Recipe #2: Paper Maché Clay

Recipe is online at this site.  There's a video demonstrating how to make it too.

Recipe #1: Bread and Puppet Theater's Paper Maché Paste

My friend Laurel Kurtz put together this illustrated recipe for killer paper maché paste.  Click the image to enlarge!

Project 2

Finished project and the four different wires that it is made of.

Project 1 (Side and Top Views)

DON'T FORGET TO BRING OLD NEWSPAPERS TO CLASS

There is a designated spot on the floor, under our class shelves - start putting them there.

safiyah

Hi, My name is Safiyah. I have been interested in Art since I was a kid. I used to draw a lot of pictures for animation characters with my sister. I’m looking foreword to sharp my skills in Art. I took two classes in Art in Western Oregon University. One of them is intro to drawing and the other one is 2D design; it was a lot of fun. I’m planning to get my Art degree from PSU. I also interested to photography “portrait photography”.

Focal point:

I found this image in Google it is a good example in the focal point. if you look at it your eye directly look through this medial piece. it gets your attention in one point to make it more emphasis.

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Jon Montana

Hi, my

name is Jon. I never really made art as a kid growing up, but I do remember trying to convince my mom that my messy room did not needed to be clean because it was sort of like a piece of art and how since it was messy it had character to it. This is my first art class I have taken since 6th grade so Im not sure what to expect but Im excited.

EMPHASIS

Emphasis gives a particular prominence to part of a design causing it to have a focal point. Usually something with color in a black and white picture creates a focal point, but I found this picture to have the opposite. The emphasis is on the black and white girl which causes her to be the focal point in this picture.

Andy Williams

Hi my name is Andy. As a kid I made comics and storybooks and drew pictures of characters from my imagination or from movies. Most of them were made with pen and markers. I don't think the type of stuff I draw now is that different from what I was doing then. I still enjoy drawing cartoons and illustrations.

Radial Symmetry
Radial symmetry is when parts of a design radiate in all directions around a central point. The resulting effect is energetic yet unified.

This sea anemone exhibits radial symmetry in that its body repeats around a central anchor point. Because of its radial symmetry, the sea anemone has no distinguishable right or left side.

Balance

balance comes in many flavors. Balance can be a physical thing keeping a person or an object upright but more than that it is a necessary aesthetic quality. Simply defined by the book Balance "refers to the distribution of weight or force along visual units" This South African basket displays a great deal of balance: not only are the primary forms mirrored around the circular bottom but the colors a weighted in such a way that the more visually dominating black is contained within the other shades.

Ben Krahn

As a child, I used to draw all the time. I loved drawing little creatures and super-heroes that I would invent because I loved reading comic books. I would use regular yellow pencils on lined paper and I would keep them all in a stack in a drawer of my desk.

Asymmetrical Balance

Asymmetrical balance is defined as an equilibrium among visual elements that do not mirror

each other on either side of the axis. The picture used to illustrate asymmetrical balance is from

a national park at the Da-Toon Mountain in Taiwan. The rocks are created by exposure to wind.

These rocks are literally asymmetrically balanced with the majority of their mass on top of the 

structures. This park looks very amazing and I would love to visit there someday.

 

rhythm

as probably noticed in the reading, rhythm and repetition are in a sort of wedlock with one another. this is important to note but can be insulting or boring to abuse in the wrong circumstances. it is an easy thing to do though. we live by rhythms and cycles. the body functions best when in them and often it is the simplest rhythms that do us the most benefit. two of the best examples of this point are sinus rhythm and circadian rhythm. disorders in either one can lead to serious physical and mental crisis and even the dreaded dirt nap.

the most common example of rhythm, and rightly so, has got to be its use in music. i have no dispute with its importance, but the problem is that it tends to get oversimplified. it just becomes so easy, predictable, and cheap to depend on repetition. because it works. we are inclined to fall into it and helplessly pulsate in the echoing thumps blasted out by club subwoofers while drooling decedents are reanimated (sort of) and assault you with steamy libidos and dead eyes. but now this is turning into some clumsy rant and i dont have enough time to really explain what i am getting off on.

ok, from merriam webster's– rhythm: an ordered recurrent alternation of strong and weak elements in the flow of sound and silence in speech.

Katie Scoville, Key Term: Anomaly

Hello, my name is Katie.

I am a drawing, painting, printmaking major. I started taking art classes full time this year. So far, I have taken: Painting I, Painting II, intro. to drawing, 2D Design, and a couple of art history classes. I really enjoyed each of them in different ways. Painting was frustrating for me sometimes but mostly I loved it. I love mixing my own colors and the endless possibilities that come with that. My favorite class of these so far was actually Intro. to Drawing. I really enjoy working in a 2D space, creating the illusion of there being something 3D. Needless to say, 3D design is a whole new area for me. I haven't had much experience with sculpture so I am excited to learn something new!

My key term: Anomaly.

Anomaly is defined as: something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected. In our reading handout (Launching the Imagination) it says:

"Any Anomaly, or break from the norm, tends to stand out." For example, I found this image of blue and red balls. Every ball is blue except for the one red one in the middle of them all. This red ball stands out because it is out of the norm and deviates from the repetitive blue ball.

Autumn

I guess art has always been part of my life in one way or another. Growing up in Santa Fe I was constantly surrounded by it and when I came out to Oregon I decided to major in art history. Over the years I have made a lot of art, the best of it is still at my mom's house in New Mexico. In high school I made an 18 inch high self portrait in clay that is probably the best thing I ever built. In recent years the only sculpture I have made have been a series of architectural models: they are not good and did not survive.

When it comes to everyday household objects I like bottle openers. I like their functionality: how some bottle openers have only one use while others are like Swiss Army Knives (many of which contain bottle openers. I also like that they can take so many forms and sizes.

Unity

(Dictionary.com definition)
Unity:The state of being one, oneness.

In the picture, 11 people create this design with two fingers in a circular formation. When you look at the entire picture , you see the star, which is a great example of how unity is used within a composition. I like this picture to represent unity, because all the little details come together in a composition to create an overall feeling of oneness, which creates a more interesting work of art.

Repetition

This is an image of a building in Punta del Este, Uruguay.  

What makes this image interesting is the presence of repetition.  

Repetition is demonstrated with shape, line, and color.  There are many (repeated) rectangular shapes and straight lines throughout the image.  There are also jagged lines - the cracks in the cement, which are repeating.  In addition, red and yellow elements are broken up by those lines and shapes and appear in multiple places throughout the photo.

hoiven

sort of been in some torpor lately, but have plans for 3D work. i recently got a bunch of alginate, the material that is used to take dental impressions, and am gonna start casting with it soon. i did some faces the other night just as an experiment that turned out sort of shabby but not as complete crap. i only had plaster of paris to use as the positive and it ranks pretty low on reliability and strength. i just need to do a bit of digging and research on a compound and i will be on my way to dental impressions and dildos. there are more plans than that, but this is all that is really necessary to note for now. i guess 3D art has never really been my bag. i have mostly explored what can fit on a sheet or wall as a flat image. drawing, photography, screen printing etc. not that i find 3D art to be loathsome or irritating in any way. i mean, not more so than any other dimension. most art as soon as it is intended to be art is pretty annoying. anyway, i am looking forward to exploring some new forms and possibly dislodging something useful.

Molly Hawken

Hi, I'm Molly.

I've been taking college art courses for three years, and I've considered myself an artist for as long as I can remember.  I am a business major with a focus in marketing and a minor in graphic design.  

Previously I attended Academy of Art University, San Francisco, and Pacific Northwest College of Art, here in Portland, both as a photography major.  I really enjoyed all of my photography courses at AAU, and I learned a lot about photography as well as the business of being an artist.  

My courses at PNCA were mostly first year "intro to art" type classes, all of which I despised - most notably, intro to drawing, which I nearly failed and am taking now at PSU.  Also at PNCA I was required to take a time arts class, which included animation, video, and performance art.  It was fantastic and got me incredibly interested in video production and editing.  Last spring I took 2D Design at PSU, which was also a very good experience and allowed me to develop some of my basic design skills and thought processes.

Art history (of any sort) has been my least favorite subject, but, in this case, I think the instructor really makes or breaks the class.  Colbert's art history at PSU - not one of my fondest memories.  

I took up photography in middle school, working with film for several years before switching to digital.  I still enjoy film and the darkroom process, but due to time, money, and convenience, I shoot 99% digitally these days.  I enjoy all kinds of photography, but I mostly shoot sports (wakeboarding mostly), people, landscape, and travel photography.  I also make short videos that I never get around to compiling or editing, write (poetry, songs, whatever), and play guitar, all of which I consider forms of art.

As far as looking at and appreciating art, I tend to gravitate toward modern art - installations and sculptures seem to interest me more than other things, but it really depends on the work.  I have been both moved by and offended by (as in - wow, this really sucks) all types of art from illustration to photography to painting, sculpture, video, and installation.  I have never done much sculpture myself, and I'm really looking forward to exploring 3D mediums in this class.

SCALE

Scale, when used in terms of design, is done so to describe the size of a form compared to the size of the human body. Different scale sizes can be used to allow different variables, and ultimately a different experience, with the art itself. Hand-held refers to smaller-scale objects, which can be held in our hands. This scale allows us to explore the details of the art from a distance, and see it more as a whole object than an experience. Human size is used to describe things equal to the size of the human body, allowing us to discover more pronounced details in the form itself. Finally, monumental scale forms, which are giant forms much larger than humans that allow the audience to completely absorb the work and recognize the smallest of details.

Personally, I have always been fascinated with monumental size works for numerous reasons. As it pertains to illustration & design, I enjoy how over-sized works allow the audience to see every tiny detail, especially with more meticulous artists. A good example of this would be the giant graphic novel, Kramers Ergot 7.


(my friend Wendy reading Kramers Ergot 7)

This monumental comic book was published by Buenaventura Press in 2008. An anthology containing single or double page works by 60 of the world's greatest cartoonists, this hardcover beast measures out at a whopping 16" x 21", roughly 300% the scale of the average comic book. Most of the artists chose to be especially throughout with their page design and layout, allowing the reader to become completely engrossed in the large images.

As far as more sculpture-oriented, 3-D design goes, I've always enjoyed the idea of over-sized Kubrick toys. Medicom's Kubrick toys are collectible Lego-esque toys, manufactured at 3 different sizes. A more hand-held size would be their standard, flagship size, the "100%," which is roughly 2.5 inches high. Then there's the 400%, which scale at about 9.5 inches. Finally, we have the 1000%, which are monumental toys measuring up to two and a half feet tall. These provide much more of a full-bodied (no pun intended), enveloping experience than the hand-held size provides, perhaps also giving the audience an alternative perspective of their own size in the world.


A young boy with two 1000% Daft Punk Kubricks.

The kind of art I like to make and look at is items that I can copyright, trademark or paten. As an artist it is very important that I start bring in royalty payments from my intellectual properties.

Human Scale

The key term I got was human scale.

Scale is the relationship between an objects size usually compared to the scale/size of a human being. Human Scale is forms/designs that are roughly our (human) size. I found a picture of Mermaid Quay in Cardiff, United Kingdom that uses human scale where the statues of the girl and man are roughly our human size.


An artist uses scales in a piece to showcase how they want the viewer to see their piece, or how they want them to interpret it. A hand-held, human, or monumental sized piece of the same object each can have different interpretations or meanings when looking at them because of the sizing.

Phillip Nguyen

Hello, my name is Phillip.

I've taken some art classes before, but not many until my junior year of high school. In high school, i took graphic arts classes where we had the chance to work with offset presses and do a lot of screen printing. The graphics class was my favorite class during my years at Reynolds High School mainly because of the screen printing. It was fun to create a design on the computer, and then have the chance to transfer your work and print it on a t-shirt.


I never made much 3D art, unless it was for a school assignment. This is a sneaker i made last year in high school though:


The sneaker made entirely out of construction paper, and the shoebox is made of cardboard.

Leah Heilman-Pollack

Thank you PhotoBooth

I made lots of art as a kid. It varied from coloring books to trying to re-create Jackson Pollock pieces as a kindergartener. I used paper mache, crayons, markers, clay, construction paper, paint, all kinds of media. I mostly drew and painted as it didn't require as much effort as the other things. I would post pictures but all my childhood art projects are at my dad's in Corvallis.

A common household object I really like is a cast iron skillet. Its very basic, round with a handle but its so versatile. You can use all kinds of oils, different heats as well as being able to seer, fry, sautee, brown and many others. Not to mention they've been used for hundreds of years. It also adds a trace amount of iron to your food which is good because I can be iron deficient sometimes. Teflon does not have the same quality when it comes to cooking, it makes me feel like I'm not really cooking at all. It kinda freaks me out that there are so many chemicals in it to make it non-stick.

Douglas

(That's me on the left)

HELLO MY NAME IS Douglas E. Sherwood. It's been about 5 years since I took my last art class, which was ART 115 here at PSU. Since then I have been working at local comic book publisher Oni Press, for two years in the editorial department, and now two years in the art department. I aspire to be a book designer first, and down the line maybe an artist of my own. We'll see.

WHEN I WAS A CHILD I used to draw detailed skeletal structures of dinosaurs I admired. I was probably ages 4-8 when I did this. I'm told I was a decent student back then, but the only thing I remember about school back then was doodling pachycephalosaurus skulls and Utah raptor feet in the margins of notebook paper.

THESE DAYS I FIND myself enjoying well balanced black and white illustrations, largely of the comic book variety. Artists whose work is mostly ink-based, yet well designed with interesting patterns and page layouts. A few examples being (click images to view larger):


Charles Burns


Michael Deforge


And Paul Pope.

This is also the kind of art I like to make myself, and the sort of art I work with on a daily basis. Ink is my blood.

Research: Key Term

Hand Held:

Fits in a human hand. Here is a video of my Chinese metal balls. They claim to be fine works of art in the English translation of whatever the Chinese characters on the other side say in the paper that comes with them. I use them to undo the stuck energy that builds in my hands and arms from typing, mousing, and playing musical instruments. Too utilitarian to be considered works of art in most gallerymuseum culture their makers call them works of art and that's all it takes in my book. Then there's the craft necessary to make a spherical metal ball that makes that particular noise when you spin it.

The sound massages the muscles and acupuncture points in my hands and it also has a relaxing effect through the wave patterns happening in ears and brain. These are truly hand held interactive works of art (in my view). Sure they look pretty sitting on my desk, but put into action their power takes on the dimension of sensation below the frequencies of light. The 3D design I'm most interested in is called Whole Body Power and is based on deep sensitivity, not hardness. Sensation, deep and vivid awareness of your animal body is a form of sculpture in motion. Sound makes vibrating sculptures in the air (or water) around and inside your body, the spiral cochlea in your inner ear shaping sound waves to enable the experience of human audio awareness.

The sound is integrated with my emotional state as manifested in how vivid my sensations are, how deep is my self awareness in present time. What I mean is that observing myself over many instances of spinning the balls reveals that the quality of the sound the balls make has a direct relationship to my emotional state. The same is true on an electric bass or a guitar or even a plastic MIDI keyboard, but the balls simplify the musical information to enable the cultivation of deepening sensation that in turn develops greater power to express myself fluently through an art form. On a denser level the smooth movement of the hand and arm muscles necessary to spin the balls gracefully strengthens the muscles without straining them or making them bulky.

Subordinate

So the book says "a dominant or primary, form is often balanced by one or more subordinate, or secondary, forms". It was really hard for me to not think about work place hierarchies or animal dominancy but I suppose in art work everything has to be subordinate to something unless there is just one thing or image in the piece. In this image, the city of Melbourne background is subordinate to the umbrella piece because it is in the back, yet it helps create the atmosphere of the image, which is whimsical and bright.

Continuity

By: Mike H.

Continuity as defined in the reading as something which contains a fluid connection among compositional parts. This is especially true when objects are placed within close proximity to one another or even touching each other. This is a picture of a pillow cushion in my apartment. The patchwork gives continuity to the pillow even though none of the patches match one another. By each patch touching, your vision can flow from one part of the cushion to another easily.

Proximity

- by Kayla

The law of proximity states that when we perceive a collection of objects, we will see objects close to each other as forming a group. Proximity primarily are used to organize the materials on the page. They help tell our eyes where to stop. We can use proximity to indicate a relationship between items. Again, the principle of proximity tells us to put related items close together physically. Things that aren't related should be farther apart. The amount of separation between items or groups tells people how the material is organized.

In the figure above, we perceive the MTV logo and the logo for the Europe Music Awards as forming a group in the top left corner and the logos of the sponsors as forming a group in the bottom right corner. The white space separating the two groups of logos is used to indicate grouping, and the proximity of the logos of each groups is thus used to this end. Therefore, a semantic separation of 'organisers' from 'sponsors' is achieved via structuring the graphical layout in accordance with this simple principle of perceptual organization.

Proportion

Proportion
-Cassy Culkins

Unlike scale which refers to 2 completely separate variables within an art piece, proportion describes a size relationship between different variables within an object displayed in an art piece. One of the more well-known examples of proportion (or disproportion) is the Barbie doll. If Barbie was a living breathing human being she would be disgustingly underweight, and her breasts would be too big for her teeny legs, so much so that she would not be able to stand. However these parts of her were emphasized by the creator for a purpose.

Proportion is often used in items to create better function. For example if pencils were as thin as their graphite they would most likely break easier and be harder to hold, so the wood part of pencils is made thicker to protect the led and be easy to hold and use successfully.

Kayla Nguyen

This is a picture of me in Hawaii last Winter Break

I took 2-D design class last term, and this is my art work about pattern and symmetry. It took me a whole night to finish, all done by hand and pencils. I like this class pretty much, it enhanced my creative mind and shaped my handy skills, especially in the way I understood and saw the given of movement, value, pattern, contrast, abstraction ... In addition, the class provide an opportunity for me to experience the subtractive mixing of color through the color method. I've learnt many useful artistic knowledge from this class but somehow it drove me crazy whenever I stuck in the idea.

I'm interested in ancient Chinese, Japanese paintings, and their architectural art. The impression is that most of their art works always worshipped nature's symbolic and harmonious beauty, it also identified their spiritual culture. When looking at their traditional art, largely they put their heart and soul to the works, they showed the indigenous form of expression to the world. I totally appreciate their hundred years of art.

Cassy Culkins

Cassandra Culkins (Cassy)

As a kid I doodled a lot and drew typical things for little girls to draw (flowers, trees, hearts). I also made bead bracelets, necklaces, as well as bead creatures; like lizards and winged bugs. I've always liked art classes and started getting into photography and drawing in high school.




In 8th grade I was in an art class and we were making ceramics. Everyone in the class but me and one other person were making boxes, ashtrays, or bowls. The guy that didn't make one of those things made a ceramic Kenny (from Southpark) statue, and I made a blue squirrel. It's 7 or so inches tall and is holding an acorn. His teeth are blue because there wasn't any white paint. I remember being really proud of myself for stepping outside of the box and having my idea turn out well.


I make 3D art now in the form plushies. I like to sew (only with a machine though, I hate hand sewing). This is the first plushie I ever made, it's a robot I made out of fleece. It's really silly and kid-ish but that was the intention.
I want to do other forms of 3D art though like wire sculptures. I've seen many tree sculptures twisted together with wire that I thought were really interesting.

Contrast

Contrast is the difference of elements in a picture. Some examples would be light and dark, rough and smooth, large and small, things like that. With this picture the contrast of light and dark are pretty bold with the figures appearing out of thin air. Another thing to note is the contrast of the light body behind Hellboy's darker head draws your eye right to the center of the picture.

Mark

I don't know if I really made art or not as a kid, but I liked to doodle (mostly in class). I've worked with programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver for a while, but I've started taking formal drawing classes this year. The kind of art I like to make and look at would have to be Comics and Cartoons. I like anything from the Far Side, Dilbert and Get Fuzzy to Marvel and DC Comics.