressions. American Apparel expresses fun and creativity and American airlines expresses professional and reliable.


Typography is everywhere and after reading this blog you will identify helvetica whereever you go.

Personal Inspiration: Friday, February 10. 2012

Here is a another video of the animator vs. animation and this video inspired me to write a blog post about it because it stood out and it is enjoyable to watch over and over. What made the animation stick out to me was how the animator took the animation to different windows of the computer, he didn't stay in the one window as in the previous video I posted. The animations movements and actions were realistic and made sense. For example near the beginning the  links on the internet read "seeking freedom", "slavery exists" and my favorite "stick figure rights" and it shows the stick figure chained to the ball and chain trying to click on the different pages. This video was made by Alan Becker.

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Funny video

 I found this funny video. Many of you may have seen it already but if you have not take a look and enjoy. This animation is showing the animation fighting against the animator.The program is Flash.

Bezier Assignment

For this assignment we were asked to choose a real life image and use the pen tool in illustrator to recreate the image using shapes of color.The goal was to learn how to use illustrator and make the picture look as realistic as possible.

This was my very first assignment in my year 2 of CyberARTS. I was given the task of creating a pix elated version of myself but the point of the assignment wasn't so the picture looks exactly like me but there is aspects in the picture that represent me so when you look at it you can know who it is.