Castle on a cloud

For this task I wanted the castle to have a "haunted house" sort of feel whilst being harmonious.
I'm not particularly happy with the magazine cover because I think it looks cluttered at the top, so I think I'll fix it by placing the castle down towards the centre of the page more.

I tried without the mountails in the background but it looked too plain so I added the mountains without the city beneath, which I liked but then I added the city beneath because I still thought it needed something else.



This is my favourite version - I removed the outline from 'Arts' in the magazine name which in my opinin, looks a lot better.

Culture and Art Report

1. The civilisation of the Celtic peoples from Europe is one that has been around for approximately 28,000 years and is a culture that has not disappeared or been broken since c.1000-700 BCE. This was mainly due to the fact that their customs and culture were shared and established orally and were never recorded (written). Because of this, Celtic art is still seen today in tattoos, jewellery and artworks. Another part of Celtic culture that is still very prominent today is the worldwide celebration of St. Patrick’s Day.
People that have a Celtic background, such as the Irish, Welsh or Scots, may have tattoos, which include the Celtic knot (used as illuminations for the handwritten Christian Gospels), Celtic cross (a symbol of eternity, emphasising God’s endless love as shown through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross), Celtic spiral (eternal life; life, death and rebirth), patterns or letters, to show their link to/pride in their heritage. Celtic jewellery follows the same symbols and patterns of the tattoos.
One example of Celtic jewellery includes the Claddagh Ring, which has two hands holding on to a heart, which usually has a crown atop it. The hands symbolise friendship, the heart, love, and the crown, loyalty. There are varying ways in which the ring can be worn, and with these ways, there are varying meanings. Traditionally, if one is wearing the ring on the right hand with the heart pointing outward, away from the body, the wearer isn’t attached and may be looking for a relationship. If the wearer has the ring on with the heart pointing inward, it indicates that somebody has “captured their heart”, thus in a relationship. If the wearer has the ring on the left hand, heart pointing inwards, they are married. Rings the same and similar to the Claddagh Ring are still worn today.
St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated worldwide every year on 17th March, the day it’s supposed that St. Patrick died in 460 CE. St. Patrick is a patronised saint, and one of the most renowned figures in all of Modern Christianity. For twenty years he travelled and established monasteries, schools and churches across Ireland. He was also the creator of the Celtic cross.

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2. Art is a form of expression where colour, shapes and patterns are used instead of words to communicate what the artist is feeling, thinking or seeing.
Art isn't only made just to look nice hung in a frame on somebody's wall - it can be made to tell a story and send a message to its viewers.
Art within a specific cultural group can be reflective of their customs, their beliefs and their everyday life. It may not mean a lot to an outsider, to somebody who has no understanding of that specific culture, but it may be very important to people within that culture. However, even to somebody who has no previous idea of that culture, they may be able to create their own meaning from the artwork.
Within Aboriginal art, there are many symbols that communicate specific things such as sites and people and their art can give a visual explanation to their beliefs of the dreamtime. A few symbols used include curved lines that represent flowing water or rain, small “U” shaped figures that represent people and concentric circles that show significant places, campsites or waterholes. Because of the different tribes from all around Australia, these symbols can be varied in different artworks, depending on which region the artwork came from.
Aboriginal art carries on the traditions and the stories from the past, and it can teach modern-day Australians about the culture of the people who lived here many years before the country was colonized.

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3. Most designers and lay people are highly impressed by M.C. Escher's work because of its attention to detail and depth. He used a variety of medium, and created 448 lithographs, over 2000 drawings and sketches, wood cuts and engravings. There's a piece of himself in every one of his creations; presenting his thoughts through his images.
When you look at Escher's work, you can see the dedication and the effort that has gone into every single piece to make it captivating and/or realistic, such as the wood carving Oude Kerk Delft 1939 where each brick has been carved to make it look like stone and the stained glass windows look as though they would be bright and brilliant if you saw them in colour.

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4, 5. What’s so interesting about art and culture of the past is that it gives the people today an insight into the lives of people and the world around them in the past. With art of the past, you can see the progression of technique, method, style and meaning.
The earliest art included pictures or symbols on the ground, on rock and on cave walls, sending out messages such as warnings of danger. The most modern forms of art include art movements such as surrealism and cubism, also digital compositions such as 3D animation, the boundaries being pushed further and further as technology and the world around us changes.
Culture from the past is also interesting because through studying it, you can see what’s different to society today and what’s the same. From exploring cultures of the past, you can find out about art, music, language and food, and how they have similarities and differences from the modern world.
We look backwards to our history when trying to engage in design solutions for modern society because art from the past can provide modern day artists and designers with inspiration and trends. From these, we can develop something new, exciting and ground-breaking.

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6. Ancient art has affected my life by inspiring the art that I create. Ancient art varies from both intricate and simple, and it’s always helpful to look at some examples to get colour schemes and ideas for patterns. One of my favourite things is to create tattoo-like designs which are inspired by Celtic art. Ancient Chinese and Japanese artworks also inspire these designs because of the way they used ink to create lines and shapes.

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7. Cultural influences that have occurred in my life are all around me, such as the places I visit when my family goes on holiday, the people I grew up with and the artwork that I studied in Visual Arts in school. Going to cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra, there are many different cultures within them which can be seen by restaurants which serve food from different countries (India and Japan, for example) and stalls that sell bits and pieces of art such as ceramics and jewelry. Two of my friends were Jewish and Sri-Lankan when I was growing up, so I got to learn about Jewish customs and the Sri-Lankan culture such as fashion and food. Studying Visual Arts in high school gave me an insight into art from all around the world and what it represented and the context from which the art was created.

using the clone tool on photoshop

this afternoon we did an exercise using the clone tool in photoshop where we had to get rid of the cracks in an old photograph. here's the before and after:

minimalist symbols

Pattern Design; Theme, Variation & Repitition.

in class we had to come up with a few 1cmx1cm designs and then we had to choose one and create an A3 page pattern, repeating and varying the design. here is my attempt - i'm really happy with how it turned out :D

another attempt:

Minimalist Advertisements

We were shown a picture where on one side in one corner there was a collection of little drawings all bunched together and after you looked at it for a while, you noticed individual shapes. There were clouds in the opposite corner, and a popular sun burst in the background, drawing the eye from the corner drawings out across the page. It had an earthy colour scheme with (from what I can remember) red, orange, brown and purple, tying all the elements in the image together. I had an attempt using my paint splatters in the corner with other little drawings - i used the three colours yellow blue and green from the paint splatters and used different shades of them.

CD Cover

using the paintings we made using a pencil, we had to design a cd cover with an original title.

'colourful language' is the title of my cd and i tried a geometric design using square sections of my painting. it isn't a particularly original style but i wanted the painted sections to stand out and i also wanted to see how i could place the type creatively.

Splatter Art Exhibition poster designs

Nicole's Paint:


My paint:


lighter text colour at the top:

CUVCRSO3B - Children's Cartoon Characters.

Fergus the Friendly Fellow

Fergus was a friendly fellow with bright orange fur and a big smile on his face.

He lived in the middle of a jungle in a far away land where there were lots of trees, flowers, frogs and birds.

But Fergus was lonely in the far away jungle.

The frogs and the birds were all scared of his big feet and wild fur, so they would run away from him.

Fergus really wanted somebody that was friendly just like him.

He wanted somebody who had a big smile on their face just like him and somebody who wouldn’t run away from him.

One day Fergus decided to go on an adventure to find a friend.

Down by the pond there was not one, but two monsters, and they both had big smiles on their faces and looked friendly just like Fergus.

Their names were Tolbert and Gog.

When Fergus asked them if they would like to be his friends, they both jumped for joy and said "Yes, we would!"

Fergus was feeling much better but he decided that the adventure wasn't over just yet, so the three friendly fellows with brightly coloured fur and big smiles on their faces decided that they would go and find some more friends.

Leaping and bounding through some long grass was not one, but two monsters, and they both had big smiles on their faces and looked friendly just like Fergus, Tolbert and Gog.

Their names were Izzel and Bamber.

When Fergus asked them if they would like to be friends with he and the others, they both danced in delight and said "Yes, we would!"

Fergus was feeling much better and decided that five was a fun number, so the five friendly fellows with brightly coloured fur and big smiles on their faces decided to play all day until the sun went down and it was time to go to bed.

Fergus still lived in the middle of a jungle in a far away land with lots of trees, flowers, frogs and birds but he wasn't lonely anymore because he'd found friends that weren't scared of his big feet and wild fur and didn't run away.

The National Grid Gallery.

http://gallery.thenationalgrid.com.au/

some of the works from the current exhibiton - i thought they were really awesome :D

Recreating Typographic Art

This is one of my favourite typographic pieces on the net so I really wanted to see if I could recreate it (and do it justice):
I've done three versions; the first two are very similar, only the larger letters have been duplicated and the opacity has been lowered to make a drop shadow. The third is just a monochrome. I had a few issues because I didn't actually have Helvetica so I used Arial instead.

Logo + Website Skin

We were given the task to design a logo for a business. We drew these businesses from a hat, and with the business name we were given a pantone colour to go with it. My business was Bill Smith's Plumbing, PANTONE 3005, a really nice blue. I researched a lot of plumbing business websites and most of the logos had water drops or taps. One bizarre one had a jumble pipes and faucets so I wanted to go with something really simple but identifiable. This is what I came up with:


PANTONE 3005 C
C=100, M=34, Y=0, K=2
R=0, G=129, B=198

WHITE
C=0, M=0, Y=0, K=0
R=255, G=255, B=255

We then had to make a skin for a website using the two PANTONE colours plus another three to have a collection of five hues. We were also allowed to use unlimited shades and tints of these colours. I just used the white, plus shades and tints of PANTONE 3005 because on most of the plumbing websites I found there wasn't a huge range of hues used.

Here's what I came up with: