SumoPaint on roids

So Sumopaint is a free program based on the web, but i happened upon a totally free 3d graphics and design engine. I was almost sure they wouldn't offer something like this for free. Apparently, this DAZ Studio is a program for running and designing full 3d models. This company/site offers a selection of free 2d engines for designing people to environments. Interesting what can be found on the internet nowadays.

http://freeartsoftware.com/survey3d2d-downloads/download-info.php?sid=12

This stuff too hard?

Funny Art Pictures...at Funnyartpictures.com who woulda guessed?
This site has a funny compilation of cool artwork that has a bit of a dry humor to it.

New 2.0 Apps

I found a website called Listio.com and it features a list of up and coming web 2.0 applications. One that seemed very interesting is Stickr. It is like the ultimate Facebook/Twitter/Flickr/YouTube App which lets you comment on anything on the web. Considering people's habits with constant updates and chat online, i imagine a lot of people enjoy this program.

Weird Digital Art

I'm always on the lookout for interesting new pieces on the web. I even have an app on my google homepage that finds random art every time i load the page. This was the piece featured today, and im not sure how i really feel about it. I am very curious as to the processes and inspirations in creating such a piece. Is it purely digital, or were the original images from photography.

Cooperstown Juried Art Show

http://www.cooperstownart.com/photofiles.html

On a random adventure, i made a trip to Cooperstown with a few friends. We had never been there before and decided to jaunt around downtown and check out the scenes. Upon deciding the baseball hall of fame was too boring and expensive to be worthwhile, we crossed the street to the library/gallery to check if there was a show going on. To our pleasure, the Regional Juried Art Show was in town.

The gallery was held in the upstairs gallery space at the library. The show was a double-feature, with a private art show and a juried regional show. The regional show featured mostly paintings with a handful of large sculptures in the middle of the room. The painting were very skilled and impressive, ranging from large acrylics to small, detailed oils and sketches. My favorite was an oil on canvas of a fluffy cat. The content of the painting was not my favorite, but rather the way in which it was framed and presented. As a whole, the painting was neutral and dark, with a highly detailed cat. It was classic, bordered by a thick, ornate frame. The piece was just beautiful, not necessarily interesting, but simply beautiful. Another favorite was a digital print of a nude but with florescent orange highlight around the body. It was so vibrant, it looked backlit. It took many second looks and waving hands over the piece to try to determine if it was indeed backlit.

The private show was "objects of art" and featured the artist Larry Engel. The sculptures in this show were small and detailed, mostly made of bronze. He liked to take objects and mash them up with other objects to convey a (usually political or societal) message. I liked the sculpture of a turtle with a pen tip for a head. It was entitled "the check is in the mail." Another favorite was the set of occupational pieces. He liked to place a face on objects and entitle them after the occupation the tool is used for. If this is confusing, he crafted a face on a chisel and called it "portrait of a sculptor." Many of his pieces had a great message and level of skill.

After the show, we definitely felt our time and money (it was free) was well spent. I throughly enjoyed the show and will remember some of these pieces for later inspiration. The link above is to the page of the gallery and features pictures from the show so you can see the pieces for yourself.

My most recent video

Project 3 was just completed in Digital Art Class (116 of course). I drew inspiration from the everyday "struggles" that we go through and what it would be like if that were instantly solved. The idea of randomly stumbling upon the power of telekinesis would be mind blowing. I decided to animate this discovery to explore the idea. My girlfriend Brianna served as my model and her bright and powerful facial expressions really helped convey the message. The choice for bright orange titles was just a spur of the moment decision to avoid the cliche black title screens and give a little more "cheeriness" to the mood of the piece. Stop motion animation is a great way to alter reality, and give new views of perception. (views of perception...is that redundant? meh...)

Finding Sumopaint Artwork

I find Sumopaint to be a fascinating website and web 2.0 application. However, i find the community artwork to be rather childish and uninteresting. Perhaps this place was indeed crafted for the population of emo anime artists. Regardless, it is almost entirely made of this sort of art, and when looking for real art pieces among the community pieces i get frustrated. I made it a point to sift through these pieces to find something a bit more interesting. I found the above piece which was a clever use of all the elements Sumopaint has to offer. It also features several of the styles i used in the program.

8-bit Stop-Motion Music Video

I found this video while searching for cool stop motion videos on YouTube. This particular video transcends many levels of digital art. It is animating still images, rendering live action video and re-animating old 8-bit characters. All this is done to music, trippy german pop music. It all comes together to form a very interesting piece.

Circuits made for the body

Following our professor's lector regarding making technology interchangeable with human tissue I found this article. Stumbling around on Digg.com, there was one article that seemed to pertain directly to this topic. It was entitled "Bioelectronics: Silky Circuits" and it was securing the recent developments in flexible micro-circuits. The technology has been ported from an invention called electronic paper, which has ultra-thin circuitry. Apparently, this technology could be implanted into the skin to relay information to the brain. Ideas for this use could be giving the sensation of touch back to people who have lost their sense. The circuit matrix is implanted in matrix of silk, and once the silk dissolves, only the matrix is left in the system.

It is a very intriguing discovery and crosses the gap between organic matter and digital technology.

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=16056321&fsrc=scn/DG/pp/hp/tc05