Final Response Project 

Final Response Project

For my final response project I decided to respond to the recent events with the country Israel. Donald Trump had the city of Jerusalem named the capital of Israel and caused outrage from the Palestinians as the country used to share the sacred city. My thoughts on the whole issue is, I don't think the United States should be concerned with this kind of stuff and now since we did, there’s a lot of havoc in the middle east by the Gaza strip. The only research I did was I saw the story on CNN and found it interesting and then read several articles about it. I used a white canvas and colors that matched the flag of Israel with the Jewish star and the Palestine flag. I painted the Israeli flag on the inside to show that they have the capital now and the Palestine flag on the outside to show that the United States didn't name it the capitol for them. The strongest part I think from my painting is the use of colors and the symbols they show. One thing that needs improvement is the use of Donald Trump since he was a huge part of this ordeal, but also maybe adding a little bit of abstract forms in it to show the havoc and dis pleasant response from the middle east and around the world. A visual risk that I took was using these colors since I haven't painted in a long time and it was something almost new to me, also using a canvas was something new to me since it felt unique when I was painting. The project didn't really change much since I had a sketch of what I wanted to draw. I wanted to add a picture of response from the people of the middle east so I added the protest signs at the bottom because I didn't want it to be just the country itself. The response I got from it is what I expected it to be, everybody seemed to understand what the message was about and identified the problem pretty well. My work has changed throughout the semester pretty well because I went from just a marker drawing to a sculpture to a painting which I think is a pretty good evolvement. Each project I did something new and a response to something I had a strong opinion on which made my project better and easier. One thing I learned about myself as a artist is I’m capable of reaching new heights and going outside my comfratable zone and doing something new. I also have a new way of looking at art instead of just noticing the skill it took to make it. 

Reflection

As my first semester comes to a end the things I learned in Visual Arts is creativity and finding deeper meaning to things in life. This class helped unlock my creative side as I created things I didn't know I was capable of and it also helped me find new meanings to things I didn't try to interpret before. My original understanding of art was it was a way for someone to express their imagination and to this day I think that statement is still true. Throughout the semester I got see so many artists and what type of skills they possessed and how they used it to make artistic things, I believe that was something they got from their imagination and they just turned it into a physical form. One thing that was difficult was the grading was confusing and I felt like some assignments were hard to follow in terms of what we had to do, it felt redundant. One thing I enjoyed was looking at different types of art whether it was paintings, sculptures or drawings. Also it was cool to see my classmates art projects. One piece of advice I would give to future students is to be real towards your art works and put what ever you want on a sculpture or canvas or anything that feels like art to you.

https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/propaganda-as-a-weapon

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/ww1posters/4964

https://owlcation.com/humanities/How-Were-Propaganda-Posters-Used-In-World-War-1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Reformation

https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/propaganda

https://www.canva.com/learn/examples-of-propaganda/

The topic I chose was propaganda and the two time periods I focused on were the reformation years during the renaissance and early 20th century. During the early parts of the 20th century World War 1 was starting to take over the world. A lot of countries used propaganda to shape citizen opinions, mainly to gain international support. Most countries used newspaper printings and publishers to distribute these posters. They all had different styles and ways, for example german propaganda tended to lack subtly and they used organizations such as the fatherland corporation as publishers, but that often gave the game away. American,French,British, and Russian drawings all had colorful eye-popping drawings that caught viewers eyes. Some qualities during the war was all the propaganda artists messages were similar to one another, they all wanted the viewer to understand their message. The interpretations that artists wanted to put out is to get citizens to join the war. Also another big thing was food conservation for the soldiers, also getting people to buy war bonds to help the war financially. Even though women didn't have full equal rights during the time some drawings did encourage them to provide certain resources. But most posters appealed to mens emotions, proposing that if they joined the army they will be viewed as heroes and brave men. One key artwork were posters that dealt with food issues, food shortages were extensive globally. Even before the US joined the war american relief organizations were shipping food overseas. 

Propaganda during the reformation helped spread the printing press idea throughout Europe in the early sixteenth century, It brought new ideas thoughts and ideology. Propaganda during the european renaissance ha a religious focus. It was supposed to be a time of peace so art was supposed to flourish. It was mostly influenced by the christian religion. The art developed at the time was meant to relate to the bible, religious messages, and ‘’promote’’ christianity . Most artists used pamphlets, leaflets, texts and letters that usually were 8 to 16 pages long. Reformers questioned the authority of the church and the pope. Protestants believed the main authority of the church should be the gospel or scripture. Another strong message found in protestant propaganda was that everybody should be granted access to the bible. Martin Luther put forth arguments from the bible that indicated that everyone had the ability to interpret scripture from the bible, not just the pope. In terms of tone and manner, reformation propaganda, while sometimes serious in tone it was often satirical, featuring word play and sarcasm.

Propaganda today has not changed in terms of  purpose, as people today are still using it, to pass on specific messages or one-sided information in order to gain or endorse something. Although it is viewed sometimes negativlity because of politics, it also has some positive to it as when some artists will use it to gain attention or awareness on a problem.

I attented the Renata Graw lecture in the playhouse theater on October 18th, during the lecture Mrs.Graw mostly talked about the recent projects she's done and her life story from how she began to be a graphic designer. She talked about how she backpacked around Europe and had taken school there. She then came to Chicago to study graphic design which i thought was really cool. She works for a Normal which is her graphic company and talked about some of the work they have done and went through the process of how they met with clients and discussed projects. She also shared examples of the work they have done and told us about their website, it looked really basic to me but that’s what most of her work looked like so it was unique. Overall it was enjoyable and something new to hear a graphic designer background story.

Group Response Project

Group Response Project

My group chose to respond to problems going on in the enviroment and broke it down into smaller sections and each of us chose different problems we see in the world today. The research we did was we mostly knew the problems ourselves since we see it already and have experienced it. Most of our materials tried to represent the specific problem we were trying to present like with forest fires I used actually debris like items and sticks, leaves and wood. We also picked pollution and made dirty cotton to show ozone layer and greenhouse gas effects. I think the strongest part of our project is how we separated the different enviromental problems into its own individual box. I didn't think we needed to improve anything. The visual risks we took is the material we used and taking time to put it togehter to make sure it looked like great from a artisitc view. The project changed from empty boxes to filling it up with our materials and changing the whole scenery. I think the work did do what inteded as the point to get across to most people, helping prevent these problems would help the planet and human race in general. Other interpretations people might get is its just a bunch of random materials put together to make it look like abstract art. It was nice to work with new people and working with them was a cool experience especially making a creative project, the only difficulties we had was communication but that got resolved pretty quick.

1.Snippet of “The Quick and the Dead’’

2. Facsimile

3. Apostles

Contemporary Artist

I did a in depth video on Stephen Andrews and his art work. He is a political artist that’s from Canada. The materials that Andrews uses are mostly handcrafted using oil’s, latex, crayon, and linoleum printing, and he also has made a couple of animations based off his art work. Andrews likes to respond to a lot of media influenced problems and tries to pass on a message through his art. His drawing like to represent the body and the body politic, as well as the dual relationship between the human and the mechanical. One historical even that has influenced Andrews is the “Toronto Bathhouse raids, which resulted in four gay bathhouses being raided by the Metropolitan Toronto police in 1981. This made andrews start making political artwork. The qualities are the use of a lot of image rubbing using encaustic material. Crayon and pencil is used in a lot of detailed work of his. Andrews started off as just doing black and white drawings and photos. He didn't use start using colors until the late 90′s after the AIDS crisis started to be recognized. Critics have given Andrews a lot of positive reviews one of them named Blake Gopnik wrote a article about one of the animation videos Andrews did called the ‘’The quick and the dead’’ saying the video showed the ‘’hardships of war’’. What I like about Andrews work is how he brings the media into his work and shows how it effects us. The materials he uses is also fascinating, the image rubbing and the animation videos that go along with his drawings or paintings.

For my second response project I decided to base my drawing on the tropical storms that have been happening down south. I drew the island of Puerto Rico and colored in the whole country black to represent the electricity that the whole country lost. I think the strongest part of the work is the black out representation of all the electricity being lost. One thing I think needs improvement is maybe using the whole paper instead of just most of it. I don’t believe I took any risks. Other interpretations viewers might get from it is maybe the reason the country is black is because maybe they think after the hurricane hit theres just no life in terms of there’s nothing the people can do. I think the message is very direct in terms of what the black out represents.

For my second response project I decided to base my drawing on the tropical storms that have been happening down south. I drew the island of Puerto Rico and colored in the whole country black to represent the electricity that the whole country lost. I think the strongest part of the work is the black out representation of all the electricity being lost. One thing I think needs improvement is maybe using the whole paper instead of just most of it. I don't believe I took any risks. Other interpretations viewers might get from it is maybe the reason the country is black is because maybe they think after the hurricane hit theres just no life in terms of there’s nothing the people can do. I think the message is very direct in terms of what the black out represents.

My artwork responds to what it is going on in our White House and the state of the country because of our president Donald Trump. The kind of research I did was follow the DACA controversy, the North Korea crisis, and the recent protests in the NFL. I watched a lot of news broadcast on these subjects and followed a lot of social media outlets and posts to see how other people were responding to these controversies. I think the strongest part of this drawing is the colors that I used to illustrate how a joke of a president Donald Trump is by making him look like a orange. One thing that needs improvement is probably the contrast of the colors. I think the message is really direct, instead of Trumps actually face I drew a orange instead to show how serious I take him for a president. I believe most people that would view this would understand the message right away because like I said before its a orange with a wig. A question people might ask is ‘’Why is this man in office?’’ or ‘’Is the country going to be in good hands while he’s in office?’’. 

I think beauty and art are two things that go really well together. Paintings and sculptures can appeal to people as beautiful depending on the feeling they get when they look at it. It can represent beauty but also arouse other feelings. Famous artists like Michelangelo would sculpt people naked, many people believe it was because he wanted to show the beauty of the human body. Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘’Mona Lisa’’ potrait focused more on facial beauty. In more modern day art beauty is more symbolized through female figures whether its on a magazine or a painting or through social media. Art doesn't have to be beautiful, to me it matters from a individual perspective and how someone feels towards a art piece.