Module 4

1. Discuss what you thought about creating the Value Scale and Color Wheel.

I enjoyed creating the color wheel.  I remember learning about them and the primary colors when I was younger.  It was easy to make the circle and create the lines to separate the colors.  I enjoyed mixing them because even though I knew the color they'd create, the science part of it always fascinates me. 

2. Which media did you enjoy working with the best and why?

I liked using the acrylic paint a lot more than the charcoal.  It was easy to manipulate and I could add more when I needed to.  I actually hated using the charcoal.  It got all over my hands and I feel like it just made my work look sloppy and I wasn't pleased with it at the end.  

3. What was the most important discovery in the creation of these studies?

SEE ANSWER TO NUMBER 4

4. What is the most important information you learned from watching the videos for this project? What is your opinion of the videos?

I feel like this question goes along with number 3.  I was really surprised to hear that red, yellow, and blue were not the true primary colors when this whole time, I thought they were.  After watching the video, though, it made sense to me.  The colors mixing together made brown but when you put magenta, yellow and cyan together, they create black which is what they should mix together to be.  This, to me, is an important discovery because I'm going to school to become a teacher so I can teach the children that are in my classes all about the color wheel and teach them the correct colors and what they become when they mix.

Project #1

http://s1311.beta.photobucket.com/user/kmagle/library/Project%201%20-%20AED%20200

I really enjoyed doing this project.  It was a fun way to learn about the different elements and principles of art.  I mainly took pictures around my house and just during my days of being out and about.  I really had to think about what I was going to do for the picture.  Like for the picture for 'space,' I read about how the space between objects was called negative space so I took dishes out of my cupboard and set them up equal distances from each other.  Some were difficult to think of something to take a picture of but looking at the sample really helped.

Module 3

1. Describe color and its effects on emotions. Use the appropriate vocabulary of color in your posting.

      Color has great effects on emotions.  It can express/effect your mood or give you a certain feeling.  I know that there have been studies about how people behave in rooms painted different colors.  One might be pink and certain people will be very calm in that room while they would behave differently in a room that is painted bright green.  The website shows that colors can have the same meaning.  Red, for instance, means love, stop, danger, passion – all just from one color.  It was interesting to play around and see which color was the product of the three primary colors being reflected and absorbed.

2. What is a theoretical aspect of color that most intrigues/fascinates you? Why?

     Describing colors in terms of temperatures always interested me.  I remember in fourth grade learning about warm and cool colors on the color wheel.  Usually expressed by reds, oranges, greens, and blues, the section about this on the website allowed you to fill in colors on a picture and make them warmer and cooler, depending on what you wanted.  The greens could be faded to purple and the reds to orange.  The site talks about how the warm colors appear up front, while the cooler colors fade off.  It says “artist often use these properties of color temperature to enhance the spatial characteristics of their work.”  I never would’ve thought to correlate the warmness or coolness of a picture to their spatial characteristics.

3. In the Color video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and its effects on emotions?

     In the color video, I felt as though a few things impacted my in regards to color and its effects on emotions but the artist that was painting in Venice really was interesting to me.  She said that colors made her feel alive.  I’ve seen pictures before that interest me and I know that it is because of the coloring.  I’m drawn to more bright, vibrant colors.  If the painting is full of dull, “boring” (to me) colors, I’m most likely not going to be interested in looking at it for too long.  I also really like black and white photos.  I love how my eyes are drawn to a certain part of the picture before they fade off into the rest of the painting.  I would have to agree with the artist when she says the colors made her feel alive.  I feel like I am the same way.  I like things to be bright and to “pop out;” to stand out.

4. In the Feelings video, what made the biggest impact on you in regards to color and its effects on emotions?

     I always wondered about the Mona Lisa painting and what its importance and significance was.  From this video, it showed that looking at her smile is a big part of the painting but it also it mysterious in a way.  I feel like this painting shows that she is a normal woman, nothing too crazy about her.  The colors are warm in this painting and it shows that she is an important individual and somewhat genuine, I feel.  If it were cooler colors, maybe it would give off a different initial vibe about her.  I don’t necessarily feel any certain way when looking at this painting but it did interest me into learning more about it and her.

Module 2

In the Aesthetics: Philosophy of the Arts video, the key concepts I learned are about the different ways that beauty can be looked at.  Plato felt as though beauty was through ideas, mainly.  Aristotle wrote an entire rebuttal on Plato’s views of the arts.  I feel as though Plato’s theory is most important.  Plato mainly discusses beauty and ideas.  I think it is interesting that he believes that ideas are beyond our senses and that the idea of beauty is “a beauty by which all things are beautiful.”  It really got me thinking because what we think is beautiful, someone else may think the opposite so it seems as though Plato is right when he says beauty is an idea.  We all have our own individual idea of beauty.  Plato felt as though aesthetics took away from things that were real and confused the real from the fake.   I think that he feels that what we need to be exposed to is real art to really feel an appreciation for it.  The video went into detail about how aesthetics can be interpreted by people.  While the Middle Ages didn’t have aesthetics, they had their main focus on their devotion to God.  Building on each other’s ideas, philosophers over time have come to their own meanings about beauty and idea.  Francis Hutcheson said “The ideas brought about in our soul by beauty and harmony delight us necessarily and immediately just like other sensible ideas.”  This stood out to me because what we feel from our soul is just as important to us as any other idea brought to our attention.  They both delight us, just maybe in different ways.  The second video, CARTA: Evolutionary Origins of Art and Aesthetics: Neurobiology, Neurology and Art and Aesthetics, was very interesting to me.  In my post on ANGEL, I had discussed how art was a form of expressing ourselves and this video talks about that.  Changeaux discussed how the brain can relate to art and how different parts of our brains help us with this.  Ramachadran discusses how science and art coincide with each other.  I suppose you can think of any different subject going along with art in some way.  It was interesting to hear about how the brain works with art and how it is pleasing to us.  The article by Elizabeth Landau, What the Brain Draws From: Art and Neuroscience, relates to the second video I feel more than the first.  Just from the titles, one can assume this.  It was interesting to read about how the brain can perceive something that is two-dimensional as three-dimensional, just depending on the shows and colors that are used.  Artists are able to portray things differently for us and it may bring the pictures to life.  It’s interesting to see how this happens.  The films and the article added a lot more, along with the text.  The videos went into history, as did the text, and talked about different philosophers and their beliefs.  Learning the more “science-y” part of art was what was most appealing to me because you never really think of art as a science and it goes into so many details to help you see that it really can be.

Module 1

1. How was the process of creating the GMail account and setting up the Blog?

          It was easy enough with the help of the powerpoints.

2. What do you expect to learn in this course?

          I expect to learn how to really look at and understand art.  Also, how 

          to apply what I have learned to my work.  I haven't taken an art class   

          since high school so it will be really interesting to me to have a bit  

          of a review but to mainly learn about so many new things as well. 

3. How do you feel about taking an online course?

          I feel good about taking an online course.  I've done well in them 

          before and really enjoy them.