I choose a picture of Biggie Smalls and Tupac as my starting piece. It is a picture of them while they were still friend, before they got ‘beef’ and became enemies. It is a pretty well known picture that has been shown countless time on VH1 and MTV. The picture is very significant, especially in hip hop, because it shows two young rappers who were best of friends, but tragically both lost their lives over an argument that divided the rap nation. Biggie was from the east, and Tupac was from the west and they were at the center of east coast-west cost rap war.
When I started with the picture I knew I wanted to tell a story. I wanted to make a collage like our class did during the semester. I don’t like clutter so I wanted it to be clean but there was such an in depth story to tell choosing what to include would be difficult. I wanted to show what their relationship started as, what drew them apart, and what was a result of their ‘beef’.
My first draft of the collage was pretty simple. Between the two was a broken heart to show they there friendship fell apart. On the corners I showed which coast each of them represented. Besides that there was just red arrows pointing toward the corners. When I showed my roommates they thought it was too boring and needed more explanation of what went on between the two. I agreed with them.
I decided to add more so I added two pictures at the bottom to show that both of them had died young and violently. The one under Tupac is a popular mural in Oakland that is well known in the hip-hop world. The words “live my the gun… die by the gun’ explain very well what happened to Tupac, as he was gunned down in LA in 1996. Under Biggie is a simpler picture that just says “RIP Notorious B.I.G.”. This also shows that Biggie had died; as he was gunned down also in LA just a year after Tupac was. I removed the Red arrows because I thought they were kind of pointless and took too much attention away from the more important part of the collage. Finally I added the saying ‘Whets beef?’ to show that they died over stupid ideas and an unneeded hip-hop rivalry that separated the world of hip-hop into two coasts.
A philosophy that could go with my collage is truth. What really happened between these two young rap starts? There are many rumors about why they first had ‘beef’ but the real truth is not known. Also both of their murders are still unsolved. The truth behind these two is still very blurry and will probably never truly come out for sure. In the end the tale of Biggie and Tupac should serve as a lesson for who love hip hop that it is not worth dying over a dis song or stupid differences. I believe my collage shows this. The background picture is where they started, and in the end, as my college tries to show, they both lost their lives tragically.

First draft comments:
Alex: Too bland, I wanna know more, it should show what happened two them, it should show tell more of a story. I do like the broken heart in the middle.

Matti: I like th broken heart. I don’t like the arrows. Add some words to give the viewer some hints

Anna: The arrows seem cheesy, Add some guns and bullets. Some lyrics on the sside might be cool to show that they dissed eachother in rap songs.

Final (original unaltered picture)

I choose to look at the philosophy of truth. In my slide show I used two pictures from New England sports moments and two pictures from other real world realities. I wanted to show sports as an ultimate form of truth. In sports like football and baseball, by the end of the game there is an absolute winner. There is not a question of who won a game because it can be easily measured in the score. The doesn’t mean the best team won however, it just means that on that day one team won and one team lost. No one can argue against that reality. The other two pictures are of icebergs in Antarctica and the New York Stock Exchange. Both of them are faced with much debate about how real they both are. Many believe that global warming is a planet threatening issue and other think it is not the emergency many assume it to be. The stock market is controversial especially in the last 6 months or so with the economic downturn. Many think the capitalist fundamentals this country is run on are faulty and not true, while other believe it is a source of innovation and competition.
Truth to me is very individual in the sense that what one may think is true, another may find to be non-sense. Some things, like sports, may be more concrete and absolute when it comes to judgments of truth. Other things are seen from numerous sides, which makes finding an absolute truth or judgment almost impossible.
What is most important about truth is thinking for ones self. When an individual thinks for him or herself and is free to make decisions then there judgment and results are true to them. Being true to yourself is what truth really is.

Pimp, hack and mod all mean change, but have different uses. I would pimp out my car but i wouldnt hack out might car. I might mod my cloths but i wouldnt hack them either. Hack has a more negative tone as in hacking into a computer and changing its programs. Pimp has a positive tone. When you pimp something you make it cooler and more styling. Its normal to pimp a car or pimp out my crib. Mod seems to be a more middle of the road term and could swing either way

The comic strip, “The Adventures of Armlessness”, is about a big scary monster who struggles to do every day practices. In this case Armlessness cannot drink his cranberry juice because he cannot pick up the glass due to his lack of arms. Eventually a friendly straw salesmen saves the day and shows how helpful a straw could be to a monster without arms.
The comic strip’s main point is to show that even big and intimidating monsters, like Armlessness, have problems and need help sometimes. The comic starts and Armlessness is staring blankly at his glass of cranberry juice on the table. He is helpless and his blank expression shows it. Perhaps he has lived a life in such solitude, due to his terrifying nature, and doesn’t often feel so helpless and unable to complete such simple tasks. In the window of the first slide is a goofy looking fellow holding a straw as if it is the answer to all the world’s problems, at least the answer to all of Armlessness’s problems. In the second slide the straw salesmen presents the straw to Armlessness, which at first confuses him as his faces reveals. Finally after the Armlessness gets the hang of the straw, he realizes that this straw salesman has helped him and he is no longer unable to drink his cranberry juice.
This comic strip represents the social maturity of Armlessness. His facial expressions change from sad, to confused, and end with an ear to ear smile. For the first time in Armlessness’s life he was helped by a stranger and has felt like someone cared about his happiness.

In this comic, a kid just organized all the magnet letter in alphabetical order. He walked away from the fridge expressing his joy of such an organized bunch of refrigerator magnet letters. After he is gone his friend shuffles the letters around. When the first kid comes back he is all distraught and alphabetizes all the magnet letters again. This is clearly a comic about a boy, who is pretty OCD about his refrigerator magnet letters, and his friend who like to play with his emotions. I thought this was a funny comic because it is so dry and simple. It is also a level of art i can appreciate because i too draw in stick figure.

My revised picture has some knew pop to it i feel like. I decided to have some rays of sun shine be at the top to show optimism. I also wanted to connect the four leaders and i did so with a bright green dotted line. In this picture i wanted to show while strength in number is strong, as individuals we can make a difference too.

This picture is of an older and aged bicycle with the seat covered by a thick swarm of bees. The photo seems to be taken decades ago due to the older looking bike, older looking street it’s on, and that it is a black and white photo. The photo focuses mainly on the bicycle seat which is completely covered in hundreds of smarming bees. The bees cover the entirety of the seat so much that the color and texture of the seat are unknown. The shape of the seat it still evident, however the bees make it tough to tell how thick and how wide the seat actually is. There are bees flying all around the seat and even under the seat on the bike’s frame and on the back tire. The bike it standing up and is positioned on the road a few feet from the brick side walk. Behind the bike looks to be a shop with a window display, but the picture doesn’t allow this to be known for sure.
This picture is simple and has one main focus, the bees on the bicycle seat. The picture zooms in on the bee covered bicycle seat so much that it demands the most attention. All other aspect of the scene, like the store, the side walk, and the rest of the bike, are left up to the imagination. The viewer doesn’t know who owns the bike, where the bike is, what store it is in front of, or why there are bees all over the seat. The photographer obviously wants the main point of the picture to be the bees covering the seat completely as if it was their bike.
This picture shows the power of teamwork. The bees have covered the bike seat so completely that most people would not go near this bike seat, let alone attempt to hop on to ride it. One bee on the bike seat would do nothing and could easily be scared away, but hundreds of bees swarming the bike seat would scare most people enough to stay away from the bike. The swarm of bees found this bicycle and decided that it was theirs and they joined together to declare their ownership of the bike. As an individual bee, occupying this bike would be impossible. But as a powerful and terrifying swarm of hundreds, they easily took this bike and the owner is now scared to take it back. When individuals join forces to become one single power, with one single goal, much more is possible. As individuals we are limited, but as a single collective overpowering presence, we can do anything.

Photo shop first try

This is a photo of a mountain. We whited out the sky. We used filter (mosaic tile) on the town below the mountain. We inserted our mascot, which is the little mermaid into the picture. We Cropped and rotated the picture to make it look like Arielle is sledding down the mountain. Photo shop is pretty dope. I was surprised at all the cool tools it used. My favorite is the wand tool.

This is my first drawing. It the firide and i scan it useing the KIC scan.

Shades and Monsters

These are three of monsters that i drew. I used a sharpie to outline some scales and make some parts and lines of the monsters more defined. I hope you like!

Extacis

Matthew Kiley
First Draft


Nick Sevigney’s display in the gallery at Drayper and Maynard is composed of several ceramic pieces, a few sketches, and a book filled with scribbles and brainstorms.
The ceramic works of art are primarily composed of winding pipes links together dozens of bowls, drains, containers and spouts. On the wall next to the biggest ceramic piece are two large pieces of paper with messy scribbles filling almost every inch of the sheets. The scribbles resemble the shapes and ideas of the ceramic pieces and are obviously the beginnings of the whole display. Tucked away at the end of the display is a small black book opened to a page with several pages marked. In the book are more scribbles written with a thin black pen that also resemble the ceramic pipe and bowl pieces. All the ceramic art, the large scribble filled construction paper, and little black book fit together because they are related with the same ideas and the same purpose.
The five three dimensional ceramic pieces are all different but all have used the same principles and ideas in their design. They are medium sizes and could fit in a 3 foot by 3-foot box. The designs are all very similar. The fundamentals of all the pieces are combinations of pipes linking into different containers, drains, and spouts. It seems that if water were to go through a pipe it come full circle going through all the pipes and bowls. The colors used are all dull and the art looks aged. The pipes twirl around different pipes and bowls and around cliffs but still link with other pipes. The organized chaos of the ceramic pieces make the art that much more creative in design. There retro looking drainage systems, that seems to be from the future.

Pictue Blog

I didnt know what kind of pcture to use so i went to goggle and just started typing in words. I found this picture of lions walking down the road somewhere in Cali. I dont know the whole story, but i think that makes it better. Just imagine seeing wild lions on the road. pretty rad huh?

The First Blog

So i had my first class of Creativity and the Visual World today. It was actually my first class in D&m as well. D&M seems pretty cool so far; it has an artsy feel to it. I took this class because it was a direction course and i wanted a break from all my business classes. Honestly I can't draw stick figures as well as a three year old so im not to sure how great my art will be, but ill give it a go.

So far the class is off to a good start. I was pumped when Prof. Stoermer mentioned comic book beacse im a pretty big fan. I really like the spider man movies and the Dark Night might be my favorite movie in the last decade. That would be pretty awesome if we did a lot of work with comic books. The idea of a blog sounds pretty good too and weel see how this works out.

Till next time folks