Project #2

The artist that inspired my pieces was Aubrey Beardsley. Beardsley had a precocious talent for illustration - he began to publish his work in his grammar school magazine and then illustrated for J.M. Dent's version of "Morte d'Arthur". Beardsley's artwork can be described as elegant, ornamental, two dimensional, exotic, and sexual. His usage of fine intricate lines and his attention to detail has inspired all four of my pieces. As I started sketching for this project, I couldn't sketch a design particularly for its elemental purpose. Therefore, I based my sketches on the shapes i found in Beardsley's illustration and tried to organize them in a compositionally interesting way. Then i chose the ones that represented each category the best.

REPETITION

I had trouble coming up with a repetition piece without making it blatantly obvious, hence the repeated circles in the background. While cutting out the final shapes, I decided to add the bigger circles on top of the drawn in circles to create a sense of depth and to make the piece asymmetrical. This is my least favorite piece because I could have been more creative with the usage of repetition, rather than having repetition present only in the background of the piece.

MOVEMENT

This piece was inspired by a bow decoration in Beardsley's, Contents Page of The Savoy No. 1. I tried to create movement in this piece by playing with lines and the positioning of weight.

EMPHASIS + ECONOMY

This piece was inspired by a figure present in one of Beardsley's illustrations. I tried to emphasize one corner of the square, however I think it may be more effective if the figures were scaled a bit smaller to make the economy of the piece more apparent.

I forgot to take a picture of my balance piece. I thought my balance piece could have been better if the craftsmanship were impeccable. I tried to create balance by adding more circles to the sides of the piece so it wouldn't seem completely symmetrical. I enjoyed contrast of the fine lines and the bold circles in this piece, but I could have done better by making the piece more interesting.

Andrew's Project 2

After hours and hours and hours and hours of work, here's my final pieces of Project 2:



Movement












I was quite happy with this piece, for its ability to achieve some form of perceived depth and the mind-bogglingness that characterizes Op(tical) Art. I was particularly glad with the way the lines (both the angular and the round) worked together to create a somewhat harmonious piece.

I however, was quite disappointed with the craftsmanship. In order to achieve the many alternating black/white shapes that Op Art demands, I was unable to cut and paste the different elements with perfection. Additionally, the small spaces in between the cutouts made it extremely difficult to remove any Paper Cement residue.

Also, while the "movement" effect was achieved, I feel that it was only to a small extent. The eye is drawn to the center of the piece, but not forced to move "in, out, and around" the piece. This is something, I think, that characterizes movement - that it leads the eye to move throughout the piece, not just to one area.

Nevetheless, the making of this piece, though extremely time consuming, was quite rewarding - when the two sides pieced together accurately, it was quite.. satisfying :)




Movement












I like the clealiness of the piece, and out of all my Op Art pieces, I think this is the least elaborate (read: simple and economical). Additionally, it clearly displays repetition in Op Art, as the diamonds are gradually squished at the top and create a kinda of "going over" feel.

During the critique, however, I realized that repetition did not necessarily mean that the same shape/pattern had to be repeated throughout the piece. Instead, varying, even contrasting, shapes should be included to create a more dynamic and interesting piece.

As such, as much as I like this piece, it may edge on the more "boring" side. Thank goodness that the "Op Art" feel, in my opinion, makes it a little more interesting.


Emphasis & Economy












This is my piece for Emphasis and Economy. It took me two whole days to finish because of the tiny tiny tiny pieces that I had to measure/cut/paste, and I feel that the biggest pitfall of this piece is the craftsmanship - like the Movement piece, lots of cement residue was left and could not be removed without damaging the cutouts.

Additionally, I feel that this composition could have been stronger in creating a 3-D effect, as it gets a little messy in the middle.

In achieving Emphasis and Economy, however, I feel that it quite obviously shows both, although to varying extents. Because the 3-D effect was not as strong as I hoped it to be, the pattern in the middle was not as "emphasized" as I hoped it to be.

Balance












When I first started out on this piece, the circle in the middle was placed in the dead center of the square. I wanted to upload a photo of it but I only just realized that I submitted it with the rest of the project, so can't have it here. Anyhow, the initial idea obviously displayed balance in a quasi-(Ying & Yang) style, but it proved to be a little boring. By tilting the angle of the circle, and placing a smaller optic circle on the opposite corner, I was able to achieve a slightly more interesting and dynamic piece.

By doing this, however, I feel that the tilt took away the balance in the piece, and it now had to be read in a deeper way. I'm still trying to understand how balance is determined (specifically) in a conceptual manner.

Hope you enjoyed! I really enjoy Op Art, and definitely hope that my pieces fit the category. I do however realize that Op Art isn't the best form of art to work with Goauche, since there's both numerous and tiny pieces to work with. My errors in not taking care of the Goauche surface, not cutting as accurately as I hoped, and being unable to handle and paste the tiny pieces - these failures did not give justice the effect that Op Art soughts to establish.

Project 2 by Michelle

This last composition makes use of the repitition principle. This is my least favorite of the four and it's posted upside down. The use of lines in the background and within the feathers attempt to create a pattern. I tried to balance out the curves and flow of the lines within the feather with the contrasting straight and static lines in the background.

For this project I chose Aubrey Beardsley as my source of inspiration. I love his simple use of shapes, yet he still manages to create fine details within his compositions. The first image is emphasizes the design concept: balance. Although the frail tree consumes most of the space, I tried to balance it with the moon. I created fine details inside the moon to balance out the frailty of the branches. I also tried to balance out the large amounts of negative space with a fairly large black positive space, which is assumed to be the ground. Beardsley often made use of borders, so I created thin borders to keep the viewer's eye within the composition. The second image, which emphasizes movement, also uses borders to contain the viewer's eye within the composition. The vines are supposed to create a rapid flow as many are diagnols and vertical. To balance out the negative space
and to create a resting point for the viewer's gaze, I made a fairy-like creature consuming the left portion of the composition. The third composition makes use of the design principle: emphasis and economy. I used large portions of black negative space and balanced it out with a drawing of a bird, which takes up about half of the space. I tried not to create too many fine details, with the exception of a few fine lines in the tail. This is to create a sense of moevement in a rather static composition.

Project 2 by Hila

When we were first assigned this project I drew 120 images endlessly that were really boring. Thankfully Sherin told us to pick an artist to mimic our images off of...I could not directly choose one. Shephard Fairey had the biggest impact 

on me when we researched him and I also began to envision pieces that were inspire by work by Roy Lichtenstein (i.e. movement design).

I sat and just googled images so I can draw some inspiration off of.

For Balance I really liked this: For Movement I really liked this image of my friend smoking hookah, I decided to mimic this but distort it into a design inspired by Roy Lichtenstein: 

For Economy I felt like this image was great along with a bunch of other poses Rihanna did in her "Umbrella" music video:
For Repetition I wanted to use this rose/eye image I used in a painting I did in high school. I took the template and elaborated it more:

What resulted were these designs:

Repetition - I added a quote I manipulated that Nouri actually had told me earlier in the week...

I took the image of my friend smoking hookah and I changed it through using an image I saw of a woman Roy Lichtenstein did...after I completed it I realized I needed more movement within the smoke so I kept adding curves:

Balance was the first design I began for this project. I love the movie American Gangster, so naturally this image was one of my favorites and I thought it was so cool...

For Economy I took the different poses of Rihanna 

and came up with this...which ended up being my easiest cutout lol

Project 2 by Allen

For Project 2, I chose the artist Ryan McGinness as my inspiration for my four compositions. After going through the list of artists, I was so happy to stumble upon his work. I really like his style and it kind of fits with my own, and so I thought he would be a good direction to go with. I'm a big fan of the iconography he uses as well as the intricacy of his designs. Yet, from afar, they seem so simple and have this pop art thing going on.




(L-R: Balance, Emphasis and Economy, Movement, Repetition)
I love the Balance piece because of the two faces that are creepy/cute, but I also love it because of the white web-like design at the top. It took forever to cut but I was really happy with the end result. Emphasis and Economy was the piece I did last, and you can definitely tell because it is the most simple. I really like the simplisticity, however, and I could definitely see it being on a t-shirt or something. The Movement piece looked better in the thumbnail form, but I still like how it came out. I also really like the "alive" typography, and how it kind of reflects the liveliness of the movement. I have a love/hate relationship with my Repetition composition. Initially, I drew it with only the skull shape, and everything else filled in black. Before I blew it up, however, Sherin thought I should add more to it, and so I added the clouds and the rectangular shapes. The tiny circles, as imperfect as they are, took literally two hours to cut out, so I suppose I have to love it. ;)

Culver City Galleries

My photos uploaded in reverse order for some reason, but it's all good. I believe the above is a photograph of a hospital hallway, but I was initially drawn to it because of its simple but very harmonious color scheme. I like how you cannot really tell what it is a composition of, but it's beautiful regardless.



I loved this gallery even though I didn't really know what was going on. My shoes inadvertently ended up in the shot but I thought it made for a cool little composition. The blue light installations are gorgeous, though.



I think my favorite piece throughout all the galleries we ventured through. There's just something so perfect about this photograph of two intertwined hands. I like how the grayscale is very well balanced, and I also like how, even though the arms directly cut across the diagonal, there's almost something grotesque about two naked arms protruding from the corner of the page that brings a lot of dimension into the photograph.




I loved the Yoshitomo Nara exhibit. His work just makes me fall in love with the whole, Japanese pop art movement, the way his characters are a little creepy but all have this ethereal, cherubish quality to them.

Culver City

Derek Buckner


Matt Chambers


Marianne Mueller


Yoshitomo Nara




Becca Man


Valerie Favre