Tag: fun

Exploring Digital Art and Design on the Commons – A Workshop

“Exploring Digital Art and Design on the Commons: Techniques and Applications for the Classroom and Beyond”

Wednesday, May 11th 2022 – 11am – 12:30pm

Welcome!

This presentation is for the CUNY GC / Teaching & Learning Center’s Open & Digital Pedagogy Wednesday Workshops Series.

Hosted by Anthony Wheeler & Ryan Seslow

Welcome All!

This workshop will be conducted and archived from this blog post here on this website.

This website is chock full of resources so please dig in!

PS – This post will also receive a few updates from time to time as contrast creates more inspiration! I hope to share the recorded zoom workshop info as well (if possible)

This post is also a creative snippet and reflection of what is possible here on the commons. (Im a big fan!)

 

an abstract digital illustration consisting of many graphic assets

 

So, What is Digital Art? – via wikipedia

“Digital art is an artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process. Since the 1960s, various names have been used to describe the process, including computer art and multimedia art. Digital art is itself placed under the larger umbrella term new media art.”

 

Some Digital Art History -> a timeline

A bit more here <–

and a bit more here as well <–

 

Questions to Ponder?

What is the creative potential of an image?

What is YOUR creative potential in relationship to an image or images that you feel connected to? 

How can intuitions, feelings, philosophies and or inspiration play a role in image-making?

You do NOT need permission to experiment with digital image making / digital art, so let’s get to it!

The academic commons is a perfect example of a platform (WordPress) that both supports and compliments image based content. File formats like .JPG or .PNG work well here! Let’s begin our reign of creative image-making and take over!! 

 

LETS MAKE SOME DIGITAL ART!

 

We will experiment with some great “Free to Use” Digital Tools:

Lets create a page using mmm.page  – https://mmm.page

mmm.page is a web browser based digital collage making platform / space. It works perfectly in your web browser. It also works on mobile devices!

 

Here is an example I made with mmm.page:

https://mmm.page/ryanseslow.main

 

*I pre-prepared a series of transparent graphic assets that you can download and use for this, but feel free to make and discover your own, especially if there is specific context to your ideas. Here is the shared folder link:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZWB0jL_z_iU9mH2rf3Imthk4AUpYYRGi

 

a surreal arrangement of objects and things placed into a situation..

 

Places to find Images online – Creative Commons based:

Pixabay.com – great resource for images and transparent assets! (we will use this for the workshop)

National Gallery of Art  With the launch of NGA Images, the National Gallery of Art implements an open access policy for digital images of works of art that the Gallery believes to be in the public domain.

Digital Public Library of America The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world.

NYPL – The New York Public Library Digital Collections Archive

Flickr CC – Creative Commons on Flickr.

Gif Cities – Internet Archive

The Noun Project –  “Graphic Icons for anything”

Open-Access – Digital Collection – The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Giphy – the web’s largest search engine for animated GIFs!

 

Web Browser and FREE Digital Tools to Work with:

mmm.page – https://mmm.page

photopea – is a free web browser based digital image making and manipulating application, we can alter and manipulate and prepare images in this space! – https://photopea.com

Remove Image Background – https://www.remove.bg/

PIXLR – https://pixlr.com

Image Conversion Tool – https://convertio.co/

Vectorize an Image – https://vectorizer.com/

vectr – https://vectr.com

Glitcher – http://akx.github.io/glitch2/

Image Glitch Tool – https://snorpey.github.io/jpg-glitch/

Glitchatron – http://www.errozero.co.uk/glitchatron/#

Gimp – digital art making / photoshop-esque alternative – https://www.gimp.org

Trianglify Generator

Trianglify Generator 2 

 

Special Ops agents find themselves displaced into an art gallery

Useful Essays & How-To’s from this Website:

The Byproducts Poster of Twenty Twenty One

A Drama in Monotones, the tutorial..

Cut-N-Paste-Analog-N-Electronic-Ness

mmm.page Creative Awesomeness

Ink Jet Printer Print Remixing in the Studio

The Graphic Design for Websites, A 2019 Workshop

 

Please feel free to share your sentiments, questions and feedback in the comments section below! Let’s think of that space as a way to contribute to this post.

PS – Check out more on my website – ryanseslow.com or follow me on twitter or IG

Many thanks!

Linear Expansions, A Continuum of Line & Form

“Linear Expansions, A Continuum of Line & Form”, 2021, Work in Progress, A Cut Paper Wall Relief.

Im excited to share the progress and process of this new series of paper cut-outs. The forms are arranged directly onto the brick wall in my studio and live there as the piece builds a little more each day. 

Everything starts out as a drawing in my world.. mostly. I suppose thats because its where I got started with art making. Above, we see just a series of smooth and gestural intuitive lines. Im always both surprised and excited by the infinite outcome of what the lines will do. I never draw the exact same character twice. There is always another iteration to explore and become surprised by. The paper cut out at the top of this post is in progress and has thoroughly been inspired by this series of drawings created last week. I cut them out and arranged them on my wall to create a “narrative”. This also serves as an example for my Illustration & Design students this semester. I hope they like it!

 

The drawings above are a result of this process in the video above. I finally started sharing some of these videos on social media… These kinds of drawings happen in immediacy. Fast, intuitive lines that form each character. They are all different yet unified by their stylized lines. But why stop there, I began to think about process and creating gauge and layers. What happens if I cut some of these forms out? And so it went..

It all starts out like this. Start to extract the drawing by flattening it into fragments. Im using a think bristol paper as my paper source. (Strathmore) the surface is smooth a durable. But alas, it is paper and paper is temperature sensitive, so over time it does buckle and curl. I find that this actually helps though, see the process below

(Sorry for the blurry pict above -Ill reshoot this!) I then lay out a flat variation of my cut out forms in layers, very much as one would use layers when using adobe photoshop or illustrator. This is the analog version, and it is a lot of fun to do. The application onto a flat surface is next. Im working kind of large on this piece to see how the scale holds up, I will make a few small pieces too. 

Here is the first character that was applied to the wall. The forms are adhered to the wall using several loops of thick gorilla brand duct tape. The duct tape works well because it can be “stacked” and it is strong enough to hold the weight of the paper as I layer it. Keep this in mind as the further that your pieces layer and come off of the surface of the wall, they may begin to show the effects of gravity :)) – the process continues!

Process – Here is the progress with the second character created and applied to the wall.

Here you can see the beginning of the third character as well as the reference drawings before they were moved to make room for the next characters.

I work a little bit each day. I enjoy the process so much so I tend to work slow to savor the journey. I also enjoy sitting back and looking at the piece as it grows as it gives me a lot of new ideas. Of course, the next adventure will be to make the characters free standing and able to support themselves in the round. 3D is inevitable both as a physical sculpture and a 3D model in a digital space. 

As of today, 2/17/21 this is where Im at in terms of progress. Should I add more smaller pieces and fragments as scale contrasting details? What am I missing? Lets hear some feedback!

Note – YES, I plan to work in this style with other more permanent materials. I would love to see a series of these placed into public space, would be sweet to see a series inside the nyc subway stations 🙂

ROOFTOP PERSPECTIVE REFLECTING (kinda yelling)

ROOFTOP PERSPECTIVE REFLECTING (kinda yelling in caps)

About this assignment: Let’s generate a new blog post that shares a “shift in your perspective about something” and how you became aware of your process. Be sure to share compelling media to support and help “paint this picture.”

Here is my example below.

Sometimes, or maybe more than sometimes, a literal change of one’s physical perspective can help change a conceptual perspective of how we are thinking about something. I know, this is not anything new, but metaphors can play a role and always remind us.. Lets call that “something” a problem, issue or circumstance that we are trying to solve. It could simply be a design problem, or just trying to see something in another light. Perhaps the main inducer of the solution process is the “shift of action” in and of itself. Meaning, we momentarily and very consciously shift the internal self-reflecting conceptual focus to a new physical location of focus. However, the physical focus should be “different” than the one where you were conceptually pondering (over and over and over..). The new physical locational focus must be a geographical one (Im not saying you need to go miles way.. but I suppose that you could.. but lets not for this sake). Its got me thinking metaphorically. There is more context to this “not so new theory” of mine. Im working on a few new projects that started this week as well as trying to complete a few that have been ongoing for about 2 months. Some are art commercial projects / client design work projects, while others are my own personal art works, mainly new paintings. Either way, I have been over-thinking about both. The images in this post helped me find a few solutions, just by going up to the roof, just by making a shift in the moment.

 

When you live in NYC its only a matter of time before the rooftops begin to summon you. You must comply in some way. The sheer curiosity and knowingness that a larger panoramic view of expansiveness awaits. Of course, some rooftops are more available and accessible than others. Some are just not, on purpose and some completely lack accessibility all together.. For many years now we have all been watching the NYC skyline expand. Yes vertically but also horizontally. Of course your viewing ability depends on your geographical location but the lower Manhattan skyline has seemed to compose itself into the downtown Brooklyn skyline. That one has integrated into the Long Island City skyline. I particularIy first noticed this on the Kosciuszko Bridge (which connects Queens to Brooklyn) heading towards the Williamsburg Bridge about 10 years ago. Then again, I also remember when the Williamsburg bank was always the tallest building in Brooklyn.. 

 

Subconsciously I knew that I could take some great photos from above but it wasn’t my intention at first, and these are not great technical photos by any means (they are however good sketches for the next photoshoot with a tripod though!) When I arrived, not only did I shift my location, but I shifted out of the “stuck” over-thinking space I was in only minutes before. And then the insights flow in, nothing is ever static and nature will always remind of this, even in the concrete playground. With-in minutes the light began to change and once again I was reminded that things can always be another way.

 

I wanted to participate creatively, and responsive I became. I switched the filter on my phone to black and white snapped off a series of shots. There is so much power in the immediacy of creativity, we just need to show up, get out of our way and allow. By this time, I was now fully present in this great experience, it was not anything new but yet it was and it induces the gratitude and reverence for just being alive. Which we seem to forget way too often!

 

The moral of all this? Take breaks. When we feel over-tired and or over extended mentally, emotionally or physically, take a break. Take walk, take a drive, go up to the roof, shift.

Reacting to York College’s CT101 in MEMEs!

Are Internet Memes ART?

CT101 – Digital Storytelling students at York College are always up for the challenge!

(Screen the video above first and read the articles below, its context, it helps!)

Further, then, do an internet search for “Are memes ART?” See what you discover.. Oh, you will be surprised. No matter how you cut it, memes are here to stay…is this good or bad for Art? Is this good or bad for Education? Is there context for memes and appropriate application in your course or courses? If so, where and how do you start? We wanted to investigate, and so we did.

We would like to know what you think. And by all means, share you favorites via URLs, and or create your own as a reaction..

Are Memes the Pop Culture Art of our Era? Kate Knibbs – https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/when-does-a-meme-become-art/

Another piece with some good insights – http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/34645/1/is-2017-the-year-that-memes-are-recognised-as-art

Please leave your reactions in the comments section below. We dare you!

The gallery below is our spring 2020 first iterations of Memes that express a simple contemplation: “How do you feel about your CT101 class so far? (After week #4) The gallery speaks for itself. 

By the way, students were also introduced to adobe photoshop. The memes were created as an introduction to basic design layout and applying text to an image. Typesetting is a skill and learning how to apply type to unify a composition takes a lot of practice. Practice, practice. 🙂