All roads lead from Rome, according to a visual history of human culture built entirely from the birth and death places of notable people. The 5-minut...
Read more: Charting Culture, Art Meets Science, Humanity Cultural Migration, Nature Video, Humanity, Cultural History, Humanity Cultural History, Cultural Migration, Science News
SOURCE: Art Meets Science on Huffington Post - Read entire story here.
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Rob Turpin's A Droid a Day project is all about proving that you just can't get tired of robots. Since August 2013, he has been posting droid doodles every. single. day. Most robots are captioned with a name or title that is descriptive of their function, which adds a touch of personality.
I stalked his blog a little bit and found that he started doodling with pen and pencil more often to stop himself from putting more thought into drawing something that looks nice rather than capturing a great idea. "Throwing in a really broad shape with the markers makes you forget about trying to create something beautiful, it�s about creating a cool shape, or an interesting form." Wise advice for doodlers!
Be sure to follow his blog for tons of valuable insight. I especially like it when he shares his illustration process from initial sketch to final color. 
SOURCE: Doodlers Anonymous - Read entire story here.
Sounds like an oxymoron -- Matisse was such a sophisticated man, why would the city of the Alamo, the long-horn cows, and BBQ in all shapes and style be interested in the French painter's work, one wonders? But thanks to the effort of the San Antonio's Museum of Art, the blues, the pinks and the yellow palette of the great master are on display in the very cool (in all senses) art building on Jones Street until Sept. 7.
Primarily famous for his paintings, Matisse was also a sculptor and a printmaker. One of the three main artists, with Picasso and Duchamp, regarded as the definers pioneers of the revolutionary plastic arts of the 20th century, they were also recognized as masters of modern arts.
For a couple of years in his life, Matisse was considered a Fauviste , a movement of painters baptized Les Fauves (Wild Beasts) who created a new form of art with boldly colored and thickly textured works meant to shake up the then art world. In honor of the show, the local Monterey restaurant just opened a temporary pop-up joint named Wild Beasts, at the museum, overlooking the San Antonio River.
French Henri Emile Benoit Matisse (1864-1954) was a poetic painter who drew his inspiration from the colors of the South of France. Hues of blues, yellows, greens, purples explode on the canvas and reflect the warm colors of the bright summers. His odalisques' renditions were inspired by the style and the colors of Morocco, where he spent several months.
Matisse once said: "When I put a green, it is not grass. When I put a blue, it is not the sky."
In 1941 Matisse underwent surgery and needing a wheelchair, he became less mobile and invented a new simple technique of large scale cut paper collages, creating his famous Blue Nudes series with the medium he called "painting with scissors."
In 1906, American sisters Claribel and Etta Cone from Baltimore met Matisse and, in the course of 40 years, bought over 500 pieces of art from him. When Claribel died in 1929, Etta asked Matisse to help shape what became the Baltimore Cone Collection, some of which are now presented in San Antonio.
Matisse last creation was the stained-glass window of the Union Church of Pocantico near the Rockefeller estate north of New York City. This was to be his last masterpiece.
"It was his final artistic creation; the maquette was on the wall of his bedroom when he died in November of 1954", David Rockefeller wrote.
INFO: Matisse, Life in Color; San Antonio Museum of Art
200 West Jones Ave., San Antonio, Texas; Tel 210-978-8100.
Open Tues, Fri, Sat: 10-9; Wed and Thurs: 10-5; Sunday: 10-6; closed on Mondays. Admission $5-$10. Free on Tuesday 4-9 p.m. and Sunday 10-12. The Matisse tickets are timed and you must purchase a special ticket to see the show, $15-$25, including general admission.
Giddy up!
SOURCE: Arts Blog on The Huffington Post - Read entire story here.
What, you ask, is better than a feminist robot? A feminist robot with a sweet tooth, obviously.
As part of Los Angeles County Museum of Art's seco...
Read more: Rube Goldberg, Art Meets Science, Annina Rüst, Pie Charts on Pie, Art Meets Tech, Feminist Artists, Annina Rüst Artist, Women in Tech, Female Artists, Lacma Art + Technology, Arts News
SOURCE: Art Meets Science on Huffington Post - Read entire story here.
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Have you ever paid attention to how body language expresses an unspoken language? It’s fascinating how even minor movements can send a message of tension, flirtation, or annoyance. While some of this comes from subtle hand gestures or posture, much of it comes from the “windows to the soul”–the eyes. My sons learned this early on. As toddlers, they would make eye contact with me, testing the waters on occasion when they’d start getting rowdy in public. A simple raise of my brow reminded them that there was always a time-out corner nearby.
Portrait artist Luana Luconi Winner, featured in three new painting DVDs, knows the importance of capturing the uniqueness of one’s eyes, and how to do so with realism. “If all painters took a sculpting class, their progress in acquiring the three-dimensional knowledge of the head would be hastened,” she says. “When you divide the face into simple geometric forms, the many undulating surfaces and total topography become easier to handle, to recognize, to paint.” Learn more in this excerpt from Painting Classic Portraits: Great Faces Step by Step, and click here to post this how-to on Pinterest.
Happy painting,
Cherie
“The eyes are the single most important feature in a portrait,” says Winner. “Take time to resolve the eyes’ true character, and the subject of the portrait will be unquestionably recognized by family, friends, and colleagues.” Left to right: Ken Clark (detail; oil, 40×30); Haley Stoltz (detail; oil, 36×30); Dr. Marvin Soroos (detail; oil, 40×30) by Luana Luconi Winner
Mindset of a Sculptor by Luana Luconi Winner
Try this exercise in thinking like a sculptor. Consider your work in terms of planes. Imagine starting with a large mass and carving away everything that doesn’t relate to the shape of the head. Then carve the largest planes into this head-shape, indicating where the form sits in the shadow. The cavities of the eye sockets, nostrils, ears, and corners of the mouth should be deep enough to maintain the shadow and yet describe the most general of shapes. Next, chip away the smaller planes, indicating more subtle changes of planar direction. These planes create movements of form in the mid-values. The final touches help activate highlights.
When you paint like a sculptor, you go from the general to the specific. You apply the paint as broadly as if you were a sculptor creating the shapes. First you mass in the shadows, allowing them to connect on the dark side of the form. Next you develop the mid-values, taking care with the direction and placement of your strokes as you turn them in and out of the form. Then you refine the details with touches that reinforce the direction of light and, finally, you drop in the highlights.
Look Into the Eyes
In my book Painting Classic Portraits: Great Faces Step by Step, I explain how to apply sculptural principles to the painting of each facial feature, but you can get the general idea from this painting demonstration of an eye:
1. Establish the blueprint: With a relatively dry brush, draw a trapezoid into which you can build the eye socket. Use burnt sienna and ivory black to make a color similar to burnt umber. The color at this dry-sketch stage establishes the footprint where you’ll build the flat planes. Inside the socket, paint a circle for the eyeball. In the center of this circle, draw two concentric circles that look like the bull’s-eye of a target.
2. Add darks: Place a small arrow as a reminder of the direction of light (you can paint over the arrow later). Create a thin, dark mixture of burnt sienna and ivory black to drybrush inside the eye socket and on the shadow side of the eyeball.
3. Place mid-values: Fill the pupil with ivory black. Place a thin mixture of cobalt blue with a touch of ivory black in the iris, the colored part of the eye indicated by the middle circle. To simplify laying in the upper and lower lids, continue to use geometric shapes. Mix yellow ochre and alizarin crimson into the dark mixture described in step 2 and add a little white. Place a triangle of this mid-value skin-tone mixture on the shadow side of the eye on the upper and lower lids. Lighten the mixture with white and place two triangles on the upper and lower lids on the light side.
4. Blend skin and add eyebrows: Add yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, a touch of ivory black, and white to the mid-value mixture on the palette to create a realistic skin tone for the more lighted areas. Then add new planes to areas around the eye, including the forehead, cheekbone, and eye socket.
Add the eyebrow with ivory black, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre. Use brisk strokes up and outward to “grow” the eyebrows.
Blend and soften areas into one another so that the transitions between the shadow, mid-value, and light areas connect. Add warmth to the inner and outer corners of the eye with alizarin crimson and cadmium red at the tear duct (where the eyelids meet on the left).
Soften the depth of the darkest shadows by lightly feathering your brush over those areas with mid-value skin color. Make certain there’s a change in value to represent the shadow that the thickness of the eyelid casts on the eyeball.
5. Add highlights and appearance of moisture: Add highlights to the brow bone, the upper lid, the lower lid, and the cheekbone to further indicate the direction from which the light falls on the face. The only place in the demonstration where you may use pure white is a catchlight placed at the two o’clock position between the iris and the pupil. This catchlight is actually a reflection on the cornea, the clear coating over the iris and pupil. In this demonstration, the light hits the cornea (indicated by the catchlight), travels through the cornea in a straight path, and then lands at the seven o’clock position of the “eye circle.” The light then floods the surface of the iris in that area and lightens local color.
The indication of moisture in the eye will bring it to life, so add a touch of white to represent moisture on the lower lid where it meets the iris. In this demonstration, the direction of the light also creates a reduced-value highlight on the tear duct.
Soften the transitions, feather out edges and assess your progress. Reduce the depth of shadow in the socket to make this eye look less tired. Adjust highlights in small increments, blending along the brow bone and rounding out this bone from the shadow depths. Do the same for the zygomatic bone (the high cheekbone under the eye) blending outward and upward.
Easy on the Eyes
Learn the construction of the eye and its depth of placement in the eye socket, and you’ll achieve lively, moist-looking eyes with minimal trouble. Keep in mind that each step is simplified when you think in terms of planes and geometric shapes. ~L.L.W.
Preview Winner’s newest painting DVDs:
• How to Paint Pastel Portraits the Easy Way
• How to Paint Oil Portraits the Easy Way
• How to Paint Watercolor Portraits the Easy Way
SOURCE: Artist's Network - Read entire story here.
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Just because it’s a parking structure, doesn’t mean it has to be boring and unappreciated. Large plain expanses like that make the perfect canvas for murals and wall sculptures and Rob Ley of Urbana Studio went with the latter and designed May/September, an interactive art project that transformed the exterior of the new Eskenazi Hospital parking deck in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Using approximately 7,000 panels, in 18 different sizes/angles that range in size from 300mm tall x 600mm long to 300mm tall x 1m long, the result is a massive, interactive element for the city’s residents to enjoy.
They chose to keep the sculpture parts immobile, as a kinetic approach would require maintenance over the years. Besides, most people viewing the sculpture would be walking, riding their bicycles, or in a car driving by, therefore seeing how it changes depending on where they’re viewing it from. When standing to one side of the wall, you’ll spot the golden yellow panels. Move to the other side to gradually see the deep blue panels come to life.
The color and transparency shifts as you change your vantage point, giving the viewer a sense that the piece is actually changing. Depending on the angle of each panel, you get the illusion that different hues were used and not just one color.
Photos by Serge Hoeltschi.
SOURCE: Design Milk » Art - Read entire story here.
If you've ever had a hard time explaining why a man telling you to "Smile!" on the street is harassment, this comic says it all.
Artist Robot Hugs created a longform webcomic inspired by a friend's well-meaning question about sexist treatment of women. "A friend asked why he didn't see many instances of harassment, and it led me to think about why the culture of everyday sexism and harassment is so visible and real to women and femmefolk yet so invisible to many men," the artist told The Huffington Post in an email.
The resulting comic covers everything from street harassment to legislative control over women's bodies, and offers bystanders a way to push back against harmful narratives.
"I believe it's always good when topics such as rape culture, sexism, and harassment are explored and discussed," Robot Hugs told HuffPost. "And if I can produce something that resonates with the people invested in those discussions, then I'm happy."
We're happy, too. Check out the full, amazing comic below.
SOURCE: Arts News on The Huffington Post - Read entire story here.
The La Jolla Music Society, the San Diego area’s leading presenter of touring classical music and dance performers, is building a two-audottoprium venue that will host films, lectures and exhibitions as well as concerts. The grand opening is planned for 2017.
SOURCE: ArtsJournal - Read entire story here.
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In 1895 Charles Pathé began his quest to document the historical events of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. By 1914, Pathé produced the first weekly newsreel.
British Pathé, the U.K. newsreel archive company, has uploaded its entire 100-year collection of 85,000 historic films in high resolution to YouTube.
The collection, which spans 1896 to 1976, comprises some 3,500 hours of historical footage of major events, notable figures, fashion, travel, sports and culture. It includes extensive film from both World War I and World War II.
The Home page displays a choice of popular uploads, days that shook the world, disasters, inventions, animals, daredevils, celebrities and compilations. 'Weirdest newsreels' includes a newsreel about a progressive school , a tall man marrying a short lady and an obese three year old . In contrast you can also find footage from the Battle of the Somme , the SAS storming the Iranian Embassy in London and a documentary on the assassination of the American President John F Kennedy claiming the CIA killed him.
SOURCE: Jenny's Art, Design and Architecture blog - Read entire story here.
The standard poster demonstrating the Heimlich that you see in every New York City restaurant is clear, mostly grayscale, almost demure – and all too easy to ignore entirely. So several eateries have commissioned designers to create new versions: cocktail-lounge romance, ’50s nautical theme, ballroom dancing manual, and, yes, Bea Arthur and a unicorn. But there’s a problem, and it’s not just killjoy Health Department inspectors. (includes audio podcast and sample posters)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal» VISUAL - Read entire story here.
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With the abundance of technology available today, it's possible to explore the world's most exotic locations right from our computer screens. However, one place we read about often -- but hardly ever see -- is North Korea.
That's about to change.
In "Enter Pyongyang," British photographer Rob Whitworth and city branding expert JT Singh present a look at Pyongyang, North Korea through blending time-lapse photography, acceleration, slow motion, HD and digital animation. From four days' worth of filming, they've produced a video that blends beautiful scenery with intimate shots of ordinary urban life.
In an email to The Huffington Post, Whitworth said that their level of access to the city -- organized by Beijing-based Koryo Tours, who also paid for their travel expenses -- had never been provided to a foreign film crew before.
However, with this opportunity came a set of restrictions. Images of North Korean leaders could not be cropped, and the city prohibited filming of construction or military sites, he said. The filmmakers also note on the video's Vimeo page that filming was "closely assisted" by the North Korean government's tourism guides.
There is much debate over the ethics of tourism to North Korea, with critics saying visitors -- however unwittingly -- can provide funds and propaganda material to a state accused of committing atrocities against its people. The video also focuses on urban life in the capital city, while in rural areas the UN found has evidence of starvation, mass incarceration and torture.
Despite the filming restrictions, Whitworth said their visit to Pyongyang was "beguiling."
"It was so different from the ground up," he said. "For example, the lack of advertising really makes you aware of how completely saturated we are with it in the West. The country's culture struck me as very reserved and polite. Despite an evident lack of resources, the people were very dignified."
Whitworth said one of his favorite moments on the trip -- a visit to a skate park on the group's last day -- shows that some sights in North Korea are more familiar than you might think.
"There was something so disarming about skating around on a sunny afternoon, racing kids around corners, getting laughed at when you fell over," Whitworth said. "It could have been anywhere on earth."
SOURCE: Arts - The Huffington Post - Read entire story here.
