- X - Animation

With technology becoming so advanced and with more homes having computers and tablets it is becoming easier to create art. Of course it is a different kind of art, but it is becoming a another segment. Animation has been around for a long time now but it is only becoming better and easier to do, it is also a huge trend right now. All of the amazing artists that I personally know have gone to school for animation, I guess it has something to do with seeing their work come to life. I have never tried drawing characters over and over perfect them or used an animation program but I can't even imagine how hard and tedious it must be at first.

One of my favourites was always The Lion King, and I recently learned some new things about from a blog. I don't know if they are true, but it was still pretty cool to read. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1LQszx/:yGKzzMiF:GGQ1-Lb4/blog.moviefone.com/2011/09/13/lion-king-3d-trivia?ncid=dynaldusmovi00000008%2F

A friend of mine Natalie Brunka, who is in Sheridan College for Animation definitely has a bright future ahead of her. Here are 2 pictures from her work, she calls them 'her family'. Love it.

- IX - Graphic Design

Graphic Design, something I hardly know anything about but also something that has been catching my attention a lot more often. One of my favourite elements is how most graphic design work looks so sleek and neat, although many things are possible within the art form. Unlike most art, you can erase or undo things until it is perfect for you.

There are so many different types I have seen of graphic design, and probably so much I don't know about. I am a really big fan of anything abstract, intricate or colourful. ( if it has all 3 it's a bonus!)

Being an advertising student, I have really began to notice all the graphic design that is infused within advertising. I looked around to find a few that I really liked, I wish I could remember the ones I have actually seen. (Maybe they need to adjust their frequency or maybe I am not their target.)

Here are a few I really liked that I found online. One a poster for HIV and another for a poster for Black Out.


I also noticed a few shoe brands were using graphic design in there advertisements.

- VIII - Sculpture

sculp·ture  

/ˈskəlpCHər/

Noun The art of making two- or three-dimensional representative or abstract forms, esp. by       carving stone or wood or by casting metal or plaster.

Verb Make or represent (a form) by carving, casting, or other shaping techniques.

A form of art that has always interested me. I don't know anything about the history of sculpture, all I know is that they are breathtaking. I wonder who even first thought of making sculptures. 'Oh, I will just take this marble and chip at it patiently until it looks like or represents something.' Over the many many years, the art of sculptures has expanded and segmented. You can sculpt almost anything now and people do really amazing stuff.

Some of the more traditional work. This is of David, from David and Goliath by Gian Lorenzo Bernini.  Made from marble and is at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

An awesome video where you can see the different angles and close ups of the sculpture.

Now for some more non- traditional art work.

Ice sculpture


Fruit Carving


Sculpting seems like it takes a lot of patience and time.

I have only ever tried sculpting once, and it was a clay giraffe. I feel like it was done pretty well but it can be tough and if you mess up, pretty frustrating. Starting the project is always the hardest but the finished product is definitely worth it all. Something you can be proud of.

- VII -

Photography is something that has been a part of all of our lives, for the most part, since childhood. It is an art form that continues to grow every day. Cameras capture little moments, people and experiences. Without these printed and now digital memories, there are things we could eventually forget over time.
Cameras are something that now a lot of people couldn't picture living without, even our phones have been built with them inside.

 Ever since I was a wee little one I have loved looking at old photos and while technology has advanced and created something new within photography, I will always love my scrapbooks and boxes containing my old vintage photos with the rugged corners.


Photoshop is such a big part within photography now, I personally have a love/hate relationship with the idea. I love that it can enhance and create something even more beautiful but hate that it is relied on or made into something completely fake.


Taken by yours truly :) No Photoshop

One of my all time favourite things in the whole entire photography world would have to be candid photos. I love the moment you catch something funny, beautiful or inspiring without preparation or just by chance.

Sadly, even 'candid' photos are faked now.

Street art by Ian Davis - A guitar player performs inside the Mission BART station.

Street art by rg443

Alfred Eisenstaed

 " looking for the perfect shot to reflect the euphoria of the moment "

I clearly seem to like black and white shots! I guess it all start with a classic.

- VI - Stippling

When I first started thinking about the blog posts I wanted to write, the stippling technique came to mind almost instantly. Sadly, I completely forgot about it until now.
So, here I go.

For those of you who don't know what stippling is:
Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots.
(Thanks Wikipedia)
My definition would have been: Art using dots.

Now, I know what you are thinking  ' art with dots, whaaaaaaaaaaat?! '
I remember the first time I learned about stippling, the artsy fartsy teacher was just so excited about it. She thought it would be fun to learn something new, and so did I.I thought wrong. This was not fun at all, and probably wouldn't be if you're impatient and a perfectionist like I am. I went through several papers, different types of pencils and pens which resulted in a garbage full of trash. Needless to say, I sucked and learning something new was hard.
After writing this though, it really makes me want to try again. Maybe if I stick it out and practice for, lets see... more than a day or two... I can figure it out. Cross your fingers for me.




This beauty is simply stippled perfection.
I do not know who the artist is because I just found the image on Google, but props to them. I could only dream of being patient enough to finish something like this.

But hey, a girl can dream.

I found an awesome video for you guys on the wonderful page of YouTube.
Don't worry though, it is sped up so you can see it beginning to end. It may be a tad slow but I recommend you watch it all.


Now, is your mind blown because it should be :)
ArtofTonyNero, pretty amazing work.

- V -

Ever since I can remember I have been obsessed with tattoos. Now, a lot of people would probably argue that they don't consider tattoos art and well... I would call them crazy. You have to agree to disagree sometimes right? My mom would definitely be one of those people, I remember the first time I told her I wanted a tattoo. I was 8 years old and had seen numerous people with tattoos, and needless to say was in love. After a night of watching the Lion King for the millionth time I told her that I wanted to get ' Hakuna Matata' tattooed on myself when I was older. She ended up just laughing at me, and who could blame her for not taking me seriously.

When I fiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally turned 18, after pleading and arguing and begging her to get one, she caved. SUCCESS! After agreeing she asked me what I wanted to get and I just looked at her and said "What I have always wanted to get, Hakuna Matata," she just rolled her eyes but couldn't say no to this face. I remember going to Wild Ink in Ajax, after doing tons of research and telling the guy covered in tattoos what I wanted. He laughed and told me that he had never done it before and that he would draw something up for me. I, like the creeper I am, watched him sketch out some ideas and with each minute I was falling more and more in love and more and more nervous. I had planned to get this on my foot, which I heard was one of the most painful places to get it but once I have my mind set on something, it is hard to convince me otherwise so there was no turning back.

                                                      

It was definitely painful, to say the least and as you can see very swollen making it look a little weird (sorry if feet creep you out). I love it though, and still love it even though it has become such a popular tattoo. It means a lot to me, and why regret something like this? It is a piece of artwork, and sure it is forever but I don't see how that could be a bad thing. Maybe the fact that I won't be able to wear open foot shoes to work in the future, but I think I will survive. No worries, right?

Overall, tattoos are something I am very interested in and respect the art form tremendously. Anyone who can draw so perfectly on your skin using needles gets a sticker in my book. I fell in love with a tattoo blog called 'F Yeah Tattoos' that people can showcase their tattoos, and the stories behind them. I have cried in some cases, and have been inspired on a regular basis. Just thought I would share a few of the ones I have seen and thought were share worthy. What is amazing about this form of art is that it is so personal, they make everything beautiful ( Obviously depending where you go... ) whether it is an intricate design or words from a song that you love.









Wild Ink Studios - http://www.wildinkstudios.com/
F Yeah Tattoos - http://fyeahtattoos.com/

- IV -

I think any body who admires art can appreciate those artists who have the ability to recreate exactly what is in front of them whether it is a person, a still life they have set up or a beautiful landscape that they wanted to capture. I have always been extremely jealous of these artists, even more so if they can do it all... those people who no matter what you give them they can just rock it. After I gave some thought about what I wanted to blog about next I went searching through Google to find some images that would fit. While I can find a ton of images that I loved and had inspired me, not all of them have the artist's name.

The first drawing I came across that really grabbed my attention was called 'Reflections' and it is a still life sketch made using pencils, blending stumps and tissue by Brian Duey.

 

Brain Duey captures these images perfectly that it almost looks like a photograph. The shading is seriously impeccable, he didn't miss even one little detail. The angles are proper which makes it look so realistic that you could almost grab the glass and take the shot. I guess you are just born with this kind of talent, the way he sketches each spec of light, the reflection of the cigarette in the lighter and shadows on the wall and ground surface all make it work. The forum that he posted on stated that this took him 10 hours to complete, I would definitely say that was time well spent.

When I came across the next artist I just sighed, because his work is actually just perfection . His portraits capture the gleam in the eye, the highlight within the hair, the angle of the jaw and definition of the arm.
      
    Leonardo DiCaprio                                   Catherine Zeta-Jones

I came across the Canadian artist of these portraits, Denis Poirier on the Deviant Art website. You can check out more of his stuff by clicking this below.
 http://depoi.deviantart.com

- III -

This week as I was doing some regular creeping through my social media accounts, I came across a shared link on Facebook to a very talented photographer named Nick Knight. I would describe him as very dedicated artist, it took him 10 years to develop this amazingly unique art. He takes the pieces and exposes them to heat and water during the printing process and creates a beautiful mixture of painting and photography.

This artist truly inspires me, I have always wanted to create something beautiful that no one had thought of before but it is definitely harder than it seems! As I said up above it takes dedication and it must have been through a lot of trial and error, so I guess I will just keep on trying until I find something like this, something I could be proud of.

- II -

I don't know about you, but when I think back to when I really started to learn about art I think about those dreaded classes of art history. At first, I couldn't help but fall asleep but as time went on I really started to enjoy learning about the different eras, the styles and just how different art was then compared to what it has become now. Every era, whether you liked the pieces or not, there was still some level of respect for what the artist was trying to express. Since this is 'ThePaintbrushFiles' why not kick off this blog with some classic paintings.

Neo-classicism, Romanticism, Baroque and Rococo are the eras in which a few of my favourites were born. There is something about the way they painted, they took such time and dedication to depict every emotion, every small detail and express it in the piece. Unlike us, they didn't have cameras to capture a specific moment or to re-live a memory so they would paint it.

 

Judith Slaying Holofernes

This oil on canvas by Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the first classic paintings that intrigued me. I know at first it can be a bit graphic, but when you look past that it is just beautiful. The angles, the colours, the shading, well pretty much everything! Not to mention that it is huge framing at 62.5 inches x 49.4 inches. That takes some serious talent and time.

So the first time I saw this piece, it was in my above mentioned art history class. The lights were off for the projector and I was just starting to fall asleep when my teacher put this up. Then instead of talking for hours (slight exaggeration), she asked us a question " Who do you think painted this? A Man or Woman? " Everyone started to comment aloud that they thought it was a man, that a woman could not possibly want to paint something so angry and graphic. So I decided to shout out " Woman " which I instantly regretted once I realized my teacher wanted some sort of explanation as to why I thought that way. I had some hunches but of course what did I know? I understood where everyone was coming from but I didn't agree, this painting had emotion behind it and the painting seemed focused and simple. As you can see, I was obviously right and she went on to explain the story behind the picture. 

 

  

  Judith Beheading Holofernes

The teacher then flipped over to show us this oil on canvas by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who had created a painting based on the same story. You can see the differences, but one of the major ones that I noticed and that she talked about was that it was less emotional. The proportions and angles weren't as accurate and it seemed almost dream-like, less realistic.

For the background story you can check out this link 

http://www.artemisia-gentileschi.com/judith1.html

Hopefully I didn't bore you with my post, I am definitely no expert, just somebody sharing a passionate hobby and some memories with whoever wants to read.

A few other favourites from those eras...

The Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse

The Swing by Jean Fragonard

On a side note, I really don't think that art will ever be this way again. It is so beautiful and elegant and I appreciate having had the opportunity to learn about it and study it, even if I hated it at the time.

Here are some more links the other paintings incase they peaked your interests.

http://www.artble.com/artists/john_william_waterhouse/paintings/the_lady_of_shalott/more_information/analysis

http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/rococo.html

- I -

At first, it seemed simple. I could even say that I thought it was going to be easy.

"You have to create and maintain a blog throughout the semester for 10% of your final grade" my teacher told the class, maybe not in those exact words but you get the idea. That is when it started, I (as usual) started to over think about what I could possibly blog about, sure it could be anything but that didn't help the situation for me. That meant an endless amount of options, and I enjoy a lot of things. Did I want to blog about something that I had to do research on? Something that I could use in the future? Take the opportunity to learn more about my industry? I had absolutely no idea, so I waited and waited until the following class the next week. 

All of my friends in class had come up with their ideas, and some had already even made their first post. Great, now I was behind. So I decided to just ask what they thought I should do, and TADA the idea came (not from me personally, but I'll take the credit) why not do something about art?

So here I am, my first blog post for 'The Paintbrush Files'.

Don't let the name fool you, even though I will probably talk about some paintings, I will also talk about a variety of different forms of art with a wide range of mediums.

I have loved art, since well.. I can remember. I used to be that weirdo kid in elementary school who would draw my teacher pictures (for fun). Then as the crazy high school years came I realized that art was not only a really awesome and easy credit, but that it was a lovely way to express yourself. Now here I am, still loving art but I have been dabbling in to the many different forms when I have the extra spare time in between school and work. Needless to say, I am actually excited to share this with someone, whether someone is really no one or just my teacher.

Hope you enjoy!