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"The CAT, World"
Interested in textile designing? Then this book is for you...
Digital Textile Design
Computers and the arts have been converging for some time now. The endless possibilities of the digital art world are constantly being merged into crafting, sewing, and fashion.
Digital Textile Design (Lawrence King Publishers) is a new primer that takes you to the world where technology and textiles intersect. The authors, Melanie Bowles and Ceri Isaac, wrote 23 easy-to-follow tutorials. They cover creating custom-printed fabric, making repeating patterns using Photoshop and Illustrator, building visual elements like photographic montages, and making fashion illustrations. Everything in the book is stunning to look at, and many of the projects are inspired directly by pieces from cutting-edge fashion collections. Designers are profiled, and the world of digital crafting is explored in-depth.
Many of the tutorials teach how to build visual images in Photoshop or Illustrator. Follow the screen caps of various tools and pallets in the software to make gingham, plaid, or complicated repeating patterns. Besides textiles, these skills and projects could easily be translated into other designs, like paper crafts or digital art.
An entire chapter is dedicated to fashion illustration, with absolutely beautiful inspirations. “Digital Textile Design” also contains complete explanations of different printing techniques. Bowles and Isaac explain ambitious methods, like rotary screen-printing and heat-transfer printing. They also discuss more accessible and traditional methods like woodblock printing and stenciling. For the serious artist working in a textile studio, the book has specific useful tips like a breakdown of the direct inkjet-printing process and a fascinating spread about the chemistry of applying ink to fiber.
This design book is beyond inspiring. Novice and expert artisans alike will be enabled by this book to take their art to the next level.
Source: Craftzine Blogpost by Brookelynn
A video lecture on Textile Design from the Glasgow School of Art
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Sex and Art
Titillating studies of the human form have been a potent force in art since long before Michaelangelo chiseled the buttocks on his David statue, and in the digital age this shows no sign of slowing – quite the reverse. Sexualized images abound in illustration and art, plenty of artists instinctively know this simple rule: people like sex, and they like to look at pictures that make them think about sex.
However, sex in art requires a delicate touch: explicit depictions of people’s sex bits rarely make for seductive viewing. Artists who want to create an erotic frisson in their images must work harder than that. Sexiness is a slippery, elusive quality: it often relies on gesture, suggestion and tone far more than on acres of flesh. Sex means different things for different people, just like taste. Sometimes sexiness needs no skin at all – one might create a highly suggestive, erotically charged atmosphere using just fruit and doughnuts.
When evoking sex, artists walk a tightrope: the very same things that might be sensual when used in one way can suddenly become obscene in a different context; an image that seems to one person to be a celebration of the human form can seem grossly exploitative and off-putting to another. To make matters more complicated, by their very nature sexual images are provocative and a tiny bit subversive – but where’s the line between provoking pleasure and outrage?
The key is often to be flirtatious rather than explicit, to intrigue rather than overwhelm.
Flirtation in images is pretty similar to flirting in real life: it’s a game of dare and subversion, a sense of humor and a mischievous streak often come in handy. For many artists, humor is a vital tool for softening the impact of raunchy images. The result is edgy, fun and thought-provoking – hints of nudity and/or S&M elements are anything but gratuitous.
There are two key tactics that artists many employ: subtlety and exaggeration. What makes an image sexy can be anything from the clothing to the pose. Sometimes less is more – suggestive can sometimes be sexier than a purely naked model; such as just hinting via powerful images of certain body parts such as lips and legs. Perhaps it's just being mindful of a subtle look or gesture.
Source: Digital Arts UK
Many artists believe that sexually explicit art needs to be beautiful to sell. Do YOU agree? Send us your thoughts.
A Copyright Myth:
"If I make up my own artwork, based on another work, my new work belongs to me."
FALSE. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called "derivative works" -- works based or derived from another copyrighted work -- is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you create using settings or exacting pieces from somebody else's work, you need to get permission to do so.
There is a major exception -- criticism and parody. The fair use provision says that if you want to make fun of something you don't need their permission to include it. This is not a loophole; you can't just take a non-parody and claim it is one on a technicality. The way "fair use" works is you may get sued for copyright infringement, you admit you did copy the work, but that your copying was in fair use. A subjective judgment on, among other things, your goals, is then made by the court.
Source: Templetons
"Virtual City - 16"
ArtBabble
ArtBabble.org is a new online community showcasing educational videos about art and artists. The National Gallery of Art (USA) is one of 23 international partners all working to produce a collection of interviews with artists and curators, original documentaries, and videos about art conservation and installation.
Check it out at ArtBabble
This page posted 27 September 2010
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