Karaoke is an art?

There's winners and there's losers.... but that ain't no big deal... play that Funkey music white boy.. seems at some point.. drunk people will do some whatever just to get people to either laugh or sleep with them. I gotta say.. it's amusing... but karaoke is not an artform... it's pure b.s.... especially when the songs that pop up are crap.

Sitting in bed and writing a blog

Usually.. I'm sitting at my computer as I write... but seeing as I have just received my new smartphone yesterday I thought I'd give mobile blogging a shot. Expect more activity and art soon!

Sunset

I was coming home from work and this image hit my eyes. Now.. I would have to say that it is not abnormal to come across a sunset, it is however an amazing sight to see every time you see one. I've been working a lot recently and haven't blogged much this past week or so.. But i don't want to give up. Its good to see that within' my first month of true blogging I've gotten quite a few more hits than I expected, and hope that some of you are liking what you're seeing here. If anyone has any questions or requests for tutorials or techniques, i urge you to comment. I'll be posting my next #Mundane picture soon.. but for now here is an extraordinarily normal sunset that we are privileged to see most days. Enjoy.

The Mundane #1

#1

Sewer Pipe

I've been watching one of my favorite illustrators and motivational inspirationalists <is this even a word??> over the past few years, Her work is amazing and I'm humbled to have her as my mentor. Patricia Saxton (visit her blog here) has a very focused lifestyle when it comes to creating artwork. She is way more focused than I am. She inspires a  creativity in me from her artistic style, and from her dedication. She smiles across the digital plain of our current lifestyle and shines her brilliance onto everyone I've ever talked with who knows her. Not only that, she's family and that warms my heart.

She has a focused project called 52 Weeks of peace that is now at week #71 and is working on another series called a plethora of P's which is just as impressive from a design and artistic creativity standpoint. I revere her dedication and would like to start my own dedicated series.

This Mundane Project is now underway and I'll be focusing on taking photographs, designing posters, creating illustrations of things we see everyday and overlook the artistic value of their functionality. My goal is to inspire art and show that even the most trivial things can be viewed in a slightly different way... an artistic way. My hope is that through this i can inspire everyone to not take the things we have in our life for granted and appreciate the everyday with a bit more of an open view.

Now I admit, that as of now my artistic style is very retro washed-out. Instagram.. I was making pictures like this before it was cool, that's just how photographically hipster I am. :\ but that's besides the point. I don't really need to prove to my audience that i can do this.. I want... in fact, I need to do this for myself to prove that i can still live in this hectic world and have a focus centered on my passion for art.

Patricia, if you're reading this, THANK YOU!! You inspire more than you can ever imagine, and I can't wait to see where this project will lead me.

Inspired and excited....

John-

Creativity of art - Ideas for inspired art

There are many ways to come up with creative art ideas, and there are many articles on creativity that you'd be able to find out there. Inspiration for art is sometimes very difficult to come by especially when you have artist block. Getting over the hump and finding this is what makes a good artist.

I for one have found many ways of becoming inspired to create and i'll share a short list of the things I do to come up with these creative art ideas in the following article.

1. How do you feel?

• Lean on your emotional state to find the inspiration. if you're happy, sad, angry, desperate, lonely, excited.. GO WITH IT. You'll be designing inspired artwork that is based around these emotions and it will be easy to just flow into a piece.
• Think color! What color would you associate with this emotion? Use the base color to continue your inspired art project. Also think of what would have caused that emotion, it could end up being the subject of the art piece you are about to create.
• Don't be afraid to delve into that emotion a bit and find other art that draws that emotion out of you. For instance, if you have a serene and humble emotion at the beginning of your artistic exploration you might want to go check out some calm landscape paintings, or some japanese art pieces (i've always found japanese prints to be serene). 
• What other activities can you imagine that would center around that emotional state that might give you some creative art ideas? Perhaps if you're angry you might listen to some heavy metal music, or think of someone who really angered you off in the past. 

In short, the way you feel really plays on how your art will turn out, so no matter how you feel, use it to your artistic advantage and you'll be creating masterpieces in no time.

2. OTHER ARTISTS

• I'm not suggesting you recreate and plagiarize from an other artist. That would be a very expensive art mistake and could land you with a hefty copyright fine. who wants that??! What I mean is the styling's of some of your favorite artists can inspire a creative art piece. Just be humble enough to know that you most likely wont be creating an expensive art piece that sells for millions of dollars at an auction just because you followed the style.. though you may.. who knows?
• Talk with other artists, go out and find an art forum to discuss and ask questions like what you're trying to find here. "What are your inspirations for art?" "What helps you to focus on your creative ideas for art?" "Where do you look for art inspiration?"... Things like that can be asked and most artists I know are willing to help with some tips and tricks that will help create inspiration for your own pieces.

There are a lot of creatives in the world and a lot of people that are willing to help, look around and you'll start finding inspiration through this community.. we're all kind of nice people.. well most of us are, anyway.

3. The things you read can inspire.

• They say (I don't know who they are, but i'm sure they do say it) that a picture paints a thousand words. Sometimes the opposite can be true and you might find inspiration in a thousand words, then again you may find it in a six word quote. I've found inspirations for art in the strangest places; writing on bathrooms walls, an excerpt from a food recipe, the tagline for a beer commercial.. What i'm saying is that the words that you read on a daily basis could help you become inspired in some very unique ways.
• A good source of art inspiration has come from poems, and great literary works. Perhaps the book you're currently ready does a magnificent job at defining a scene that it burns an image into your mind. Remember THAT IS inspired art. Your mind created that imagery through the help of the writers words. Don't discount the way your mind works when it is engaged in reading. Its a writers job to help inspire this creative side of your mind, why not exploit it a bit and pull your art inspiration from this experience?

The older i get the more i read and the more i read the more i become inspired and empowered to create art. 

So there you have it.. a few simple tips to get you started on art creation, art inspiration and finding creativity for art of any kind that you may feel a passion for. Now go out there and get some inspiration.

John-

AMitF #9 Tribute to Carl Sagan and our Universe

Posters

I have been trying to do 1-2 full designs a day if not more.. Here is a recent poster I completed (it will be available for sale soon through my Zazzle Store).. Carl Sagan is a pioneer and an inspiration. His view of the universe, from an existential point of view, is humble to say the least. One of my favorite quotes of his refers to a photograph taken of the earth from the Voyager Satellite in 1990 as it was 4 million miles away..

Pale Blue Dot

"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." ~Carl Sagan~

Here's to you Dr. Sagan, thank you for all your insight and wisdom. I hope you are back in the cosmos exploring on a new realm of consciousness that we all will be able to experience someday. Thanks to you I feel insignificant, yet somehow magnificent.

John-

AMitF # 8 or Nine.. This is what i do...

Dis or Dat

So what is it that a graphics designer does? Well we take images, make images, change images, and use our amazing powers from knowledge and creativity to produce the best possible visual representation of what we are working with.. Here is an example.. A before and after picture of my family. (before i was born, too) Is my grandma not the cutest old lady?! (she's the one one in the designer glasses!) anyway.. This photo on the left is the natural state of the photo.. See the color degradation? Now I know its hipster to have you photos look retro old these days by way of Instagram and what not.. (which I can do as well if you want).. But old photographs are very delicate artifacts. Preserving a photograph with a high resolution quality is a lot more complicated than one would imagine. 

This is just an example, and I only had a low resolution image that i yoinked from facebook. The more resolution i have to work with... that's to say, if i had the opportunity to scan this image in myself, i could have gotten a more accurate working copy.. and the final image would have come out with a better picture quality. But the concept is the same. Color correction and photo retouching is not that hard if you understand what you're doing.. and I've taken some time to price out the competition ( My competition ).. and i've found out that if you know what you're doing this process doesn't take that much time, and that most larger companies are charging an outrageous price to have this process done. I hope i'm humble enough to give you all a fair deal and offer you this service at a really fair price. 

YES, it does take time, but charging folks 50$-80$ per photo is a bit ridiculous, so i'm just letting you know that my services are $8-$15 per photo (based on the amount of damage i have to correct, and if you order in bulk it'll be cheaper) plus the cost of shipping and handling.

DO I EVEN HAVE CONTACT INFO on my page?!

ugh.. artmonger78@gmail.com - or (919)926-9739

I'll make sure it is easy to find before the day is over.. y'all have a great Sunday!

John-

AMitF #Pornography or art?!

Bettie Page

Here's an oldie... i made this when i first got my wacom drawing tablet. The pin-up has always intrigued me and Bettie Page is the quintessential  pin-up model so i figured i'd try. This is one of my personal favorites to date. The female form is beauty personified IMHO. 

”Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” - Albert Einstein 

For a scientist and theorist, Einstein was one of the most insightful people this world has ever encountered. He had become one of my true inspirations for greatness and his mentality should be held up to the light with that of Gandhi and Nietzsche and Buddha as far as enlightenment. The surprising thing about inspiration is that it can be found anywhere, at any time. These people who achieved greatness  are a testament to how inspiration can effect those around us and the best part about this is that some of your closest friends and even random interactions can bring on inspiration just with a few words. NEVER under-estimate the people you know.. it would be a shame to let their inspiration pass you by without touching your life. 

Ok my random rantings are getting a bit hard to follow here.. let me ground this article a bit. Finding inspiration is not hard, it only takes one tiny thing to draw it out of us. Its amazing to me to see the multitude of things that inspire me. But i am blessed, i have so many great people in my life that bring this idea back around to a tangible concept.


Don't overlook the inspiration that's already there. Find it in the mundane, its there, believe me.. and inspiration comes in many forms effecting all parts of our psyche.. look closely and you'll find it everywhere.

Y'all come back now.

John-

AMitF #WTF aka Laser Beams and Batman

FTW!!

Ok, first of all i'd like to send out a bit of sympathy to the victims of the shooting in Colorado and to their families. Batman has a new nemesis.. and he's a d*%$#bag. Aurora, CO... my heart goes out to the families effected by the stupidity of madmen. 

Secondly.. Watch that video. Its amazing, combining the power of technology, dance, music, and art.. Not all of you may like dubstep, but i'm sure most of you can appreciate the combination of all these elements and how exciting this kind of tech-meets-culture is.

Oh and since you're here, Synesthesia Design is about to launch a promotion.. I'll give more details on it as I get closer to the launch, but it should be a beneficial package for any business. I wont give away too much now.. but sign up to recieve email alerts and i'll make sure you're notified...

ok now to figure out how to put a subscribe to my blog button somewhere... "EDITH!! Where's my subscribe button?!!" 

Til next time.

John-

AMitF - Stardate 3272.31

This may be a Sin

Oh dear, what have i done? Yes that's right.. I've gone and made our beloved Mona Lisa into a tragedy.. (don't worry its not the real Mona Lisa). I have a friend who was telling me that someone she knows was redecorating her kitchen or house for a day of the dead theme. So i got my inspiration.. and perhaps it was a little bit sinful to murdalate a great masterpiece like this. BUT IT FELT GOOD! 

I actually wanted to challenge myself to see if i could actually do something like this, and I think i did a fair job. Hooray for photoshop! So lets see if i can get any feedback on it when i set it to sale as a poster on zazzle.. i might get some pretty nasty hate-mail.. hehehe.. gotta love some hate-mail.

Tell me what you all think, i'd love to hear some feedback.. I've had this blog going for about a week now and still have yet to get a response.. then again, i'm not the best at promoting myself, so if any of you like what you see here.. Like my blog, or share it.. Tweet about it.. and remember, look both ways before crossing the street. That means you might have to put the cellphone down for a second and actually look.

Til Next Time

John- 

AMitF #4

Look over there!!! =======================>

Well I've gone and done it now.. i'm starting to merchandise myself.. whats next? i want a personalized light saber so i suggest you all help and buy some items.. i'll be updating the store with a lot more items over the next few weeks, right now i'm loaded up with a few designs... i think i may have to specialize so i can get a wider range of people.. Either that or figure out how to categorize and organize these much better.

Anyway, there are tee-shirts, ipad and iphone cases, tote bags, messenger bags, ties, shoes will be here soon, or so they tell me.. i can do custom sized prints of any of my artwork for you all as well if anyone wants to purchase something..

or you can help by donating..  how do i add a paypal donation button on this blog??

ugh...

Stay tuned.. i've got a lot more things in the works.. tutorial video's will be starting soon.. want to learn photoshop from a complete idiot? then you've come to the right place.. i'll show you how an idiot does it proper..

*smileyface*

John-

AMitF #C

Inner Child

Decided to show off a digital compilation i did a little over a year ago. This was a little thing i did for a friend to help cheer her up. I wont go into the details of how it all came around and why i chose the imagery that i did.. In fact, ive gotten a few different "Emotions" explained to me on this piece over the past year. 

That's what art is though, right? A visual representation of a captured emotion? Some art is anyway.

If you feel inclined to comment and let me know what kind of emotions this piece invokes as you look at it, i'd be grateful to hear about it. Leave a comment or send me an e-mail at artmonger78@gmail.com to let me know if you don't feel like posting openly. 

John-

AMitF#2

Harley Davidson

I posted the barn door yesterday, every time i see a picture of an old door i want to know what is behind it.. So i thought i'd give you a glimpse at what i found after i opened that old barn door. There was a lot of nothing, but here... i turned my head and right there by the entrance was an old Harley. I nearly poo'd my pants... 

The best part was when i returned to the party down the hill my mothers cousin Tommy was just finishing a story about seeing headlights from the old Harley spinning up into the night sky after my uncle took it for a joy ride. Coincidence? perhaps not.. this beast needs to be restored, and i'm glad i know where it is now. 

Perhaps it'll still be there next time i can get up there..

The moral of the story is, as an artist.. don't ever stop exploring, you'll never know what you'll find...

John-

AMitF #1

Old Barn Door

In the past few weeks I've been slacking on getting things going with my artwork. Hell, I think its the life of an artist.. Procrastination.. I mean, we are always looking to make that piece even better, that color needs just the right amount of red, that photo the right amount of contrast. its never really done, we just get content with it over time because we've been looking at the same damn image or swatch or group of photos/paintings/musical compositions.. for so damn long that we're finally tired of it and hand it off to you to have a look at. We know that a lot of people like the picture at first glance, and we also know that only other artists really take a moment to enjoy the intimate time we put into making a piece that we're barely half proud of. 

But in the end we actually do produce some striking pieces, and we should be proud of them. I have found that my most memorable pieces come from moments of instant inspiration, and rarely come from hours of over-analyzation and re-configuring the minds eye view of the product we're trying to create.. THOUGH its not impossible. 

Anyway.. Here I am, spur of the moment setting up this blog to give you a look at my artwork and to bring out my thoughts on how everything works in my tiny little world. If any of it helps you, i'm glad, if not... well then i guess a GFY is in order.. 

Here look at this picture of an old barn door.. 

John-