Paint/Pigment Primary Colors

I feel like I've made dozens of color wheels in my life but it has been a bit, it was a nice flashback to Intro Art classes. I don't know that I have a preference, acrylic over pencil, since they're both so different. Paint is definitely much easier to work with but I enjoy the more meticulous and detailed process that a gray-scale requires. The most important discovery during this activity was probably the realization/remembering that "yellow" and "process" yellow etc will yield different end results.I'll be honest, I don't know that much of the information in the video was new but I suppose it was a good way to bring up old ideas that I haven't had to think about it a bit.

Color is the hue,tint,shade,tone etc of an object. I guess after watching this video I know that there is much more to it than that, that science/location/language/age have a big impact on this as well. 

The fact that the people organizing the blocks of color on the wall in any pattern they chose was interesting. Though Beau Lotto didnt mention much about the decisions that people made he did say that he could predict what they were going to do, and I feel like even if the average person didnt think they were putting thought into the spots they were placing the color blocks, even a person without an art degree knows that certain colors look better next to each other than others. That complementary colors exist even if they dont know which ones are which, and that contrasting colors look nicer together. I'd be curious to know the results of this particular experiment.

The part of the video that interested me the most was the experiment they did with the produce and the different blocks of color on the wall behind them. I've definitely seen things like this on social media before, where the color of the light in the space changes and it makes it look like the colors of the object have changed as well, but I've never thought about WHY these things work. It was interesting to hear the a person still sees the banana as yellow because of "object knowledge". We make the banana yellow because we know its supposed to be yellow.

The first video starts off speaking about Picasso's Guernica and whether or not it is art. The gentleman speaking then goes on to discuss different philosophers and their ideas about art and aesthetics. When he got to Plato he mentioned that this philosopher wasn't very interested in art which I guess I was surprised at until I learned more about each of them ( I have zero knowledge of most things having to do with the history of philosophy so this was all new information for me ). He also listed a few quotes that really stuck out to me.

"An artist is an exceptionally sensitive and superior individual" Kant

"Art makes us more human" Schiller

This video does also mentioned 'institutional art'.

The second video was much easier to follow as Ramachandran seemed much more enthusiastic about his work and the research he was presenting. Ramachandran speaks about art and science and their connection and said "Art is about asserting individuality, science is about discovering universal principles". I also thought his research about which areas of the brain react to what sort of stimulation when it comes to a work of art was interesting.

The article speaks very specifically about different works of art and explains why we see certain things differently. Why Mona Lisa's smile appears to move, why shadows and mirrors need to be represented differently ina painting than they are in real life, why value is so important and became such a big part of works that were being made. They also mentioned the importance of symmetry and mentioned that anything that is symmetrical is usually alive, and our systems are hard-wired to alert us to the possibility of a living thing. 

Some of it was difficult for me to grasp, I do think that Kant's theories on aesthetics seemed most important, though the quote that Changeux presented with is really what Im basing it on when it comes to this 18th century philosopher.

Ramachandran was much easier to follow and seemed to be tackling a lot of interesting research as he related his background in neuroscience to art and aesthetics.

The first video was rather dry and hard to follow as a person who doesnt know much about philosophy, but overall the topics they covered were interesting. Its never crossed my mind to think more about the question "What is art?" or "What makes this art?" but both Changeux and Ramachandran are both trying to answer that question with science as best they can.

Creating the blog was easy as I already had a non-school email address to use with it. While taking this course I would love to improve on my reading and writing skills when it comes to analyzing an art work, and have a better idea of themes that appear frequently in art over the years. Though I was initially excited to be taking an online course as I assumed it would save me time, I am generally a better learner when the information is directly in front of me or relayed in person, though in an effort to squash in as many credits as possible this semester I will learn to adjust myself to be able to tackle this course a little differently than others. Keeping a more detailed calendar seems to be helping already.