Archive for the ‘art’ Category
#22. a high school art hallway.
Thursday, January 12th, 2012#21. new image.
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011working on more night urban landscapes. this the old site of the Chinese American Service League.
#19. Lau family portrait series– in progress.
Monday, December 20th, 2010this is a series of images that i’ve been working on for a while now. i wish i had access to a color darkroom, but since i don’t, i’ve been working on them in photoshop (retouch and color-balance).
the series were taken on the day of my sister’s wedding. it was the first time (and maybe the last) in 35 years that my mom’s siblings would all be in the same place and so i decided to try and capture the moment.
i set the portraits up in my parent’s backyard and based the compositions around the squash that my parents had received as gifts from their neighbors. for as long as i can remember, as my family found our place here in chicago, other chinese folks would stop-by and give the gift of squash grown from their own gardens.
the portraits were also pretty informal in the sense that i just asked my aunts, uncles, and cousins to stand in front of the camera regardless of their outfits. these were taken in-between the ceremony and the reception of my sister’s wedding day and so some had temporarily changed out of their formal wedding attire, while others kept theirs on. i found that the juxtaposition of formal and informal were very reminiscent of my own experiences of being chinese-american.
anyway, i’m still trying to figure them out, and am moving on to the next step of printing them.
peace.
#16. student work- photograms.
Monday, October 18th, 2010photogram: a photogram is an image created on light-sensitive paper without the direct use of a camera- no negatives are involved and therefore no “shooting” is involved. to create imagery, objects and papers of varying translucencies are placed on the light-sensitive paper and exposed to a light source. the various levels of translucency will register shadows and highlights depending on how they are laid out on the paper– this is very similar to a unburn/suntan. if someone is laying out in the sun, and some jerk comes by and takes a stick and lays it on the skin of the person sunbathing, in a couple of hours, the outline of the stick is left behind on that person’s skin.
in some photo classes i’ve taken, this is usually one of the first assignments and is considered to be basic. i think this tends to convey the idea that photograms are simple. this could not be further from the truth. photograms can be complex and challenging.
last year, i started with basic photograms at the beginning of the year and i was not very satisfied with what my students had come up with. so later in the school year, we revisited the photogram. i had my students create photograms using a variety of layers. they had to use a quote as a source of inspiration. the quote could come from anywhere, and pretty much say anything as long as it wasn’t something that’d get me fired. as part of the lesson, i also taught my students how to create high contrast images in photoshop.
if you’re interested, here’s the lesson, and here’s the photoshop tutorial. (right click and click <save as> to download)
here are the requirements for the assignment:
- quote/piece of text that was important to them.
- imagery on tracing paper
- imagery on printer paper
- imagery on acetate
- imagery on opaque black construction paper.
- all 5 were combined to create 1 photogram.
here are some of the samples– some of the samples include the layers that my students used in some of the samples.
sample 1. this one in particular was impressive because this student took the time to draw the details of the gears in the frame and even cut out all the little sprockets.
sample 2.
sample 8.
peace.
#15. 2nd and 3rd pull of linoleum block test.
Sunday, October 17th, 2010did a 2nd and 3rd print of the block i cut this past summer. it’s really interesting how each new pull is so different. these two are definitely much better than the first one.
peace.
#13. found drawings
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010
#12. shopping catalog collage (in progress)
Friday, October 8th, 2010this past summer, i’ve been working on a series of collages where i cut out as many of the same items being sold and collaging them together– some catalogs have an exorbitant amount of same-type of items being sold. yeah. kinda ridiculous.
the one below is from a catalog called Northern Safety (awesome band name alert!). i submitted this piece in my school’s art faculty show, which is why i also included the artist statement. in the display i also had a pair of safety glasses that the viewer could wear to watch the safety glasses.
the piece is currently untitled and is 16″ x 20″.
peace.
#11. messing around with linoleum block cutting…
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010trying to figure out how to make block-cutting and printmaking more a part of my image-making process. carving out the blocks takes a long time. i’m slow. it is fun though and peaceful…at least when i allow myself the time to do it. still have a lot to learn. sucks that i no longer have my studio.
this one i did a couple months back. for some reason, the image i followed appealed to me.
peace.
#10. a series of images i did with my advisees.
Monday, October 4th, 2010i’m an advisor to a group of 23 boys in a high school. advisory is basically high school home room on steroids. we meet everyday, and sometimes we sit there just trying to live with the awkwardness that you can imagine might exist when there’s one adult and 20+ high school kids of the same gender.
this series of photos is something i thought of to try to help us pass the time more interestingly and productively. we took the teacher’s desk and put student desks on top so that i could get a better perspective on the classroom we spend our advisory time in. i shot the portraits with black and white film with a medium format camera– the mamiya 645. i had the boys choose how they wanted to be photographed. it actually was a pretty decent time.
peace.
#9. found drawings on my desk at work…
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
dots on my desk drawer at work. my desk drawer is probably older than me.
15-0 is a shutout score in volleyball, not sure if that’s what it refers to. scratches. sometimes, art teachers need to just scratch the shit out of something. other times, there isn’t a cutting mat nearby, so you just cut with your craft knife right on the desk.
not sure. but it’s a pretty symbol.
peace.
