Archive for July, 2009
Jos Buivenga and Mondrian
Posted by admin in Art Institute Online - Graphic Design, typography on July 31st, 2009
PROJECT 3: CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT
Research Piet Mondrian
In your third project, you will use a grid to organize a layout in which you will use various “colors” of the same typeface as design elements. You will need to research the artwork of the famous Dutch painter Piet Mondrian. This may be done easily over the Internet. Be sure that you look at his later, neoplastic works. Some examples are shown at the right.
Piet Mondrian used a grid to organize these paintings, and his art has been a source of inspiration for many successful designs. You will use his paintings as inspiration for the grid in your next project.
Research a Type designer
Another piece of this week’s assignment is to research a famous type designer. Please select someone not already written about in our text. The best way to go about doing this is to select the typeface that you would like to use for this project, find out who created it, and research the creator. You should be able to do this research fairly easily over the Internet as well as from books and magazine articles. From your research, generate copy about your type designer and the typeface(s) he or she created. A paragraph or two should be sufficient.
This assignment turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. Look up Mondrian’s work, pick a typography designer, and then just go with it. I included the font blocks with and without Mondrian’s work in the background. The designer I chose to go over is Jos Buivenga. He is a contemporary type designer. Here’s the info you will find in my font blocks:
Jos Buivenga lives in Arnhem (the Netherlands) and began studying typography at the Academy of Arts Arnhem. His first typeface, “Delicious,” was finished in 1996. After that, his fonts were listed on Vitaly Friedman’s 25 Best Free Quality Fonts. Now he is a type designer with a blog at http://exljbris.wordpress.com/ and a twitter at http://twitter.com/exljbris. The font I chose, Diavlo, contains 5 weights: Light, Book, SemiBold Medium, Bold and Black. The font supports these languages: Latin / Central European / Croatian / Romanian / Icelandic / Turkish / Esperanto.
The font used in all of the designs is his Diavlo. You can find more about this specific font as well as a free d/l at http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/diavlo.html.
THUMBNAILS:
Which ones are the most successful?
anatomy class. 6 weeks of naked terror.
Posted by admin in Art Institute Online - Graphic Design, Pencil, figure studies on July 31st, 2009
Okay, so these 6 weeks were the hardest of my classes so far. The deadlines were hard to reach, and I felt like I was competing with some really talented artists. I wish I had this website when I had been in the class so you could’ve spent time with me as I went through, but oh well. I have to say I learned A TON in this class. I’ve always been interested in the human body, but never the details. For example, I loved studying how the body would be shaped in an odd pose, but I wouldn’t pay attention to how the hands were. Even in my figure studies class at CFCC, I put the finer details of the hands and feet last. I also learned a lot about having good quality pencils, using my negative space, and what the difference between a regular #2 pencil and an artist’s pencil. Here’s my assignments from start to finish. It’s a lot, but I want you to see it from beginning to end.
This was a timed assignment on proportion. Not one of my faves. I have a very sketchy style, lol, I had to work on cleaning up my lines.
Up till this point I was still using a regular #2 pencil. As you can tell, I hate drawing detail in fingers… 
Slowly, I was being forced into cleaning up a little bit and paying more attention to detail. Assignments were still timed, but a bigger time amount was allotted.
That was the first series of timed drawings. Took quite a lot of time to finish. This is the next series:
After this, we started prepping for our final assignment, which was a self-portrait.
Quick timed portrait of one of my bf’s, Ryan! <3
I PAID ATTENTION TO FINGERS AND TOES, YAY!
This is the rough draft for my self portrait. I wanted to do something different than the norm.
Here’s the final draft and last assignment for my figure studies class, phew!
the radio dept.
Posted by admin in song(s) lyrics i like on July 31st, 2009
Words fail me all the time
I don’t even feel like talking
Still i go on and on
I’m dying here and you keep walking
Why are you asking me this?
Can’t you see i’m trying?
I don’t like it like this
No i think i’m dying
I can’t calm down at all
Panic is what panic feels like
Can’t we just stay silent?
Speaking now seems far too violent
Why are you asking me this?
Can’t you see i’m trying?
I don’t like it like this
No i think i’m dying
i don’t like it like this
by the radio dept.
amazing song
To the pool I go…
Posted by admin in Art Institute Online - Graphic Design, typography on July 30th, 2009
Today is a day of re-lax-ation! Finished my homework early, so here it is! The prof. sent a video comment giving a few tips, so I did a few adjustments.
typography class
Posted by admin in Art Institute Online - Graphic Design, typography on July 28th, 2009
Today I spent 10.5 hours at work trying to get the store ready for the big-wigs coming in tomorrow. This was followed by a 10.5 hour day the day before. Needless to say, I’m a bit burned out and the week just started. Bwah! My homework assignment today was to improve on my assignment using 1 ink color block and type only. The theme is some sort of charitable theme. I chose Animal Adoption. Here’s the first draft which consists of 9 thumbnails:
Here’s the next draft. I followed the directions of the prof. and class and tried to make the layout a bit more “friendly.”
I like the second draft quite a lot better. It’s a lot more serene, but I’m not sure if it still conveys the importance of the message?
Caffeine and old friends
Posted by admin in Paintings, poster design on July 27th, 2009
Today I had too much coffee. I’m in the process of buying a house, which means DON’T SPEND MONEY!! This is very, very, very hard for me. I love buying things. Food, clothes, books, useless things, I love it all. So today, McDonald’s was offering a free coffee! YAY FOR FREE COFFEE! Then, I borrowed a dollar from Tami at work to get more coffee. YAY, MORE COFFEE! I’ve been at work from 8 am till 720 pm. I still feel like I could run 3 miles without breaking a sweat.
No new art today, so I’ll share something old:
This is an acrylic painting I did of my vet’s dog, in exchange for getting my cats fixed and all their shots done. Her name is Mauri, and she’s so beautiful!
It inspired me to make this poster, which my sis is putting up where she works (in a vet’s office.)
That old art I promised you
This piece is called Cello or sometimes Cello Whimsy. I did this one a few years ago in Prof. Ayers painting class. Not sure if it was independent painting studies or painting 2 or something or other. We had to mount canvases on top of one another. I’m a big fan of bright colors, which is contradictory to my wardrobe. I spent a bit of time on this one, again contradictory to my wardrobe and life in general. When this one sells, it will be like giving up a child I think.
For sale at http://www.kw10.etsy.com
Future art studio… and jeff’s dancing spot
Posted by admin in Basic notes on July 26th, 2009
I just realized I don’t have any fine art posted. I mean, i consider cakes and design school stuff art as well, but gee wizz! Painting’s just my thang! Since it’s been a millenia since I’ve been able to do any new fine art, I’m going to post some of my old faves that I still have laying around. Luckily for you though, I am moving into a home soon. This home has a very large screened in back room..
.. which means… time to get messy again!!!
CERTIFICATES
Posted by admin in Art Institute Online - Graphic Design on July 26th, 2009
Since starting at Art Institute Online, I’ve taken 2 crash courses. One in illustrator and one in photoshop. They each consist of 3 weeks of the computer kicking your bum! If you are taking any online classes through the art institute, I would highly recommend them. Plus, you get a spiffy certificate! The sad thing is, after you take these courses, you realize how easy it is to make yourself a cooler one.
I was given:
New certificate:
All I have to say is, this certificate of best photo-shopper ever is well deserved.
Cake for Zach
So, today’s cake turned out to be a huge success! I just realized this was the first time I ate a piece of the cake that I made recently. It was suprisingly yummy, so I had another piece. Everyone seemed impressed with the final design (me included.) It made me feel really optimistic about starting to charge for my cakes. Isn’t that so silly? I guess I feel like they are starting to get to the point where I would feel comfortable selling them. Anyway, I wish the best to Zach and Melissa! Many blessings, you two!
