MONO+COMP+ANALOGOUS

Similar to the color wheel this color mixing project involved good craft. It involed a clean finished product. I enjoy the feeling of having a beautiful finish piece no matter how annoying or time consuming the activity might be. When I first sat and started the color mixing project I was thinking about how unimportant it was for me to paint these rectangles. Once I finished the first row (monochromatic), I found that I was becoming much faster at mixing the colors. Once I was able to get the colors faster painting did not become such a dreadful task. It took some time but after working with the medium for a while I was able to enjoy the assignment more. I was happy with my end result. There was a great improvements in my color mixing after completing the activity.

Color Wheel!!!!

I was able to finish the primary colors of my color wheel in class. The color wheel is a classic way to get to know and understand color, but because it is such a common start to understanding color I found this assignment boring. I have made many other color wheels in my art career and painting another one was monotonous.The one thing I did like about creating this color wheel though was its precise lines and the emphasis on the perfect gradation of color. All the color wheels I have made in the past have been a simple, quick attempt and this is the first that I truly tried to make the perfect color. I am a bit of a perfectionist and this structure for the assignment appealed to me greatly.The type of color wheel that our class painted is called Munsell color system. This system deals with hue, value, and color purity. Hue is another name for pure color. A hue does not have any tint or shade to change its appearance. Value is where a color sits on the scale of light and dark. Color purity is the saturation of the color. These three elements make up the Munsell color wheel. Again, I have painted color wheels before so the generel assignment was lack luster, but the way it was carried out was a better way to teach basic color.

Learning Color

Color means more to me than it did before college. I like color now. 

I took an oil painting class last year and that 6 week class opened the world of color for me. Ever since I took that class I have seen color in a different way. I notice color more frequently in my day to day life. When I first started to go to museums and was interested in paintings and the technique, I found that I was loving color more and more. All the paintings I saw had such interesting combinations of color, and because I have been a photographer for a couple of years now, there was a time where I ignored color, due to my love of black and white photographs. 

Once I started learning art history in first semester of college I realized the vast world of color, and how necessary color can be in art. College has exposed me to new colors and a new way of thinking about color. I feel like I am learning how color works with paint, light, and everyday items. Through this class(Visual Concepts), I have learned to mix colors and to experiment with the combination of them. Through some minor design work, studying color photographs, and being exposed to more art I have developed a greater understanding of color. 

Color Context

Color changes the way we perceive objects. Corporate companies know this and use it to their advantage. A couple examples: the color red is used to catch attention (stop signs, bike reflectors) and the color green is used to represent calmness, nature, healthy things. 

The picture to the left shows Johnson's baby lotion. The bottle was made pink probably because the company wanted to portray a feeling of softness and comfort. Pink also reminds me of baby items due to its strong reference in girl baby clothing. Companies think of all these things when creating a product and deciding its color. 

In the second picture each gift card has different colors that have been assigned to a company. Each company has chosen colors that would best represent its motive. The cards shown are cell phone minute cards. Most cell phone companies have chosen bright colors to catch the attention of their customers. Repeating colors are also used to get customers to relate those colors with that company. 

Color has everything to do with product design and is an important part of how we as customers perceive things. 

Bromley Mission School

On November 7th I went to Liberia with a few churches from northern Virginia. On the mission trip our group brought school supplies, clothing, food, and improved facilities to Bromley Mission School. The school is a girls boarding school and has about 187 students. I enjoyed my trip greatly, and appreciated meeting and spending time with the girls.  You can see photos of my trip here

Smoking, Wrestling, and High Fives

I participated in two performances today as well as help instruct my own. The first performance I did was Jake's. His activity was for me and a partner (Jill) to go through the steps of smoking a cigarette. Jake wrote out each step from lighting to the disposal. I enjoyed this activity even though it was simple. 

The next performance I was involved in was Thiana's. Her performance piece involved two partners linking arms. After linking each person had to pull as hard as they could until one of the participants gave up. This activity was 

about strength and was more of a competition. My partner was Chul for this performance which was a good match I thought, and the whole experience was fun but eventually came to a draw.

My interactive performance required two people to perform. The partners had to stand about 10 feet apart and walk towards each other to give a high five. Once the first high five was given the two participants had to follow through and low five behind the back. This results in a continuous motion of high fives. This motion was to be repeated until perfected. I thought my performance worked for the assignment and was performed correctly. 

The interactive performances were a new form of art that I have not experimented with before. This class activity not only made class interesting but gave me a better sense of what the artists were doing in that time.  

Fluxus

Fluxus is a network of artists and designers known for using multiple types of media and using new or different ways of making art. Fluxus got its start in the mid to late 1950's from the experimental music of John Cage. George Maciunas was influenced by John Cage's ideas, especially in the idea of chance in art. There was a class taught by Cage called Experimental Composition at the New School of Social Research in New York City. Fluxus was more interested in simplicity a do it yourself way of thinking. A popular type of Fluxus art is called Fluxkits. These kits were a combination of games, printed cards, and ideas that are then organized in a wooden box. This one type of art was created by George Maciunas. Later in the Fluxus movement many members started to explore poetry, performance pieces, and experimental music and film. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus