VISUAL ISSUES

by Matthew B. Lamont

I.  After reading pages 140-175 in the book “Art Fundamentals”, I went to the Color Worqz website, and read the pages about color basics, systems, combinations and Itten’s Contrast.

II.  Then, I read Peter Piper’s Palette Picker and followed the instructions.

First, I created a monochromatic or analogous composition.

Second, I came up with the illusion of overlapping or transparent hues.

Finally, I made an artwork that is a combination of Itten’s Contrasts.

This picture is representing the contrasts of warm and cool colors. 

III.  For this assignment, I chose the work of Henri Matisse in his Fauvism Period. Fauvism comes from the French, meaning “wild beasts”, where the works are emphasized with strong colors over the representational values retained by Impressionism.

Here are examples of Matisse’s work.

The Snail

The Horse, The Rider, and The Clown.

Ice Skater’s Gliding Start

Blue Nude

IV.  After being inspired by Matisse’s Fauvism work, I made  this composition:

Flying a Kite

They are simple shapes in a monochromatic scale.

Wtih Warm Colors: reds and yellows.

With Cool Colors:  greens and blues.

With Contrasting Colors:  reds and blues.

by Matthew Lamont

I. To make a good usage of dark and light and to understand better on what is value, I constructed a value      scale.  I used the color blue, adding white, black and gray. 

II.  I went to the Godin Library and researched on some artists from the artistic movement that            emphasized color value. Here are some examples:

The one that caught my attention the most, was Charles White’s “Preacher Man”.

III. For this part, I used a song by the Japanese rock band, Polysics. After listening it several times, I found out that the mood is happy, lively and upbeat that for me that means, vibrant colors. So I went to Adobe Illustrator and worked with different kinds of shapes and colored them and put shades  as the ones in the scale.  Doing that, it came to my mind that a rock band must be represented by an exciting guitar and drums. So I designed an electric guitar, making it look very psychedelic and color them with different kinds of shades. I put colors with shades in the background to emphasize the final composition. 

Different shapes with different colors and different shades

At the end, I amused myself on how the music inspired me to design this album cover. 

They have different colors, but all are in shades of white and gray. So I think, the lightness and darkness are very well represented in this album cover.

After searching around looking for models and asking if they can cooperate with me, so I can take some pictures for this assignment. I was lucky to find  some friends that were nice and kind enough to model for me. I took several pictures, and to see if they can be used I put it in Photoshop to see how they look. Some looked blury, others didn’t make sense and others were too silly.

Here are some shots, after modify the color in photoshop.

The Never-Ending Cave.

This is a silly one of a friend of mine who is very hairy and was nice enough to cooperate. By the way, he combed his hair before the picture was taken. This picture is called “Blown Hair”.

As for the this one, guess what part of the body is it?

This assignment was very challenging because I was depending on other people to be a model and it was not too easy, but as always, I can count on friends. That’s what friends are for.

Really the body, has a very nice landscape, but the best shots are to be taken in the torso. My models were not crazy enough to let me do it. For now, I am satisfied with this.

Body Landscape

by Matthew Lamont

Here are some example of Body Landscape that I found on the Internet.

Space- Assignment, by:  Matthew Lamont

To give the appearance of depth and space represented in a paper or canvas is a big challenge to the artist. 

As the theme for the space project is Illusion. 

I read and researched all about the subject to understand it better. 

The artist that I selected was Giacomo Balla (July 18, 1871- March 1, 1958), who was an Italian Futurist. 

He impressed me with his works representing movement in time and space by repeating contours. 

Here are some examples:

Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912)

The Hand of a Violinist (1913)

Flight of the Swallows (1912)

I emulated Giacomo Balla’s work and we can see in my representation named, “Sweet Encounter”.

This work is made in Illustrator.  I wanted to represent the growth of a flower, the flight of the bee, the growth of the grass and the time passing is represented by the change of color in the sky. 

First I drew the petals of the flower and I give it a color and applied gradient to give it a 3-D look.  Then I copied it four times and reduced the size in a decreasing fashion, to each of the flowers, I gave them different percentages of transparency, so the flowers will look small and transparent and as it grows, it becomes more stronger in color.  I do the same to the leaves and stem.  Also the bee and the grass.  All these changes give to my picture the illusion of movement as the flower grows and the bee is flying and the sky is changing in the horizon. 

To feel a representation of time, I give them the strong colors when the flower and bee are meeting, to represent the climax of movement in time.  The butterfly is added to the composition to have more balance and represent stillness if it is there for a long time. 

I think that this picture shows movement, space and time, with beautiful colors good balance and harmony.  The message of illusion is well delivered. 

And here is the black and white version of Sweet Encounter.

Shape

by Matthew Lamont

In this assignment, I have to research the works of artists like Juan Gris.

And Ronald Davis.

Once I researched them and get a feeling of their artwork, I decided to make my I own piece of work.

Here are three pictures I made with Adobe Illustrator.

 So I cut them up and made this.