Practical and Less Practical mark making devices

 More Practical

Less Practical

Live Performance: Process and Crit.

Process - I decided to sign up first for the live performances, because I knew that I wouldn't want to deal with waiting and the nerves that come with that. I actually came up with the Pollock idea only the day before my presentation, before I had been working on a skit to act out that centered around a couch. I made this skit really elaborate and planned it all out; I drew up a floor plan and described my movements and what I needed to act out. However, when I rehearsed it, it took over a minute, and I wasn't too comfortable doing it. I knew that in front of an audience this acting would be extremely difficult for me to pull off well, I don't do well being the center of attention. So with this in mind I began thinking of alternative things for me to do and after about 5 terrible ideas the Pollock one came around. It was great, it would be interesting and it wouldn't require acting. All I had to do was think about how I would apply the paint and I was ready to gather my materials. I made sure to wear just black and white during the piece, so it would tie together with the black paint on white back. I didn't want to use newsprint because although it was bigger and cheaper, it wouldn't give me the contrast I wanted. I had some left over bristol paper I decided to use it, and since it would require multiple sheets to get the size I wanted it would also be segmented and easier to clean up or transport after the show. I also cut and taped some trash bags into a protective sheet for the floor. I made sure to incorporate different methods of applying paint, so I could get more visual variation on the "canvas" and so that the act of applying the paint would be more varied and therefore interesting to the audience. I also made sure to move around the "canvas" when I was applying the paint, as to give everyone and equal view of the act.

Crit - In the critique of my performance people liked that I used different ways of applying paint, it even  gave one person some inspiration for his sketches. Bill said that the first splat of paint was the best, because everyone started scooting their chairs back frantically. He also said that the trash bags detracted from the performance, but I didn't want to make a mess. Bill did, however, like that decided to use an outfit. Overall the performance seemed pretty successful.

Pencil Sketches

Ink sketches

These were all made by striking a utensil against the paper. The top was paint being blown out of a straw. The bottom left was made with a dowel rod, the one to the right of it a paint brush, and the one to the far right a paint-stirrer.



These were made by smearing paint with different utensils onto the paper. The top left and bottom right were both made with a plastic knife (also for the bottom right I smeared paint off of teared paper, that was placed on the surface of the canvas). For the bottom left I used a paper straw wrapper, and for the top right I actually used part of a sandwich left over from my lunch...

These were created with repetitions of marks; The top left was made by me writing my name over and over again, the top left was made by a paint brush dragged in a squiggly line over and over, the bottom was made by pressing a fork down to make lines over and over again, and the bottom right was me smearing a paper towel over two knifes laid back to back to make a print, over and over again.





These were made with the same utensil (a foam brush), but I experimented with different methods of using it. For the top left I used a swoosh-stroke and limited it to the bottom of the page. For the top right I used a spiraling gesture and continued it all over the page. For the bottom left I twirled the bush on its end to get a circular shaped mark, and for the bottom right I used more fervent brush strokes and a chaotic fashion.

Monday, 10/02/10. Uncomfortable Video Process

For my uncomfortable video I decided to film something that will gross out most people, and that is gratuitous open-mouth chewing. Before I arrived to this decision I went through a few impractical ideas that mostly involved myself getting hurt..and I didn't want to do that. I chose the location of my video to be a bathroom, where gross mouth noises could be better heard and where there was a plain white wall that could be my background, as to add a sterile contrast to, but not distract from, the grossness. I also put thought into what food I would be eating and made some rice krispy treats that would be gooey, grainy, and break down all sorts of nasty. A also decided to add some dull colored yogurt in half way through to bump up the nasty. I ended up gagging/ laughing a bit towards the end of the video, but I tried to disguise it as gross noises. The video certainly made my girlfriend uncomfortable, who filmed it. I thank her.

Monday, 10/04/10. Monologue Video Process

It took me a while to find out what I could talk about. At first I wanted to cover a serious topic, but I found myself a bit unsure of most topics. I ended up talking about something I knew a little bit about, video games. Being a monologue I wanted it to have some point, so I decided to narrow the topic to the of morality and ethics of games. I also decided to film the monologue in my car, where there would be less background noise and where I felt more comfortable. From there I wrote myself a script and practiced it to myself. After going through it a few times, I realized it would take much longer than a minute...so I ended up cutting a lot out and keeping the script simple. I practiced this new script a few times with the camera recording to see how it looked. I still stumbled over some words and looked unsure, so I decided to condense my script yet again. This resulted in a short list of notes meant to jot my mind if I got lost, and it worked pretty well. After 3 or 4 takes I was able to pick one that I felt good about and submitted it.

Sunday, 10/03/10. Friday lecture summary

Friday's lecture focused mainly on how Harmony and Contrast (and their extremes: monotony and chaos) are created in form through repetition/rhythm/patterns composed of balance, symmetry, point, line, space, color, texture, shape, value...etc.

We also looked at some ready-made artwork in lieu of our upcoming project and were assigned some homework that deals with looking up some artists in different fields and analyzing their work.