Blog

Here is the link to my blog that I post on regularly. http://kyleespillaneart202.blogspot.com

Creating a Resume

From building my resume, I have learned that there are many things/jobs I have done that I didn't think would be something to put on my resume, and also, accomplishments. For instance, I didn't think that winning a photography award would be something to put on a resume and some artistic works I did for class projects that were submitted to radio stations and/or  other artistic outlets. It turns out that I have built up a lot of things of that nature over the past four years that really help my resume and add to my artistic accomplishments.

In the past, I had just had a simple resume with past, non-art-related past jobs listed, as I was probably applying for a restaurant or retail job and those artistic accomplishments weren't relevant. However, now that I am applying to internships and jobs that will be associated with my future career path, I have learned to create a resume for myself as an artist, which has helped me evaluate all that I have accomplished as well as realize things that I have still yet to do or learn.

ART 202 FINAL PROJECT PROPOSAL

For the class, ART 202 Digital Applications 1, we had to write up a proposal on what we wanted to do for the FINAL project in the class.

Since I enjoyed creating my web-site for this class, I have decided to expand/finish it up.

My website, AS I LAY DYING, is practically already finished, the only thing left to do for it is add the images over the template-image. 

During the process of creating the site, my progress on it hit an unexpected hump with the collapse of the website "BitStrips". 

Since this site is finally live again, (it apparently took over  months to scale up their servers) I can now create the 30-something images I need for the story progression images on each page.

The Color of History

Black and white photos are associated with the past, even if the photograph is taken tomorrow on a digital camera and turned black and white in post production, it will instantly have a connotation to the past.  I love black and whit photography, if I could only shoot with a film camera I would, however in the digital age today I would be at a disadvantage.  One advantage of the digital age is that we can take those old black and white photos and re-develop them into color photography, in other words, we can bring them to life and discover the color of history.

Pastincolor.com is a site where you can upload your own black and white photograph and they will use their artistic talent and specialized software to bring the color back into the frame; make the grass green, the sky blue and the rosiness back into cheeks.  Based in Sweden, this company will color correct your photos for nearly $100 and will make sure that you are satisfied with your product.  They have an entire portfolio gallery to view their past work to see their success.  My favorite photos are the more iconic images that we have come to love in black and white, how much differently I look at them in color; how the scene changes the intensity, the emotion and the connection I have with each image.

Photo Gallery: http://forrifarg.se/portfolio?lang=enhttp://indulgd.com/realistically-colorized-historical-photos/

People from the Past

Tom Hussey, a Dallas photographer, created his work entitled 'Mirrors'.  This collection of photographs are to show the passage of time, life, and how a person views themselves and they achieve it.  This collection reminds me of the saying '..a 20-year old stuck in an 80-year old's body' or of Grandpa Jo from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  The images captured by Hussey that show nurses, teachers, and firemen as they are now and their reflections show how they feel on the inside.

Hussey's inspiration came from a conversation that he had with a WWII veteran who couldn't explain how the time had gone by so fast and that he didn't feel as old as he was.  This is a very interesting project as Hussey had to find people who looked like his subjects only 40-50 years younger to pose as the person from the past.  I love this idea of manipulating the images to combine two completely different story timelines into one complete image that tells it's own story.

Tom Hussey's entire 'Mirrors' collection can be viewed here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/27/tom-hussey-mirror-series-shows-elderly-people-looking-at-younger-selves_n_2958505.html#slide=2268945

Re-Design

There are so many projects in the world and everyone had a different viewpoint. Naturally, as things are published we might see something and think that we would have changed this or that or done it completely different if we were given the chance. Some people actually make that chance happen, especially when it comes to re-designing movie posters or book covers.  Harry Potter is a popular series of both movies and books to re-design the images that cover each book or movie.  I came across one of these re-designs that has a more modern twist on the fiction and fantasy that J.K. Rowling presented to the world. The re-design is not just an image either, it is an animated .gif, and the designer created one for each book.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

What I thought made these re-designs stand out was not only their animated features, but the concept of a lightening bolt, like the scar on Harry Potter's forehead, is hidden in each design.  That extra attention to detail is what sets these creations apart from other re-designs.  Other minimalist designs for more movies can be seen here: http://mashable.com/2013/11/02/harry-potter-minimalist-posters/#gallery/minimalist-childrens-tales/527536b1b589e44df700cddb

InDesign PEPSI LOGO

For the ART 202 class, my team (just Michelle and I), decided to do an all-text image of a well known logo.

As you already know, we chose PEPSI... here are the final images of the finished project:

Although I do not like InDesign very much, I still learned a bit about it's uses throughout the process of creating this...

Event this weekend: 11-23-13

This weekend at Mount Mary College in the Lyric Cafe will be a talent show. It's from 7pm-9pm and free to attend!

Sorry no flyer! 

Go check it out if you can!!!

Final Project Idea for Digital Applications

Well I know that working on a website is not ideal for me to do as my final project for class.  So I'm doing a 8 paged magazine with Shara about music. We'll make it so it can be shown on the web and be printed as well. We're still figuring out some of the details, but here's a "sample" cover we're working on in the meantime.The magazine is going to be called "True Jams" and is targeted for the age group 18-30.

More details to come as we work on our project.

Magazine Art

Artist Francesca Pastine from San Francisco is the creator of this art piece. She carves a magazine booklet with an X-acto layer after layer creating what is shown. You can imagine how long this might of taken to do espcially with the short blade like an X-acto .What do you think?

Art Lost to the Nazis Surfaces in Germany

Some 1,500 pictures have come to light after being discovered in the Munich apartment of an old man named Cornelius Curlitt. His father, Hildebrand, was a dealer during the Nazi era and had assembled an impressive stash of the Modernist art that Hitler deemed "degenerate."

It is believed that these paintings include artist Matisse and Courbet, Franz Marc and Max Liebermann, Marc Chagall, Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and many more. The first goal of the Nazis was to purge and either destroy or sell abroad, in exchange for  currency, stockpiles of modern art to purify Germany.

However, art has continued to refuse to be eliminated by history. These precious works of arts survived and its' fight against time and the purge shows us just how impactful art has on this world. Every piece was a statement against Hitler and it won in the end.

 

 

"Landscape With Horses" by Franz Marc (1880-1916), a painter who died a hero in World War I but was banned by the Nazis.

 

 

Gustave Courbet's "Village Girl With Goat," one of some 1,500 paintings, missing for decades, discovered in a Munich home.

 

Digital Application I Mini Project with Theresa Le

For my Digital Applications class Theresa Le and I had designed and execute an informative text-only article that explores relationships between text and image, content and form. We chose to use the silhouette of Audrey Hepburn to represents our subject, and used one of her favorite quotes by Sam Levenson as a guide to inform the layout of your article.

MAM Visit-- Thomas Sully Exhibit

Right now, at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the work of Thomas Sully is on display and I encourage any photo, or art student in general, to go and see his work. Thomas Sully, born 1783 and died 1872, was an American painter that focused mainly on portraiture. His subjects varied from that of friends, to actresses, to even presidents. In fact, his portrait of Andrew Jackson led to a version of that portrait being used on the twenty dollar bill. Thomas Sully's work greatly differed from, and therefore impacted, the way in which painted portraiture was done in his time and led the way for future artists to develop the aesthetics of portraiture.

The exhibit is on display until January 5th, 2014, so I recommend going to MAM to see it as well as the other amazing works on display in the rest of the Museum.

Designing a 2 Page Spread

While designing my first two page magazine spread, with text and image arrangement, I have had more difficulties than I had predicted. I believe I have a good core understanding and capabilities in terms of balance and cohesiveness, but I am having many problems utilizing these design elements in my spread. I am finding it particularly difficult to use these elements to tie my image and my text together. I keep rearranging my elements and changing them to try and solve this problem without any success yet. It always seems that they are either competing for attention or not working with each other to convey my message.
To solve this problem, I will continue more to play and rearrange my text and image and also refer to examples of magazine spreads for inspiration and advice on how to successfully design my two page spread. 

ART 202 TYPE project

For the past week or so, we have been introduced to our next project: Type over Image.

We have to work in small groups of (2) or (3), and come up with a concept that involves an image composed entirely of type. My group idea is going to be a popular (or recognizable) logo such as the pepsi logo:

If this theme works, then the (2) of us will go forward with it. Any ideas, tips, or compliments are welcome...

ART 239 INSULIN MAGAZINE SPREAD

Although the FINAL  for this project is due on Monday, here is a screenshot of what my 2-page spread looks like at the moment:

Would you change anything? Any last-minute tips or suggestions would be appreciated...

Working in InDesign

From Digital Applications: We are working in InDesign.

• Text Wrap
• Type on a Path
• Text inside a shape

Photoshop Tutorials

I thin I've mentioned before, but sometimes I like looking up tutorials so I can learn new things and get better at what I like to do in Photoshop. Usually after a couple times I remember the steps and apply them to my future work in some way. The images below were just for fun and learning how to use lens flare, lightning effects, blending techniques, etc.

Some of these may not be new to others, but it was either new to me or a refresher on how to use certain Photoshop tools. I like the results.

Article Design

Made this quickly in In Design for our assignment in Digital Applications 1. It is just an article with some placeholder text. It has 3 images and a header + sub header.

Indesign

For my Digital Application class We have been working in Indesign and this is my progress for making a proof for a cover

Working in InDesign

Learning about layout, alignment, and place images:

ART 202 IN-DESIGN mini project

Today in ART 202, we had to complete a small project that would serve as our intro to In-Design.

The project requirement was to create a one-page-spread, that utilized the concepts that we had learned that afternoon. Mine is shown below:

The overall theme is based on my favorite character in the STREET FIGHTER fighting games series, Vega.

ART 202 WEBSITE Part 3

Here is a contrast of images of the concept of my HOME PAGE, and the final result:

CONCEPT

FINAL

This is how the story progression pages will look:

This is how the character bios page looks compared to my first layout:

First concept image

Final Image

My completed Progress-Bar:

My personal favorite part of the whole site is my use of the FancyBox application to create the character bios page, making the BIO pop up in a window without taking the user to another site or a new tab:

This has definitely been one of my favorite projects this semester, allowing me to be artistically creative as well as giving me a bit more knowledge about the program, DREAMWEAVER.

THIS SITE IS NOW LIVE. VISIT IT @ 

http://artweb.stritch.edu/magill1/AS-I-Lay-Dying/INDEX.html

ART 202 WEBSITE Part 2

This is part (2) of my 3-part blog, featuring a bit more of my concept images, detailing what I had added and what I had still planned to do.

Based on the feedback that I got from my critique group, I changed the wooden buttons into transparent images that could have text easily layered over them:

I kept the CHARACTER BIOS and HOME navigation tabs up on the top of the page, and contemplated how I would create a progress bar (an idea that came from my critique group).

As I moved on farther, I re-made all of the links into rollover images with transparent backgrounds. I had created the layout of my site almost entirely off of a few templates since the majority of it's content would appear on pages that were relatively the same.

I found this template online and used it as a source for the character bios in my site:

In order to prevent the complications of moving a typeface from computer-to-computer, even the font was saved as a transparent PNG image, giving off the exact look I intended:

Here is an image of what I intended for my CHARACTER-BIOS page to look like:

The next blog will show a contrast between the beginning concepts and the final results

ART 202 WEBSITE Part 1

This post will be the first of (3) blogs that will display my progression on my website for the ART 202 class. This is one of the early concept design images:

The final design does not look that different than the photo shown above

My site will be a choose-your-own-story site, allowing the user to play through a short story where the choices or decisions that they make change the story in some way.

The design concept was designed to look somewhat vampiric, given that the story is about a young werewolf boy looking for his friend who is lost in the woods.

The site will include both a story and character bios of all of the included people you meet throughout it.

A littile Photopgraphy and Photoshop

 I like to take photos and edit them in Photoshop. My husband bought me a really nice camera, so I try to use it as much as possible. A few weeks ago I went to the park and just snapped shots of the beautiful fall scenery. Then I took a few and played with the contrast and some effects.

Website Progress

So far...I'm starting to understand CSS better. Although website design is not one of my strong points, which means making this site may take longer than I thought and I'm going to have to pay real close attention to every step shown in class. Glad Brian is very helpful and willing to go back over things.

I'm going to keep researching and finding other resources to help me outside of class. I want to be able to design a site the right way. I'm also learning from my mistakes.

SunTan Art

I recently seen this and I had to blog about it. I've never seen this before but I thought it was kind of cool way to add art to the body. Normally we see a lot of people with tattoos as a form of art for the body but this doesn't require anything special but the heat of the sun. It seems like something new to try over the summer when you go out and tan. What do you think ?

Prototype

http://artweb.stritch.edu/mrnieves/art202/colorspot.html

Here is my latest work in Digital Applications I. Our class had to make websites from different categories, such as narrative, business, portfolio, etc.. I chose a business website based on my closest family friend, Amy Johnson's hair salon. Although she has been very busy and unable to get back to me on information, I did the best I could.

Letter and Image Revision and Final of Part 1

I like a good critique because I always to get better at my work. When I hear feedback from my peers I do take it and apply what will work for my pieces. So with this assignment I wanted to really show a difference from what I started out with and produce something that would depict theme I am going for: Rhythm!

So here's what I came up with:

 

Now it's time to figure out the text!