Herb Williams CHALLENGE

CHALLENGE QUESTION:

To recieve credit for this post you must answer the question at the bottom correctly.  If you answer correctly then I will give you two weeks credit.



 

 

I am sure that most of you have never heard of Herb Williams the artist.  I know I hadn't heard of him until a few days ago, but you will be amazed by his sculptures.  Now Herb is not found in your text book, and he is not a super famous artist, but he does use a very common material to create his sculptures.

Finishing one of his sculptures

Herb in the beginning stages of a sculpture

A finished dog sculpture

 Ok you had a chance to look at his work.  To collect credit for this post you need to tell me what material he uses?  Be very specific, because he only uses one brand of this material.  I am also curious what you would do if you had access to that specific factory?

Paper Architecture

So you can't live in these buildings, but you can visit them, you can see them and you can be amazed by them.  This is a city cut out of paper.  Now paper is not one of the strongest mediums, but our artist Ingrid Siliakus out of Amsterdam has created complicated and beautiful paper cities that are similar to pop up books. 

So what do you think of these works of art?  Would you have the patience to create a project like this?  What would be the hardest part?

Flowers on the Canvas

I found this artist by the name of Jan Ironside who is from the USA.  She creates these very heavy Impasto styled paintings that make the petals of her flower paintings feel like they are going to come off of the page.  I also love her colors, but what do you think?

What do you think about these?  I know some of you are not fans of flowers but what other things could you paint with this technique that would feel as life like as her flowers?

Wishing tree

So I found this and I just thought it was really cool and that I would share it with you. 

 

 

 

So do you want to hop a plane and find this tree as much as I do?  Would you love to know some of the stories behind each coin or do you not really care?  Maybe you think it is dumb?

Apartment in the forest

So the image below caught my attention and I just had to find out if it was true and share it with you.  In Milan, they are building two skyscrapers that will basically have room for a small forest off of each balcony.  It is being built to help with both pollution in the city and to provide energy efficient apartments. 

So do you think that this is the future of city architecture or do you think it is a disaster waiting to happen?  Would you buy or rent a unit in this building? 

How much?

So how much would you pay for art?  Does it depend on the artist?  Do you have a favorite artist?

If money was no object how much would you pay for a painting?  And which painting would you pick?

Paul Cezanne  - "The Card Players"

How much would you have paid for the above painting?  What if I told you it is the most expensive painting ever sold.  Now how much would you pay for it?  Any guesses as to what it sold for?

What if I told you someone paid $267 million dollars for this painting.  Does that make it more special?  Do you like it better? 

They say art is in the eye of the beholder.  So what determines the value of this painting?

Cheating??

So I would hope from an early age you were told that cheating is bad, right?  And I know that you don't all listen to those words and that most of you have cheated at one time or another, but what if cheating caused you to lose a prestigious award and a lot of money.

 

This above picture was supposedly taken by photographer David Byrne and it was declared the best landscape photo of the year and he was given the title of landscape photographer of the year.  Shortly after all of those awards, including money, was given to him it was discovered that he had used photoshop to "inhance" the image. 

Now maybe you don't think that is bad, but he had entered it into a contest and called it a "pure" picture.  So my main question is, is what he did considered cheating?  Does it make a difference if you know that the judges of the contest didn't catch the photoshoping in the photo, someone else had to point it out to them? 

So what is the line between right and wrong?  Should he have his title stripped?  Or do you think it is no big deal like Byrne who said that everyone "messes with their photos" and thought the taking of his title was unjusified?  What would you say if you were a judge that was mis-informed?

Cake art

I was trying to find something to talk about or who you today and a gal I follow on pinterest pinned all of these beautiful cake creations.  That got me thinking about how decorating a cake is definately a form of art.  I at least think it is a very specialized and sometimes a very difficult form of art.

Well think about it, you spend hours if not days of your time doing these intricate details out of fondant and frosting and in a matter of minutes someone cuts it apart and it is eaten.  But if nothing else I wanted to show you some of these beautiful cakes.  I know I have done food art before, but it is always fun to see pictures of more food.

Remember everything is edible.  That means everything was made from some sort of sugar.  I am amazed by some of these decorations, but what do you think?  Would you have the patience to create an edible work of art?

Paper and Scissors

Right now you are working with Matisse's technique of paper cut outs.  But he is not the only artist out there that uses colored paper and scissors to create art.  I recently found the artist Eiko Ojala and his beautiful people that were cut out of paper.  Matisse's cut outs were very simple while Ojala's are very elegant and detailed.  Or at least I think so, what do you think?

So what do you think about these?  What intrigues you about them?  What looks like the most difficult part to you?