ernestovalladares2018-blog

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Final Project | Show Me What You Know

My favorite person/place/ thing

This gif represents the feeling of serene bliss that I feel with music. For me this feeling is most present when the music is live around you. 

I am lucky to have many friends that are musicians. The video clip is of my good friend playing his guitar. The clouds in the background are meant to represent serene feeling of the music washing over you.

Execution 

This gif was created using Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premier Pro.

In Illustrator I was able to create basic shapes for the music notes.

Using Photoshop I created individual frames from the video and inserted the individual drawings of music notes. 

After creating the animation in photoshop I exported it as a gif into Premiere pro where I was able to use color key effects to remove the background and the fill it with the video of the clouds. I then exported it as a mp4 file.

Finally I brought the final mp4 into photoshop and made the file as a gif.

❓What were your favorite & least favorite projects & why? 

Favorite project - Project #3 creating a gif. It was very cool learning how easy it is to create a gif especially just from short video footage.

Least favorite project - Project #2 Creating a surreal image using photoshop. I would have like to have learned even more of the tools available in photoshop. I think it would have helped create better work in the following projects.

❓Which project(s) were most successful & why? 

The final two projects were most successful because we are able to use and combine all of the different applications to create more successful projects. 

❓What did you learn about digital art this semester? 

I learned about the upcoming potential and the applications of digital art in our culture. It was cool seeing in the discussions and flip grid videos what artist are creating. I learned how to use some of the tools in Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premier Pro.

❓What more would you like to learn about digital art? 

I would have liked to learn how to use Photoshop further. It would also be cool if we were given the tools to learn how to use Lightroom. But I did learn how to teach myself sufficiently and I'm confident I can learn from a tutorial.

❓How has working with a computer as your medium enhanced your creative practice?

Computers are nice because you are able to undo! Some forms of art can be super unforgiving like wood carving and ceramics. But with digital art its always easy to go back!

❓Does this course work well as an online offering or do you think it should be offered in-person or mostly online (both online & in person)? Why or why not? 

The course works well online for students that can adapt to it. The online course gave me a lot of flexibility to work around my other classes and work.

❓Did you find Meet for Webex to be a helpful tool for this course? Why or why not?

Yes I think it would be helpful to have a Webex meet even earlier in the course to better understand what is needed. Also it would be fairer to future students to do this during the add drop week so they can determine if they need to drop.

❓Did you find Spark to be a helpful tool for this course? Why or why not?

The process part of our projects would be better explained through posts on Tumblr. having a process post on Tumblr would keep it all in our portfolio as well as help us develop a consistent format for web writing.

❓Did you find Flipgrid to be a helpful tool for this course? Why or why not?

Flipgrid was an interesting way to communicate with our peers in the class about the videos we watched. I found it helpful to learn about digital artist and to see what has been done using these tools.

❓ What suggestions if any do you have for improving this course? 

Just an earlier webex meet in the semester to understand the course.

❓ What does your completed tumblr portfolio for this course express about you as a student & a creative? 

My Tumblr portfolio shows how my personality comes through in my art. As a student it shows my development from not knowing how to use these apps to now. As a creative it shows to me what I find to be really important. It also shows to me that I am easily able to communicate myself especially online now using the writing for web.

❓ What grade do you expect on your final project & why? 

For this final project I deserve a 10/10. This project shows I know how to use all of the Adobe editors and am able to successfully create digital art. 

❓ What grade do you expect in this course & why?

After spending countless nights figuring out the apps I have no previous experience with, watching a lot of youtube tutorials to do so, and figuring out how to successfully write for the web I think I deserve to get an A

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Reading #5 | My Life As a Failed Artist by Jerry Saltz

GIF by @konczakowski

What I think about Jerry Saltz.                                                    and his art

From this article one can gather that Jerry Saltz  

Has an eccentric personality

Has grand ideas of what it means to be an artist

 I believe he was partly delusional and possibly fixated on this, which may have stunted him growing as an artist. 

He glorified his circumstances.

“I lived across the street from the gallery, in a huge cold-water sixth-floor non-heated walk-up loft that had a $150 monthly rent.”

Art is not for the weak. One must be able to stand and defend ones work, as well as critically analyze it. Jerry Saltz can now criticize his work but he admits he couldn't when he was younger. That ability to be critical in the present and also dedicated to your work is what Jerry lacked and why he failed as an artist.

Jerry Saltz is NOT a generous art critic.

“Artists often complain that critics are animated by resentment. Most of the time, I don’t think they are, but having been an artist, I understand the feeling. Which is why, whatever my flaws as a critic, I have always tried to be as generous toward the people making the work as I would have wanted anyone studying mine to be.“

This section of the reading was particularly ironic and shows the reader how poorly Jerry Saltz is able to perceive himself as a failed artist and a critic. I immediately remembered Jerry Saltz’s harsh review of Thomas Kinkade immediately following the artist’s death.

This is what a typical Kinkade looks like. He is actually America most successful artist ever; making millions of dollars every year. His work usually features ideal cottages, landscapes, and dramatic sunsets. 

Saltz writes “none — not one — of his ideas about subject-matter, surface, color, composition, touch, scale, form, or skill is remotely original. “ I personally don't see generosity in Saltz’s critique. I believe Kinkade’s work does show skill in how he captures light, and is an example of genre painting in the 21st century. 

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Project #4 | Video =   A Time Based Media Remix.

This video titled Pause is a spiritual commentary on what it means to take a moment when things seem hard. The main pieces of other videos that are appropriated create a new story of realization. 

The audio is from Oprah Winfrey’s Supersoul Conversations and is a direct narrative of my concept. The audio directly follows the clip from The Fresh Prince of BelAir and reminds the viewer of this. Oprah’s podcast was an inspiration for the video.

The clip of Will Smith is an emotional scene in which his father is leaving, I think it also can be an allegory to God and how many of us often feel left behind by God.

The animation of a butterfly plays over a video clip of a Tsunami flooding a Hotel. This is a traumatic scene that works in conjunction with the animation. The butterfly is a symbol Faith. When the animation is in strobe it represents failing faith.

Elements of Art.

Texture is a key part of the film quality, many of my clips are older.

Color The bright butterfly represents purity.

Principle of Design.

Emphasis The emphasis is on the butterfly it is meant to separate you from whats happening in the background.

Pattern The glitches at the end of the video create a pattern that makes a nice close for the video.

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Digital Exercise #6 | Compare & Share Google Arts & Culture Face Match.

The Google Arts & Culture app is a simple way to further explore the relationships between arts and what we do. The selfie search feature is extremely cool in how it relates us to figures from paintings.

Its a beautiful way to look at art work and how it relates to us in the present. 

The Cardsharps by Caravaggio was a result in every selfie I had take. I can see the resemblance most in this portrait.The cheek and facial structure looks very much like me.

The portrait of Rudolph and Millicent Dometch was the piece I found most interesting. I found that it was a pencil drawing but the directional linework reminds me of the wood relief prints of Barry Moser. 

Barry Moser’s portrait of Eudora Welty  

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Assignment #6: Individual Research on Video Art & Artists.

Artist: Pipilotti Rist Title: Cinquante fifty Year: 2000 Medium: 05:37 min 2-channel video installation Themes: Psychedelic, Disorientation, Escape

The artist, Pipilotti Rist creates conversation with each one of her pieces. Her work in Cinquante fifty is blurry, disorienting, and colorful. 

The video focus’s on escaping ones life, this is clearly represented with her standing at the window watching out. 

This video that goes along with a dream like siren song. It was first created to be projected onto the walls of a parking lot corner. I believe she displays her work in places like this because of the humanity of her artwork, and how anyone can relate to her work.

Artist: Pipilotti Rist Title: Be Nice To Me Year: 2000 Medium: 01:21 min Themes: Perception of Beauty, Makeup, Feminism

Pipilotti Rist can be called simple. Her video Be Nice To Me is a single video clip, and never moves from the main action. Which happens to hilariously be her rubbing her face of makeup off onto glass. 

This work is extremely uncomfortable to watch completely for the whole minute and 20 seconds. She is not afraid to do this because it represents how it feels to wear makeup in todays world.

Artist: Andrew Thomas Huang Title: Mermaid Lagoon Year: 2016 Medium: 01:11 min Themes: Fantasy, Action, Mermaids

Andrew Thomas Huang’s work is on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to the technical aspect of video making, when compared to Pipilotti’s. 

He uses animation, and video combined to tell an incredibly life-like story from something completely fantasy. 

Artist: Andrew Thomas Huang Title: Fire Cock Year: 2017 Medium: 03:00 min Themes: Gambling, Movement

This video was my favorite to watch, and also relates to our project #4 because this video is an appropriation of live footage of a gambling game in China.

The beat of the song, the video footage of the men, and the animated character shifting from the foreground to the background continuously go perfectly together. 

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Digital Exercise #5: Watch & Complete Adobe Premiere Tutorials

Video created from tutorial

My creative vision using the skills learned in the tutorial

What is Adobe Premiere Used for?

Adobe Premiere Pro is the go to editor for video editing professionals. It is the gold standard of editing because of intuitive tools that make it easy to create a clean looking final product.

What I Learned 

I had used Premiere Pro for my exercise #5 landscape gif, but had very little experience using the new version of Premiere Pro. From this tutorial I learned how to:

Color correct videos

Edit using command keys(Q and W)

Key audio

Apply effect and Transitions

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Reading #4 | INTRODUCTION from Video Art Theory : A Comparative Approach by Helen Westgeest

A Comparative Approach by Helen Westgeest reflects on the place of Video Art as a new media in contest to established medias that have been around for thousands of years. The article explores some important comparisons about video art. 

Defining video art 

One of the biggest questions posed was how to define Video Art. 

The author did this by comparing video art to older forms of art. Stating that video art was built on many other kinds of art and a combination of them are used to create Video Art. These are some of the different points of views she cites in the reading.

Gregory Battcock “Battcock suggests that in order to determine what video art is and what it is not, many writers and thinkers have found it useful to compare it to established art forms, as well as to the new forms that have.”

David Ross defines video art as “any artwork involving video tools.”

Micheal Newman defines video art as a “Moving Image.”

Video Art, as defined by me, is a combination of different established arts with the intent to create a final product that has movement, which is the video. 

This definition gives the term video art a broader definition than the ones found in the reading, not simply categorized by the tools being used. I believe by giving a developing media a broad definition it allows the understanding of the media to not be confined to what it’s current uses, so that future artist can continue to explore the possibilities with Video.

How does Video Art differ from commercial television?

To further define Video Art, we must question when is it that videos are not art? 

The most viewed video content is often seen on commercial television. And from my definition of Video Art, much of what is on television can be defined as Video Art. Even commercials include artistic components like video effects, transitions, art logos, and much more.

With that I come to the conclusion that commercial television is rather just a platform for Video Art to be broadcasted to millions of people. Similarly to how museums and galleries are just a platform, just a more formal platform. The environment Videos are placed in is part of what characterizes different categories of Video.

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Digital Art Runway Assignment

This gif is made using the retro wave text creator, an image of silk that paired well with the text creator, and an animated video of backup dancers from Nicki Minaj’s Anaconcda music video. The concept was a fun dance party. The elements of art and principles of design were kept in mind while creating this.

This gif contains examples of Space, Form, and Line. The Silk background creates a space for the dancers to have their dance party. The shadows helped create a 3D space. The dancers are a great example of implied line as their knees are missing. We can still put together the form in our mind even without the knees.

Balance and Movement are seen in this piece as well. The movement of the dancers captures the viewers eye. 

The animation of the dancers was created by taking screenshots of the movements of the dancers and then stringing them together after editing the individual frames.

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Project # 3 | Digital Painting & Gif Art = Color, Paint, Mood & the Abstract

My abstract project was inspired by different digital noises, like the noise on a TV when there is no signal, and classic computer screen savers that bounce around on the inside of the screen. The jump in the middle of the gif was done on purpose to play on the idea of static/a glitch.

Color  Using a triadic color scheme (blue, green, red). The colors were meant to be very vibrant and colorful to be reminiscent of a classic screen saver.

Paint style My paint style looks airbrushed in the final project. This was done using charcoal brushes in Photoshop on a large scale. I love the contrast between the brush strokes and the bold blocks of color.

Mood The colors in this project are meant to stir visual excitement and noise in each section. Like a screensaver giving you something to look at basically everywhere. The image almost becomes overwhelming to watch because of the amount of movement and excitement like TV noise. 

Abstract Techniques This project completely departs from the representational. It is only a combination of simple shapes and colors. My inspiration came from screen savers which can look like many things.

Elements of Art This project includes Line, Shape, Color, and Texture. Most prominently it includes color, I really thought which colors are the most vibrant and which colors outside of my triadic color scheme would work well with it. 

Principles of Design This project includes Balance, Contrast, Emphasize, Movement,and Pattern. The pattern in the background made of squares really contrasts with the moving shapes. Emphasize is placed on the center circle which is why I chose to not fade the shape away like the others.

Overall I am happy with the results of my project. This was the result of much trip and error, and I'm happy to say that in the end it all tied together well.

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Assignment #5:Portrait, Landscape & Indispensable

Portrait  This was created on Photoshop, also using Adobe Illustrator to draw the balloons and a video clip of me. 

Landscape This was created from my own video clip. I had to go into Premiere pro to create the a full loop rather than have it jump at the end. 

Indispensable I believe trees are indispensable, we really can't survive without trees. I had originally drawn my idea on paper but was having trouble scanning the images. I used my drawing as a reference and recreated it on Illustrator. It came out even better than the drawing, because it is more detailed with the cloud and fill colors.

This was a very good to learn. Im technically challenged when it comes to these things but in the end I have a pretty good understanding of how to make a gif!

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Digital Exercise #4 | Altering & Abstracting an Image

Photo by Luke Braswell. from Upsplash

How I created this Image!

First I applied a dry brush effect to the image.

Add a background.

Experiment with Brush tool. 

The brush tool is what brought the image together. It blended the parts from the background with the subject. The image works very well with the colors used in my Tumblr blog and will tie together with the theme.

This was an excellent exercise with photoshop! 

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Assignment #4: Individual Research on A Brief History of Animated GIF Art.

GIF art is a form of new media art that has erupted on the internet, they are on every social media. Gif’s are somewhere in-between video and photo and are a great way to share a message because they are short, and repeat themselves. They are just another element of internet culture, Gif’s like meme’s are something to be shared with each other.

Artist: Simon Stage Title: DIGITAL ART GIF Year: 2017 Medium: GIF Themes: Geometric, Abstract

Simon Stage has created over 10,000 gifs on giphy.com. His work vary in style and theme including pop culture references, fashion, and his own digital art. 

Artist: Simon Stage Title: DIGITAL ART GIF Year: 2017 Medium: GIF  Themes: Geometric, Abstract 

These works are an example of his use of geometric patterns, and also how looping is used to create an infinite movement. The use of geometric shapes is captivating and seemingly endless, they bring the viewer in and make you want to watch them on a loop.

 Artist: Scorpion Dagger Title: MOONING SUNDAY DRIVE GIF Year: 2017 Medium: GIF Themes:  Renaissance Art, Satire, Mooning, Driving

Scorpion Dagger is a well known gif artist with over 400 million views on his giphy account alone. His work is created using renaissance paintings from mostly Northern Europe. He recontextualizes the subjects of these old paintings and modernizes them. Taking a deeper look at the life of the subject and what their life looks like outside the frame of the painting. 

Artist: Scorpion Dagger Title: ART FEET GIF Year: 2017 Medium: GIF Themes: Renaissance Art, Feet, Sexuality 

This work is very fun and explores many of the nuances of everyday life. The gif’s created by Scorpion Dagger bring to life figures you would never imagine doing the things he animates them doing. The re use of paintings also creates a specific style and texture throughout his work.

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Reading #3 Color Theory Basics You Need to Know by Silka P, Natalie P and Nadia Herzog

VOMIT GIF BY SCORPION DAGGER

The title says it all in Color Theory Basics You Need to know. The article gives the reader a basic understanding of color theory, these are some of the many helpful resources in this article.

Explanation and history of color theory

context of color theory

Explanation and history of the color wheel 

the formulas of color harmony

the differences between tints, tones, and shades

how specific media affects the way we see color

Without color what would life be? Would art be as rich? Color is one of the most important elements of art, it brings things to life.

The language of colors

The idea of color as a “silent, emotional language that we intuitively know” is one of the key points within the article. Color does have an effect on emotion, and its something we need to consider when creating art. 

I completely understood what the author meant by silent language. Color is such a huge part of life. Knowing what colors evoke which emotion can make art more effective. Its something I think about early on in my process.

Color In marketing 

The perfect example of how the silent language of color is used, is how brands use color in products and advertisement. Color is a big part of our first impressions of products and have a big effect on what we purchase. Marketing companies know this and use it to their advantage.

Red and Yellow. This color combination is commonly used in fast food chains like in this Mcdonalds logo. Studies prove that these colors make us hungry, and make us want to stop and eat. 

Color theory within contemporary art in practice

One of the questions brought up is where does color theory find its place in contemporary art while in practice. Do artist think about it? Does it effect the way we perceive contemporary art? 

Yes, and yes. The best artist are thoughtful about color theory in their process and carefully consider this and other basic principles to create the best product. And in turn we see something well put together which effects the way it is perceived. 

Do we think about this as the viewer?

The average viewer probably would not think about the ways that color influence the way we feel. Without being educated on the different elements of art and principles of design one would not realize exactly why you feel a certain way. 

The language of color works without people ever learning how to understand it. 

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ART TALK | John Powers | 2/1/18

John Powers is a 3D artist, and a professor at UAB based in Knoxville, TN. 

John Powers gave an art talk on 2/1/1, he spoke about his mechanical sculptures and previous versions of them and how his ideas developed into the work he was making now and his sculptures in the SouthXEast exhibition.             

The sculptures are dynamic, the wooden legs on them always have a movement to them. The movement is very slow and repetitive and remind me of grass blowing or a wave washing up.

These pictures are of slides in his presentation that show some of his mechanical sculptures.

John Powers explains his fancy with mechanical things and figuring out how things work. He mentions that this is sourced from his upbringing in the “redneck” south, and the ingenuity that comes from having to fix things yourself when you can't afford to have it fixed.

He finds inspiration in found objects and the natural world around him. He has his sculpture in the gallery in conjunction an animation he created. This is very interesting and relevant to the digital art course. He creates his animations using pinhole cameras, which he can create himself. 

The deconstruction and reconstruction of regular day items into something that has a message is what he does. He does this in almost every possible way from the camera that creates the animation to the mechanical engine turning his wooden sculptures continuously. His mission is to amplify everyday objects and redefine it as art. 

John Powers’s Art is an inspiration to never stop thinking/questioning especially when it comes to the world around us and art. Learning things is a way to feed our inspiration as he does by questioning how things work.

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Project #2: Digital Collage - Adventures in Surrealism.

Theme: Identity and body, Social Media

Surrealist Techniques: Changing the scale of objects, Joining objects together, and Dislocating the Environment 

  This project was based on the idea of Identity, which social media has a lot of influence over. I wanted to create a project that reflected my identity, bringing parts of my culture into this collage.

  The main subject is Rupual, an icon for many gay people and a person that has changed the way we see Drag in our mainstream culture.    My idea is that in the “light” of social media, gay people are able to transform their identity by what they wear and the way they present their Identity. Rupual represents this to me as a man that appears on tv dressed as a woman.    His head is joined onto the body of a male model to represent the way he transforms himself from a man into a woman with makeup and a wig. They are in Washington DC to represent the national changes we are seeing in our culture and our laws as we see Gay/Drag culture become more mainstream.

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OPTIONAL Digital Exercises for Practice: Digital Collage practice for Project #2

Ive never used photoshop before, watching these videos really helped me learn and explore some tools that photoshop has to offer to create a collage.

I created this collage using the lasso tool mostly.

The photos from this collage were all from Adobe Stock.

This was an experiment with effects in photoshop to edit the figure. I used the color range selection tool to crop the splash out of an image.

I tried to make it seem like the figure was jumping out of the universe. 

The images were found on google. The figure is Melania Trump from her GQ magazine shoot in 2000.

This collage was trying to juxtapose images using the rectangular marquee tool. I also learned how to do this using other tools like the polygonal lasso tool.

The painting “Painting of a Lady”, is by Rogier van der Weyden with a crop of a photo of Tyra banks.

Overall I feel a little more comfortable with photoshop, and now have a better understanding of some new tools I can use for our second project.

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Digital Exercise #3: Watch & Complete Adobe Photoshop Tutorials

Edit your first photo in Photoshop.

My exact version.

What I learned from Edit your first photo in Photoshop.

Before I had Edited this photo.

Create your first design in Photoshop.

What I learned from create your first design in Photoshop.

Photos used were found on upsplash.

What Adobe Photoshop is used for?

Photoshop is a useful app for editing and creating images. The easy to use tools make it possible for artist’s around the world to create very polished, finished looking images. 

Photoshop has become in essential application for artist that are creating images to be used in advertisements, logos, and every day designs that we see very often.