Montrell Art 110

      This semester in art has been a great eye opening experience. Before taking this class I thought that it was going to be like an art class I took in high school. I thought I was going to just be drawing and completing projects. This class was able to educated me on what art really is by learning it, but even more by doing it which was the best thing about taking this class. I was able to compare art to what I wanted to do in my actually life. It made me think about what I am doing with my life and If I am happy with it. I use to think that art was just about painting and drawing, but there is much more to it. Art is a way of expressing how you feel. Art could be about a bigger issue that is happening around the world and needs to be heard. Art could literally be anything that a person sees as art, which I find that to be a wonderful meaning of art.

      Before starting Art 110, I’ve never been to the art exhibits on campus. I didn’t even know where it was located, but Art 110 gave me that opportunity to attend these exhibits. I got the chance to meet many different artist who stories where so inspiring. I got to see that art has many different backgrounds and somehow they could all relate to one another. These SOA conversations I was having gave me a chance to learn much about who the artist truly were and why they chose to go a certain route with there art piece. I enjoyed hearing their stories then going back to look at their artwork because it made me see things I didn’t see or think of in a certain way before. That’s the amazing thing about art, it could have many different ways of looking at it and interpreting. When looking at art pieces it all comes down to if the person could really relate to it, because I know with me I went towards more art pieces that were related to my life for example, the Fuerza: A Duo Painting Exhibition discussing the women who grew up in South Central LA was relatable to me because I was raised over there. Another exhibit I found to be interesting and relate about is the Queer exhibit because me being a gay male, which is what’s very important about me because it is who I am. That exhibit was relatable too because I’ve been in the gay scene before and know how the nightclubs and gay lifestyle is.

        When looking into art with a deeper meaning and relating it to my major, I could see me finding art within my major. I am a Communication Studies major. Within my major I tend to do a lot of projects where I have to create presentations to show to my fellow classmates. These presentations I take my time with and make sure I do the best I can by adding images, different fonts, and etc. Also I find it to be art with the way I explain or present the topic I’m going to be talking about. Having the right tone could either make or break a presentation and I learned about that a lot during my Communication 305 class. Within Communication I can get jobs like Public Relations or Marketing. Both of these career choices has a lot to do with being the face of the company and creating this image. By being the face of the company I have a chance to express through advertising of what I want the public eye to see and think of the company I would be working for, which I think is great.

             Overall, Art 110 was one of the best classes I have taken since attending Long Beach. The way the course was taught made me be able to explore how I see art in my own eyes not being just taught it like most professors. I was able to see other artist art pieces come to life and be able to understand where they got the idea to create certain pieces, which I enjoyed and some of them I will remember because I related to them the most. Art is surrounding us everywhere we go, it just all depends on what we as a individual think art is. Art is within my Communication Studies Major. When it comes to creating projects I use art all the time. I will use art a lot within my future because when it come to creating that’s a part of art and it is use in Public Relations and Marketing. This class was an eye opener and I now look at art in a completely different way then I did before taking this class

In this environmental portrait I was going for a quick insight of what my life is within the job I do on the daily. I wanted to viewers to get how happy I was with what I was doing just by looking at the picture. I think I was quite successful at creating the image I wanted to give to the viewers by making sure I smiled in the picture and incorporated enough items showing the field of work I was in. When it comes down to me doing things differently for next time , I would problem zoom out a little further to get more of the area that I was in. I would also probably add more coffee items around me that way the views could get a sense of what coffee or tea I make for my job. Over all I did enjoy this activity it made me realized the aspects I like most about my job and how much I love it.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA a boy name Ray grew up in this urban community known as the Jordan Downs. In grade school he attended 102nd street school. Ray was always different from the rest of the kids because he was very mature for his age and had a very strong mindset. He discovered that he was really into different colors and patterns. He loved colors and patterns a lot that he showed it through his clothing. Ray would wear  bright Hawaiian shirts ranging from blue, red, and yellow. These shirts he wore had several prints on them  from retro cars to palm trees. Ray clothes stood out where a person would be able to see him from a mile away. The reason Ray loved wearing these bright color is because it expressed who he truly was and made him happy.

       As life progressed Ray started to figure out the different activities he enjoyed doing and it match with how crazy his fashion was.lining up with the colors and patterns. Ray love to go on random adventures and not know what the outcome was going to be like. He dreamed of places like going sky or cliff jumping because he lived by “Live Life with Thrill”. Ray looked up a lot to his father and got a lot of inspiration on how to live his life because he believe that his dad was a free spirit. Ray also notice that his dad favorite color was blue and even thought Ray love multiple colors and being bright when it came down to him choosing his ultimate favorite color he knew it was blue. just like his father.

        Ray felt that the color blue symbolized multiple meanings. Blue symbolized depth and stability. The color represent loyalty, wisdom, intelligence, and confidence. These are some of the traits Ray had discover about him self growing up as a kid being different and not scared to express hime self to others. Ray did not care about what people would say about him because he was confident enough to stand up for what he believe made him happy and what was right “Being True to Yourself”. Ray felt that Blue represented something powerful within men and they are only a few who would be in the “Blue Men” club. Ray knew that his father was a blue man and that Ray himself is becoming one because of how he was growing up and the color blue is somehow starting to take over his life. 

         Moving forward, once Ray reached his middle age years he was obsess with the color blue. His obsession had gotta so big that he painted his entire house blue reminding him of the ocean and peace. When walking into his house every item in the house was of some sort of blue ranging from the couch, bed, kitchen, and etc.Ray went from loving multiple colors to hearing his calling being known as loving the color blue. Deep down inside blue represented who Ray was as a person and so does many other men around the world. Blue is a way of expressing oneself and not everyone could be in the “Blue Men” club. From the day when Ray discover that blue was special to him til now he has not stop wearing blue. Once a blue man, always a blue man until death.

The Drinking and Drawing activity started off being a little rough because I did not know how I wanted to start my drawings, but the more I got into it the funnier it became. It was pretty frustrating because we weren’t able to erase what we messed up on so I had to find art within my flaws. I do like to draw when I’m being told too, but I do just draw for a hobby. When drawing I enjoyed being outside taking in the environment. I do need feel that if I were to draw for 100 hours or even up to 1,000 hours I could become a better drawer because I’ll start betting my craft by focusing on the little details and so on. My major is Communications and I could use sketching if I were to turn to Public Relations or if I were to work for a company and turn to marketing when working on projects how I would want something to look.

This was my first time ever doing graffiti so this was a great experience for me. It was very different. From the start I had to search up how to do bubble letters because I haven’t write like that. At first it was hard to draw out my nickname but after a while I got us to it. Moving forward when starting to graffiti it was hard for me to stay in the line because my spray paint kept going out side of the lines and splashing in a way. I realized that I need to spray paint further away from where I’m applying it to. I think when graffitiing it is beast to do it on the wall or a larger object because it was hard to do in on a cardboard box. After writing and graffitiing my name I decided I wanted to get more creative and spray paint smiley faces, and creepy faces. Drawing the face was more easier for me because I felt that I had more freedom when doing that and when drawing my name it was hard because I had to stay within the lines I had drew before. Overall this was an awesome experience and I now know how hard it is to graffiti and appreciate the artist who take the time to actually do this as a hobby. 

When doing this finger paint project I enjoyed the idea of being free while doing art. In my mind while doing this project I wanted to do a famous art piece with a mordern twist. I incorporated lot of bright colors while mixing blues and reds to create dark purple, while using yellow and green to create blue and later on turning into brown with orange. This experience was not a hard one for me when thinking of having the idea to paint with no subject. Once I started to paint everything else just flowed. I was very inspired when I decided to rub the painting all together and splattering paint all over it creating what I felt like a master piece. Compared to other painting I have seen in my life time, the paintings have to be neat and well organized. The painting have straight or very fine lines when looking at the finish piece it comes together as one. With my painting you could see what I was going for, but then again it makes the viewer think twice. Overall, I enjoyed this project and the the outcome of it.