Decision is............

            To begin this project, I followed the advice from the reading earlier this week; I wrote down multiple lists of words that had to do with my school of choice.  My school was Battlefield Elementary School, home of the soldiers!  Our colors were red and white.  I decided to list and use other words such as stars, stripes, and the color blue to just play up the “America” feel of the soldier.  Our logo was an extremely pixilated image of a soldier in black and white.  I redrew him in my sketches making him a little bit more playful, adding height, color, and somewhat of a smirk.  In a lot of my designs I wanted to incorporate the letter B for Battlefield.  I think I used all of my elements pretty successfully.  I choose my first listed logo because I think that the soldier is highlighted in the oval nicely and the other elements only add little pieces of flair.  It flows well together.  I would like to go back and fine-tune it a bit though.  I also really like the third one; if I were to go back and make the letter B 3-D then I think it would be more successful.  Overall, I just used the line, arc, shape, and fill tools.  Illustrator was very hard to figure out, so I stayed with the simple tools.  

4 Finals

8 Sketches

This is Battlefield Elementary School's Logo

A Soldier

Learning Illustrator

RE-Do

I decided to add some more doodles in the car window and darken the letter on the left side of the image.  

02.15.09

I love advertisements that give life to inanimate objects; their eye-catching charm always leaves you wanting more.  In this ad, Pepsi ‘oh so nonchalantly’ claims that a red and easily recognizable cola beverage is not as appealing as Pepsi.  The straws are each diving into the can for a sip, but the straw on the right is given hands that are forcing itself away from the opening.  The opening of the straw is made to look like a frightened mouth. How clever.

The repetition of the soda cans, straws, and actions are evident. The label from the cola product is notably taken out in order to not send consumers in the wrong direction; only Pepsi is noted. It is product placement at its best.  The tiny Pepsi logo in the bottom right is one of the last things that your eye grazes over; even more reinforcement thanks to the proximity rule. All of the lines are parallel to each other (straws, sides of can) showing alignment.  The left straw’s animation is vastly contrasting the right straw’s still action.  The background is blue, once again subtly referencing the Pepsi product.

Oh Pepsi...

Final Self-Portrait

Here it is, my self-portrait.  I tried to incorporate a lot of day to day activities, ideas, emotions, inspirations, and thoughts. It probably won't be understandable to everyone or anyone, but I think it displays me as a person pretty well.

Digital Self-Portrait

Marta Mattsson

Here is Marta Mattsson's self-portrait. She is a jeweler from Stockholm, Sweden. Mattsson attempts to integrate biology and art into each of her pieces.

This portrait depicts her wearing a piece of her own jewelry- a necklace made of eels. Her current project draws inspiration from wearing your fear. She is investigating whether making your fear part of your attire may possibly reduce the phobia. She has interviewed seven others and has created a jewelry piece for each.

Mattsson’s nude back presents a blank canvas for not only her piece of jewelry to stand out upon but as a projection of her fear. Nothing exists there to retain it. The ocean setting in the background enforces the natural eel environment. Marta placed herself in a locaton fit for her demised sea creature.

This photograph brings about emotion. Immediately upon looking at it, you sense something, a fear radiates from her eyes. Mattsson doesn’t show a sense of relief or contentedness with her situation. You can feel the intensity through her body movement; her muscles appear to be tense. Though all of this stands to be true, Marta seems at peace.

The black and white creates drama. The eel’s dark tones bring about great contrast to the gracefulness of Mattsson’s pale skin. The gray-scale background draws little attention, plays to the content matter, and acts purposeful to subtly outlining the importance of the image. Using the rule of thirds, Mattsson’s eyes hold the viewer 2/3’s of the way up the page and the bottom 1/3 is greatly focused on the eel's black bodies.

I think the concept behind Mattsson’s work is courageous and inspired. I enjoy the dramatic tones and subtle uses of props to enforce her ideas. I hope to bring honesty like Mattsson’s into my work.

EWW

Forged Business Card

I'm not sure if this screams perfect C.R.A.P., but it caught my eye among other business cards. I, for one, have never seen a card made of copper and especially for a fine artist, a piece like this does scream, "this is what I do." Is there any better way to put yourself out in the business world? Lately I have been working in forged metals; I just finished a spoon and I know that work like this is tedious. I have never successfully hammered in a straight line, it is difficult to find the control. So although these text lines are crooked, the piece is given more character. The majority of the alignment is left marginalized- the important information, who, what, where, how. The bottom right design creates a focus on the artist's craftsmanship. The hammer blows, patina, and rugged edge also create contrast. The text and design's colors are darkened, made important to the viewer. All text is kept in the same region of the card- the top left. The image in the bottom right is greatly emphasized, and find that to be a success of this piece. After-all, this is beckoning creative forgers and it is best to show off your skill and technique where need be.