Visual 3: Kandinski - The Abstract Architect

Wassily Kandinski is credited as the painter who created the first purely-abstract works.
He began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Moscow, and returned to Germany in 1921. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France where he lived the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.

Visual 1: Monet's Japanese Footbridge

The only books I've on hand are about impressionism, so let's start there.
To begin, Monet's Japanese Footbridge:

I think one of my favorite parts about analyzing Monet is that he spent such a large amount of his life painting at his home in Giverny, France. We actually get to see him revisit many of his favorite subjects several times over, especially in his paintings of poplars, lilies, haystacks, and the Japanese Footbridge. This footbridge actually stood on his property (though until recently it had fallen to termites), and Monet painted several series of the bridge during his stay at Giverny.
One thing about I've always loved about impressionists is the way they can paint things so differently each time. The two paintings above were painted in 1899, while the bottom two were created over twenty years later, in 1923. I wish I knew Monet a bit better, but I would assume he made a return to Giverny those many years after.
There are some theories as to why Monet's work became more vague so many years later, and I'll go into the main theory when I get to Degas and his dancers. I like to think that he just got better at capturing the essence of his subject - details didn't matter as much as the feeling of the scene.
That's actually one of the points I always make for Impressionism. It's not about detail, it's about motion, essence, and feeling.

Next Week: Degas' Eyes and Dancers

Art 133: Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (1881 - 1973) is arguably one of the best artists of the 20th century. You may know him better as just Pablo Picasso. (In case you're curious, in Spain, it is the law to take the full names of your ancestors in addition to your own, hence the incredibly long name.)

Picasso was no stranger to the arts, even at a young age. This was mainly because his father was a painter and became a professor at the School of Fine Arts in A Coruña when Pablo was 10. He came from a middle class family and was influenced by various artists, including Edvard Munch and El Greco.

Before I bought the book Pablo Picasso: A Retrospective for 40 cents at Goodwill, I knew little about the man. The book is a whopping 463 pages long. In other words, it's huge. And hefty. Most of these pages are dedicated solely to reproductions of his various paintings, sketches, drawings, chronically his life as an artist.

Picasso boldly went where none had gone before. His work, according to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), "stylistically and chronologically encompasses more of twentieth-century art than that of any other artist." It's true, this man lived to see WWI, the Spanish Civil War, and WWII, all major events that would be translated to canvas. Picasso is also a co-founder of the Cubist movement along with Georges Braque.

His most famous works consist of:

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
1907, Oil on canvas
243.9 cm × 233.7 cm (96 in × 92 in)

Weeping Woman (Dora)
1937, Oil on canvas
60 х 49 cm (23 ⅝ х 19 ¼ inches)

Guernica
1937, Oil on canvas
349 cm × 776 cm (137.4 in × 305.5 in)

"Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth." -- Pablo Picasso

Art 120: Creative Color Wheels

Color wheels are essential for artists while they are painting and/or studying color theory. They can be really basic like the one above, or far more interesting and ascetically pleasing to the eye like the rest of the ones I'll include.

Besides being a tool for color study, people will in fact argue that color wheels serve no real purpose. But what what if you got creative with it? Thought outside the box, or in this case, the circle? Well, then it can transform into an art piece itself!


Have you ever made a color wheel?

Art 118: Digital Painting

Traditional artwork, the use of pencils and charcoals and paints on paper and canvas and things of that nature, is a very difficult skill to master. You need to know what you want before you even get started and you also don't have much room for error. Digital art, on the other hand, while it's good to know what you may want to start out with, you have so much room for experimentation with colors in different layers and effects that you could completely change your mind about what your final product may be if you want to. Plus, any slip ups you make can be easily remedied by Ctrl+Z.

Even if you really like the traditional effects of using watercolors and the sort of graininess you can get from charcoals or the smudges of pastels and paints, many of these effects can be mimicked in digital art programs like Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop, only you have the lovely convenience of being able to undo a bad stroke.


But of course, such programs can be really expensive, especially professional level Photoshops. Corel Painter 11's full package is $299, and the best Photoshop you can get to date, Photoshop CS5, is at a whopping $699. There are cheaper, smaller packages with plenty of tools you can use to achieve nearly the same effects, like with Photoshop Elements 9, which is mainly for editing photos.

Recently, however, DeviantART released a free online program called DA Muro for its members to use that has both basic and pro capabilities. If you ever wanted to try digital painting, now's the time. Membership with DeviantART is free, but you can subscribe with them for a fee if you don't want to see the advertisements and have a few extra features to display your profile page and gallery. Plus, you can share all of your artworks, whether they be traditional art, digital art, sculpture, textiles, photography, anything! And you can get feedback from fellow deviants about your works with comments and favorites. It's super fun, I promise.

If you are interested in digital painting at all, then I highly recommend purchasing a tablet. Wacom makes great tablets, and for those who are just starting out, you can get a Wacom Bamboo tablet with pen touch...


...for $69 and it even comes with Corel Painter Essentials 4, a sort of easier, watered-down version of Corel Painter 11 that still has plenty of features to do what you need to.

Art 114: Drawing Manga

Anime has become super popular to both view and draw, although keeping proportions is difficult for anyone. Even the professionals outline their drawings before inking linearts. SO. For those of you who have always wanted to try drawing manga, learning proportions is a good way to get started.

I learned this particular tutorial from an artist named Mark Crilley who has a variety of how-to's on his YouTube channel. This is merely the breakdown of one of his videos. Keep in mind that this doesn't teach exactly how to draw each facial feature line by line, merely where exactly they should be placed on the face. Click on the links within the tutorial for a more in-depth explanation of how to draw certain features in different circumstances, via Mark Crilley videos.



1. Draw a circle.

2. From top to bottom, segment the circle into thirds with horizontal lines. The lower horizontal line will represent where the eyebrows should be located. The upper line won't represent anything and can be erased.

3. Draw a vertical line from the top to the bottom of the circle.

4. Extend the vertical line 1/3 of the diameter of the circle and mark with a small horizontal line. This will represent where the line of the lower lip should be located.

5. Segment the extended vertical line below the circle into thirds (1/9 of diameter). The two marks you make here will be where the nostrils, and then the mouth, are located. The actual bottom of the circle does not represent anything.

6. Extend the vertical line another 1/9 of the diameter of the circle. This line will be represent the bottom of the chin.

7. Sketch in the jaw to connect the sides of the circle to the chin line you just made. Note that the jaw line isn't completely curved. There are two fairly straight lines, one coming down from the temple and one bending off towards the chin. More pointy chins = really anime, less pointy chins = more realistic.

8. Draw lines for the neck. Thickness varies between artists, so it's a matter of preference. I like to say that the line for the neck should be half way between the temple and the chin.

9. Draw the eyes typically within the confines of the eyebrow line and the bottom of the circle. For more realistic eye proportions, the space between eyes is typically equal to one eye width.

10. When you draw the hair, you need to first determine where the part shall be: centered or to the right or left? The rest of the hair will fall according to that part. Also, the hair does not lie flat on the skull--give it a little volume and start drawing a space above the top of the skull (the top of the circle). Anime hair is also very geometric a lot of the time, with tons of sharp angles, even in my example above. Keep in mind to add a few as you arch the hair downward.

That's it for facial proportions! You can find loads more helpful tutorials on Mark Crilley's channel, like body proportions for both males and females, faces in profile or 3/4 view, inking, expressions and line-by-line breakdowns. Have fun!

Art 112: Short Film

Art doesn't have to be stationary...




Watch Death to the Tinman in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Art 110: Long Exposure

Ready for another bout of photographic awesomeness? Good.

There's a function on your camera that allows you to adjust the exposure, the amount of light entering the camera lens over a period of time. Using long exposures for taking portraits or macro shots is a completely horrid idea, but the prolonged shutter speed does have some rather lovely perks if you know how and when to use it.

The most common ways to use long exposures is in the dark with a bit of light that you may wave around to create awesome shapes and streaks, in the big city to capture the movement of traffic, or creating a misty waterscape:


The most essential item you'll need to do this besides a camera with an adjustable shutter speed is a tripod. If you don't have a tripod when you take long exposures, then you will have nothing focused upon no matter how stable you think your hands are, and the photo will be a flop. That is, unless you're doing something along the lines of this where it's all about the light shapes and nothing else:


Just be careful when you're creating light streaks with a laser pointer, flashlight, etc, to move around a lot so that you're not caught on the film/photo like the E=MC2 photo above. Although, that's just a matter of taste, obviously, whether or not you'd like to be seen.

As for your exact shutter speed, it really depends on the circumstances. Just experiment and find what works best for your situation. If that's not enough info, I suggest checking out this chart to help you determine the shutter speed and ISO setting for the best producible photograph.

Another photography post: The Tilt-Shift Effect and Bokeh

Art 108: Zentangles

I was recently introduced to Zentangle, a creative art form that requires only pencil, pen and paper. I immediately thought it would be fun to share because it requires so few materials and no real "'artistic talent." In other words, even if you don't define yourself as an artist, or even think you can draw a straight line, I suggest you to try this stress-reducing activity!

The first step is to decide what the outline of your Zentangle will look like. You could use a shape (heart), an object (paintbrush) or just a random contour. This is not as important as you would think since the designs within it will better speak for your creativity. My advice is to find something with rounded corners or else the else the designs look trapped inside a box, so to speak.

Next, divide your shape, contour or object into multiple sections. The lines you draw will act as a guideline for drawings and patterns within the tangle. Obviously the more sections you create, the more intricate the final product.

Now you're ready to let your imagination run wild! Fill in your sections with a variety of drawings and designs. You can surf the web for ideas and/or ask friends to join in and draw a design. I recommend using pencil first and then tracing over it with an ink pen or sharpies. The latter comes in different widths which, depending on what you want to draw, may or may not be useful.

After you've finished drawing all your lines and going over them with pen, you can feel free to add color to liven up the bold black and white.
You can visit www.zentangle.com for more resources or click the photo for its source.

Art 106: Square Photography

No tutorials this time around--just a feature of some of the prettiest square photography I've come across on DeviantART from a variety of artists that I would love to share. Enjoy.



Did you notice anything familiar? One of them was used to create our banner...