Welcome back!

I hope you have had a fun and relaxing summer and are ready for some fun and learning!  I have had a very full summer with travel, food, family and friends.  We spent time learning to kneeboard on the lake and running to baseball games.

Hopefully you didn't forget who you are or why you are here!  Like any class, this will be as fun as you make it.  I love the projects that I have planned for you, but if you dread them then this will be a very long year for you.  

So all I ask is that you come in everyday with a positive attitude.  Even if that means you have to walk out the door and try again.

I am curious what you are looking forward to as you start a new year?  Are you looking forward to this class or one of your other ones?  What are you hoping to try?  What do you feel will be the highlight of your school year?

This is not a Photograph!

So have you ever been flipping through things on the internet and you come across an image that you just assume is a photograph and as you scroll down you see that it is actually a painting.  Well that just happened to me.  So I just had to share it with you.

I am always amazed by hyper-realistic art.  I think I have plenty of patience when it comes to creating art, but these people seem to have unreal amounts of patience and dedication to create these life like works that look like they could just walk off the page.   But I will let you decide what you think of this artist.  Unfortunately I can't find her name.

Any thoughts?  What do you think of it?  Who would you draw or paint if you had this talent?  Or do you think she could do better?

The simple things

Sometimes I try really hard to find you the most amazing feats of art ability that I forget to show you that the simplest of art forms can be really beautiful.  I found this image from the artist Robert Duncan and I wanted to share it with all of you.

First off it made me laugh since I have had several students who were in love with cows and I could totally picture them trying to ride one like the girl in this photo.  But then is also made me think of simpler times and lazy summer days.  But I want to know what you think?

What do you think of it?  Is it good art or bad art?  Does it bring back a memory for you or is it not worth your time to look at?

White is not always white

As hard as I try to explain it, when you are drawing or painting something that is supposed to be white, it is not always white in the image.  You still have to show the curves and the shadows with other colors than white.  I am hoping that this artist will help to show you what I am talking about.

I have happened to stumble across the Irish artist, Vincent Keeling.  Mr. Keeling has been trained in classic oil painting techniques which he has then applied to close ups of roses.  He is creating these big, beautiful, and realistic paintings of roses, cities and people.  I highly recommend you checking him out.

Self portrait

Haypenny Bridge

So what do you think of his style?  Would you like to send him an image and have him paint it?  What type of images would you paint if you had his talent?

What a beautiful dream

I happened to run across the computer generated paintings or Cyril Rolando from France.  It turns out he started playing with some simple computer programs before he started working with Photoshop.  He has since turned his hobby of playing into some incredibly beautiful works that look like paintings, but have all been made on a computer.

What do you think?  Do you believe that this is just a hobby for him?  Do you know what type of art that he is creating?  I'll give extra credit if you can tell me the genre that he is inspired by.

Grandma's demon?

SO this is one of the odder things that I have ever come across, it is a crocheted demon mask.

Now don't get em wrong, I think anyone that has the ability and the patience to crochet are amazing people, but I am not sure what I think about using their skills to create a demon mask.  I followed the link and actually there are several different types of masks that this woman can crochet, but I couldn't get the images to save, they were protected for some reason.  But let's just say she lives in a very cold climate and knits them as face masks to protect from the weather.

Let me know what you think.

So is this something you would wear in winter?  Do you find it cute or scary?  Would you have left it in white or perhaps chosen another color for it?  Can you think of something else that you would like to see her knit?

This chair can Wave

Creating tile mosiac art is one of the oldest forms of art known to man.  Ever since man figured out how to cut rocks into smaller pieces they have been laying it out into interesting patterns and designs.  Sometimes those designs told stories through pictures and sometimes it was just decoration, but it has long been a highly skilled tradition.

That being said, tile art has now taken a contemporary view of how to create it.  I couldn't figure out which artist made this tiled chair, but I know that it was made for a world wide tile artist competition that was held a couple of years ago.  Each artist was given a chair that they had to transform using tile.

I would love to know what you think.

If you zoom in you can see all of the individual tiles that had to be painstakingly applied one at a time.  But I want to know what you think of it?  Do you have a favorite part or technique that this artist did?  Or do you think it is horrible and if so why?  If you were given a chair to decorate, what would you do with it?