1.         I enjoyed the creative process of making the Value Scale and the Color Wheel. It is interesting seeing how the black and whites flow together but are also extremely different. It was not very easy to color in all the shades to be distinctly unique but I made it work. I loved painting the color wheel and seeing how the colors mixed together to create something new.

2.         I liked using the paint the best because I feel like you have more freedom than you have with a pencil. A pencil is one color but paint can be used as itself or transformed into something new. Paint is a soft texture and it has more of a creative flow to it that makes your imagination run wild.

3.         The most important discovery I learned from this is that art can be made from only a couple materials. We may have only had 3 colors to use but they were able to transform into something even greater. If you are creative, you can make something miniscule into something fantastic.

4.         The moat important fact I learned from the videos was that red, yellow, and blue are considered historic primary colors. The real primaries are cyan, magenta, and yellow. All of the primaries produce the secondaries and all combine to make black. 

Taking these pictures for my blog post was a unique and creative process. I knew I did not have many items at my house for this project so I went to some local store and kept my eye open for things that caught my eye. I realized that if certain patters or colors on things were pleasing to me, they must have elements or principles in them. From reading the text, I knew that a piece of art could have multiple elements and principles. This was proven correct when I was categorizing the different labels I could give the pictures. Overall I enjoyed the project because it made me think outside the box and do something I would not normally do.

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1.         Color has a psychological affect on all humans whenever and wherever we are. The psychology of color is based on the mental and emotional feeling colors leave on people. It is the most powerful aesthetic element, but it is also the most difficult to control. Color has lots of meanings and symbols, but how you feel about the colors you see is the most important aspect. Color can be reflected, refracted, or absorbed in different light spectrums though a color prism. It has recognizable properties that catch the humans eye and we know the meaning behind them. This includes hue, value, and intensity. The harmonies and optical effects that colors and different combinations you can put them in effect the way a viewer analyzes art.

2.         In my opinion, he most intriguing theoretical aspect of color are the optical effects color has on the human mind. Artists can make certain color combinations play tricks on the mind by using simultaneous contrast and aftetimage. Some colors seem to advance or recede when place together. Optical mixing is a very interesting concept in which an artist uses thousands of tiny dots or points to create a greater image. These types of images are unique because each dot is its own work of art, its own distinct color, but the overall image catches the eye on a greater perspective.

3.         While watching the color video, I was shocked to how much color affected artist June Redfern. When she went to Venice, she picked a particular spot to paint because she felt that the view was picturesque and she was in the scene itself. The narrator went over how paintings first started with wet plaster absorbing color and it could not be changed. There was actually a contract saying how much paint an artists were allowed to use, which I found to be interesting. Watching June take advantage of the advancements that painting has has though the centuries proved that the colors will drive you mad.

4.         In the feeling video, the most interesting thing that stood out to me was David and Goya’s ideas about God and the medieval times. They believed that social progress in art could cause a change to a better society where all men were free to be themselves. God was irrational to them ad religion was about demons and angels fighting. Their goal was to have a society were great minds were always seeking knowledge and humans had a reasonable conscience. Humanity should have its own was of thinking and feeling that is not affected by a greater power.

1)         For video 1, I learned about many different artists and philosopher throughout the centuries that impacted the art world. They each were unique in their own ways by creating theory’s about aesthetic and beauty and expanding on them. Each artist touched on the basic question of “what makes something a work of art” and all of their answers derived from Plato’s theory that art is copying ideas grasped by reasons. Beauty and aesthetic were commonly described as harmony, imagination, and moral understanding.

For video 2, the first speaker talked about the origins of art including the tools used many centuries ago, nonverbal symbolic forms of art, and aesthetic efficiency. The first speaker also expanded on the brain and the novelty and consensus partum it stimulates which makes us look at art differently.  The second speaker spoke more about the judgment by the observer when looking at different pieces of art. He spoke about grouping, binding, aesthetic jolts in circuity in the brain, and the peak shift principle.

From the CNN article I learned about the different illusions that artists create including lines, faces, colors, luminance, shadows, and mirrors. The author expanded on why and how art is appreciated and how we should equally take interest in the art and the artist it comes from.

2)         The philosopher that I believe brought up the most crucial point was Immanuel Kant. Kant conveyed his ideas to the art world in the late 1700s. He brought up important aspects that made me think about beauty and aesthetic in a new light. He believed that there is nothing you can not treat beautifully and that the darkest moments could be made into art. He said that judgments are based on feelings but no judgment is a conclusion or a fact. To see the beauty, you need selfless contemplation and means of the imagination. Kant explained the relationship between reason and human experience by extending past the modern philosophers.

3)         Changeux had a view on aesthetics that derived back to text book information and the origins of where art comes from. He spoke about how the brain reacts to art and what types of representations artists are trying to stimulate in the viewer’s brain. The most interesting fact from his lecture was the concept of novelty and the aesthetic efficiency behind every work of art. It was interesting how he touched on the fact that there is a universal search for harmony and it will always be in a constant revolution.

Ramachndran was an interesting speaker because he took the subjects lightly and wanted to really show the audience what he was talking about by providing jokes and visuals. He focused his lecture on realism, the 8 law of art, and the judgment by the observer. He described illusion as the problem solving visual of the world. He stated that there is a constant search for the unanticipated surprise in each piece of art. The showed some examples with hidden pictures within some paintings and he was correct about the satisfaction you received when you figured the image out.

4)         I think the videos were a great introduction to what the text was going to entail. The text explained multiple concepts that were mentioned in the videos, but expanded on them and took them into greater detail. The section on why artists create art directly led back to some of the key topics the speakers were auguring. It stated that art is always something and it has an embodied meaning that the viewer is meant to uncover. The section that went over the exact processes artists use including form, contact, content, iconography, and subject matter related back to the speakers because I understood more about the process of creating art.

5)         I enjoyed listening to the films and reading the article because they opened up my mind more to what goes into art, beauty, and aesthetics. The speakers spoke about creativity and the methods artists used to be unique and I am happy the book expanded on it to give me more of a literal definition. It is defined as the ability to produce something that us both innovated and useful within a given social context. From all of the sources provided this week I believe it all leads back to he artists and their creativity. They have the ability to define problems, seek connections, and generate and analyze ideas which are all crucial to having a work of art.