VISUAL ISSUES

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.

Line Assignment

by Matthew Lamont

In the last class, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts to see pictures about Line.  We found wonderful paintings and it was a wonderful time for inspiration. 

The next day I went to the library to research another artists who uses line as an expression.  I found out that there are a lot of materials about it. 

Because, my major is animation, I decided to research some cartoonists the one who caught my eye was Martin Missfeldt, who is a satiric cartoonist who did wonderful work on drawing satires of famous painters such as, Rembrandt, Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gough.  So I decided to choose Martin Missfeldt as my inspiration. 

 Martin was inspired by Rembrandt’s painting named The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp.  and he made a satire by making the doctors with long tangled necks. 

When I see this picture, an idea came.  So I decided to mock our national economic situation and I expressed that by following the technique and style of Martin Missfeldt. 

I drew an octopus with extra tentacles all tangled up as our econimic situation is all tangled with difficult solutions.  I named it, Econopus Chaoticus.  Well, the title explains everything.  So I used line to express my feelings. This picture is very symbolic, it is painted in gold to represent our precious treasures.  As the octopus is the animal who has more arms, I used it and I put extra tentacles as if they were our problems, and on top of that, they are tangled so badly as our economic situation is!

Here is my interpretation of the use of line as an expression.

by Matthew Lamont

Here are some inspiration.

Calligraphy works that I found: 

A type of designer and letter from Russia. Written by Mariana Maryina.

Handwriting, doodling and lettering.

Arabic Writing.

Calligraphy on the body.

Design and letter form.

by Matthew Lamont

For this assignment they gave me this picutre.

The assignment was to use this piece and make my own interperetation with the cubism style. 

Well, after many tires, I decided to upload this one. I hope you find it interesting.

I think it follows the rule of cubism. If you can look at it carefully, you can find the part the original eye, the tear and the lashes. I put color, to make it more interesting and to give it balance at the shapes. 

by Matthew Lamont

Since my assignment is about Cubism, I decided to go to the library to do research about it.  To get find more information, I decided to do some online research to get a further understanding about it.  Here is what I found:

Cubism is an art form where the image is fractured and altered and it is painted in neutral shades such as various browns, grays, greens, and black and white.  Cubism was created by George Braque (1882-1963) and his style lead the way to other artists as Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). 

One of the interesting pieces by George Braque I found were: 

Woman with a Guitar (1913)

Houses at L’Estaque (1908) 

Bottle and Fishes (1910) 

Here are some of the pictures by Pablo Picasso that caught my attention:

Weeping Woman (1937) 

Guernica (1937)

Jaquleline and the Flowers (1954)

by Matthew B. Lamont

After my adventure searching for guerrilla art in my neighborhood, I got an idea and I decided to do my contribution. 

So I designed a series of drawings with a message, to see how people react to my own guerrilla art.  This message was “Smile”.

I posted these pictures first in the Shaw supermarket bulletin board and it was a blast! People stopped to see it and laughed.  The next day I posted it at the bulletin board at my gym and the reaction was hilarious.

So I decided to post it at the school and this time my camera was ready.  Here are some pictures

People laughed and said that the message was loud and clear.  

I can say that I made a connection, my message was delivered.

I did it!

What an experience.

by Matthew B. Lamont

Blu Pantha

Friday September 5^th 10:00 am.

I went out to go for a walk on Huntington Avenue to look for guerrilla art.  As I went out, I stopped by a traffic light, I saw a small, blue, square-shaped sticker, which had some sort of psychedelic picture of a black lady and text written down that read, “Blu Pantha Camera Eyes and a Yo-Yo”  I was thinking that, it was some sort of advertisement to an underground album.  I thought that it was interesting to look at, because of the imaginative use of color.

Who is the Sultan?

12:00 pm.

After I crossed the street, I saw several stickers on the walls and on the lampposts.  This one was a square-shaped sticker, with had black text (which looked liked as if it was written with spray paint) that read “Who is the Sultan?”  After I read it, it had text on the bottom that had a link to a website.  Seeing that sticker lead me to curiosity, so I went to the website I found out it was nothing but a MySpace page about a hip-hop artist, with a forum from his fans.

Saturday September 6^th 11:00 am. 

As I was wandering about in my neighborhood, I saw another sticker, behind a no parking sign at a small hotel, but it wasn’t like the previous two I saw.  It had a striking resemblance to the yellow smiley face that we were all familiar with, except the mouth was text in the shape of a smile that lead to a link to Mid-Week Techno.  I chuckled because the sticker is a direct-spoof of the famous yellow smiley face made by Harvey Ball.

12:15 pm.

After I stopped there for a while in the art store, I went another block forward, I looked at my left and my right to see if there was any sign of guerrilla art.  I looked from top to bottom, but the bottom of the lamppost caught my with a sticker that read VS.  I know that VS is an abbreviation for versus, but what is the meaning behind this sticker?  Does the sticker stand for something rebellious?  Or is it the symbol of some sort of hip-hop artist.  I see these stickers in lampposts, because it is the least these artists can do, because the Back Bay neighborhood has tight security.  

Sunday September 7^th 1:00 pm.

As I went through another block, taking the Huntington Ave route, I saw a lamppost.  On the lamppost was a “No Parking” sign, and on the sign, was an eye catching sticker called, “Kill Bill O’Reilly”, which was created by East Coast Avengers.  I laughed when I saw it, because everybody hates him and his “No Spin Zone”  I tracked who were the East Coast Avengers and they were a hip-hop group that made a music video called, “Kill Bill O’Reilly”.

3:00 pm.

As I continued walking along there, I saw some graffiti right across the street.  It was a cartoon-like drawing of a face of some black guy.  The face was mean looking and on the bottom of the face was the signature of the artist.  Unfortunately, I had trouble reading the signature, but I understood the meaning of the face.  It is probably the artist’s self-portrait, or just self-expression from him.

Monday September 8^th 3:00 pm.

I went to Copley to buy some burgers for lunch.  On the way, I saw a piece of artwork on the sidewalk, created by an artist called Sidewalk Sam.  It was an advertisement for Boston Harbor Cruise.  I was very impressed by not only the way it was made, but how it was made.  Pastels and chalk were the tools that the artist used.  It looked well detailed when you take a closer look.  A nice way to spend two minutes.

Tuesday September 9 10:00 am.Â

After I had lunch, I went to Newbury Street to go to find some more guerrilla art.  On the way, I saw another fine piece.  This one was on the floor.  It was text that read “Naux Hawks!”  It lead me to curiosity about it.  I already recognized on how it was made, which was made with a cardboard stencil and black spray-paint.  I have no idea about the meaning behind the artwork.  Is it something that is anti-Tony Hawks?  Is it the artist’s initial?  I searched it up on the internet, and I got nothing.  

12:00 pm.

Just before I stopped at Best Buy, I saw this really large mural.  It was not only the colors that caught my eye, but it was the size that did it.  It showed a combination between a city and a field.  That’s what it looked like to me, making me think that it is beautiful, but it was the graffiti and “W505″ stickers that violated the fine piece of art.  

6:30 pm.

On the way home from school, I stopped by a sidewalk where there was a large billboard and a No Parking sign.  I stopped to take a look at the front and there was nothing, but when I turned around, I saw a red sticker that read “Proletariat” and at the bottom was a website.  I wondered about it and I thought that this sticker could represent some sort of political rebellion.  When I got home to look it up, I was right!  The site featured an old saying: “Men in Denim Built this country.  Men in suits Destroy it.”  It looks like the organization behind this website were Russians, because the word “Proletariat” is common among Russians.