What is Art?

In my philosophy class, we have been discussing what art is, and what makes a something art. If a four year old smothers paint on a canvas, and it sells for $40,000  (http://www.marlaolmstead.com/) it be art? Or is it just a simple finger painting, because being a child, she never added any deeper meaning?.


I believe art is something that evokes  self emotion. That because their are so many definitions of art by society, you must create your own definition of art, for no two people have the same emotions.


~Jess

Itchy Feet

Alright, Grad 2010!


I'm so ready to get out of Cranbrook, and go to Thailand.  As one of my teachers said, when complaining about how anxious I am in class, I have "Itchy feet".


One of my good friends Laney, captured how I'm feeling in this one photograph that can be seen here:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/70387903@N00/4664948041/




~Jess

Commercial Part 2

Previously, I added images of my commercial product, but now, here is the second part. A person! Naomi!
We went around the school to finish the project, but we couldn't find any place to plug in the light we were using.  When we finally found one, the wall was covered in posters, so we decided to use the heating vent.  I feel it adds drama, and brings her out more, after I photoshoped her head so her dark hair wasn't blending into the backround.
Raw images:

The light we were using. You can see how the angle of the light hits her face, and highlights her cheeks.

See the heating vent in the wall?

Sas-say!

And the original:

Now the Final:

~Jess

Elizabeth Lake :)

At Elizabeth Lake, they have ducks. When our photo class went, there were baby ducks.  I got chased, and hissed at by ducks, but in the end I still got the photos :)

~Jess

Not Digital?

Another project we've done inVAMT 12, is the reverse of digital editing.  Instead of finding an image online and manipulating that. We were told to find an image in a magazine, and create a hand drawn, and colored image, without using any digital means.  For me it was a cool experience, because it brought me back to when we made collages in elementary school. For me though, it was a chance for me to also work on my skills  with shading, and highlighting via pencil crayons.

Originally, they guy had an umbrella, and I thought that it would be cool to put him on a street in a city, but I had way to many trials and errors with that. Finally, out of frustration, I decided to take a different route. Making him miniature, and placing him in a storm..Every thing looked alright until I saw that his umbrella was a tad out of place, and replaced it with a flower. Then, it looked just as I'd hoped for. :)

~Jess

Commercial Enough? - Beans.

Another fun thing we get to do in photo 12 is commercial photography.We must photo a person and a product. For the product, I chose to do coffee beans, and felt that a cleaver way to portray them would be with a coffee cup.  As well, as my class has a light box in it.  **Note** If you ever get the chance c to use a light box, do it!! You will never have so much fun. It takes lots of patience, and lots of moving things around.

I first took quite a few images, with more of an "artsy" feel, and thought they looked great, but then I realized, it wasn't about art, as much as selling the product.  So, the light needed to highlight the product, and give it a popping effect.

Here are a few raw images of the cup. No photoshop added.

And the final one with a bit of photoshop :)

Ultimatly, the final one isn't my favorite, but it is the one that I felt reflected the idea of a comercial product the best.

~Jess

Drawing on the Walls?

In VAMT we have been asked to paint the inside of the Community Living Centre.  The centre is home to various programs, that one wouldn't think really go together, but all somehow come together under the same roof. Programs included are:


1) Ankors - A place for teens to hang out, get free birth control and advise about sex.  Questions Asked. Answers given.


2) Better Babies - For families that may not have the knowledge, or items needed to help grow a healthy and happy child.


3) Needle Exchange - For drug addicts.  Its to help stop the transfer of diseases ect.  They come in, drop off a needle, and get a clean one. Before you say that's disgusting, wouldn't you rather that, then a random child picking up an infected needle off the street?


The programs stated above are programs that run 8-4 everyday, but there are offices for other programs there such as "Go Girls", a youth mentoring program, that connects high school girls, with middle schoolers.  "Big Brothers and Sisters",  and "CAP C",  to name a few.  It is very rare you see all of the programs come together under one roof, and I feel honored to be given the chance to make my mark in that building.

Film Make Me Smile.

We live in a new age. The age of digital photography.  Today, it`s a shame to say, that the use of film and darkroom are on the decline.  Fortunately, I have been able to learn, and use a film camera and develop the photos all on my own :)  Here are my two favorites that I've developed this year.

~Jess

Why I Do What I Do.

The other day Friday, I sold my first piece of art. I thought decent it's a cool way to make cash, but when I saw how happy the buyer was, it made me see art in a whole different view. I didn't feel like I was good enough to do something that would move someone like that.

So I had the photo below in my school's art Gala, and was contacted via facebook by someone who was interested in the photo, but didn't have the money for it that night. I had moved it on to another Gallery showing, so I told her if she was still interested to go down there. By the time she found the gallery, they said they no longer had the photo. Later that day, the gallery contacted me saying they had found the photo and someone was in looking for it. I contacted the potential buyer via FB again, and yes she was interested in buying still, about three months after she first saw it. We made arrangements, and I dropped it off at her salon on Friday.


When I came in with the photo she seriously did a little excited hop, and showed it to everyone in the salon. I haven't seen anyone that excited for a piece of art ever. So I was really excited, considering I never really liked the photo in the first place, and to see her reaction made me realize how important what I do is, and how much it actually means to people.

~Jess

Artisan Crafts

Artisan crafts are some of the coolest things out there!  I could spend hours on blogs of people who design there own stuff. Its a real good thing I don't have a credit card.


One blog I'm really into is Shana Logic.  It is an online store, but Shana, the owner also blogs about her life and art work. It's really cool to follow.  Her store features lots of other artists to, so there is quite a variety for guys and girls of all ages. BUT my favorite thing is the fact that she has a section of the store where she gives back to the ASPCA.


Check it out!!
http://shanalogic.com/wordpress/


~Jess

I Painted A Picture.

One of our latest assignments in Art class included painting a picture of a previous picture. But since many of us had never painted before, we took the photo on photo shop and posterized it.

The original photo can be seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30890316@N05/4515807992/

And posterized here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30890316@N05/4558060898/

Then I printed out the imaged and traced it:

Then added black where it needed to go:

Small tones:

COLOUR:

Adding small light refractions:

And done!

It's actualy my first painting I've done since I was like five. I must say, I'm inpressed with all the vaules and tones that I was able to add, as well as the light refractions, I thought I wouldn't have been able to make it look good. Ta-daH!!

Different Ways of Editing. Photoshop VS Picknic

So the other day I took a photo that looked like this:

And I had this really cool idea of photoshopping it so Mike and Krystal would actualy be in the movie frames and be there own movie, but that provided to be a little to complicated, and a little to frustrating.  So, I went to Deviant Art and typed "frame stock"

 **** For those of you who don't know, "Stock" is an image someone has created and put on the internet, ususally for the use of otheres, but not all the time so be sure to check and respect their wishes.***

Anyway, I found stock here, all credits given to LillyFly06:

http://lillyfly06-stock.deviantart.com/art/Frame-52942132

From there, I took the previous photo, Lilly's frame stock, and another image of the sky I once took.  I took Mike and Crystal out of their original photo, and added the sky. After that, they all went into Lilly's lovely frame. Here is the first resut.

So after putting it on Flickr, I decided I thought the photo looked a little dull for what I felt it shoud feel like, and then I discovered that with photos alreay on Flickr, you can Picnik them right then and there, sooo....

And then I decided cool, I like that, but I'm curious what I could've done with actual photoshop. Thus, I took the origianal again, and Vola! Here is the photoshop one.

So all in all, I found that using two programs will give you two different images, even if they started out the same. But you already knew that didn't cha?

With the photoshop one, I had more control over values and tones, and gave a softer focus. The picknic, was everything all at once. There was no way to just dodge the eyes, or sharpen hands, so I didn't care for that program. It pretty much told me what to do, by saying "No you can only do this all together."

The moral? Photoshop is a beast. Picknic is lame.

Silk Screen.

So, my silk screen design looks something like this:

Only the actual image has color. Rawr.

Flickr?

For some reason, I can't get the flickr Slideshow to show up on the side. It is in a constant state of "Loading". If you know anything that would help, can you let me know?



In the mean time, here is my flickr photostream.




http://www.flickr.com/photos/30890316@N05/


~Jess

I HAVE BUISNESS CARDS!

So for a VAMT 12 project we had to design buisness cards. Ta-da!

I wasn't sure about this one, its a little risky, because nothing really stands out. However, for the overall project, I am satisfied with it. Used a photo & photoshop.

Made entirely on photoshop, it took about an hour, just because I was habing so much fun playing around with all the different brushes.

This one is the head of my dinosaur from my silk screen design. I enjoy how simple it is, yet how juvennile it feels, as well as the colours.

This one is my favorite! Simple, yet the effective. My goal was for it to give off a fun, and eye cathcing feeling.

~Jess

Ft. Steele

Last week, my photo class went to Ft. Steele, a heritage town about ten minutes out of town. There we got the chance to explore something different in class time. Unfortunatly, for the most part, it was cloudy, but hey, you need rain for a rainbow, and sometimes you need a little bit of rain.  Here are some of the photos taken.

Inspiration 2 - Justin.Williams

Justin Williams is an amazing photographer, and absolutely one of my favorites.  There is just something abou the way his photos come out. They all have a distinct style composition wise, but story wise, every photo is a different tale. His specialty is portraits, that vary from self to friends to wedding. The cool thing is waiting for what to come next, becuase it's like waiting for the next week of your favorite show, you don't know what will happen next!


Some of his images can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yummyostrich/


My Favorites:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/yummyostrich/4291593955/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yummyostrich/4490429341/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yummyostrich/2698198032/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yummyostrich/2846394523/


~Jess

Inspiration 1

I mentioned in my Artist Statement, I like to look online to get inspired wiith toehres work. Here is a link to a bunch of photos of my favorite band Family Force 5, but the reason I'm sharing this, is because there is a bunch of different photos, taken by different photographers, yet the essence of what the bad is about is still there, which is a hard thing to accomplish if you want the photo to look just right. I'll warn you some arn't the best but others are amazing!


Link : http://www.last.fm/music/Family+Force+5/+images?page=1


Favorites: http://www.last.fm/music/Family+Force+5/+images/276922 
                http://www.last.fm/music/Family+Force+5/+images/102299


~Jess

** ARTIST STATEMENT**

Born into a sports oriented family, I was the black sheep when I decided I liked the arts. From a young age, I always enjoyed watching performing arts and knew that was what I wanted to do. As time when on, I began to explore different kinds of arts, but they were more like phases and I never really had the patience to sit and deal with a canvas that didn’t fit my needs as a perfectionist. Around grade nine, I finally found my art forte’, photography. From there I started looking online at all sorts of wondrous photos online from different artists to become inspired. Ever a photographer at heart, I always try to look at the different angle to get that one shot. Sure, a photo can look good to you, but if it’s the same black and white photo of your left Chuck Taylor that has been done too many times before it won’t feel any different to anyone else. Thus within my work I try to be spontaneous and creative. Often my designs will start off as a sketch and develop into an amazing photo or something different.
Only within the past two years has my passion for media arts flared, and have become a faithful follower of the different types of media arts, including sewing on, paper, photography, photoshop, pencil, pencil crayon, markers, and creating images using a variety of different techniques and materials.


My style cannot be defined, as it changes day to day. Someday I’ll be a fan of black and white photos, the next I’ll be into simple hand drawings. I am someone who can not pick a style and stick to it. Why? Because as an artist, human, and student, I am always changing, and always learning.


~Jess

Photoshop is FuN!

Recently in my Photo 12 class, we did a project entitled "Digital Darkroom", at the start, it was kinda a pain. I'm some one who likes to go Image>adjust>Black and White/Contrast. Fix some spots here and there, then finish the photo. Such was not the case which made me little bit annoyed, BUT THEN I found out it was really worth it.

Here is my journey with photoshop:

In grade 9, I pestered and bothered my parents to let me get photoshop. One snowy day it appeared on Christmas! Well, it was photoshop elements, but it's still awesome!! Immediately after it was loaded onto the computer, and I spent the rest of the day on photoshop.

The rest of my love affair with photoshop included just simple fixes and like I said before, adjusting the contrast, fixing spots ect. and picking up casual tips here and there. Until the wonderful project of Digital Darkroom. Finally I learned what colour curves where, and how to use them to make the contrast of the photo, (see left, I gave it a yellowish tint to give it an agged. Keep in mind it was my first time using colour curves) also adjusting the levels properly, how to nicely adjust the sepia by playing with the specific hues of red, blue, ect ect, and properly sharpen opposed to "auto sharpen".

The next project we get after exploring all the wonders of photoshop, is to analyze our raw photos. It was hard to just keep them raw after just exploring photoshop, but such is life. Anywho, the analysis project was a real eye opener for me. To get better you have to know what you're doing wrong. I won't say I didn't like any of my photos, or they were bad, in fact, I'm really proud of the art I create, but it made me see where I can improve and what I need to improve on. Moral? Be mean to yourself and pick out your flaws, it's well worth it!

~Jess

Black and What?

It's fun to go back and take a look at photos and then readjust them isn't it? I took this one a while back in January for a pattern design, but now that I've made it black and white it feels more dramatic and like a statement.

In my own opinion, black and white can give any regular photo way more feeling, weither the photo be taken yesterday or in the 1950's. when I look at photos from my Grandparents wedding. They have that timeless feel, and even though I've seen other wedding photos, those ones are my favorites because there was only so many pictures that were developed. Don't belive me? Well Papa has his eyes closed in the photo where he and my Mimi (yes I call my Grandmother Mimi, why? because she is too cool for "Grandma") are getting out of the car. Were there any other shots of this scene? No. The photos taken that day weren't the best, but the emotion that was created with in them is one of a kind happiness, and still the classic, timeless look of black and white makes them even more amazing.


The tittle of the photo is entitled "Smoking Kills".

Recently, I've been working with design on photoshop, which can be frustrating and fun! But tonight I came across a computer with out photoshop and converted back to paint. There was no layers, you could only undo - no redo, and tools were very limited. It was really different yet fun! All in all, the design took about two minutes after I decided what I wanted to draw. It's a logo for my "band". There is two of us, and I picked the name. Behold, the very first "official" logo for "Jessica and the Other One". Please be aware, that my jump drive didn't work, and I had to e-mail it to myself, donload it, then upload it to here. Quality is obviously not the main focus. The main focus is that it is a dinosuar, and he is epic.

~Jess

PS It follows the less is more rule.

Magic Beans.

Recently I've been really busy, ok that's a lie, I'm always really busy. So anyway, I've been working a lot on photography and designs for school, It's really interesting because up until now, I've never really done digital design or editing for anything other than photography, but now I'm scanning images onto the computer and making it ten times better. The Narwhal is a prim example. Here is the outline of the Narwhal before coloring after I scanned and played around with it.

Jet La-la-la-lag

First post....will it be interesting? Prob not. I just got home last night from Greece and Turkey, seriously one of the coolest places ever, but then again, I say that all the time, buuuut that's because they are all amazin'!

So basically, I'm tired, when I'm tired I talk, a lot, well I talk a lot already as it is, but when I'm tired I start to babble about anything and everything, which has been the case all day long. You could probably tell. Or I get really distracted when I'm talking to people.

Anyway, here is my blog, enjoy!!

Thanks for reading :)

~Jess