Body Art

Tattoos have become fairly common within our current world. For some people they are only a mistake but to others it means the world. It is a permanent expression of art upon ones body. It sounds a little crazy to have art inked within your body with needles but it is a beautiful way to express love for something. The television show L.A. Ink follows the life of Kat Von D and her tattoo shop obviously located in L.A.. On the show you see people getting tattoos, some people get portraits of loved ones, others get flowers. There is no limit on what you can get. When each person gets a tattoo on the show they tell the story behind the tattoo. Each one has a beautiful meaning. Kat Von D and her crew of misfit tattoo artists create beautiful works of art on skin. Anything a person can imagine can be transpired onto skin. Masterpieces are made on every inch of the body. Whether it be a cross or a word each tattoo is a modern work of art.

Dance

Dance is a type of artistic expression that every single person can use. Everybody can express themselves through dance from Brady, my five-year-old sister, to Chris Brown, famous artist with dance moves to match. Dance can come from your head, your hands, your toes or your feet. Movement is dance. Dance is art. It takes no skill to dance, simply bob your head or tap your toes and you're expressing yourself through art. There are those who work at it and accomplish moves that I can only dream about. Dance can be taught or made up. It can be done in a group or solo. Art is an expression of self, something that tells a story. Dance always tells a story. Sometimes its the story of a song and sometimes its the story of one's feelings. Shapes are made and emotions are portrayed. Dance can be beautiful and elegant or it can be dark and rough. Dance is one of the best expressions of art because anybody and everybody can do it. The only problem with dance is you can't hang it on your wall like you can a painting or stand it in your yard like a statue. Dance is in the moment art, expressed differently each time it's redone. It can never be perfectly duplicated, everybody's body moves differently. Dance is specific to each person, their very own expression of art.

Personal Expression

Everybody has their own way of expressing themselves and some people do it with their hair. For some women the hair on their head is their own work of art. It could be a fancy up-do or a vibrant shade of red, the way one styles their hair is an expression of art through hair. A ponytail says, "I'm ready for action," and dark black hair says, "leave me alone." Believe it or not, hair is an artistic expression for women. There are women who simply don't care and are going for the chilled out look with dreadlocks and other women who have their hair spick and span everyday. I currently have a braid with beads at the end strung in my hair, some of my friends have feathers, a recent fad. Every time I go to the beach I return with a little more than just sun highlights in my hair. Sometimes its a beaded braid and sometimes its a colorful hair wrap but no matter what it signifies freedom. It is an artistic expression of freedom weaved into my hair. Headbands, hair ties, bows and clips to tie down the loose hairs show a little bit of personal expression as well. Color and cut are the most obvious ways of artistic hair expression. Light, light blonde obviously signifies the dumb blonde look that many women go for. Vibrant, neon colors show an edgy girl and darker browns show sophistication. Hair is an expression of art from style to color.

Anna Wintour by Alex Katz

The portrait of Anna Wintour by American artist Alex Katz can be seen as simple yet very complex. Anna Wintour is obviously the main and only subject of the painting.  Anna is set against a bright background, which can only be described as mustard yellow. Anna sits in the center of the painting facing directly at the artist. Her shoulders are square and her posture seems precise. The painting begins right below Anna’s shoulders. Anna is wearing a light lavender turtleneck. The artist used shadowing around the collar of the turtleneck to show the folds. A necklace dangles around Anna’s neck. The necklace has small turquoise rectangles that appear to be linked together by nothing yet they are still attached. Katz painted Anna’s skin a light, creamy color. He uses slight shadowing on her neck under her chin. Anna’s nose is small and almost blends with the rest of her face if it wasn’t for the shadowing of the nostrils. The quietness of Anna’s nose makes her others features stand out even more.  Her lips are about average size. They are full but not big and they have a nice subtle red color. Anna has a striking purplish blue eye color. The boldness of the eyes makes them the focal point of the painting. The emotion portrayed in her eyes is not harsh, as one would expect from the Editor-in-Chief of the major magazine, American Vogue. Anna appears to be calm and serene and that is only seen through her eyes. The white of her eyes is not a bright white but a creamy color like her skin. Katz painted a thin line of black eyeliner on her upper eyelid that frames her eyes. Above her eyes, partially seen, are her light brown eyebrows. They are pretty much covered by her bangs that completely shield her forehead. Anna’s hair is in the style of a bob that frames her face. Her hair looks delicate and soft through the artist’s long, fluid brushstrokes. Her bob is a light brown color with few highlights and lowlights. All together Katz painted a beautiful and serene portrait of Anna Wintour.

Portal of the Stave church

The wood carved portal of the Stave church is covered with elaborate patterns. The portal is an example of Viking art that was stylized over time. The doors were made somewhere between 1050 and 1070 in Urnes, Norway. The patterns that adorn the portal are mixed with animals. Which animals they are is hard to decipher because of the intricate patterns. The interweaving animals were a Viking custom. The door is covered with thick and thin strings winding around the portal. The wood is precisely carved and almost perfectly intact. The door has faded to a grayish color because of its old age. The image is hard just as the Vikings were yet, it is very beautiful.

Art Lecture- Gloria Gloom

One Thursday night, my friends and I took a trip to the local art museum known as The Frist. Gloria Gloom, an art extraordinaire, was giving a lecture on Impressionism and it's fashions. Gloria made a slideshow of different Impressionist artwork to share with the crowd. Throughout her speech Gloria voiced her opinions and the ideas of the art intellectuals on the fashion within each piece of art. The lecture was completely centered around fashion. Gloria would point out the theme of the fashion in each piece of artwork and explain its significance. The speech was quite enrapturing. It was an hour packed full of Impressionist fashion information.

Star Wars Tympanum

We had an AP Art History project that required us to create a tympanum with any theme we wanted. My partner, Peter Awad, and I chose to do Star Wars for our theme. A tympanum is supposed to inflict fear upon the viewer so the main character of our tympanum is Darth Vader. Darth Vader is featured within the mandola. To Darth Vader's right side we drew the good characters in decreasing rank. Immediately to Darth Vader's right is Luke Skywalker. Next to Luke is Princess Leia. Last, next to Princess Leia is Yoda. To Darth Vader's left is the evil side. There are only two figures. Immediately to Darth Vader's left is Darth Maul and next to him is Jaba the Hut. On the evil side of the lintel there are white droids. On the good side of the lintel there are white fighter pilots with red helmets. On the evil side of the archevolts are white death stars. On the good side of the archevolts are Millennium Falcons. Altogether it creates a Star Wars themed tympanum.

Local Art- Chihuly

Chihuly at Cheekwood is a glass blown masterpiece. Chihuly has created a stunning landscape by incorporating his art into the gardens at Cheekwood. His art of glass blowing takes so much more than most art. Every piece of his art has to be perfectly orchestrated in order for the image to be created. Planning and construction are a major part of his art. Chihuly's art isnt just free-thinking it takes a lot to create something so extravagant.
As you walk through the gardens you experience Chihuly's art at full blast. The glass is discreetly blended into the beautiful plants of Cheekwood but you could never miss one of his pieces when walking through. The bright colors make the glass explode from the green of the plants. Each piece is modeled after the plant that it sits in. Only a few pieces sit alone and those are the pieces that are large in size and in impact. Other pieces of glass sit in boats and in sand gardens but each piece is meant to blend in with its surroundings. Each piece of glass is like nothing else, only mocking its surroundings with great exaggeration. The electrifying colors and delicate extremities fuse together to create something amazing. Chihuly's blown glass has livened Cheekwood's gardens with its extraordinary beauty.

Henri Matisse Die Musik

       Henri Matisse orchestrates his very unique style within Die Musik. The picture plane is hugely broken up by two figures with exaggerated bodies. One figure seated on the left of the painting, the other seated on the right. The overstated bodies of the figures are draped across the furniture that also arranges the balance of the painting. Foliage in the background disrupts the picture with vibrant color set against a black background. A rectangular band of color runs across the painting just above the bottom. A triangle juts out of the bottom of the painting overlapping the band. Each element of the painting intersects another element of the painting. No figure is freestanding, everything is touching, and the image is crowded.

Matisse’s appliance of paint varies. The figures such as, the two women and their clothing, the table, the rug, the guitar, the plants and the arm of the couch show light, thin strokes, almost streaky in areas. These strokes create texture giving the materials quality. The background consisting of the tile, the couch, the pillow and the black backdrop are filled with thick color. The strokes are thin but no longer streaky, the colors are full. The strokes in the backgrounds are strong. In the couch and the pillow Matisse adds thin strokes of paint to show texture within the material. Throughout the painting the paint is thin never thick.

Matisse used only rich colors in his painting. Each color is solid with no obvious hints of other colors. The same sea foam green color is applied to the table, rug, couch arm and the plants. The thickest color in the plants. The tile in the background is somewhere between orange and red, the color of typical Spanish tiling. The mustard yellow of the woman’s shirt matches the yellow of the guitar and the light brown of the woman’s pants matches the bottom of the guitar. The black of the background and the pillow are startling against the brightness of the other colors. The black also forces the other colors to pop and become more vibrant. The other woman’s outfit is a royal blue color that takes up about half of the painting with the ballooning size of her pants. A light yellow, triangular pattern borders the cuffs of her pants. The couch barely shows its true color of white because it is covered with a red blanket. Matisse chose solely solid, full colors.

The mood of the painting is portrayed through the shapes and the colors. The heads of the women are un-proportionally smaller than their bodies making their facial expressions seem not very important. Drawing from the posture of the women the mood is relaxed and at ease. The lines are not sharp and nothing is exact. The effortless strumming of the guitar and the all around calmness gives the painting a peaceful, easy feel.

Coyle Colored Pencil Drawing November 10,2006

Clare Coyle Taylor portrays great emotion through her mishmash of colors and strokes in her colored pencil drawing, November 10,2006. When first examining the drawing the geometric shapes jump out due to their bold outlining. Each shape is exploding with multiple colors fuzing together to create a perplex image. Texture is added through accents of black and other colors. The brightness and confusion of the drawing give it an overall carefree emotion. Coyle isn't afraid to color outside the lines, strokes of hot pink exit the square that encompasses all of the drawing.
The shapes are arranged in no exact pattern but they appear to begin in the upper left corner and extend out. Small squares are drawn within bigger squares which are drawn within bigger squares. There are no repeats within this drawing, every element of it is different. The same colors are used but Coyle blends each color with another making it an original color. Her colors and shapes create an amazing abstract image.