Post-It Art: Ms. Pacman

It started when I tried to accomplish something in a software 3 times in a row and failed. Out of frustration I went looking for a creative outlet.

Earlier on I had purchased some small square Post-It notes, so I thought maybe I can add to the wall that already has a giant thumbs up sign on it with some more Post-It art.

I did Ms. Pacman first.  I had a limited supply of colors and my initial idea of doing the Mario 1-Up Mushroom wasn't going to work since I had no black squares to work with.

One of my colleagues colored a white square in with a black sharpie to create the single black mole for Ms. Pacman.

After lunch and some meetings, I came up against another road block, so I went back to the wall and added the blue ghost and cherry with the little "white" dots.

White wasn't going to show up on the white wall so green was used instead. I also originally did the blue ghost when it's in "edible" mode, but it was a bit small and the resolution wasn't fine enough to reveal the squiggle of its mouth.

At the end of the day, I went back and replaced the blue ghost with a "normal" one that is bigger in dimension, so I could have the resolution I needed to give it a proper shape and also proper eyes.

With this version, I didn't need the mouth, which worked much better. Using the same technique as earlier, a colleague helped me color in a few white squares as black for the eyes.

Connecting the dots (literally) with the original thumbs up on the wall, that was done by my colleague many weeks before.

Finally, another colleague mentioned it might make sense for the ghost to be looking back at Ms. Pacman. I agreed and we went about moving the eyes so it looked to the upper left instead of the bottom right.  A master piece in 8-bit pixels, if I may say so myself. :)

Classical Art at The Clark

At the end of the day, I am still more of a classical art person. While at The Clark museum I saw a gorgeous piano that was ornately decorated. No single picture could really do it justice since every single panel of it was beautifully crafted and detailed.

The panel right above the keys is a full panorama painting of its own.  Each leg of the piano has detailing like I've never seen. I could have spent a good hour just taking detailed pics of this piano but figured there were some other more famous pieces I should probably see as well.

One such piece is Monet's Cathedral Rouen.  I actually have a print of one of the versions he did since middle school.

This is the first time I saw an original of Monet's Cathedral Rouen, and I learned that Monet had stayed in an apartment across the way from the cathedral, which is where he had this perspective.

He actually painted around 20 versions of the Cathedral Rouen, at different times of the day to get different lighting effects, at different crops to see which composition worked the best.

Knowing so much work went into creating his vision is what makes Monet one of the great impressionist masters, and it makes me appreciate his art even more.

And Monet is not alone in this. I've seen exhibits before on Degas where he sketched the same subject over and over in charcoal first to get just the right composition and just the right perspective. When the final painting is finished, dozens of versions have already been tried out with different color combinations and perspectives. The patience!

Last but not least in the famous department, is the Little Dancer by Degas.

I've actually seen this sculpture multiple times and was always wondering if there were more than one floating around. It turns out there's several indeed, and none of them are of the true original.

It turns out, Degas had created the original out of wax, and used real hair.  It had gone on exhibit just once toward the end of Degas' career and life.

The audience had reacted very negatively to the sculpture due to its life-likeness, and Degas never exhibited it again.

At some point a cast was made of the original wax sculpture, and these bronze ones were made from it. And since there were no photos of the original floating around, I guess no one alive today will be able to say they've seen what Degas originally created. This actually explains why I've seen color differences of the bow on the little dancer's hair each time I've seen it. They were all different copies! The things you learn!

Watch Out for That Piano!

Since I'm taking classes again, I have to coordinate my vacation with spring break. I got a chance to head out to MASS MoCA out in western Mass.

First up is an art installation with a falling piano. It's really amazing to see everything positioned in such as a way that it represents the explosion of impact, yet everything is completely still.

Next is giant wall paintings of Sol LeWitt.  His style is to give instructions and sometimes sketches accompanying his instructions, and have someone else actually do the installation and painting. This is done in such a way that the art can be repeatedly created, which is certainly a very different way of thinking about art.

I attempted take a panorama of one of the LeWitt art walls because it was so large and could not be captured in a single (or 3) shots).  But as proven from the previous time I tried to use the panorama feature, it creates this fish eye perspective that distorts the actual view quite a bit. Nonetheless, it gives a good sense of the scale of the installation while capturing all the details. 

One of the art walls happened to have a light source above and center.  I almost look prophetic. :)

Modern art might not be something I naturally gravitate toward, but I think MASS MoCA has enough variety that even the noobs like me can still appreciate it.