Introductions for the New Semester

I am Dominic Seonghoon Kim and I am a freshman with a Fine Arts major at Roski School of Fine Arts, although I am considering changing my major to either Animation or Interactive Design. I may be somewhat of a quiet introvert, but I make my art and other works express my thoughts and opinions for me. Although I primary work with physical art such as pencil sketches and charcoal portraits, I greatly enjoy working with digital art despite just recently starting using programs such as Flash. I hope that this class of Design Fundamentals will teach me about the concepts of design and help me improve and develop as an artist.

During my first semester I made a self-portrait of myself when I just recovered from a cold. Unfortunately, I still had the cough left over from the illness, hence my somewhat disappointed facial expression in this portrait. I initially started the portrait using a wooden pencil to draw the general shape of my face and my figure before switching to charcoal sticks to add the shadings. I had thought to have myself stare at the viewer of the portrait, but upon drawing that shape I realized that I ended up looking like my father, which I did not like because I wanted myself to be recognized in the portrait instead of my father, so I decided to have the portrait me avert his eyes. I also decided to not color in the background because I was running out of charcoal sticks at that time, and upon taking a look at it I felt that it did not require a background shading.

A Bit About Me

Hey! My name is Julia and I am studying public relations at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. I am also hoping to pursue a communication design minor, which is why I am especially excited to be taking this class. I can't wait to learn more about composition and design and experiment with various mediums. For my first post, I decided to share some work by one of my favorite artists.

Vladimir Kush is a Russian surrealist painter and sculptor. After seeing his work in Las Vegas for the second time, I am even more fascinated by his great attention to detail and source of inspiration. Many of Kush's paintings appear to portray one thing but upon closer examination the viewer is exposed to various elements that all work together to create a complete piece. Often times with Kush's pieces, it is necessary to take a step back and admire the piece from afar in order to see all of the elements the painter intended to be shown.

Here are a few of my favorite pieces by Vladimir Kush:

Cleopatra-- Who Am I

Hi I am Sara. I am a Fine Art major at Roski School of Fine Arts. My emphasis is Intermedia with a greater focus in Digital Video and Photo. I am a very expressive type of worker and an extremely experimental in terms of materials and resources. Although I primarily work with Digital Art I am finding I greatly enjoy the intersection between digital and physical types of artwork.

I just recently worked on a digitized work of one of my drawings and one of my photos. I layered the two imaged to create a figure with the headdress of Cleopatra, the last Egyptian pharaoh. None of this work was intentional or thought out until i began working with images through photoshop. As I began stretching images I started to see a sort of confidence in my figure. A person who was looking directly towards her audience in a way that was feminine, yet strong and powerful. At that point I realized I wanted to make a rule derived from the mind. I wanted to make someone who could be soft, and nurturing, while also projecting a certain strength through my image.

This sort of subconsciously represents my view of gender, in that it does not exist. In my mind, there are biological differences, but letting one difference over power the other is, in my opinion, a complete social construct.