Janet Schlarbaum Online

Art Mediums and Means Of Expression

October 11th, 2008. Published under Janet Schlarbaum. No Comments.

By: Jayesh Chudasama

‘What counts most is finding new ways to get the world down in paint on my own terms.’ Said Michelangelo.

Medium is not bar in art. We are already equipped with multiple art techniques and art mediums. When I talk about art; it is not limited to only watercolor painting or oil painting in terms of painting, only sketching or drawing with pencil in terms of sketch or making sculpture using stone or wood in terms of sculpture. It is more than that.

Artists use multiple methods, processes or means of expression to state their points. What would you imagine when it comes to painting? Multiple colors on canvas!! How is it to paint complete canvas with one shade without using any normal pigment or color?

There are such distinct art forms including Sand Painting, Clay or Ceramic Painting, Indian Mural art, Digital art, Fax Art, Crop Art or Coffee Painting.

Sand painting is made of sand, Clay or Ceramic Painting is made clay or ceramic, Indian Mural art is made of natural pigments and vegetable colors, crop art is made of seeds, Glass Painting and coffee painting is made of pure coffee.

Leaving canvas a side, artists also think of creating art on wall, vehicles, rock or stone, wood, bamboo or water. Mural art of Europe, Auto Art & Truck Painting in India, Bamboo art of Asia, Rock Art of Africa & Asia, Caves Paintings of Asia, Paper Art and art on wooden art such incredible art styles.

In terms of sculpture; Ice sculpture, Sand sculpture, Sculpture made out of throw away products and Megalithic Art (refers to the use of large stones as an artistic medium) are also addition to sculpture mediums.

Street Art (any art developed in public spaces) becomes nice art visit by everyone who passes from street. It defies rule of owning art by individual.

Promoting art is now no more limited to four wall closed galleries. To attract more visitors; exhibitions are now being held on plasma screen making digital show of any art. Open public show in gardens is good for sculptures and such giant work.

Tribal art such as Art of African Tribal Mask is distinct art medium to express historical saga and cultural beliefs.

Installation art is art that uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way we experience a particular space. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, computers and the internet.

Kite Art (a kite is a flying tethered man-made object) is famous art in Asian countries. From smaller to bigger flying objects are made to fly in sky. There is no other way to make sky beautiful then flying varieties of kits in sky.

Irrespective what medium artists use; they always try to pass their messages to the world these multiple forms of art. As Aristotle said – ‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.’

Digital Art Made Easy

September 10th, 2008. Published under Janet Schlarbaum, Janet Schlarbaum Articles. No Comments.

By: Kenneth C. Hoffman
Everybody who likes to take pictures would love to have some of them enlarged and framed for their walls. Its very presence would give you instant satisfaction and the confidence that you, do have an artistic bone in your body after all. A casual perusal of you snapshots, however, might lead you to believe that not one of these snapshots are good enough for the wall. Now, just for a moment, make believe that you could change anything you don’t like about a picture of yours and that you could match that image to the image in your mind. You can - with the help of a scanner and a photo enhancement program. Of course, if you have a digital camera, you don’t even need a scanner.

There are four basic levels of photo software. Freebee programs meant only to crop, change the color balance, and fix red eye in your pictures. A middle quality program uses a macro to change shapes, improve sharpness, and offer some filters for creating a few special effects, like crude oil paintings or black and white charcoal effects. The next step up often will cost $30.00 to $50.00, but will include all the basic tools you need to create a proud-to-display masterpiece. Micrografx (now Corel) Picture Publisher presents six sizes of paint brushes, an air brush, pastel chalks and colored pencils. You can change the size of your picture, crop it any way you want, and take advantage of dozens of filters which simulate real art textures like water color on parchment paper, palette knife paintings, etc. Turn white skies into blue skies with fleecy clouds, soften some of Grandma’s wrinkles or remove a garbage can from an otherwise perfect picture. A cloning tool permits the addition of outside elements, skin retouching, background cleaning and the filling in of empty spaces. A magic cropping knife can isolate a subject, move it onto another background and let you move the objects in your picture around at will, like decoppage, creating a whole new world of graphic manipulation.

The top of the line is Adobe Photoshop and its competitors. This program is considered professional software, costing $300 to $700. The basic tools are the same, but many more levels of manipulation are offered. The dozens of filter you used with Picture Publisher have multiplied but keep in mind that dozens of filters and effects can still be utilized by both programs through plug-in filter software. A two week course is recommended in order to learn how to use the Adobe program effectively while the Picture Publisher help boxes are considered sufficient instruction for most people.

Your finished artistic creations can be saved in computer albums against the time you need a nice graphic for decorating an article or for an artistic card. They can be put on tee shires, mugs, calendars, Holiday Cards, stationary, post cards and business cards.
Wall enlargements up to 13 x 19 are easily produce with a Hewlett Packard 1220 Deskjet printer or an Epson printer. Both are available with archival inks lasting over 60 years without fading. But the most of the enjoyment comes from the creating!