ArtClub Jr. Week 5

Our weather changed from this...

to this:

We found some plastic animals:

 

and made some sculptures with our found objects,
glue guns and paint:

some became installations:

and some became drawings.

  

and we cast our thumbs in plaster bandages...more on that next time.

ArtClub Jr. Week 4

 

 We worked out the weather on a rainy, windy day.

 

We worked out our silhouettes in colour and paint.

Artful Artificial ArtClub Week 5

http://www.apple.com/ipod-touch/features/ under the title:
"you can never have too much fun"

ARTful (do not fear the artist in the room...)

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Exhibiting art or skill: "The furniture is an artful blend of antiques and reproductions” ( Michael W. Robbins).
2. adj. Skillful in accomplishing a purpose, especially by the use of cunning or craft.
3. adj. Artificial.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill.
2. adj. Artificial; imitative.
3. adj. Using or exhibiting much art, skill, or contrivance; dexterous; skillful.
4. adj. Cunning; disposed to cunning indirectness of dealing; crafty; as, an artful boy or girl. [The usual sense.]

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of frankness.
2. adj. marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft.

ArtClub Week 5
The Story:  Making Stuff MORE Useful

We all considered biomorphic possibilities so now we have to emphasize and exaggerate one!

We need to understand our devices as 

ART-ificial & ART-ful.

We need to consider how they convince us of their function, how they look, what different things they do artistically and actually(virtually),  how we would hold them AND how to exhibit them as artwork. We will decide what we CAN do with them so we can have a show, skit or performance of our work…this will involve painting, plastering, drawing, writing, and more elements, or parts, to your design. 

Lastly, we finished last week with a consideration of the surface of a thing.  We will continue to explore and share ideas about surface today as we build.

Jr. Spice Trail on a Windy Autumn Day

Thanks for a fun studio - it smells great in here thanks to
our very spicy mosaic explorations. Everyone put a lot of effort into their projects today with great results. Our pumpkins are still drying!

Next week we can decide if we want to paint and/or embellish our frames, or even our pumpkins to see how the colours might come together. And we can talk about how best to show/share our work at our show.
Your group painting looks very windy! (And your swirls stayed!!) Great experimenting and expression. I took it apart with my camera to show you the different bits.

 

 

~Sylvie

Week 3 - Testing and Guessing

http://arttattler.com/archiveoldenburgvanbruggen.html

We had a fun studio this week working on some comic book activities and ideas, then experimenting with found objects and recyclables: glueing, taping, painting and plaster-bandaging (which some of us loved and others did not!!) as we worked on different prototypes and models of devices. Very different and fun results! (some pictures to follow...next time I think).

We can have more tape, some wire and fabric, wood sticks, papier mache and the plaster bandage - as well as more paint - out again next studio as we become inspired by different ways to build our ideas.

Now, I am including this video below because I really like the intro where it shows the artist's hand drawing/animating in stop-motion with sharpies -  and also how it shows the transition of the hand-made to the digital.  This trailer is really interesting because you can see and question the differences between what 'the artist' is doing/drawing/creating at the beginning of this kind of project and what 'the user' actually gets to do and create on the device.
This can be about how an interface can actually be virtual...or maybe, virtually actual :)

Week 2 Cinquain Mash-Up!

We worked on developing our ideas for our devices:

We talked through Form and Function with many examples of "devices" and the how and why of  our interactions with them. And we talked about Real and Virtual.

We looked at work by Claes Oldenburg (Remember: Soft Toilet, 1966):

Jason Hsu and Chris Kline from New York:

 

then compared this piece by Gladys Nilsson:

with one of the pieces in the New York Show in 2009 and came up with several visual elements that were similar: use of complementary colours, analogous colour groupings, bright colours, pattern, verticality, gesture, exaggeration and the fact that both were images of artworks and flat on the paper.

We had a lot of fun making up our own words, then making a 4 word poem with them, playing a bit with thinking outside of form and function. Some of you then made action word cinquains (remember Alice Crapsey!!:) using your made-up words again, while others started sketching ideas in your sketchbooks.

We did some drawing on canvas too(just in case we want to paint next week), going off in many directions: drawing concepts, prototypes and finished devices and their possible functions. We then shared our ideas with the group.

We are looking each week to enrich our own ideas for devices we would build, and to discover what forms they will take both as a design and/or an artwork - let's call them our creations.

We had a lot of conversation around 'modifications' as enhancements or improvements to existing(however fictional) objects -  and that originality in form and function are requirements for your own creations.