Wednesday, November 9, 2016
REMINDER: This Thurs (11/10), Meet at the Library!
Hi all. Don't forget, this Thursday class will meet at 10am on the third floor of Prim Library. See you there!
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Fair Use Project: Tuesday, 11/01
For Tuesday's class, come prepared with a sketch for your idea for the "fair use" project. You need to use something that's copyrighted – an image, a photo, a logo, a tagline, a story, a song lyric, whatever it may be – and you need to change it enough that you think you'd have a "fair use" case for your use of the copyrighted material.
Obviously we're creating this project for class, but I want you to imagine your fair use project being used in some other venue. The intended venue of the work could have a strong bearing on whether your work is "protected" or not -- so please imagine the artwork is intended to be shown on a T-Shirt, in a gallery, on a billboard, or what have you. For Thursday, you'll have to have a written defense of your work on fair use grounds - we'll put you "on trial" and see if you get thrown in copyright jail or not.
If you want to refresh yourself on some copyright info, there are free digital versions of a Duke Copyright Fair Use comic here:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.php
Again, fair use can be invoked for the following reasons:
To report on news
To make a parody
To copy for class
To criticize
To quote for scholarly purposes
For research
For the purposes of this project, you'll be leaning on either the "parody" or "criticism" angle.
There are also the "four guidelines" for fair use:
1. The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use
2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken
4. The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market
More detailed info here:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html
Ultimately, you will be referring to those four guidelines to defend your "fair use"position.
Obviously we're creating this project for class, but I want you to imagine your fair use project being used in some other venue. The intended venue of the work could have a strong bearing on whether your work is "protected" or not -- so please imagine the artwork is intended to be shown on a T-Shirt, in a gallery, on a billboard, or what have you. For Thursday, you'll have to have a written defense of your work on fair use grounds - we'll put you "on trial" and see if you get thrown in copyright jail or not.
If you want to refresh yourself on some copyright info, there are free digital versions of a Duke Copyright Fair Use comic here:
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/digital.php
Again, fair use can be invoked for the following reasons:
To report on news
To make a parody
To copy for class
To criticize
To quote for scholarly purposes
For research
For the purposes of this project, you'll be leaning on either the "parody" or "criticism" angle.
There are also the "four guidelines" for fair use:
1. The Transformative Factor: The Purpose and Character of Your Use
2. The Nature of the Copyrighted Work
3. The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken
4. The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market
More detailed info here:
http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/9-b.html
Ultimately, you will be referring to those four guidelines to defend your "fair use"position.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Thursday Assignment, and midterm files due
Tutorial
On Thursday (10/13), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about ten minutes.
Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.
Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post, checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.
ALSO: I will be collecting all your project files for your midterm grade on Thursday. So please bring to class your flattened files for –
Digital self portrait (scanned items)
Text/Image project
Collage Artist Response
Composite (big thing made small, or small thing made big)
Fake News
Multiple Me
Please follow this naming convention:
You should give them filenames like this:
"(2-digit project number)-(your last name)-(project title).fileextension"
So if your name is Jane Smith, and the project was the self portrait, you would name the file:
01-smith-selfportrait.jpg
If you have more than one image for the project, append letters (A,B, C):
01-smith-selfportrait-A.jpg
01-smith-selfportrait-B.jpg
All the files should be flattened files.
And here are the project titles I'd like you to use.
1. Digital self-portrait, from three scans:
01-lastname-selfportrait
2. Text/image combo project (at least two versions)
02-lastname-textimage-A
02-lastname-textimage-B
3. The response to the collage artist
03-lastname-collageresponse
4. The "composite" project (something small made large, or something large made small)
04-lastname-composite
5. The "fake news" project
05-lastname-fakenews
6. The "multiple me" project
06-lastname-multipleme
On Thursday (10/13), you should be prepared to give the class a photoshop tutorial, on any topic or effect you'd like to research. Google something you'd like to learn, or click around in the links on the "my blog list" column on the righthand side of this page (there are lots of good tutorials on those blogs). Remember, step yourself through it BEFORE you come to class, to make sure you understand all the steps, and have all the materials you need. You should be able to make your demonstration in about ten minutes.
Don't pick something too complicated to do in ten minutes, but don't get too simple, either. If you just correct some redeye or something, or review something we've already covered in class, you're not going to get a good grade (though it might be something that builds on things we've learned in class, there should be at least some new element getting you to the end product). Try to hit that sweet spot of "moderately difficult" tutorial.
Post a link or a one-sentence description of the tutorial you'd like to do in the "comments" to this blog post, checking to make sure no one else has picked the same tutorial before you.
ALSO: I will be collecting all your project files for your midterm grade on Thursday. So please bring to class your flattened files for –
Digital self portrait (scanned items)
Text/Image project
Collage Artist Response
Composite (big thing made small, or small thing made big)
Fake News
Multiple Me
Please follow this naming convention:
You should give them filenames like this:
"(2-digit project number)-(your last name)-(project title).fileextension"
So if your name is Jane Smith, and the project was the self portrait, you would name the file:
01-smith-selfportrait.jpg
If you have more than one image for the project, append letters (A,B, C):
01-smith-selfportrait-A.jpg
01-smith-selfportrait-B.jpg
All the files should be flattened files.
And here are the project titles I'd like you to use.
1. Digital self-portrait, from three scans:
01-lastname-selfportrait
2. Text/image combo project (at least two versions)
02-lastname-textimage-A
02-lastname-textimage-B
3. The response to the collage artist
03-lastname-collageresponse
4. The "composite" project (something small made large, or something large made small)
04-lastname-composite
5. The "fake news" project
05-lastname-fakenews
6. The "multiple me" project
06-lastname-multipleme
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Assignment for Tuesday (10/11)
"Multiple You"
The next assignment is to create a picture that will have five (or more) images of yourself in one single environment. Put another way, it'll be a picture of some space -- a room, landscape, whatever -- in which there are at least five images of you, realistically inhabiting the space. There should also be some overlapping among at least three of the "yous."
Part of this assignment is technical - thinking of how you are going to best execute your idea, making sure the lighting works in the way you want it to, making sure you've staged the scene in a way that works, utilizing a tripod perhaps in stabilizng your multiple shots. The other part of the assignment is creative -- thinking through what the realtionship between your five (or more) selves might be, and what their relationship to the environment might be. It will be relatively easy to just position yourself in a room in four different poses, and just piece the four photos together. But there should be some sort of drama that is expressed in the picture.
You can dress in different costume for your five or more selves, so that the multiple yous are multiple characters. Or you could take the multiple yous as different expressions of the same central personality. Is one version of you the ego, and the other the id? Is one a voice undermining you, and is another a contrary voice of optimism and hope? What are the different faces of your personality, and what sorts of relationships or conflicts do they have with one another? How could those relationships/conflicts be expressed through action, through expression, through gesture?
This doesn't have to be heavy at all -- you can have a comical take on the problem -- but the bottom line is that there should be some psychological relationship betwen the multiple "characters." It doesn't have to be obvious or over-the-top -- there's room for ambiguity and mystery -- but it does have to be there, somewhere.
You'll need to have your photos taken before next class -- which wil be a work period for combining the photos. It might be a good strategy to pair with someone else in class; it'll be a good way of covering people who don't have access to a digital camera, and it will be far easier to compose and shoot yourself properly with someone other than you taking the pictures. We will eventually be making prints of these images, so make sure you take the photos at print resolution.
The next assignment is to create a picture that will have five (or more) images of yourself in one single environment. Put another way, it'll be a picture of some space -- a room, landscape, whatever -- in which there are at least five images of you, realistically inhabiting the space. There should also be some overlapping among at least three of the "yous."
Part of this assignment is technical - thinking of how you are going to best execute your idea, making sure the lighting works in the way you want it to, making sure you've staged the scene in a way that works, utilizing a tripod perhaps in stabilizng your multiple shots. The other part of the assignment is creative -- thinking through what the realtionship between your five (or more) selves might be, and what their relationship to the environment might be. It will be relatively easy to just position yourself in a room in four different poses, and just piece the four photos together. But there should be some sort of drama that is expressed in the picture.
You can dress in different costume for your five or more selves, so that the multiple yous are multiple characters. Or you could take the multiple yous as different expressions of the same central personality. Is one version of you the ego, and the other the id? Is one a voice undermining you, and is another a contrary voice of optimism and hope? What are the different faces of your personality, and what sorts of relationships or conflicts do they have with one another? How could those relationships/conflicts be expressed through action, through expression, through gesture?
This doesn't have to be heavy at all -- you can have a comical take on the problem -- but the bottom line is that there should be some psychological relationship betwen the multiple "characters." It doesn't have to be obvious or over-the-top -- there's room for ambiguity and mystery -- but it does have to be there, somewhere.
You'll need to have your photos taken before next class -- which wil be a work period for combining the photos. It might be a good strategy to pair with someone else in class; it'll be a good way of covering people who don't have access to a digital camera, and it will be far easier to compose and shoot yourself properly with someone other than you taking the pictures. We will eventually be making prints of these images, so make sure you take the photos at print resolution.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
For Thursday: raw material for "fake news" assignment
The current assignment is to fake a news story. This should involve at least four images (though it can be more) you've composited, and some supporting text -- the text could be as simple as a caption or headline, or you could write a mini news article to accompany the image, if appropriate. The "fake news" could be either something plausible, or something completely absurd. Either way, strive to make the image itself as convincing as possible, and try to create the accompanying caption or story in a way that it sounds like a real news story. Thursday will be an in-class work day for this project.
Come to class Thursday with your raw materials for the project selected (or shot, if you're using any photos you plan to shoot yourself). Recommended, but not required – havethe text (for caption or story) written and printed out, and a basic sketch of your idea for the project.
Come to class Thursday with your raw materials for the project selected (or shot, if you're using any photos you plan to shoot yourself). Recommended, but not required – havethe text (for caption or story) written and printed out, and a basic sketch of your idea for the project.
Thursday, September 22, 2016
Compositing - in class assignment
In this assignment, I want you to insert a small image into a large landscape, or a large image into a small space: think of putting a giant banana in the middle of Times Square, or putting the eiffel tower into an aquarium. This is a basic compositing exercise -- I want you to make it as convincing as possible. Six things to look for when compositing, to make consistent across your composited images:
1. Color Balance
2. Brightness and Contrast
3. Key Light Direction (and Shadows)
4. Perspective
5. Blur
6. Grain
Here's a good tutorial on changing the lighting source for an image by creating two layers for a single image, adjusting them to highlight and shadow values, and then blending the two layers:
Lighting a Giant Elephant By bpkelsey
1. Color Balance
2. Brightness and Contrast
3. Key Light Direction (and Shadows)
4. Perspective
5. Blur
6. Grain
Here's a good tutorial on changing the lighting source for an image by creating two layers for a single image, adjusting them to highlight and shadow values, and then blending the two layers:
Lighting a Giant Elephant By bpkelsey
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Assignment for Tuesday, 9/12
Write a three-page (doublespaced) paper on a collage artist, choosing from the list below. When you've selected your artist, post the artist's name in the "comments" below, along with which section of the class you're in -- morning or afternoon (and make sure no one in your section has already claimed that artist by checking out the comments before you). This is first come, first serve, so the quicker you pick and artist and comment, the wider choice you'll have.
Your paper should include some biographical background, to put the artist's work in context, and you should also choose two specific collage works by the artist, and give an aesthetic analysis of those works. You can talk about content -- what is the "meaning" of the piece, and how does the artist articulate that meaning? What sort of sources did the artist draw the collage material from, and how does that inform the meaning of the work? Also analyze its formal properties: how has the artist used color? Composition? Variation - of size, of light areas/dark areas, etc? Negative space and positive space? Rhythm? Texture? Is there a foreground and a background -- and if so, how do they relate to each other?
The central message of your paper should be a summary of the particular methods the artist uses and the effects the artist achieves through collage. You can break down the three-page structure like this:
Page 1: Central message and bio
Page 2: Analysis of one collage
Page 3: Analysis of second collage
You will be presenting your paper next Thursday. Bring a printed-out version of the paper and visual materials (the two images you've chosen, and anything else that will help in explaining your chosen artist and his/her work -- for the presentation, you can make a powerpoint and/or bring digital images to project). You will also be making a digital collage that is in some way a response to the artist's work; we will be working on that assignment for a couple classes. This is not to be a copy of any of the artist's work -- but take some principles that the artist embodies, and apply them to a work of your own making. For instance, Max Ernst used illustrations from 19th-century popular illustrated novels and science books and combined them to make a kind of disjointed story. What would a collage-story look like if it were assembled from science books of today?
So - due this coming Tuesday - the paper (which you will present), and an idea for your "artist response" collage, which you will begin working on in class the following Thursday.
Use the MLA guide for citing sources for your bibliography, for the paper:
http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm
Citation help:
Citation machine
Easybib
Here is the common writing rubric, which I'll be using to grade your paper:
http://www.sierranevada.edu/wp-content/uploads/SNC-Common-Rubric-Written-Assignments-4-columns1.pdf
And here's the list of collage artists. Not all of them were primarily collage artists, but all used collage (I've asterisked some that are already taken – check the comments to see if your initial choice has been claimed by someone else):
Eileen Agar
*Jean Arp
Romare Bearden
Umberto Boccioni
Mark Bradford
Georges Braque
Joseph Cornell
James Dawe
Arthur G. Dove
Marcel Duchamp
Dan Eldon
Max Ernst
Raoul Hausmann
John Heartfield
Hannah Hoch
David Hockney
Lee Krasner
Kazimir Malevich
*Neck Face
Man Ray
Henri Matisse
*Pablo Picasso
Ad Reinhardt
Allison Renshaw
Mimmo Rotella
Kurt Schwitters
Nancy Spero
Annegret Soltau
John Stezaker
Bernie Stephanus
Jonathan Talbot
Cecil Touchon
Jesse Treece
*Marnie Weber
Please, when you've selected you collage artist, add a "comment" to this blog with the name of the collage artist you're doing your presentation on. Do not pick an artist who someone else has "claimed," so that we don't have a number of repeats in the presentation. Also - several of the artists on the list worked in a variety of media - make sure the examples you pick are actual collages, and not paintings.
Your paper should include some biographical background, to put the artist's work in context, and you should also choose two specific collage works by the artist, and give an aesthetic analysis of those works. You can talk about content -- what is the "meaning" of the piece, and how does the artist articulate that meaning? What sort of sources did the artist draw the collage material from, and how does that inform the meaning of the work? Also analyze its formal properties: how has the artist used color? Composition? Variation - of size, of light areas/dark areas, etc? Negative space and positive space? Rhythm? Texture? Is there a foreground and a background -- and if so, how do they relate to each other?
The central message of your paper should be a summary of the particular methods the artist uses and the effects the artist achieves through collage. You can break down the three-page structure like this:
Page 1: Central message and bio
Page 2: Analysis of one collage
Page 3: Analysis of second collage
You will be presenting your paper next Thursday. Bring a printed-out version of the paper and visual materials (the two images you've chosen, and anything else that will help in explaining your chosen artist and his/her work -- for the presentation, you can make a powerpoint and/or bring digital images to project). You will also be making a digital collage that is in some way a response to the artist's work; we will be working on that assignment for a couple classes. This is not to be a copy of any of the artist's work -- but take some principles that the artist embodies, and apply them to a work of your own making. For instance, Max Ernst used illustrations from 19th-century popular illustrated novels and science books and combined them to make a kind of disjointed story. What would a collage-story look like if it were assembled from science books of today?
So - due this coming Tuesday - the paper (which you will present), and an idea for your "artist response" collage, which you will begin working on in class the following Thursday.
Use the MLA guide for citing sources for your bibliography, for the paper:
http://www.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm
Citation help:
Citation machine
Easybib
Here is the common writing rubric, which I'll be using to grade your paper:
http://www.sierranevada.edu/wp-content/uploads/SNC-Common-Rubric-Written-Assignments-4-columns1.pdf
And here's the list of collage artists. Not all of them were primarily collage artists, but all used collage (I've asterisked some that are already taken – check the comments to see if your initial choice has been claimed by someone else):
Eileen Agar
*Jean Arp
Romare Bearden
Umberto Boccioni
Mark Bradford
Georges Braque
Joseph Cornell
James Dawe
Arthur G. Dove
Marcel Duchamp
Dan Eldon
Max Ernst
Raoul Hausmann
John Heartfield
Hannah Hoch
David Hockney
Lee Krasner
Kazimir Malevich
*Neck Face
Man Ray
Henri Matisse
*Pablo Picasso
Ad Reinhardt
Allison Renshaw
Mimmo Rotella
Kurt Schwitters
Nancy Spero
Annegret Soltau
John Stezaker
Bernie Stephanus
Jonathan Talbot
Cecil Touchon
Jesse Treece
*Marnie Weber
Please, when you've selected you collage artist, add a "comment" to this blog with the name of the collage artist you're doing your presentation on. Do not pick an artist who someone else has "claimed," so that we don't have a number of repeats in the presentation. Also - several of the artists on the list worked in a variety of media - make sure the examples you pick are actual collages, and not paintings.
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