My wallpaper got in! Woo!
Yay!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Project: Web Portfolio
And finally, the website.
Simple, yes, but I have to admit, I'm proud of it for someone who has never done a website in their entire life.
Simple, yes, but I have to admit, I'm proud of it for someone who has never done a website in their entire life.
Project: FlickR Narratives
I had two pre-made photo journal narratives that I felt would be great for this class--both were pretty all-inclusive and both involved somewhat creative endeavors. My first one involved creating a custom paint job for a plastic guitar used in the Guitar Hero video games. I was really proud of the project when I started it, so I wanted to keep a good photo journal of it in the first place.
Guitar Project
The second involved me installing a custom water-cooling setup within my desktop computer, as well as transferring the parts to a new case. Again, I was very proud of the project and wanted to keep a photo journal for myself.
Computer Project
Guitar Project
The second involved me installing a custom water-cooling setup within my desktop computer, as well as transferring the parts to a new case. Again, I was very proud of the project and wanted to keep a photo journal for myself.
Computer Project
Project: Stop Motion
I took inspiration from one of my friends--we all sat in a group and tried to come up with a decent concept for a video that would last an acceptable amount of time. We came up with the idea of a "sick sandwich", one that had sat on the counter for a bit too long.
Creating the sandwich was as easy as just creating a simple sandwich with meat "lips" and olive "eyes". Moving the sandwich was done via toothpicks and other materials to bulge the sandwich and move the "lips". The "mold" affect was created with a sponge and green food dye left over from the cake. The "vomiting" affect was done simply by doing the process in reverse and flipping the photos when creating the movie.
Creating the sandwich was as easy as just creating a simple sandwich with meat "lips" and olive "eyes". Moving the sandwich was done via toothpicks and other materials to bulge the sandwich and move the "lips". The "mold" affect was created with a sponge and green food dye left over from the cake. The "vomiting" affect was done simply by doing the process in reverse and flipping the photos when creating the movie.
Project: Online Collaboration
This was by far my favorite project. I joined an art forum when I was thirteen--ironically enough, the forum was a subsection of a video game forum. There I met a large group of artists in a tightly-knit community. When I read the prompt of this project, my thoughts immediately turned to that group. I contacted one of my closer friends from the forum, Hope, and told her that I wanted to do a collaboration with her.
I found out that the state animal for both of our states (Illinois and Pennsylvania) is the White-Tailed deer. I also found that the colors for both of our Universities are white and blue. I thought that doing a blue and white scene with deer would be an interesting concept. I first created my deer independantly from Hope using a program called OpenCanvas 1.1. I then emailed her my deer as a stylistic reference point.
Two days later, Hope returned to me a wonderful sight--her deer, standing in the shadows, amongst a beautiful winter landscape. I was blown away by how well it all turned out. I am tremendously happy with the final product.
I found out that the state animal for both of our states (Illinois and Pennsylvania) is the White-Tailed deer. I also found that the colors for both of our Universities are white and blue. I thought that doing a blue and white scene with deer would be an interesting concept. I first created my deer independantly from Hope using a program called OpenCanvas 1.1. I then emailed her my deer as a stylistic reference point.
Two days later, Hope returned to me a wonderful sight--her deer, standing in the shadows, amongst a beautiful winter landscape. I was blown away by how well it all turned out. I am tremendously happy with the final product.
Project: Pixel Girl Presents
This one was actually one of my favorites to do. I first browsed their site for quite some time in order to get a feel for the type of background they "liked". I noticed that majority of them seemed very minimalistic, with a small design in a corner and a vast expanse of color taking up the rest of the space. I've always wanted to make a wallpaper out of my Koi picture, so I did some minimal editing to extend the color behind the fish. I wasn't comfortable with just having a big ol' field of color behind it, however, so I decided to replicate the light pattern on the opposite corner of the fish.
Again, I was really pleased with the result. At the time of my posting, the form to submit an actual background was broken, so I was forced to email her manually in order to submit my design.
I'm excited to see if she accepts it.
Again, I was really pleased with the result. At the time of my posting, the form to submit an actual background was broken, so I was forced to email her manually in order to submit my design.
I'm excited to see if she accepts it.
Project: Etsy Posting
Well, I've definitely been behind on these postings, so I figure I'll make one describing my efforts for each project.
For the Etsy posting, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of making food and selling it online--it was so weird and "internet-ey" that I just had to try it. Me and my former housemate had previously created a cake based off of a picture on the internet--the cake appeared normal from the outside, but had several layers of perfectly divided color within. We discoverd that it was as simple as creating X number of increasingly smaller amounts of batter, mixing in whatever colors you wanted and pouring them carefully on top of each other in decending size, ensuring that you minimize the stirring.
I purchased the cake mix from Walmart. Creating the actual batter was fun--I only had the primary colors of food dye, so I got to mix myself some new colors in order to make a proper rainbow. I also decided that seven colors (ROYGBIV) was a bit ambitious for a single cake, so I reduced it to five colors. After prepping the batter and pouring, it was as simple as cooking the cake. The cake actually baked in a strange manner, bubbling up through the center and mixing slightly. However, this made an interesting swirl to the inner pattern of colors that actually ended up looking pretty cool.
.PNG)
.PNG)
Overall, I was very pleased with the final result.
For the Etsy posting, I was immediately intrigued by the idea of making food and selling it online--it was so weird and "internet-ey" that I just had to try it. Me and my former housemate had previously created a cake based off of a picture on the internet--the cake appeared normal from the outside, but had several layers of perfectly divided color within. We discoverd that it was as simple as creating X number of increasingly smaller amounts of batter, mixing in whatever colors you wanted and pouring them carefully on top of each other in decending size, ensuring that you minimize the stirring.
I purchased the cake mix from Walmart. Creating the actual batter was fun--I only had the primary colors of food dye, so I got to mix myself some new colors in order to make a proper rainbow. I also decided that seven colors (ROYGBIV) was a bit ambitious for a single cake, so I reduced it to five colors. After prepping the batter and pouring, it was as simple as cooking the cake. The cake actually baked in a strange manner, bubbling up through the center and mixing slightly. However, this made an interesting swirl to the inner pattern of colors that actually ended up looking pretty cool.
.PNG)
.PNG)
Overall, I was very pleased with the final result.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Update on projects
An update on the projects for my course and some ideas I've had concerning them.
1. Create a photo narrative using a Flickr photo set
Flickr is an image and video hosting website that is free to use (for the base account, more features are available for a fee). Flickr allows users to organize their photos into "sets", or groups of photos that fall under the same heading. Create a Flickr set of images that tells some sort of story (i.e. training my dog, a road trip to St Louis, the life cycle of a picked flower, protesting disability services to president White, etc). The narrative must be evident and there must be a logical progression of events between the images.
I started off college becoming friends with an incredibly skilled Guitar Hero player. One of his big projects at the time was to custom paint a guitar from the game. I thought the idea was a lot of fun, so I ended up spending a few weeks creating a guitar of my own. I have a lot of photos of the process, so I figure I can make a decent photo journal from that.
2. Submit a desktop design to pixelgirlpresents.com
PGP is a site with loads of free wallpaper and icon sets (for Mac and PC) available to download and install for free. Individual designers create the wallpapers and icons and, if selected, each designer is given credit for his or her work. Design a wallpaper using the site’s recommended guidelines and submit your design.
The Koi piece below could make a decent icon/wallpaper set. I figure I can spend spring break making a few icons that relate to the fish project and make the art piece itself into something a bit more finished/wallpaper-ey.
3. Put a piece of your artwork for sale on etsy.com
Etsy is a website which focuses primarily on providing the general public with a way to buy and sell handmade items. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee. It has been described as a cross between Amazon and eBay. The fee to list an item is 20 cents, so not too bad.
This is a total unknown for me. I have had a few ideas, but nothing that has really panned out. I have a few home-made items that I own, but would be unable to recreate or part with. I was thinking of maybe making a pair of my old Converse into something a bit more artistic and seeing if anyone would bite.
4. Start a blog
Blogging is a great way to organize your ideas, develop your artist statement and allow people to get to know a bit more about yourself. Using Blogger (free) or Wordpress, develop a blog that will feature your creative works and ideas. Do not get this confused with a personal blog – no lamentations over ex’s or roommate complaints here, please! Stick to your artwork – process, ideas and inspiration. You should post at least once a week.
An ongoing process, as you can plainly see!
5. Find an online art partner and make a collaborative art piece that utilizes both geographical spaces
Now that we have all these forums for finding other creative people, find a like-minded individual with whom you can work to create a piece of art that utilizes both of your geographic locations. This could be something that specifically features each of your areas, or simply something that exists in both spaces in some way that can be documented. The further away the better, but your partner must live at least 2 hours drive away.
My friend, a girl I met when I was only 13, lives in Pennsylvania and is an accomplished artist. I hope (no pun intended) to arrange something with her. In terms of how it will use each location, though, I'm not quite sure.
6. Using iWeb, create a web portfolio for your artwork
If you don’t yet have one, register a domain name (something professional, that relates to your work) for your site. Godaddy.com is my recommendation. As a student you can host your site through the UIS student server for free, but godaddy also has hosting packages. iWeb is probably the simplest web editor program out there and it looks great. (here is a sample site: www.laurenpeltzman.com)
This is something that I will do once I have more pieces to actually post.
7. Using your cell phone (or other simple camera) to create a stop-motion video from still images and upload it to youtube and vimeo
We take photos everyday, with our cell phones, webcams, surveillance cameras and plain old digital cameras so why not make something cool and interesting with them?
a well-known example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=55YYaJIrmzo
Me and my friends have been throwing around ideas for a butt-surfing video. Always fun!
1. Create a photo narrative using a Flickr photo set
Flickr is an image and video hosting website that is free to use (for the base account, more features are available for a fee). Flickr allows users to organize their photos into "sets", or groups of photos that fall under the same heading. Create a Flickr set of images that tells some sort of story (i.e. training my dog, a road trip to St Louis, the life cycle of a picked flower, protesting disability services to president White, etc). The narrative must be evident and there must be a logical progression of events between the images.
I started off college becoming friends with an incredibly skilled Guitar Hero player. One of his big projects at the time was to custom paint a guitar from the game. I thought the idea was a lot of fun, so I ended up spending a few weeks creating a guitar of my own. I have a lot of photos of the process, so I figure I can make a decent photo journal from that.
2. Submit a desktop design to pixelgirlpresents.com
PGP is a site with loads of free wallpaper and icon sets (for Mac and PC) available to download and install for free. Individual designers create the wallpapers and icons and, if selected, each designer is given credit for his or her work. Design a wallpaper using the site’s recommended guidelines and submit your design.
The Koi piece below could make a decent icon/wallpaper set. I figure I can spend spring break making a few icons that relate to the fish project and make the art piece itself into something a bit more finished/wallpaper-ey.
3. Put a piece of your artwork for sale on etsy.com
Etsy is a website which focuses primarily on providing the general public with a way to buy and sell handmade items. The site follows in the tradition of open craft fairs, giving sellers personal storefronts where they list their goods for a fee. It has been described as a cross between Amazon and eBay. The fee to list an item is 20 cents, so not too bad.
This is a total unknown for me. I have had a few ideas, but nothing that has really panned out. I have a few home-made items that I own, but would be unable to recreate or part with. I was thinking of maybe making a pair of my old Converse into something a bit more artistic and seeing if anyone would bite.
4. Start a blog
Blogging is a great way to organize your ideas, develop your artist statement and allow people to get to know a bit more about yourself. Using Blogger (free) or Wordpress, develop a blog that will feature your creative works and ideas. Do not get this confused with a personal blog – no lamentations over ex’s or roommate complaints here, please! Stick to your artwork – process, ideas and inspiration. You should post at least once a week.
An ongoing process, as you can plainly see!
5. Find an online art partner and make a collaborative art piece that utilizes both geographical spaces
Now that we have all these forums for finding other creative people, find a like-minded individual with whom you can work to create a piece of art that utilizes both of your geographic locations. This could be something that specifically features each of your areas, or simply something that exists in both spaces in some way that can be documented. The further away the better, but your partner must live at least 2 hours drive away.
My friend, a girl I met when I was only 13, lives in Pennsylvania and is an accomplished artist. I hope (no pun intended) to arrange something with her. In terms of how it will use each location, though, I'm not quite sure.
6. Using iWeb, create a web portfolio for your artwork
If you don’t yet have one, register a domain name (something professional, that relates to your work) for your site. Godaddy.com is my recommendation. As a student you can host your site through the UIS student server for free, but godaddy also has hosting packages. iWeb is probably the simplest web editor program out there and it looks great. (here is a sample site: www.laurenpeltzman.com)
This is something that I will do once I have more pieces to actually post.
7. Using your cell phone (or other simple camera) to create a stop-motion video from still images and upload it to youtube and vimeo
We take photos everyday, with our cell phones, webcams, surveillance cameras and plain old digital cameras so why not make something cool and interesting with them?
a well-known example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=55YYaJIrmzo
Me and my friends have been throwing around ideas for a butt-surfing video. Always fun!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Art over the years
Hey cats.
I figured I would post a few of my peices from the past few years. None of them are particularly impressive, in any way, but I figured it would at least give a sense of my art style.
This is a smaller doodle that I did only about a month ago. I'm a huge fan of art without lines. I love to see brush strokes and have the piece feel painted, even if it's done digitally. Texture and roughness give a piece a human feel. It almost gives you a sense of the artist's personality.
This was a piece done last year. Again, more of a rough doodle than anything, but I still enjoy it. I've always loved dogs and wolves, so they've always been a focus of a lot of my art. It gets old, though, so I try to mix it up from time to time. Still, animals have always been my strong suite.
A sketch of Hellboy from the popular comic/movie franchise. Again, just something I enjoy. I'm horrible at humans, especially their faces, so this was a bit of an experiment for me.
A friend of mine, Ken, would always upload line-art without any color. I would occasionally take his pieces and color them for practice. This was one of my more successful attempts. His line-art is based off of our characters in the semi-popular Korean MMO Ragnarok Online.
I figured I would post a few of my peices from the past few years. None of them are particularly impressive, in any way, but I figured it would at least give a sense of my art style.
This is a smaller doodle that I did only about a month ago. I'm a huge fan of art without lines. I love to see brush strokes and have the piece feel painted, even if it's done digitally. Texture and roughness give a piece a human feel. It almost gives you a sense of the artist's personality.
This was a piece done last year. Again, more of a rough doodle than anything, but I still enjoy it. I've always loved dogs and wolves, so they've always been a focus of a lot of my art. It gets old, though, so I try to mix it up from time to time. Still, animals have always been my strong suite.
A sketch of Hellboy from the popular comic/movie franchise. Again, just something I enjoy. I'm horrible at humans, especially their faces, so this was a bit of an experiment for me.
A friend of mine, Ken, would always upload line-art without any color. I would occasionally take his pieces and color them for practice. This was one of my more successful attempts. His line-art is based off of our characters in the semi-popular Korean MMO Ragnarok Online.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Movie Review 1 - Inside (À l'intérieur)
'Tis been forever since I've done one of these. But it's ten at night and I'm just bored enough that, by Jove, this might work!
For anyone who's been even remotely paying attention to the more recent releases of the American horror community, the scene is grim--Remakes of remakes, Americanized J-horror, and even remakes of movies that haven't even finished filming (COUGH COUGH QUARANTINE COUGH) have been the name of the game. The name of the game has also been "Suck". As in "These movies suck". Or "Hey Joel, bet you can't suck this cucumber through this hose". Poor Joel, he was always so gullible.
As such, the hopes and dreams of horror movie buffs such as myself lie squarely on the shoulders of the foreign markets. In this particular case, the shoulders are drooped in disgust for the outside world and smell vaguely of cheese and tobacco. That is, the shoulders are French (please don't kill me France, I love your movies!). And so we turn our eyes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, with their first ever movie--Inside. Following the tale of a young pregnant woman held hostage in her own home by a mysterious black-clad attacker, Inside gives the viewer a choice that not many movies do. It's not easy to sway the audience away from the side of a female victim, nonetheless a pregnant one. Yet Inside asks the viewer to watch closely and, by the end, question the justification of a clearly psychotic and tremendously violent woman. Like Hard Candy (see previous review), the "correct" side is ambiguous.
The French DVD Box
I have to admit, just looking at the box screams "mediocre B-grade film project". But hey, I've seen some damn good B-grade film projects (COUGH COUGH EVIL DEAD COUGH), so I press on. I had heard that the movie was good. Damn good. Frenchly good. I had also heard it was violent. And not in the "oh cool a guy got his arm cut off" way, the "I think I just learned with the inside of a spleen looks like" way. So I have to admit I came in with higher expectations that I normal like to have for a movie. I was not disappointed.
Inside is a masterful movie. It's not quite the obscene torture porn of Hostel, yet definitely not a tame movie. All of the effects are practical and unrelenting in their depiction. It's been quite a while since I've watched a movie that's made me uncomfortable, let alone kept me uncomfortable for the entire run. Yet it never pushed into the realm of gratuitous that so often ruins films like this. The film pays homage to old-school slashers like Black Christmas and Halloween by keeping the action contained in a cramped, claustrophobic setting. A majority of the movie never leaves the heroine's house.
Definitely not a movie for everyone, Inside will test your mettle in terms of gore. It doesn't rely on oceans of blood and guts to keep itself afloat, however. The film uses tension and suspense to keep the viewer constantly unsettled, yet never pushes the movie into the realm of ridiculous. If you are sick of remakes and want something new and intense to sink your teeth into, Inside is a good place to start.
Grade: A
For anyone who's been even remotely paying attention to the more recent releases of the American horror community, the scene is grim--Remakes of remakes, Americanized J-horror, and even remakes of movies that haven't even finished filming (COUGH COUGH QUARANTINE COUGH) have been the name of the game. The name of the game has also been "Suck". As in "These movies suck". Or "Hey Joel, bet you can't suck this cucumber through this hose". Poor Joel, he was always so gullible.
As such, the hopes and dreams of horror movie buffs such as myself lie squarely on the shoulders of the foreign markets. In this particular case, the shoulders are drooped in disgust for the outside world and smell vaguely of cheese and tobacco. That is, the shoulders are French (please don't kill me France, I love your movies!). And so we turn our eyes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury, with their first ever movie--Inside. Following the tale of a young pregnant woman held hostage in her own home by a mysterious black-clad attacker, Inside gives the viewer a choice that not many movies do. It's not easy to sway the audience away from the side of a female victim, nonetheless a pregnant one. Yet Inside asks the viewer to watch closely and, by the end, question the justification of a clearly psychotic and tremendously violent woman. Like Hard Candy (see previous review), the "correct" side is ambiguous.
The French DVD Box
I have to admit, just looking at the box screams "mediocre B-grade film project". But hey, I've seen some damn good B-grade film projects (COUGH COUGH EVIL DEAD COUGH), so I press on. I had heard that the movie was good. Damn good. Frenchly good. I had also heard it was violent. And not in the "oh cool a guy got his arm cut off" way, the "I think I just learned with the inside of a spleen looks like" way. So I have to admit I came in with higher expectations that I normal like to have for a movie. I was not disappointed.
Inside is a masterful movie. It's not quite the obscene torture porn of Hostel, yet definitely not a tame movie. All of the effects are practical and unrelenting in their depiction. It's been quite a while since I've watched a movie that's made me uncomfortable, let alone kept me uncomfortable for the entire run. Yet it never pushed into the realm of gratuitous that so often ruins films like this. The film pays homage to old-school slashers like Black Christmas and Halloween by keeping the action contained in a cramped, claustrophobic setting. A majority of the movie never leaves the heroine's house.
Definitely not a movie for everyone, Inside will test your mettle in terms of gore. It doesn't rely on oceans of blood and guts to keep itself afloat, however. The film uses tension and suspense to keep the viewer constantly unsettled, yet never pushes the movie into the realm of ridiculous. If you are sick of remakes and want something new and intense to sink your teeth into, Inside is a good place to start.
Grade: A
A post to remember me by
Well, as a first post, I figured I would give a bit of background of my creative experiences.
My creative career has been a bit rough and tumble. From kindergarten to freshman year of high school I produced at least one piece of art a day. I spent at least three hours every day drawing--I never had any formal training, I simply doodled and used occasional references for inspiration. I enjoyed it more than anything and, as such, I figured a bit of formal training would be a good addition to my repertoire. My freshman year of high school signaled my first taste of an actual art class.
I hated it. It was so structured and forced. It made me sick to even think of my pieces in that class as art. They were assignments, stifled abortions of my creative spirit. It sounds melodramatic and elitist, but to this day I could never understand how anyone could enjoy such a shackled approach to art. I never quite recovered from that experience. The will to draw slowly drained and replaced with the weight of increasing responsibility. I still have a tremendous respect for the art community and thoroughly enjoy creativity in any form.
Fortunately, my creative spirit found a new outlet in the form of cinematography. I absolutely adore movies. I have a special place in my heart for the oddities and obscurities of the film world and, within that special place, I have an even more special place for the horror genre. As such, I tend to accrue a collection of bizarre films most people have never heard of and probably would never chose to watch of their own volition. My friends affectionately refer to my selections as "Jon movies", as their bizarre qualities are forever linked with me in their minds.
It makes me incredibly happy to share them with others and hopefully make new fans of everyone who reads my work. Creativity doesn't always have to fall within the visual realm. Although I lost one creative outlet, it pushed me to another that I enjoy just as much.
I like to try to include a bit of humor in most of my reviews just to keep things fun, so hopefully you enjoy!
My creative career has been a bit rough and tumble. From kindergarten to freshman year of high school I produced at least one piece of art a day. I spent at least three hours every day drawing--I never had any formal training, I simply doodled and used occasional references for inspiration. I enjoyed it more than anything and, as such, I figured a bit of formal training would be a good addition to my repertoire. My freshman year of high school signaled my first taste of an actual art class.
I hated it. It was so structured and forced. It made me sick to even think of my pieces in that class as art. They were assignments, stifled abortions of my creative spirit. It sounds melodramatic and elitist, but to this day I could never understand how anyone could enjoy such a shackled approach to art. I never quite recovered from that experience. The will to draw slowly drained and replaced with the weight of increasing responsibility. I still have a tremendous respect for the art community and thoroughly enjoy creativity in any form.
Fortunately, my creative spirit found a new outlet in the form of cinematography. I absolutely adore movies. I have a special place in my heart for the oddities and obscurities of the film world and, within that special place, I have an even more special place for the horror genre. As such, I tend to accrue a collection of bizarre films most people have never heard of and probably would never chose to watch of their own volition. My friends affectionately refer to my selections as "Jon movies", as their bizarre qualities are forever linked with me in their minds.
It makes me incredibly happy to share them with others and hopefully make new fans of everyone who reads my work. Creativity doesn't always have to fall within the visual realm. Although I lost one creative outlet, it pushed me to another that I enjoy just as much.
I like to try to include a bit of humor in most of my reviews just to keep things fun, so hopefully you enjoy!
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