Chandler

===** Concentration 3: __Ambition__: In the final quarter you will be focusing primarily of making sure everything gets done. This quarter may be your last chance to really push your understannding of your project. You now know what you are doing and have developed some expertise in materials, techniques, and ideas. What are you attempting that is more ambitious than anything else you have completed thus far? Is it more intricate, larger scale, more images, deeper idea, etc. How have you pushed your project beyond its current state? **===

I am now experimenting with new ways to use paper. I have transferred paper, torn paper, collaged paper and I am still experimenting, but have now gotten into a common theme that connect the pieces through lines. Sometimes, like in the case of my landscape piece, these methods are more intricate, but in the case of my India piece, the paper is on a larger scale. The theme connects my concentration pieces together better because they seem to have an organic feel that connects with the overall theme of the concentration (good and bad of environments around the world) with the actual physical manifestation on the individual pieces. I have pushed the pieces to be to their current state by creating this theme of ripped paper and applying it to all of the pieces and connecting it to the concentration theme. I have made an attempt to make them look individual and a collection.

====** Concentration 2: __Evolution__ ** **How has your project evolved from its beginning stages? What did you change deliberately? What has changed naturally as you got a better understanding of what you are trying to accomplish?**====

My project has evolved because it has become much more focused. much more 'concentrated.' I've become more aware of what I want the final collection to represent, what it should physically contain, and how the collection should be unified and its composition. I wanted the project to evolve into a more artistic composition naturally, so as I have worked on the collection it have been deliberately changed. I have decided to use a more general layout rather than having the same layout for each piece while still have a unified style in the composition ofeach individual piece that connects the collection. So essentially, I deliberately wanted my concentration to evolve naturally as I further discovered how I want the collection to be presented in order to create a more interesting and powerful impact.



=Concentration 1: __**Generation**__=


 * Generating something is different from creating it out of thin air. It implies that something needs to be built up over time in order to reach a certain level. How have you gone about generating this project ? What has proved challenging about your materials/ idea/ sources that you had not anticipated? What have you learned that you will take with you into the second Quarter?**

I think I've been generating this project for some time now-- my concentration is often on my mind and I often think of ideas at the most random moment. Over Christmas break, I was thinking about my concentration a lot, so much so that I think it caused me to have a strange dream that inspired my overall theme. In the dream, I was in the slums of India when I started walking and after a few seconds I came upon the Taj Mahal in the distance. That's all I remeber, I think it was a pretty short dream, but the idea stuck with me more than dreams usually do. The contrast of the two settings was so extreme that it made me think of societal contrasts between so many environments. Materials have been a little difficult to gather because good magazine pictures are hard to find, and they are a key part of most of my pieces. I've found a solution to this by going to my doctors' offices and requesting their old news magazines. I'm also still contemplating how my mediums will come together, particularly the combination of the paint and photos. As I've been working, my concentration has been further developing, and I have more ideas. I've learned more about how I'd like the layout of my pieces to be presented, I'll definitely use this in the next quarter.



=Digital Project=


 * What aspects of working in Photoshop did you find helpful while working on these pieces? What do you like more about working with physical materials? How can you make use of the program in designing your concentration?**

Photoshop adds a completely different component to creating art because it is digital, and therefore almost exact. There is an overwhelming amount of tools and types of "material" that are not as accessible in physical art. I like how digital pieces can be effortlessly graphic while at the same time you can imitate techniques used in physical art with the right tools. I do think I like working with physical materials, however, because I feel like I'm making more of an impact with real material. Real paint on real paper painted with real brushstrokes feels far more expressive and I think that it truly brings out the artist's real intention. Even though I think, for me, Photoshop causes a loss of artistic expression, I like its visual exactness and graphic result. I may end up using Photoshop to edit photographs that I'll use in a larger scale piece or maybe create designs that I can collage in.



=**Embracing Chaos**=


 * How would you describe the purpose of this project? What could you take from it to help you with future work? How would you describe what happened on your individual piece throughout the stages, and what enabled you to bring it all together in the end**?

The purpose of this project was to "embrace chaos"--take a background and images that seemed to have absolutely no relation to each other and then to put them together so they form a cohesive piece. I think this project really showed us that we can work in a way that brings together things that don't relate, but once they are juxtaposed, they create an overall idea. The images unify and begin to tell a story that without seeing it all together, it would never have been predicted. In my piece, I wanted to create an interesting background with fabric that would be have an interested texture and pattern, and so I decided to use two dish towels and several ties. I then randomly chose two images that would create a good negative and positive space agreement. I decided on an owl and a hot air balloon, later adding a wing and a talon. These pictures along with the background and the kind of rough, wild way that I placed the paint created an interesting corporate jungle feel. I imagine this image somehow represents the corporate world and how it relates to a wild life or barbaric aspect. The hot air ballon is able to fly based on science and hot air--and this seems to be another representation of the workplace.



=3 Layers of Space=


 * How would you describe the strategy we used for this project? What did it enable you to accomplish in your work that you would not have been able to do without this structure? What is simple, and what is complex? I want an in depth response to how the idea of strategy is essential to executing a successful concentration. What strategies could you come up with and what could they enable you to accomplish?**

We used a strategy of dimension. Instead of creating just one ground, we separated an image into three or more parts, thus creating a multi-dimensioned piece with more complexity, yet visual order. It enabled us to accomplish a more interesting compostition that perhaps we would have because we were forced to create multiple grounds and therefore a more dimensional piece. Without these guidelines, our pieces would probably look more flat and not possess as much interest. The idea of the piece is simple: three basic layers of space that are piled to create a single work. But each layer itself can be either simple or very detailed or complex, and when the layers are put together, they can create a viually very complex but unified piece. Strategy is very important in determining both a anda unified concentration. A plan will be helpful in creating a collection that has a common ground theme, but with induvidual pieces that are unique. In order to achieve this, a large scale plan should be made that discusses the concentration theme as well as media and color scheme and design format, etc. that will be used in the collection. Then each induvidual piece should be planned out so that the full content of the concentration is played out and demonstrated through the induvidual pieces in the collection.



=Dramatic Self Portrait=


 * For this project I want you to think about what your piece could mean. If light was a metaphor, what would it symbolize in your image? How does your expression interact with this meaning? What could this say about you or an imaginary persona you are creating in this work? What did you bring, (not necessarily physically), to the photoshoot to help create this one image that was far above any other. IMPORTANT**...What lessons are important for you to take from this project into the concentration process?**

While planning out my portrait, I really wanted to play up the drama and kind of create a story about the character or persona of the person in the image. I decided it would be very interesting if I could try to create a kind of animal-istic image by sticking feathers on my face and hair and attempting to match my expression to this idea. To me, the light seems like it is shining on this person who is not used to such brightness, kind of like a deer in headlights. The character is interested, indifferent, and curious all at the same time because the expression could be interpreted in multiple ways and with these expressions simultaneously. Darkness takes up the majority of the face, so it is almost obscured, but then the light color and focal point of the eye brings attention to the interaction between light and darkness and contributes to the expression. While photographing this particular image, the addition of feathers obviously made a difference but the expression necessary is what I think really sets it apart because it is almost scary, and that's what I was sort of going for. The stare of the eye and downplaying of the rest of the face emphasizes its animal-like quality, making it look less human. I definitely increased my skill with shading through this project and can bring this towards the concentration process. In addition, since the portrait has a fairly clear overall theme, this theme could be carried on in other pieces or just the techniques. It also has kind of encouraged me to take risks, like doing a portrait with feathers on your face and then attempting drawing something so ambitious and detailed in a short amount of time.

=Altering an Object=


 * For Project 2 I want you to write a statment about your piece on your page. Even though the project started with a small idea, or almost no idea at all, how has it evolved? What are you presenting your object as that it is not? Ideas in art are always connected to how it has been made. How did the media you chose and the way you worked contribute to the idea? If this were the start of a concentration how would you continue it?**

The inspiration for my piece was a sunflower. i was inspired by its exact and orderly design, and the fact that something as perfect as a sunflower's geometric shape could occur within the chaos of nature fascinated me. I played with the idea of color gradients and geometric shapes while starting the project, then Mr. Steele introduced me to an incredible artist named Alfred Jensen, who painted magnificent pieces filled with geometry and color. I decided to take these two components--the perfection of a sunflower and the color and shapes of Jensen's works--and create a composition that reflected my preferred style while still experimenting in a way that I have never really pursued. Typically my artwork is messy and inexact, but in pursuing this piece I had to combine this aesthetic with the inspiration of order. It is definitely one of the most challenging pieces that I have ever done, and I want to continue working on it and experimenting with this style on new pieces. For this piece, I worked with heavy paper and acrylic paint. I wanted the paint to be as matte as possible while also using color to create dimension as well as the occasional more shapeless form to add more interest and contradiction. i really think that this idea could be continued as a concentration. You can really manipulate color and shape using this style to create a unified yet diverse collection.



Project 1: Cards

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