Art History has been a very fun class so far. We have crammed 35,000 years of art into 4 weeks! I know sounds it impossible and it really is, but I have loved every day of class. We get to look at all different forms of art that are considered very important from Prehistoric to modern art. Some I completely enjoy and some I look at and say “WHY?” We started off with Prehistoric cave drawings and my teacher recommended this really cool Documentary on Netflix called Cave of Forgotten Dreams which is this awesome movie about these French explorers that found the oldest known artwork in history and they found it in 1995 in the south of France. Worth watching as it is very interesting. We then moved through the ages stopping at the Egyptian, Mediaeval, Renaissance, and Bourque time periods. All these time periods had some very interesting works. It’s not until we get into the modern art time period when I start to question what “art” really is. for example:

Marcel Duchamp “Fountain”

This is considered “Art” and is displayed in many different museums. So basically this artist in 1917 decided to be avant-garde or just a Smart-A$$ (not sure which) and submitted this Urinal to the Society of Independent Artists but was rejected, yet this piece has since become considered a work of art. All he did was sign his name to it, so if you are looking at it, like I did, wondering where the “Art” aspect of it is, stop looking!

Then we did get to my favorite artist…

Salvador Dalí

Growing up in St. Petersburg, FL my whole life I was blessed to have the Salvador Dalí Museum right in downtown St. Pete and have visited many times. He was a Surrealist painter who had such a crazy yet amazing mind. Every time I do research on him I learn something new about him or find a piece he did that I hadn’t seen before. Nothing beats going to his museum in person and seeing his most famous pieces right in front of you. I could spend hours there staring at each piece and finding something new each time to study.

These are just a few of his pieces that I find interesting.

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We did get to do a field trip this month in Art History class. We got to go to the Orlando Museum of Art

I had a great time here and we even got to do a scavenger hunt for the museum. They gave us a sheet with clues on it and we had to find 14 different art pieces based on the clues and write down the name of the piece and the artist. I enjoyed seeing all different genres of art that was on display but we had to pick out our favorite and write a paper about the artist. I had a strong liking to a Japanese artist named Honda Syoryu who does basket weaving art. I know that sounds a little boring, but take a look at these. Very amazing!

One of the best parts of the Art History class is we have finally gotten into using our PhotoShop and making some art. Now I understand most people haven’t used PhotoShop, but I have been self-taught so I was a little past most of the students in class and they had to have us do very simple projects to get used to it. I spent most of my time just helping the students seated around me making sure they knew where things were and were on the same page as everyone else. The first was our cave painting. We had to simulate a cave painting using PhotoShop to give the impression of it being a painting that was found and here is mine.

I choose to draw a Rhino for many different reasons. One as you may or may not know the Rhino is one of my favorite animals. Second I was surprised to find out that the prehistoric man drew rhinos in the caves in southern France. So this was my simple Rhino cave drawing I did.

Then we got to do a Tiled Mosaic painting from an image we found online. You guessed it… I did a Rhino again!

BEFORE

AFTER

So I know this has been a lot and I will try to keep you updated on a more regular basis so there isn’t a ton of stuff to tell you, but things get pretty crazy around Full Sail. I am already looking forward to my next class 3D Fundamentals of Art 1 which I really hope is when I get my Wacom Tablet for drawing. Thanks for reading about my past few weeks.