Practice Post #4 - Evaluating Art

Artist: Frida Kahlo

Formal evaluation: Kahlo painted herself in a frontal pose to enhance her presence. She used nature to emphasize her image and to provide harmony. Her technique was unique and innovative because she used her own unique folkloric style of painting.

Contextual evaluation:  Kahlo painted   around 200 painting, drawing and sketches related her experiences of life like she was wrote a diary in each painting she expressed her life and her feeling.  

Expressive evaluation: Kahlo uses her Mexican culture to symbolic many things in her painting. For example, in Mexican folk tradition, dead hummingbirds were used as charms to bring luck to love, black cat is a symbol bad luck or death, and butterflies represent the resurrection.

Blog Post #2 - Cave Art 101

               In the past, ancestors found many way to survive in their society; for example, they developed agriculture and hunting as their ways to survive.  In addition, they used their imagination to create new instrument than help them to persist.  They painted and drew in their caves which were their houses. Many painting such as the Wall Painting of Animal, the Deer and Hands, and Engraved Ochre help us to understand more about our past, they showed how ancestors used their creativity and express their feeling. In last class, the main point was to focus in the way to survive in life in this society. Each classmate enjoyed one group and each group discussed their points of view and put them together in an art piece.  Each one of my classmate experienced how to make the colors with chalk and charcoal as ancestors made color with animal’ fat and flowers. After each group finished the art piece, one member explained the painting to the class using the topic as their references. In conclusion, I can say that the class was fun,   the way the classes focused help us to understand better the topic.

"Practice Post #3 - Artist Research

 Anna Zemánková

 Zemánková was born Anna Velelá on August 23, 1908 in Olomouc, Moravia (present-day Czech Republic.  when she was young grill,  she enjoyed drawing.  As adult, Anna Zemánková found art  as her regular life and she made differents floral and botanical drawings.

                                                                Anna Zemánková
                                                            Untitled (red form), n.d.
                                                                   pastel on paper
                                                         Moravian (Czech Republic)

Blog Post #1 - What Is Creativity?

   In the book "Prebles’ ARTFORMS" the author Patrick Frank discusses the definition of creativity. Finally, he concluded that the best general answer of “creativity is the ability to see and respond”. He also emphasizes that some studies demonstrate that some of the abilities in the creative attitude are “wonder and be curious, be open to new experience, see the familiar from an unfamiliar point for view, take advantage of accidental events, make one thing out of another by shifting its function, generalize from particulars in order to see broad applications, synthesize, integrate, find order in disorder, be in touch with one's unconscious, yet be intensely conscious, be able to analyze and evaluate, know oneself, have the courage to be oneself in the face of opposition, be willing to take risks, and be persistent: to work for long periods--perhaps years--in pursuit of a goal’.

     Using the author studies of creativity I considered myself as creative. I use my imagination to produce new ideas and make new things. For example, last week I got idea that how to cover my notebook. I cut my old jeans and I covered my notebook with it. I think productively each time people ask me questions about one situation I try to analyze it and I found a number of ways to respond to the situation. In other words, I look the problem from all the sides. I am very curious; I like to observe all around me, sometime I look like I did not put attention but I always observed others. I’m open mind and I allow to new experiences.

Do these pigs look cute?

Pigs are not only cute, they are smart too.

New York Times (Pigs Prove to Be Smart, If Not Vain by Natalie Anger)

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html?scp=10&sq=pig&st=cse

Hey eceryone!!

My name is Eufemio, I'm from Mexico, I speak Spanish and English.  I choose the picture of one of my pieces of art. I love this picture  for two reason. When I made it  I WAS SO HAPPY  because I was thinking in my cute puppy name Bola and the other reason is because  this  photograph is  the only memory I have of  it because someone stole it  from an art exhibition.