Why Art Matters To Me/Everyone

Art… it really depends. art means different things to different people. I consider things that i find aesthetically pleasing as art. art helps one express his/her thoughts without writing (THANK GOD), it beautifies the world (most of the time, but sometimes its just crap).  before joining aep, art to me was drawing and painting, but after 4 (horrifying) years in aep, i see art everywhere. it can be found in the smallest, most insignificant things. i realised that art doesn’t necessarily mean paintings, it can be in the design. that may be why i really like those cool, yet simple designs.    you don’t even have to buy your own lamp!

my dream house

with my dream bed

yeah, its the small things that count (but occasionally big things count too).

BUT BUT BUT! i cannot stand it when people just paint a freaking canvas black, call it art and sell the black canvas for $10000. i mean, there are people out there working their butts off trying to design something or trying to draw/painti something and they just come along with a bucket of black paint and BAM! art. NOOOOO! FOR EXAMPLE:

if i do this, its considered as crap that get a f9, so why is it not the same in their case.

honestly i do not consider The Snail by Henri Matisse as art, because, come on, a 3 year old can do that.

this is one of the reasons why aep ruined art for me (sort of). if i do something constantly, i’ll lose interest in it. like badminton, i joined the badminton team in P3 and i lost interest, same goes for art. it was interesting until i join aep, so hopefully after i graduate, i will find art interesting again. ok enough ranting.

but i guess art matters to everybody in some way. or there wouldn’t be so many different brands of clothes, electronics etc. steve jobs became rich by changing the font on his computer (i guess a nice handwriting matters too), people are willing to buy apple products because of its sleek design.

to conclude, i feel that art matters to everyone. it makes life better (most of the time).

comments

i commented on Ahma’s, yingying’s and huiting’s blogs. here are the links.

http://shu0shushu.wordpress.com/2013/03/16/181/comment-page-1/#comment-10

http://box4art2.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/self-portrait/comment-page-1/#comment-19

http://officialhuiting.blogspot.sg/2013/09/temple-chinatown.html

even though i didnt comment on chenghui’s blog, you guys should go check it out. the things she posts are really cool, it shows exploration with the use of materials and with new art techniques which is very interesting.

chenghui’s blog: http://indigoincandescence.wordpress.com/

Banksy, my inspiration

Banksy is an England-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter.

His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world. Banksy’s work was made up of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BanksyStreetArt

Exit Through the Gift Shop: A Banksy Film is a film by street artist Banksy that tells the story of Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles, and his obsession with street art.

His sense of humour and the irony shown in his work makes people want to see more and find out what his works are about. Which is an effective way of raising awareness. While others raise awareness by giving speeches, he raises awareness by ‘vandalising’ the streets. But his method is way more effective in my opinion. His works prompt others to reflect and maybe change. In fact, he was listed as one of the world’s 100 most influential people in 2010. His style and message have, ironically, been wholeheartedly embraced by the very type of people he mocks, which is another reason why he is so successful. Another ironic thing is that many people are eager to buy his artworks, which are mostly photos of graffiti, when graffiti isn’t considered art and street artists are breaking the law when they ‘vandalise’ the streets.

In London, a stenciled worker transmutes the no-parking lines he is painting into a stylized flower.

In a piece of conceptual sculpture, an unsuspecting phone booth is felled by a vengeful pickax.

While skewering the art world’s pretensions, Banksy has maintained an activist’s belief in the power of images to effect change. At a show in Bristol in 2009, he hung a painting with a hefty price tag, then inserted a howl protest—“You have got to be kidding me”—into the work

On the wall at the West Bank, he meditated on a power dynamic upended, as a child frisks a soldier.

According to Banksy, “all graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.” While he may shelter behind a concealed identity, he advocates a direct connection between an artist and his constituency. “There’s a whole new audience out there, and it’s never been easier to sell [one’s art],” Banksy has maintained. “You don’t have to go to college, drag ’round a portfolio, mail off transparencies to snooty galleries or sleep with someone powerful, all you need now is a few ideas and a broadband connection. This is the first time the essentially bourgeois world of art has belonged to the people. We need to make it count.”

0% interest in people

Huge rat in New York

This link shows how Banksy and another well known street artist known as King Robbo ‘battled’. SUPER INTERESTING. This is why Banksy is inspiring, even though he likes to mock others, he still respects those who deserve to be respected. He make friends in the process of creating art. Even though his works are meant to mock others, they actually do not actually create chaos or promote wars; instead they help to raise awareness. READ THIS, and thank me later. http://theactivesoul.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/banksy-vs-king-robbo-street-art-vs-graffiti/

Thats all.

Coursework

WE ARE FINALLY DONE WITH COURSEWORK! after so many months of hard work plus a week (sept hols) of very hard work, we are finally done with coursework. well technically, there is still viva voce, but that isn’t counted. my coursework was supposed to be a water colour painting, but i changed it to become a pencil drawing. it shows various (18) famous/not-so-famous-and-need-recognition architectures from around the world. i was inspired after the AEP London and Paris trip where we only got to see a few of the architectures (Big Ben, eiffel tower, arc de triomphe), so i would like to depict the more well-known architectures from around the world so that the viewers can get to see all of them at once. also, some of them are not as well-known, but i felt that they deserve recognition.

From left to right: Parthenon (438bc), Pyramid of Giza (2540bc), Chrysler Building (1930), Big Ben (1858), Eiffel Tower (1889), Petronas Towers (1994), Taj Mahal (1653), The Roman Colosseum (80ad), Great Wall of China (220-206bc), US Capitol Building (1925), Pyramid of the Sun (100ad), Seattle Space Needle (1962), London Bridge (1973), Leaning Tower of Pisa (1372), Arc De Triomphe (1806), Golden Gate Bridge (1937), Sydney Opera House (1957)

Pencil (mechanical) on fine grain-heavy weight paper (or according to Mr Robertson, GOOD QUALITY PAPER). each paper is 270mm by 420mm. i used 3 pieces. they join to form a skyline like thing.

   

Prep boards: the 8 boards join together to form a timeline. from the architecture that was first built to the recently built.

Special thanks to Huiting, Huanyu, Joey and Ying Ying for helping me stick my prepwork down! THANK YOU!!

     

i spent super long drawing these partly because i do thing really slowly.  but also because some buildings have too many windows (chrysler and twin towers). but its all worth it!

AUTISM?! pssshh.. please.

Stephen was born in London in 1974 and was mute as a result of autism until age five. Unable to communicate verbally, he turned to other outlets such as music and of course, drawing. As a youngster he drew everything from animals to people but by the time he was eight, he had already found his niche for drawing buildings, according to his sister, Annette. Today, Stephen is a one-of-a-kind landscape artist, having depicted prominent cityscapes such as New York,Tokyo and Rome from pure memory.

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Wiltshire/32139030247

 

The Globe of London

 

London Montage

 

 

What the heck!? This is one thing I like about him. He is so detailed. I like detailed drawings and this… this is just. WOW. And most of his works are done using pen, which means that once it’s drawn, it cannot be un-drawn, which makes this even more impressive.  this is me when i first saw his work

but then! i got motivated to be more detailed.

 

Birds eye view of the Freedom Tower and Brooklyn Bridge

 

Mini Globe of New York

 

Aerial view of Singapore

This astonishing 18ft drawing of the world’s most famous skyline was created by autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire after he spent just 20 minutes in a helicopter gazing at the panorama.

The unbelievably intricate picture was drawn at Brooklyn’s prestigious Pratt Institute from Stephen’s memory, with details of every building sketched in to scale.

Landmarks including the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building can be seen towering above smaller buildings after just three days in his spellbinding creation.

look! No difference at all! Except the colours.

Stephen Wiltshire, The Human Camera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8YXZTlwTAU&gl=SG&hl=en-GB

 

Another thing that I like about him is that even though he was diagnosed with autism, he did not let that stop him from doing what he loved (drawing buildings, by the way, his first words were ‘pen and paper’). Like autism? Please… no big deal. In fact, he even used his talent to help others by raising funds for various charity events. For example, in April 2010 Stephen drew Sydney city, to raise funds for and awareness of Autism Spectrum Australia. Come on, who wouldn’t be inspired. Plus my coursework is about architecture (detailed, skyline), and in my mind it was like ‘STEPHEN WILTSHIRE!!’. So yeah… my coursework inspiration.

Chinatown

We went to Chinatown for a field trip in Sec 2. we were told to take pictures of the scenes seen in china town as they are disappearing (or something like that). so i took pictures.

then we were told to choose 1 picture, make it black and white and do a drawing of it using conte crayons.

 

after doing this, we have to paint it using water colour (first time trying water colour btw)

 

original picture

 

i was quite happy with the results. but i spent waaayyy too much time on this.

Ceramics

last year we got to explore with clay.

 

we had to do something with the clay which represent ourselves. so i did this. in 5 seconds. 🙂

i coloured and fired it but i don’t have a picture of the final product.

but here are the prep work i did for this ceramics project:

 

if i can find a picture of the final product, i will upload it. but that’s it for now.

 

Lasalle art exhibition

Hello! i went to the art exhibition held by Lasalle College of the Arts in May with Shu Ying, otherwise known as Ahma. as some of you may know, i am interested in architecture and there was a section with designs done by students of the college. here are some of the designs that i found interesting: 

this is a design i like A LOT. the whole thing is balanced and spacious.

even though i like this design, it is too complicated. i get lost very easily, how am i supposed to navigate my way through this?! (no offense to the person who came up with this)

some of the ideas are really good, but they are not as practical as compared to the others. for example,

also, this idea may be derived from this thumbprint building

 

all the designs are really creative and they are all so detailed. i’m not that patient. but if they could add colours to their mini buildings then they would be even better.

some of the ideas are meant for those who are SUPER rich $$$. which is not good because there are not that many rich people who doesn’t already have a mansion and is looking for someone to design a building for them. so being an architect must be tough. crap.

that’s all for now. 

bye

 

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