Posts tagged with “art”
a critical eye January 3
A critical eye is an essential tool for an artist; it's perhaps as important or more so than mastery of craft, or skill with the medium. A critical eye is what tells the artist he or she can improve, and when a piece is complete. But it should never detract from the enjoyment of a piece. It can help critique a piece, finding flaws that could be fixed to make a piece better, but more importantly it should be used to enhance the experience of a piece of art. A critical eye should be used to tell you what the artist was trying to convey and accomplish with a piece, and what elements of the piece are used to further that goal. In other words, just as a critical eye will tell you what was done wrong, it will tell you what was done right. Try to disregard flaws that are tangential to the artist's message. And understand that some shortcomings may be intentional -- if the flawed aspect was unimportant to the artist, it may have consciously been neglected to better focus on what was important to the artist.
wasting time December 20
I should be getting ready for my flight... I need to finish packing clothes, figure out what I'm bringing with me other than clothes, make sure everything's in order... Finish the painting I'm working on. If I have time (after I'm finished wasting time typing this) later, I should scan the last couple sketches I did. I'm not gonna bother putting them all up, but some of them are worth showing. I'll probably leave that for tomorrow or so, however. Scanning them needs to be done today, so that I can leave that sketchbook here, and just bring my new one.
I've been miserable as hell the past couple days, and not sleeping well. I'm looking forward to seeing my family & friends; giving myself a chance to distance myself from what's bothering me & what I can't change. Enough god damned moping, already; I need to get away from things, distract myself, hopefully get some work done, renew my spirits... All I can hope that things will change on their own.
What I really need to do is throw myself back into my work. I'l hoping that once I've digested all this crap, it'll be easier to do that. Several projects on the burners that are screaming out to be finished... and I'm too busy w/stupid stuff to give them the attention I want to devote to them.
Like collaboration. I'm actually trying to give that a shot, but I need to hammer out the foundation & clarify for myself what exactly I want, so I can clearly communicate to my collaborators what I want from them. I'm pretty close to being able to do that, and that's probably what I'm going to focus on while I'm visiting my family.
I'm sick of being stupid.
ave maria December 1
For those of you who like the Virgin Mary, I found the ←de Saisset Museum site that has some really nice Mexican devotional art. Santa Clara's a little far, so I don't see myself making it there in the flesh anytime soon. But I did a sketch I'm fairly pleased with of the Virgin Mary. A little more graphic than my usual stuff, so it's a nice change. anyway, it's here at the bottom, again, after the one I did yesterday.
selected works August 30
I'm still very fond of the color photos I did a while back, using the old-style method of taking 3 separate photos each with a different color filter, then combining them. I used a b&w quickcam, and combined the images using the GIMP, but the principle is how many of the first color photographs were taken. I didn't know this at the time, however, because I didn't take history of photography until the next year. Not that I imagined the idea was original. Because of the "messiness" of my process, the photos have a blurry, bright quality that I especially like.
I hate design August 23
I hate design. I suppose, though, that I'm not giving design enough credit. I do occasionally enjoy reading about design. A look at this site, although my design is fairly amateurish, betrays at least some level of attention. I do actually have very strong opinions about usability, and UI design is something that interests me a fair bit. Graphic Design, on the other hand, I could care less about, as long as it serves the higher goal of usability. I don't really want to think about these things - I have my preferences and aesthetic, as do others.
Design isn't art. Both deal with aesthetics, but neither is about aesthetics. Elements of art can, and often do, inform design. Elements of design can also inform art, although I generally find it creepy when they do.
What this comes down to, though, is after I separate what I think of as bad design from design itself, I mostly hate design because I'm no good at it. I don't have an innate ability for it, and I don't like doing it enough to want to try to get better. I feel that focusing on design takes me away from other important things. I know that's wrong, because the only design I ever spend time on is an interface of some sort (this site is an example, others are, well, not on this site but will hopefully find their way here when they're ready), and, since they serve something that's meant in some way to be used, UI design is important.
Ugh. This started out as a fairly coherent thought. I've lost track of what the point was, though, so that's it for now.