SSR: Nikos Gyftakis

Nikos Gyftakis is a Greek artist who created a several swirl self-portraits made out of oil pastels during 2004 and 2005. Nikos studied fine arts at Aristotle University and was well prepared to begin a career of his own. Not only does he paint really cool self-portraits, but he was also involved in fashion and design. He made many works for movies and fashion shows.

This self-portrait of Nikos Gyftakis is my favorite. I really like the colors that he uses. It represents the emotions that the image has to offer. In this particular piece, he is expressing sadness and sorrow. It seems like he is asking for forgiveness to like Jesus or something.  I like that it has a lot of texture because it makes the painting pop out.

I wish that I could do something like this. It kind of reminds me of the portrait that I did of my dad a while back. Only I did mine in pencil instead of color. Oil pastels are very hard to work with. If you mess up, you can’t erase it or paint over it. It is also very messy and when you try to blend, you could end up peeling the pastel off.  Because this is a challenging thing to do and takes a lot of time, not many people are up for it. I would rather draw flowers in pastels because they do not have as many details as a face.

Book Review

Mendi Designs by Marty Noble, published in 2004, is a book of traditional Henna body art. This book is for any person interested at looking at many types of Henna art work.

Mendi is a traditional Indian type of Henna body art. Mendi and Henna can also be found in the Middle East. These designs are applied only on special occasions such as weddings. In a wedding, both the bride and the groom are decorated. Sometimes some oft eh guests have it as well.

Mendi art is like a temporary tattoo. They only tend to last for a couple of weeks. Mendi is made from Henna leafs and tea, coffee, wine, sugar, syrup, egg, yogurt, tamarind, fenugreek seeds, cloves or titanium powder.

In this book, you will find many pages filled with very creative Henna. Although it is not a how to book, it is still grate because it simply is just fun to look at. If you are willing to give Henna a try, I would highly recommend this book.  

Passion Post: Creepy Smiles

We all have met that one person who has the most creepiest smiles. They look down on us as they open their eyes super wide and only show their top set of teeth when they smile. Although all of these pictures are of little kids eating food, they are still super creepy!! The little girl on the top left corner is looking at her sandwich like she’s about to eat it in one bite! What the quack! How desperate is she to eat that darn jelly sandwich? And the little boy on the bottom right, his smile is like threatening! I just want to say, little boy no one is going to steal your darn can of Pork Beans! Another type of creepy smiles are the ones when people second chin it and kind of tilt their heads down and smile. That's super creepy.  I remember when I was in Kindergarten; I had this teacher who had a creepy smile. I was really young back in the day and I can still remember her nasty smile! I was already a timid child since I had just moved to America in Kindergarten and I didn’t know English and this teacher here made it worse trying to scare me with her nasty yellow teeth. This one time she had lip stick on the teeth. I notice because she had a creepy smile so when she smiled at me I saw it and I laughed. She didn’t know why I was laughing she probably thought she was being funny or something. I would have told her but I didn’t know how to. Anyways, the point is that there are those people who have the creepiest smiles that you just never forget about them, like my Kindergarten teacher. They scar you for life. Who knew that smiles 

Creative Post about coffee

Coffee is my favorite thing to drink in the mornings
 It helps me stay awake for at least a couple of hours
Whenever I don't drink coffee
I feel like poop.
My eyes burn because they are so swollen
and I am forced to squint because the light irritates my eyes
and I can slowly feel them dry out.

SSR: Caricature

    

   A caricature is a cartoon drawing that exaggerates on the person’s features. This picture is a caricature of Will Smith. Since he has big ears and a big smile, the caricature will exaggerate those features. No one truly knows who the first person to invent this type of art. Some critics say that it might have been Picasso since he did do a lot of weird art work.  You can find this type of art work being done at festivals and carnivals. Many people will just sit and wait for people to come by so they can draw them. I have never done this but I think that it would be a fun thing to do. Also I could get paid for selling my work. The average price for a caricature drawing is about $40. Caricatures are not always drawings or paintings; they can also be done through photo shop.  There are some events where you can compete in for the best drawing and stuff. A lot of people like to get caricature drawings of their babies or young kids. My cousin has one of his son but I don’t really think it looks like him. Many artists have done caricature art work of famous people. Like this one of Will Smith. This is probably my favorite because he looks funny. I guess the point is to make people laugh instead of having some super deep meaning like other art.  That is another reason for why I like caricature because you don’t even have to try and guess what the artist’s message is, you just laugh and that is that.  Also you don’t have to explain anything you just let it speak for its self. I hope to someday do a caricature drawing of someone I feel that it would be something fun to do.

SSR: Hypnotic Mosaic

This mural is a Hypnotic Mosaic by Lewis Lavoie. A Hypnotic Mosaic is tightly placing different pieces of patterns together to create another image. This particular piece is made up of multiple different portraits and creates a bigger portrait of what appears to be a woman. This is related to my topic because the portraits are all of different facial expressions. This piece expresses anger, happiness, hope and relief. I believe that the artist did an amazing job on this mural because the audience can somehow feel all the different emotions that are shown.

This type of art works are challenging and take a lot of patience and time. The good thing about doing this type of art work is that the artist can edit the pictures and create the image on a computer before painting or drawing it.  Although I have never done a project like this before, it is something that I am looking forward to doing. I think that this project would give me a lot of points for the end of the year AP test because it meets the many of the requirements such as texture, shape, line and value. This is also a type of abstract piece because the art work does not have to be realistic or makes any sense. Mosaics are very popular in churches. In this case, small pieces of glass are glued together to create religious images. Although I am not a religious person, I would like to some day visit one of those really big churches and see the artwork there. I remember my mom taking me to church when I was younger and seeing the light go through the Mosaic windows. The colors of the glass were so nice that I would space out looking at the colors instead of paying attention.  

Poem

Some people smile to hide deeper feelings
We laugh to prevent us from crying
Our emotions are always deeper than we think