Wk4: Drawing

This Week

1. From Last Week: Fonts!
2. Activity: Drawing (& painting next week)
3. Possible meetup @Venice Beach Art Walls – Sat June 21
4. Discussion Groups: what our Organizers should do next! (Ricki, Amanda, Heather, Sami, Andrew, Albert)

Trajan the Movie Font

It seems that a number of you were interested in the typography story, the idea of typography crossing so many centuries of time, and at least in my own group some didn’t even realize that somebody out there like Carol Twombly actually gets paid to design typefaces! Twombly’s former employer, Adobe Systems in Mountain View, California, is, as some of you may know, a very large corporation. But there are also independent type designers and smaller type design houses. Here’s that video about Trajan the Movie Font that I mentioned in last week’s video but didn’t get a chance to show:

You Can Read My Neutraface

As long as we’re taking a moment to geek-out on fonts, I have to share my favorite font video with you! Speaking of those more medium-sized type “foundries”: type used to be poured from molten lead, so type manufacturers were called foundries, even though they’re made of pixels and Bézier curves today, they’re still sometimes called foundries. One cool medium-sized foundry is House Industries in Deleware. Just as Carol Twombly reached back a couple of millennia to create Trajan, so the designers at House Industries reached back a few decades to create a font called Neutraface, based on the architectural lettering of legendary Southern California architect Richard Neutra.

I won’t go total dweeb on you and go into detail on why peeps find Neutra’s architecture or House’s Neutraface font so awesome, I’ll just share the video. Some cool Portland area graphic designers who love Neutraface and Lady Gaga videos had some fun and showed off their skills at the same time. The video is probably funnier if you know all the graphic design geek references, but you guys will probably enjoy it even without them:

Art History: The Middle Ages:

Art Talk #4 – The Middle Ages from Glenn Zucman on Vimeo.

Artist OTW: Joseph Cornell:

Joseph Cornell from Glenn Zucman on Vimeo.

Activity: Drawing

This week we start a 2-week Drawing & Painting experience. Drawing & Painting might be what many of you 1st think of when someone says “Art.” But we’re updating it a bit by intersecting these very traditional media with the urban culture of street art.

• Drawing Details Here – for this week!
• Painting Details here – for next week!

And Next Week…

We’re going to Draw our name in Bubble Letters this week. You can work in color or black-and-white as you prefer. But either way, next week you’ll paint your name with spray paint in at least 2 colors. If you work by yourself then you’ll need 2 cans of spray paint. If you have a chance to meetup with an Art110 classmate, then you can just bring 1 can each and share paint. You can paint anyplace that’s legal. A piece of cardboard or plywood in your back yard is fine. Fine, but maybe just a little bit boring. You could have a lot more fun at the Venice Beach Legal Art Walls. I know most of you hate to drive, so let me sweeten the pot a little: you can paint anywhere that’s legal, but if you go to the Venice Art Walls, I’ll give you +25 of EC.

Venice Beach?

The Art Walls are only open Sat & Sun from 10am to 1/2 hour before sunset. Super-close parking is $15. Far parking on the street is free. Since it’s due on Sunday the 29th, you can go next weekend, the 28th or 29th. Or you could go early, and do it this weekend the 21st or 22nd. I wanted to go hangout on the 28th just in case any of you wanted to come say Hi! Unfortunately I’ve got another commitment on the 28th, so instead I’ll go hangout at the Venice Art Walls THIS Saturday, June 21st from 10am to Noon. Sketching your name will be pretty quick, so you could totally go to Venice this weekend if you want to. If you do, then you’ll just have next week’s activity done already.

Meetups

I’ve read everyone’s posts from last week and it seems like we’ve had a lot of different results with the meetups. Some of you had really awesome, fun, engaging chats with your classmates. But others had scheduling frustrations or other problems. I’ve generated this week’s lists of groups and they’re on the Group Discussion Page. They’ll work mostly the same as before, but with a couple of small changes that I hope will make connecting easier and better.

• As you’ll see on the discussion page, I’ve appointed 1 person in each group as the organizer. I think in the past you sort of waited for the other person to move first. Now we’ll appoint a first mover.
• My group last week found Doodle pretty helpful to use. In our case the actual checkbox part didn’t totally work, but the comment feature turned out to be a great discussion board for us to get down to a time as you can see here So each Group Organizer should not later than Tuesday night start up a Doodle form and then use Summer BeachBoard to send the URL for that form out to your groupmates. Starting by Tuesday should give every one more time to pick a time and get organized.
• When discussion time comes, the Group Organizer can start a Google Video Hangout, get the Share URL and paste it as a comment in your Doodle page, and then everyone can just go there, click on the link, and be in the group discussion.

I think this should make it a bit easier and more painless. Let me know of any problems anyone has or any help anyone needs.

If you can make it over to the Venice Beach Legal Art Walls on Saturday June 21st, it’ll be nice to meet you!

Have a fun week!

— Glenn

Your Vlogs!

You guys made wonderful vlogs last week! There’s more nice ones than I can possibly fit on a page, but here’s a few:

Drew Jimenez

In just 37 seconds Drew manages to tell us so much about himself! What he’s working on, what he’s studying, what his plans and dreams are. His style is very easy going yet I think we can feel his depth at the same time.

Emily Alpaugh

Well, aside from doing a very nice, engaging vlog, Emily shares the awesome news that she’ll be studying abroad next semester at the University of Granada in Spain! It’d be so great if some of you can keep in touch with Emily after Art110 and now that we’re such pros as Google Hangouts maybe you can video hangout next semester with your CSULB classmate on another continent! 🙂

Heather Michelle Bencivengo

Can anyone possibly doubt that Heather had fun making this video?? 🙂

Jennifer Solis

Jenn’s really passionate about her health & lifestyle blog which she’s had running for a lot longer than Art110, however this is her 1st ever vlog. I think she does a really nice job of bringing us into her world and sharing her vision with us.

Juston Kace

I don’t necessarily recommend editing and music for your vlogs. They’re mostly meant to be short very eye-contact heavy Hi, it’s me! pieces. But as you’re about to see, in Juston’s vlog he uses editing and music to really have a big impact. Oh, and be sure to visit his “real” website. He’s got all kinds of content there including some awesome t-shirts for sale! I just bought one and will do a selfie with it when it arrives!

Ricki Cline

Here’s a very direct, engaged 44 seconds from Ricki. She presents herself as smart yet accessible. She mentions “converting” this art website to her passion, aerospace, down the road. I know you all are pretty busy this summer, but I definitely encourage Ricki and all of you not to wait, and to make Your website Yours now!

Siraj Aboulhosn

Siraj went just a little bit longer than most of you. His vlog comes in at 2:40. With the extra time he really gets the chance to connect with us. He has an easy and accessible style but he clearly knows what he’s talking about. It’s impressive that his monologue to us manages to feel like a dialog with us. As far as the Brazil thing, IDK, what do you guys think?

No, I’m not going to the World Cup

I hate to be a buzzkill on Siraj’s Brazil dreams, but speaking of compelling vlogs, I have to share this one from CSULB Film & Electronic Arts graduate Carla Dauden: