Photomontage

pho·to·mon·tage 

Noun A montage constructed from photographic images. The technique of constructing such a montage

Basically a Photomontage is where you combine lots of different photo's or pictures together to make a bigger picture. There are different kinds of photomontage now that we have developed editing software for computers, and it is possible to edit many photos together to make them look like one shot. But before we could do this photomontages were much more surreal looking and were used heavily by surrealist artists through the 20th century. 

This picture is a landscape made up of 16 different photos, manipulated using photoshop to make it look real, it is very clever.

Here is a comparison between a photomontage made by Herbert Bayer in 1932, and a photomontage that I found on the internet. As you can see the images in the first picture look like they have been cut out and placed together, where is the woman looks like that actually is her beard growing from her chin, with the use of computers it is much easier to create realistic looking photomontages, but they all stem from the works of surrealist artists such as Herbert Bayer and other artists working in the way around the same time. 

Hannah Hoch 

Hannah Hoch is very well known for her use of photomontage and is described as one of the originators of the art form. She was a German artist working who's work became well known around the early 1920's. She was part of the Dada movement in Berlin and worked closely with a lot of other artists involved in Dadaism. She was a strong feminist and a strong woman, which must have been very hard for her at that time. 

I like her work, although I do think a lot of the work being produced by artists working under dadaism was very similar, but I like this one in particular. Hoch is trying to challenge people's views on femininity by taking these pictures of legs and eyes and lips and other female body parts that are so well known for being considered feminine and beautiful, and used photomontage to create a weird, unusual and not so beautiful image. I really like the way she has changed the proportions to make it look even more unusual and surreal. The more research I do the more I am coming to like the work of surreal artists, but I find it so hard to work in this way myself.

I had to do a project on photomontage at college, we had to chose either a film/game or T.V series but I couldn't decide and I really wanted to do something I really enjoyed as I thought that then I would be able to design it better. I asked if I could do a music label, which I was aloud so I chose 'Bad Boy Records', a record label focusing on rap music in the 1990's.

This is the final poster I produced for the brief, in which I had to pretend I was producing a poster for the company themselves.

Illustrator tutorials.

I have recently become much more interested in the work of illustrators using programs such as illustrator and I have also been doing a little bit of messing around with the program myself. I recently purchased a new Macbook computer so that I could get better at using software in my spare time and also got the new Adobe Suit edition at the same time (CS6).
There are loads of tutorials on the internet but a lot of them are focusing on teaching you a specific thing, where as I wanted some simple beginners tutorials. Another good reason to get practicing with these tutorials is because the more that you do the faster you can do it, learning all the keyboard shortcuts had become useful and I have started remembering them as well which makes my life easier and speeds up my pace a little bit. I found a good blog with 50 good illustrator tutorials so I had a look down the list and picked one I fancied.

I like the look of this cute little strawberry and it didn't look too hard or too easy so I gave it a try and I really enjoyed it. It was harder than I thought it would be but I learned some good tips on how to create shadows which was useful. This is the image that I was trying to create...

And this is my end result. Not exactly the same but I was proud of myself and mine doesn't look bad, especially when half of the things I had to do I had never done before.

 50 Great Illustrator Tutorials You Should Try.

Click the link above if you are interested in trying some yourself.

Dadaism.

Dadaism first appeared durin and in the aftermath of World War 1. People were angry about the fact that over 10,000,000 people had been killed and some people didn't agree with standing about and watching it happen. Obviously it is hard for a group of citizen people to stop an event such as World War 1 but people wanted to make there opinions heard, and some people, starting in Barcelona, Zurich and New York and then also in Berlin, Cologne and Paris, began a movement they called Dada. 

They believed that the fact that people who were seen as 'sane' or 'rational' stood by and didn't say anything about so much life lost was the reason such things were able to happen and they made art that was the opposite, it was insane and irrational. It was completely unusual and unlike anything a lot of people had ever seen before. Especially calling its self art. Often it didn't have any meaning, just like the name Dada, which has no particular meaning. Dada in French is a childs rocking horse, in Slavac it means yes, yes. 

Famous works of Dada art are Meret Oppenheim's Fur Covered Teacup, Marcel DuChamp's bicycle wheel stool and Hannah Hoch's photomontages. 

Eddie Opara.

Born in London in 1972, Eddie Opara studied graphic design at the London College of Printing and Yale Uni- versity. He started working at a few firms after he graduated and then went on to building his own firm, The Map Office in 2005. In 2010 he went on to join New Yorks design firm pentagram, bringing all of his other Map Office designers with him, and being the first ever black partner of the company. Much more a designer than an artist, he works on varied types of project briefs such as brand identity, publications, environments, interactive installations, websites, user interfaces and software. 

Above are examples of a project that Opara did for UCLA Architecture and Urban Design. The first image is the Identity he created, the second some of the designs out of the catologue, and the third a snapshot of there website which he akso designed himself. His work stands out as clean and stylish. Nothing to bright and gairesh, much more sleek and interesting using unusual shapes and patterns. It is clear that looking through his work he has taken big influence from the swiss designers and the bauhaus that became big in the 20th centuary.

He started out his career based on his love for designing posters. In interviews he often talks about design with a purpose, that is shared and contributing to the greater good.

I think that he is a good designer to take notes from as he is very aware of his clients and the job as well as just making things look good. He talks about ‘design thinking’ where he views himself as a psycologist listen- ing to his clients wants and needs, and also picking up on other things about them and their personallity so that he can fully understand them and their needs. 

Pete Mckee.

Pete McKee was born in 1966. A cartoonist and illustrator from Sheffield his work holds emotion that can have you on the floor or reaching for the tissues. He ownes a small gallary in where he showcases his work in his hometown of Sheffield.
Recently he was commisioned by Warp Films, another well to do company from Sheffield, to re-create post- ers from some of their most famous films, for their 10th anniversary. Films included This is England, Dead Man's Shoes and Four Lions.

Pete’s work is heavily based on things relating to Sheffield, especially the arcutecture, the ‘hot spots’ and the music scene. His art is done in such a simple, one lined style yet he still manages to capture so much emotion in the works he produces. His work feels deadly serious, hitting home and relating to real lfe people, but also like something you might see on a childs t.v program. In Sheffield he has become a little bit of a local legend with his work being on sigt in many places including the side of buildings, but also he is becoming more and more recognised internationaly as his name is being wider spread.

This video was made by John Smith. I could tell you about it but I think part of the fun is working it out for yourself. I first watched it in the Liverpool Tate, and I think it could be enjoyed by anyone. 

Liverpool Tate.

I recently had to get an emergency passport after a washing machine disaster 2 weeks before my holiday. I had to take the day off college to go to Liverpool for my appointment so to make me feel like I hadn't completely sacked off a day of learning, I decided it would be a great opportunity to visit the Liverpool Tate and have a look around. It has been years since my last visit and I was interested to see what new things they had on show. 

This strangely painted 'banana dog' that I found outside the gallery defiantly wasn't there last time I visited. I couldn't find any information about what it was or who it had been made by but when I got home I did a little bit of research and found out that the original piece called "Superlambanana" was made by a Japanese artist called Taro Chiezo and was put up in Liverpool to signify the re-opening of the 'Liverpool Tate'. The original is much bigger than this one and still stands tall in Tithebarn Street, outside the Liverpool John Moores University. 

Here is a photo of the original thing. 

One entering the Liverpool Tate the first thing you are greeted by is this massive glass chandelier. Its slightly gaudy. But "if you've got it, flaunt it" and a chandelier is a chandelier at the end of the day, there's no point in pretending to be simplistic and minimal if your a chandelier as you wont be fooling anyone!

The piece is called Astrophotography…The Traditional Measure of Photographic Speed in Astronomy…by Siegfried Marx(1987) and was made by Cerith Wyn Evans in 2006 and it flashes under the control of a morse code, although I dont know morse code so I dont have any idea what it was saying. 

On the first floor they had a collection of sculptures or 3D objects by a variety of different artists. I couldn't get any pictures but one that really sticks in my head is three basketballs suspended in a glass case made to look like they were floating. I have found a picture on the internet to show you what I mean. The three balls are all signed by different famous basketball players and the tank has been completely filled with distilled water and a bit of sodium chloride reagent to give the balls the suspended effect. The piece is by an artist called Jeff Koons. I often find it hard to decide what I think art means, and this is another one that I am not sure about, so I looked it up and this is what I found. 

Quoted from the Tate's 'art and artists' section. 

"This is one of a series of tanks Koons made in 1985 for his first solo exhibition, entitledEquilibrium, at the New York gallery, International With Monuments. The tanks, glass vitrines supported on black steel stands, were made in three sizes, holding one, two or three professional basketballs. The Total Equilibrium Tanks are completely filled with distilled water and a small amount of sodium chloride reagent, to assist the hollow balls in remaining suspended in the centre of the liquid. In a second version, the 50/50 Tanks, only half the tank is filled with distilled water, with the result that the balls float half in and half out of the water. A group of objects cast in bronze, including a lifeboat and an aqualung, were exhibited at the same time. To complement the tanks, Koons framed a series of advertising posters created by the sportswear company Nike and hung them on the walls. These depict American basketball heroes wearing Nike trainers and other sportswear, holding and surrounded by basketballs. For Koons, the tanks were an ultimate state of being ... The Nike posters were the Sirens – the great deceivers, saying Go for it! I have achieved it. You can achieve it too! And the bronzes were the tools for Equilibrium that would kill you if you used them. So the underlying theme, really, was that death is the ultimate state of being. What was paralleling this message was that white middle-class kids have been using art the same way that other ethnic groups have been using basketball – for social mobility."

I am not really sure what I make of this description, and I dont know if I fully understand it, but I thought it would be best to share it so other people can try and understand it. 

On the second floor was something even more interesting. The floor was completely covered in sand and stones, and in the middle were wooden frames covered in rural looking printed material, it reminded me of something you might find in a little village in spain. Inside the wooden frames was an old black and white t.v playing 80's cookery programs. To the side of this construct was a cage with two tropical parrots in them, they were absolutely beautiful creatures to look at. The woman in the room with them spoke a lot about the birds and where they had come from but she didn't talk about what the room was for or if there was any meaning behind the weird t.v, but it made me laugh, and it made me feel happy, and that is a good enough thing for me. I did some research to try and find out more about the mystery room but I couldnt find much on the internet other than a parrot lovers forum talking about how the parrots were being kept unfairly so I cant give you any more information, but here are some pictures of the parrots that I got.

The third and final floor hosted a range of sculptures and painting again by a variety of different artists. I have photographed my favourite ones.

This piece was four cubes, all about waist height. Each face of each cube was covered in a mirror meaning when you stood in the middle of them you could see yourself about a million times. I like art like this because its interactive and that helps gain my interest and make me look at it and think about it more. I think the same can be said for graphic design. I have always been very interested in packaging. Packaging is one of the main methods of advertisement and interest in some products such as food packaging especially. From the research I have done and the projects I have done around this area, things being interactive really catches the buyers attention and its a good method of selling. Now, I dont know if the artist who produced this was thinking about that when he created this piece as art, in some cases, is different and isnt about selling yourself as much as the meaning behind it. The reason why you did it. But that isn't true of all artists and in the more recent years art has become much more a commodity, or something to sell, rather than something for meaning.

I don't know that much about this piece at all as I couldn't find the placard with the infomation, but I thought it looked cool, and I like the use of colours, so I thought I would include it anyway. 

Pictured here is a man lying on a bed of rubble and dust, in what looks like a middle eastern country, wearing a suit and a pair of high heels. I cant remember the name of the picture or who it was done by but I think its a good example of the rule of thirds in photography and I thought it was impressive.

This is a good example of vector art. This is a computer made image. Well actually it is a photograph of a computer made image with two suitcases in front of it, but the large canvas picture in the back of this photograph is a computer made image, using vectors. I have recently started doing illustrator tutorials that you can find on the internet and I really like this form of illustration. It is something that I can see myself wanting to put work into and get better at in the future and if I would ever like to specialise in a certain area of graphic design. 

The last one of the images I thought worth sharing is quite a disturbing one. Again, I didn't note down the name of the artist/photographer and I have scoured the Liverpool Tate's website and there collection of pieces displayed in the gallery. But this one doesn't seem to be listed, which is a shame as I am interested to know when the photograph was taken as that might give me some clue about why this was written, but I cant. However I still think it is a powerful thing to look at and I thought it should be shared.

Overall I thought the collection that they had on display was very interesting and I advise that people go !