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. :)

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.