More Art

Here's some of my other art in the meantime:

Art

Well I've been painting lately. Watercolors. Not that great, still trying to get the hang of it. Mostly animals too...
Tiger
Octopus
and of course, Jellyfish.
Have a thing for jellyfish.
I'm hoping to scan them in within the next week.

Epona

Epona

Building a world.

Neon Art

At the turtle wash!












I spy a sea turtle!

Me and animals!

Lone Jelly!


I see-through you!!!


Attack of the jellies!

Who knew jellyfish had such an understanding of color!
Orange vs blue.
Great choice guys, great choice.

Cool Art

So I found this artist on DeviantArt a long time ago and have been watching them ever since. I LOVE the style... and especially this one:

Octi-pack

1) because I love sea creatures
2) because the tentacles are drawn so awesomely.

I love the coloring style and the realistic yet cartoonish flavor.
It's a neat mixture.
Wish I could do that.

the gift of the moose

the gift of the moose
Originally uploaded by Steve took it

I thought this was cool.
Awesome picture. Looks like it could have almost been photoshopped.

I just love moose :D

lol

Oh the effects of tv...

MOWA

So in my search for ideas for my website project I went to google and simple typed in "web art". The first thing that came up was most definitely interesting. It was a site called Museum of Web Art. And it's really nifty. They have different galleries of things that move and change and things that stay constant. A kids section with stories and whatnot.
Check it out (especially if your stuck :P )

Museum of Web Art

Animation

I wasn't sure if I posted this before... I think I posted an unfinished version, but here ya go. My animation of about 700 frames...
It was a lot of work, but fun. So much fun.

I'm likin' this new project we're on now too... the web one. I'm getting those creative juices flowin' lol

Insanity

So the past few days have been absolute insanity for me.
Rehearsals ALL OVER the place, 4 concerts... and got Nicole (a Guiding Eyes for the Blind dog) today.

I just kinda wanted to talk about the concerts.
First was playing for honors convocation (I got a music scholarship... Hurray!) - we played (again) Erin Johnston's senior thesis. Two movements from an Irish suite that she arranged. It's so nice, especially the minor parts. What I love about it is that the minor part has the main melody as opposed to the major, which is what usually happens. The second is a slip jig - a famous one called The Black Velvet Band. (you might know it from the Dropkick Murphys) They're both pretty and lots of fun to play, but strange as a processional for honors convocation...

I then had to play for Michaela Cohoon's senior bass recital. Well I shouldn't say HAD to... I wanted too, and it was fun. It was only one song, but very cool. The classical stuff (solo cello sonatas and such) had a weird effect tot hem on bass, they were like, kind of mushy... all together... the notes blurred together because the pitches are so low. The second half was jazz (the half i played in). We played a Libertango. Very neat. Vibraphone, guitar, violin and bass.

Later that night I played with the Catskill Symphony Orhcestra. It was powerful. We had a 100 voice chorus and 4 soloists. Played some Elgar, Brahams, and... well, the graduation song. The official name of the piece was Ode to Coronation. It was ridiculously powerful - at those points when the whole chorus and the soloists as well as the orchestra are playing and singing the loudest... so powerful it gave me goosebumps.

Sunday I had the chamber music concert. It went well, played more Elgar and some Bach. I had to conduct the Bach and some said I started too fast, but I think it was a perfect tempo. Unfortunately there were very few people in the audience. Very very few. But oh well... still went well...

Speaking of Bluegrass...

My last post reminded me of a great group I stumbled across on MySpace.
They're called Blue Highway. They're both traditional and modern mixed into one. They use the old instruments but use really modern and different chord progressions. I think that's one reason I like them so much.
Check out their site on MySpace:

www.myspace.com/bluehighwayband


My favorite song is "Nothing but a Whippoorwill" (I tend to like the minor stuff), but it's all really good. Especially the a capella "What Wondrous Love".

Good stuff, people, good stuff.

Uncommon Ground

So I saw "Uncommon Ground" Sunday afternoon. They were really good. They're a bluegrass band - Guitar (picking), fiddle, mandolin, bass, vocals (and egg). Course it was an exceptionally good concert for me anyways because I fiddle too... I knew half the songs they played. They had really good balance together. Everything was equal, however they needed to turn it up. A friend of mine said "If I go 'Hmm...' (as he scratches his chin) and hear myself say 'Hmm...', it's DEFINITELY not loud enough." Agreed. I think the audience would have been much more inclined to clap, stomp, or sing along if they weren't afraid that they were going to drown them out!
Other than that though, the musicians themselves were amazing. Of course I expected the mandolin and fiddle players to be able to play super fast and tricky, and maybe the guitar too - but never the bassist. The band lovingly referred to him as "the Bass Crusher." And indeed he was. I think I saw smoke coming off of the thing!
They were... corny... as I expected (with the jokes and whatnot) but very down to Earth people. We were able to talk with them afterwards and I actually did I workshop with them - for the most part with the fiddler. I think she plays every genre of music under the sun.
Seeing a group that good just makes me want to improve. I believe I am already a great fiddler but there's always room for improvement... maybe my band will be that good someday.

Btw...

Over the summer I think I'm going to do another stop animation. I'lve always wanted to do a music video stop animation for "The Ballad of Curtis Lowe" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. I love that songs. One of the best songs ever. So I feel like I could really do something for it... :3
Here goes!

Project Playlist

So we talked about a site called AmieSteet a few days ago, and it was brought up again and it reminded me of Project Playlist. www.projectplaylist.com

You can put any song you can think of to a playlist and post the playlist and player on almost any website you can think of.
For example:

Ta-da!
You can't download any of the music. It's just an online playlist (which is how it's legal). But you can listen to your favorite songs wherever you have internet access. Convenient, eh?
Best part - totally free!

Double Exposures

I think they're cool. Really really cool. I have no idea how to do it. I'd love to know though. My friend accidentally did a triple exposure somehow with a disposable camera. I'll see if I can get a hold of that picture...


Double Exposure by ~nirvanaqueen15 on deviantART


Double exposure by ~Midnitesun74 on deviantART



Double Exposure by ~b0hemiarhaps0dy on deviantART



Double Exposure by ~Badkitty5202 on deviantART

On another note... I've really got to get back into this blogging thing...

So far...

Excited about the animation project. This is what I have so far... 53 frames and about 8 frames per second. Actually, this might be 10... I don't really remember :3

Lol

These are two videos that I LOVE that are similar to the photoshop animation project that we'll be working on in class. I'm hoping to do something like this. I'm all for humorous stuff.

Peep Show

    I attended the Peep Show Friday afternoon. It was full of peep puns and “peepisms”. It was rather amusing. Walking around the tables I noticed many similarly themed peep projects. Due to recent events, there were many Spitzer peep puns. Because of the season there were a few snow themed peep art pieces. Some pieces imitated artistic styles. Like cubism meets surrealism. One peep cut up and stuck back together, the other one partially burned and melted. There were peep reenactments of Hamlet and “Peep”ing Toms. There were jousting peeps and peeps parting seas. Peeps that made up a backbone and peeps on TV! Some of the peeps were singing as the Red Hot Chili Peepers. A great number of them had been baked, squashed, and mashed into bowls, pizzas and pies. There were fashion forward peeps strutting down Project Peepway and a box lined with massacred peeps. 

Overall it was a very interesting show. There were too many prizes and category's to keep track of though. I remember that the “Peep”les' Choice Award went to “Sweet Tooth” a stop animation about peeps attacking the guy who was about to eat them and Best in Show when to “Cece n'est pas une peep.” A play on a famous piece of art saying “This is not a pipe (or in this case, peep).” It was a picture of a peep with a strange vibration. I found it interesting the two peep pieces that won the highest awards were the two most technologically advanced. Makes you think, doesn't it? 

Animation

So I guess I'm a little scared about this animation project but at the same time excited. Animation is always a ton of work... but I'd love to create it. Hearing about this project the first thing that came to mind was Waking Life. An amazing movie about dreams and consciousness and all sorts of crazy stuff. Of course since the main character in the movie is always dreaming they needed some weird effects. The whole movie was photoshopped frame by frame, adding filters, random objects and cool designs. Here are some scenes: 

If you really wanna think, you gotta see this movie.

Aside from the great ideas I love the animation style... but sometimes I think it might also take away from the movie. It adds certain things, like the idea of being in a dream state, but it sometimes can distract you from the points they're trying to get across.

Either way... it's one of the most interesting movies I have ever seen.

I'm back!

Wow. So sorry I haven't posted much of anything lately. 

Two Thursdays ago I went to the ER with symptoms of Meningitis, Mono, and the Flu... never found out what it was (Doc thinks it's mono caused by a different and more rare type of virus). But I was there for 5 days, and then home recovering for a week and a half. I've got a bit of blogging to catch up to. 

Anyways, I wanted to share this fractal art. This guy is amazing. Nathan Smith. 

Desktop Variation III by ~nmsmith on deviantART

Inner Sanctum by ~nmsmith on deviantART

Fractal Space by ~nmsmith on deviantART

Someone Watches Over by ~nmsmith on deviantART

And from Wikipedia:

A fractal is generally "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided into parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole,"^[1] a property called self-similarity.

Fractal art is created by calculating fractal objects and representing the calculation results as still images, animations, music, or other media. Fractal art is usually created indirectly with the assistance of a computer, iterating through three phases: setting parameters of appropriate fractal software, executing the possibly lengthy calculation and evaluating the product.

Polaroid Video

This video caught my attention the other day. We had been talking about slow mediums in class (like painting, writing letters, and whatnot). This sort of combines two mediums. One that is very fast - video, and one that is relatively slow - polaroid photos. Not to mention all the hard work and time that went into this... and all the film x_x!

It certainly makes for a unique effect. Oh, and again, this is stop-motion animation. 

(and I found out I have the flu... D:! Very icky...)

Stop Animation

So I've been checking out some stop animation videos on YouTube and I've been noticing a pattern - old video games. I never really realized it before but older video games ARE stop animation. Especially in the first video (below). Anyways I decided to search for stop animation because one of my favorite movies was made that way - The Nightmare Before Christmas. The style isn't realistic... it's not technologically advanced... but it's really cool! In some ways I think people tend have more respect for these types of movies because you can see how much work they put into it. With most other movies everything flows so smoothly you can't tell where work has been done. With stop animation you can see the movement and I think people figure that it must take at least 3 -4 times as much time to make a stop animation than a video. Stop animation is pictures... lots and lots of pictures... but you have to take them individually with much time in between. Video is also lots and lots of pictures... but they're taken so fast you can't tell the difference from one to another. Funny how the speed can change the effect and style so much.

Commercials!

So I'm supposed to be starting this art blog. I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to be talking about... but I'll figure it out along the way. And try to figure out how to make this blog, in and of itself, an art piece. 

First thing that came to mind when we started talking about art and youtube and videos and whatnot is something I believe that was mentioned in class. Mixing old with new. Like setting an old old movie to modern music, or vice versa. Immediately the first thing that popped into my head was this commercial. A tide commercial with Vince Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" playing in the background. 

The song reminds me of cartoons and Christmas, and I never really associated it with anything besides Charlie Brown. I also associated it with being older. So when they put the music to this new Tide commercial I was taken aback. Not to mention the kid in the commercial is incredibly cute... It was interesting and it definitely caught my attention.

Interesting how that works. It did to me exactly what the makers wanted it to. 

Hi

:3 yay blog.