Jodi Blog

For my final project I had a grand idea planned out in my head to do a big collection of photo manipulations that would compile together to make a self-portrait of my life and myself. I wanted to express how I have changed so much in such a small amount of time. That idea however fell through when the images would not print out right and the pictures were also not what I was looking for. After working with it for a few days I gave it up and chose to do another project. For and Art Education class I had last semester we were working on incorporating technology with kids in the classroom and I did a short animation together with Jennifer Baird. The theme was peace and I really enjoyed working with animating, so I decided to follow through with that again and incorporate it into my final project. I made a short animation that involves a worm crawling out of the ground and getting enclosed in a flower he climbs up to. Following that the flower turns into a bird that flies up into the air, and returns to its nest where baby birds are waiting to be fed a delicious worm. It is just a cute way of showing a bad day in the life of a worm and the circle of life. I titled it “The Early Bird,” because he always catches the worm. Of course I am having a little trouble getting it to work as a Quicktime file; it might be because it has 150 slides exactly, but nonetheless I do have the individual images.

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 09:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Upon rummaging through the pages of the book for class, I came across digital images done by Charles Cohen. They were photographs of average places that one would see in everyday life, like a couch or a bed. On top of these images were bright white silhouettes. It looked as if he had just ripped these people out of their life, erased them. Upon closer inspection the images leave you with a different feeling, they are pornographic.

Charles Cohen first got his BA at the University of Chicago and went on to study in London, Rhode Island, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. He has had six solo exhibits between 1998 and 2005, and many other group exhibits. Charles Cohen is a rough artist to try and find information on; he has a biography listing the exhibits he has done, but nothing about his everyday life. I believe it is best to leave it open that way because you can dig deeper into his art to try and find it.

Out of all the images in the book the silhouette images were the most striking to me, I kept going back to them. As you look at them you are expected to fill in the outlines of people having sex. It is almost as if he is trying to make your feel perverted because these images are not there, they have been erased and everything is back to normal in the scene except the bright white memory of what once was there left for the viewer to fill in.

As I roamed through his website I came across another series. They are simple pictures of the sides of road signs. Clearly, you can make out the golden arches of a McDonald’s sign just from the constant implantation of red and yellow in the consumers brain, but these again leave you with only an essence of what’s there. They are what we see between the lines as we travel through life, those mundane little experiences that when compiled into a series such as this overloads the brain and is suddenly interesting. I found myself thinking harder about the side of a sign than I ever would have while traveling by one.

Overall, I really enjoy Charles Cohen’s work. He takes the simple, but overly seen, mundane ideas and images that we do not take the time to keep in our memory from day to day and makes them interesting and beautiful. He has even managed to make the viewing of porn ok for anyone.

If you would like to see his work online you can visit the site below:
http://www.promulgator.com/

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 09:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

To some artists, the constant use of a good sketchbook is crucial in keeping their random everyday thoughts and imagery always on hand for ideas. I came across this site today that showcases the sketchbook art of Kevin Cornell. The design and concept of the site is very interesting. I love seeing others sketchbooks, it's like stepping into their minds and who wouldn't want theirs showcased like this.

Enjoy!

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here I go again and give you a link to Deviantart, but I love this site, there's so much on it. Just thought I'd show you all that there is a section on the site where people post tutorials that you can download on specific tools and techniques for programs like Photoshop, Maya, Flash, etc. You pretty much want to stay in the favorites section, it's where all of the good ones are. I think it helps sometimes to read and see examples straight from the artist. Just thought it might be fun to dig through, and if you go through the site more in the resources section, there are a lot of textures, stock photos, and the like that you can use for digital projects.

Check it out!

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For some reason this image only works when viewed through Safari, I'll see what I can do about other browsers.

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 04:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This isn't for my digital artists research entry or anything, I've just been interested in this artist for some time now and thought I'd add a link to a site with his work for others to see. His name is Ryan Kelly and he is a painter and a comic book artist as well. He is currently in collaboration with Brian Wood on a comic called Local based on Minneapolis. Here are a few links to his work, check it out.

http://localthecomic.blogspot.com/

http://citypages.com/databank/25/1208/article11841.asp

http://funrama.deviantart.com/

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This project was slightly confusing at first. It seems as if the assignments that are the hardest to accomplish are those left open for you to do whatever you want. I think the idea of DVD easter eggs however is a very interesting one to do. For this project I worked as a team with Taryn. We tried to combine photographs of poses in traditional-looking Greek dresses with actual images of artifacts from the scene of the Eleusis Mysteries. Some look like the scene of Hades abducting Persephone and others look like old movie actress photos. I'll try and have some images up soon.

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 09:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the digital narrative assignment I chose to narrate "Alice Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll. I was always interested in this story, as well as Alice in Wonderland, when I was a child. It is full of twists and turns, and is all based around poetry and increasingly odd characters. I simply took each chapter and drew out my interpretation of the characters and scenes in photoshop using a Wacom tablet. I think they resemble old storybook figures, but in my own style. It is probably because of all of the golden books, and old story books of my Grandma's that I use to read whenever I played at her house. I think as a child, up until now, I was always able to identify with Alice's curiosity and ability to see ordinary things in a backwards way. What child didn't make up characters and pretend to be in other worlds.

Some of the slides need to be updated because I have changed the colors and reworked some of the details, but to access the narrative images visit the website below.
http://www.d.umn.edu/~pons0008/story/

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I really enjoyed this project, I guess I never really thought about creating a large image that could still by printed on your average printer. For my digital portrait I decided to keep it simple and clean. I chose to incorporate photography, photoshop, and some drawings of birds that I had done in a previous drawing class. Color was an important factor; I have red hair right now so that's what I started with. My goal was to make it bright but calming. The image is a photograph of myself redrawn in photoshop just by using the paint tool. The use of the grid was required, but I did not want to make it too busy. To get around the grid standing out too much I slightly altered the colors of each and added a light design where the lines and colors intersect with one another. The only other symbol in the piece is that of the bird. Because of the painterly feel of the self portrait, I drew inspiration from some oil paintings that I done. I often incorporate birds into my work. I have been obsessed with the symblism behind different species of bird as well as the overall feel of birds in general. They seem free and inspirational, so therefore perfect to incorporate in my self portrait. Overall, I thought it was unified, the colors seemed to work well together, and even though it's simple, it's very me. Feel free to leave comments or suggestions for improvements.

Posted by Jodi Ponsness at 10:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)