Hello there!

Hello everyone! Had a little bit of technical difficulty getting on this blog, but I'm finally ON! (Cue applause and light cheering.) Anyways, a little about me:

Name: Melissa Leu
Major: Print Journalism, minoring in Communication Design
Graduating: May 2011
Interests: Learning to play guitar, John Mayer, How I Met Your Mother
Goals: First and foremost, I want to improve my technical abilities as an artist. Hopefully, this class will help me do that. Then another goal is to fit into my pants. Studying abroad can really fatten you up (at least if you're the kind of person that likes to gobble up everything on your plate like me).
Currently: I'm working at the Santa Monica Daily Press, Annenberg Center on Public Diplomacy, in the process of making a documentary, along with some other activities.

Yes, yes. As you've probably noticed, I'm a senior taking a fundamentals course. But hey, it's better late than never.

Introducing Pierce Gard

Hi Class! My name is Pierce Gard. My hometown is Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. I'm a Junior here at USC majoring in Business Administration. I'm interested in minoring in Communication Design, so I'm starting with this course. I'm very interested in the Marketing and Advertising side of business and hope that Roski can bring out my creative side. I'd like to learn about digital media, both pictures and videos, but think all art forms are fascinating.
I spent my summer at home in Michigan interning for Detroit's ABC affiliated news station, WXYZ, Channel 7 "Action News". I also worked at the yoga-inspired clothing store, lululemon athletica.
My favorite TV shows are Modern Family and Glee! I love all kinds of music, but my most recent obsession is Lady Gaga. As I mentioned in class, I went to her concert on the 12th at Staples Center. I think her music is amazing, but her artistic talent extends far beyond that. She is such an impressive performer and I am dumbfounded by her theatricality. Here's the link to the Bad Romance music video ...if you haven't seen it yet, I strongly suggest you check it out!

Better Late Than Never

Hello Class, I realize that this post is coming a little bit last minute, but it is better late than never right? My name is Kasey Carpenter. I am a Junior Business Major and will be picking up a fine arts minor... hopefully in graphic design. To let you know a little bit about myself... I am from San Clemente CA. I have been here my whole life and still love this state. Like I said in class my hobbies entail anything with a board. Surfing, Skating, Snowboarding... and photography of the action sports industry is some of the most amazing art I can imagine because of the beauty and precision that is being captured in one shot. I find a lot of these photos all over the web but my best source is the Surfline Portfolio series. The link here is to one of my favorite of those by Jon Steele... ENJOI

Hello everyone

Hey everyone, my name is Luis. I am very excited about this design class and am very interested in meeting all of you throughout the course of the semester. This is my first blog post ever so I don't really know what else to write. With that said I leave you with some of my art work ( if I downloaded it right) Hope ya'll enjoy it.

GREETINGS.

My name is Alyssa Hargrave and I'm a sophomore animation student in the cinema school. I am inspired by SO MANY things, I don't believe there's one topic I could post about that would sufficiently define who I am.

But since I do have to post something, I've decided to share my love of words with you.

Words inspire me emotionally and visually. I'm a big literary nerd and would totally be a novelist if it put bread on the table. (Not that animation is a whole lot more practical, but...)

I have a series on my Tumblr blog in which I choose a daily word that I find interesting and match it with an image I've found on the www. The real artistic expression comes in the relationship between the word and the image I've chosen, and I've found that, just as putting salt in your boiling noodle water enhances the flavor of the noodles, matching an image with a word heightens the flavors of that word. Here are a few samples:

I'll post more of these in the next couple weeks.

Simply M.E.

 I'm Maria E. a sophomore here at USC, future interior designer, and I am eventually going to declare studio arts as my major sometime this year.  I have a great appreciation for all types/forms of art and a profound love for design, especially interior design and COLOR, but also loves it when things are classic and simple. Below are some photos from a couple of architecture and design blogs I follow that I find pleasing to the eye and warming to the soul :)

http://cabbageroseblog.com

Hey FA102!

Hey everyone! My name is Pilar. Im a sophomore, from Chicago and am a Fine Arts major, with emphasis in Photography.
This summer, I spent most of my time at my AWESOME internship. My summer internship was at Sotheby's in Chicago. I was the summer intern for the Fine Art Auction house downtown. There, I spent most of my time organizing previous sale catalogs, filing invoices and assisting with the small, yet charming staff in the office. On the last day of my internship, I was taken to the Art Institute of Chicago Museum by the Fine Arts director of the Chicago office, as a token for my hard work over the summer. It was known to the office that I have a passionate love for photography so we went to see the Henri Cartiter-Bresson exhibit. There, I instintly fell in love with his work. With over 300 plus photos displayed, it was clear that I had a new idol. What I learned that was MOST facinating about Henri's work was that, not one of his photographs were cropped. He made an emphasis on how important photographing the subject was, rather than spending most of his creativity in the editing process. Here are some of my absolute favorite photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson's work. Hope you all enjoy them as much as I do!









-Pilar

Ohhay World

I couldn't tell you when I started to consider myself an artist. I think it began with a primary school obsession with dinosaurs -- necessarily documented with paper and crayons -- which slowly evolved into a love affair with dragons and fire, pens and inks and paints.

Intertwined, ballpoint pen over monoprint, 2007

In highschool I took up art as my sixth subject for my IB diploma, and worked on developing a portfolio for the scrutiny of graders that would see my work on a CD in Wales.

Romulus Augustus, acrylic paint and stamp ink, 2009

But when I applied to colleges, practical goals and practical fears steered me in the direction of a business degree. However, as I sat down to accounting homework, or tedious finance, I thought about what I was missing by not pursuing what I love. So I resolved to work toward a BFA as well, even if I have to spend a fifth year at USC.

A Watch, charcoal, 2010

I'm inspired by the whimsical, the mythological, and, if I may be frank, plain ol' cool-lookin' stuff. My favorite artists are those whose works are thoughtful as well as beautiful, and who use texture and juxtaposition in strategic and awesome ways.

From left to right:

Minjae Lee
Natalia
2008; Acrylic, conte, and colored pencil

Mehmet Turgut
Milk
2007; Photography

Sigmar Polke
Treehouse (Baumhaus)
1976; Watercolor, print

I look forward to this upcoming year, my sophomore year, and I hop to learn and create and drench myself in paint to make up for one idle summer.

FA102POST1

Little People in the City by Slinkachu

Banksy/Banksy

Hey classmates/artists I'm a sophomore Critical Studies (film school) major and I hope to minor in Comm Design. I've taken a few art classes before but nothing too serious. I got interested in design/graphics last year when I had to make a portfolio for architecture. I really enjoyed designing different layouts and grids for each page.

I also really like the visual design of movies--I think it would be really cool to get into cinematography. The visual design of AI and Across the Universe are some of my favorites.

Lastly, I really like street art and small art movements. Banksy (or Bansky) is one of my favorite artists. There are some pics if you're not famaliar (but you probably are). The one of the maid has been my computer desktop for over a year now.


I recently found a book called Little People in the City. I think only pictures do it justice so I put a bunch up.

Making random street art is on my bucket list.

The End.

Peter Routzahn

COFFEE not for Drinking

Coffee Art® is a website by Andrew Saur and Angel Sarkela-Saur. They use coffee as their medium to create their rustic, one of a kind pieces. The artworks' content are of flowers, dogs, and other "trivial" objects. In each piece, the shadows are created with the balance and use of darker/lighter hues of the coffee. Their motto is "coffee plus creativity equals art." 

I find this kind of artwork very interesting because I love how "out of the box" idea it is. Using coffee to create artwork is just not common practice, and mastering it is even more difficult. There's also this appetizing feeling you get when you look at one of their pieces. It's like "time for some coffee!" 

 

 

This is a self portrait of Andrew Saur. 

http://www.justcoffeeart.com/download.html- here's the website.