Identify Yourself

Identify Yourself, by Krystal South discusses how greatly the internet impacts our everyday lives and even our identity. This web page was organized in a very confusing way. I found myself reading one section and then having to jump to another section because the columns moved in opposite directions. What I took away from this reading is that the internet is permanently intertwined in our lives and it makes us act differently than we would "in real life." Krystal talks about how the internet causes us to reveal information about ourselves to people we've never met, yet we wouldn't reveal that information to someone we actually do know. Also, she discusses how the internet allows us to alter our identities and become things that we are not. Overall, I do agree with this article, however I don't think people need to worry about it as much as this article suggests because there is really nothing we can do about the internet being a part of our lives.

I decided to analyze the section "To Chat." This section focused on how talking to people on the internet is quite different than talking to people face-to-face. First, on the internet, you cannot tell the exact tone of the conversation you are having with the other person because you can't see facial expressions. Also, conversations that happen over the internet can go on for weeks about the same subject with the same person. Face-to-face, conversations are usually over with in one sitting. I think that having a conversation over the internet (or text messaging) is very different than having one face-to-face because it allows you to pause, for a good while, in order for you to think about what to say next. Face-to-face, you may say things that don't come out right, or you may say things to quickly. Talking to people over the internet allows you to take much more control over the conversation.

Overall, I feel as if this article just pointed out things about technology that we don't really think about in everyday life. It is very interesting to read something like this article because you become aware of just how important the internet, or any form of technology is in your everyday life. While I was reading this article, I thought of how different classes would be without technology. How would we communicate with teachers outside of classes? How would we write our blog posts for homework? How would we even have a digital media art class? Technology obviously plays a very important role in everyone's lives.

Laura Dollie

Laura Dollie is a digital illustrator from Dayton, Ohio. Dollie creates artwork by combining the old and the new; she starts with sketching and then colors her sketches digitally. Laura Dollie studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design from which she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Illustration in 2010. Laura draws her inspiration from children, imagination, and her own childhood memories. Laura won the Applied Art Magazine Student Award in 2011 for her Green Peace poster advocating to stop pollution.

Laura Dollie illustrates by first sketching out the entire picture, and then digitally coloring it. She focuses her artwork around what she sees in her daily life. Laura works at a company that designs toys for children between her free-lance work, and she enjoys putting children and their adventures into her pieces. She takes the essence of childhood and imagination and brings to life magical childhood memories in her artwork.

The above picture is an example of Dollie's sketch almost ready to be digitally colored.

This is the finished, digitally-colored picture from the above sketch. Although this picture was digitally colored, it still looks as if it was colored by hand with pencils.

Laura Dollie also works in vector art using Adobe Illustrator. Much of her work in this field deals with making designs, logos, and characters for her job at a toy company called Peachtree Playthings. Dollie claimed that when she first started the job, she only knew the bare essentials of Illustrator and how to create vector art. Now, she says she is more confident in it than any other program.

 

Laura Dollie's work is very interesting because her collection is very diverse both in subjects and techniques. I enjoyed how she can create an illustration appropriate for a children's book by using both hand-sketching and digital coloring, but at the same time can make a piece like the one above, which is completely different. This picture caught my eye because of the colors and the cute faces found on each of the desserts. These features make this picture young, friendly and fun, and makes you reminisce about your childhood. I think that Laura Dollie's work mainly just makes you happy when you look at it. Her vector art may not be as detailed and advanced as her illustrations, but they still make you feel the same way when you observe them. 

 

Logo Remix

1968 Ford Mustang remixed with vintage advertising mottos, models, and some words I threw in.

Vector Drawing Progress

 

Playing with colors...

Portraits

Music Art

Tony Robbin

Tony Robbin is a digital media artist, painter, and sculpture from Washington, DC. Robbin's main theme throughout his works is geometric and cubistic shapes. Robbin uses the program Formian and software that he designed himself to create his computer drawings. Tony Robbins first started to show his work in 1974 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since then, Robbin has shown his work in over a hundred shows throughout the world. Robbin also holds the patent for the application of quasicrystal geometry (4-dimensionalism of geometric shapes) to architecture. Tony Robbins has authored several books, papers and articles, including his book Shadows of Reality: The Fourth Dimension in Cubism, Relativity, and Modern Thought where Robbin discusses the fourth dimension and its application to art. 

Tony Robbin uses different media, such as acrylic on canvas or digital printing in his artwork, but the use of geometric shapes continues throughout all of his artwork. In the painting below, Robbin uses several different lines and geometric shapes in order to create many different planes throughout the piece. 

The prints made from the computer reveal a similar theme. In this piece, the lines are more intricate and sharp, which adds a lot of dimension to the shapes and lines. Robbin used self-made computer programs along with Formian to make this work. The use of the computer allowed him to create several more layers of lines and shapes than he could previously with paint and canvas.

Overall, I find the work of Tony Robbin creative and intellectually stimulating, but all of his work is very similar to the next. Robbin does not name his pieces with anything other than numbers, which makes all of them seem to blend together for me. I enjoy how he uses simple shapes to create a completely new dimension. The colors he used in his computer drawings seem to compliment the work.  The shapes placed on the outer edge of the main box make it seem like the shapes are flying out of the screen into the world in which you currently reside. This arrangement of shapes and colors remind me of being taken into another dimension altogether, like drifting through a space of geometry. I think the work created by Tony Robbins is very effective, but you need only to observe one or two of his pieces in order to understand the main theme of all of his works. 

Source Links:
http://tonyrobbin.net/art.html
http://tonyrobbin.net/work.htm
http://retrospective.tonyrobbin.net/bio.html