Mid-Autumn Festival

Friday night I went to the Mid-Autumn Festival at Towson. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a harvest festival celebrated by the Chinese and Vietnamese cultures.  Mooncakes are eaten, tea is made, lanterns are floated, and usually there is a fire dragon dance. Since there aren’t any dragon dancing clubs at Towson, the closest thing was the Lion Dancing group at Johns Hopkins. The Lion Dance is a completely different dance than the Dragon Dance. Two people are in each lion costume, as opposed to the many people in the dragon costume.

When the lions came out, it was pretty loud. Drums and symbols were played as the two lions walked around the room. The audience “feeds” the lions red envelopes which are supposed to bring good luck and fortune. Towards the end of the dance, the lions spit out lettuce or cabbage (I couldn’t really tell what it was) to spread the good luck and wealth to the people. At the very end of the dance, a scroll of good luck unfolds from the lion’s mouth. It was a pretty crazy experience, especially since the lions get right in your face and their ears, mouths, eyes, and tails actually move! I think it’s definitely something to go to next year, even if you only go once.

My Own

 

 The first painting is of Audrey Hepburn and I made it for my Design for Non-art majors class two years ago. The assignment was to do a portrait in complementary colors and the portrait could be of anyone. I chose Audrey Hepburn since she's such an icon, but I didn't want to do a Breakfast at Tiffany's picture like everyone else was choosing. I wanted a picture that showed her class and elegance, not a movie she was in. I decided to use yellow and purple pastels for the complementary colors since they're lighter and more elegant.

 

The second painting is a collage and paint mixture I made the summer after I graduated high school. I wanted to experiment with paint and this putty-like stuff to add texture so I thought a painting for my room would be a great way to test it out. In this painting I also used complementary colors like in the painting before just to make the colors "pop". The blue makes the yellow, orange, and red really stand out. I used magazine clippings to make the flowers and found the word "Hope" in an article in another magazine.

 

 

The third piece is a drawing I made in charcoal and conte crayon. It was part of a series I had to draw for my 2D process class last semester. It's very abstract, like the whole series and it's actually the eye socket to a cow skull. Skulls represent this line between life and death to me. It's like a piece of the dead is still mixed in with the living. It's probably my favorite drawing I did last semester.

Purpose

                Getting your art out in the world can sometimes be a problem. People don’t say “starving artist” for no reason. We’re told from an early age that the art world is an extremely difficult way to make a living, especially today. Like outer space, the internet is very vast. It’s a great resource to get my artwork and post about other artists.

                When most people hear the word “art”, they usually automatically think of paintings or drawings done by a guy with a beret and a handlebar moustache. I’m not going to limit my blog to just paintings or drawings, since that would be pretty uninspiring. Instead, I’m going to use my blog to post not just drawings or paintings, but also jewelry, photography, sculpture, and even links to videos. There are many different forms or types of art out there, so why just restrict myself and others to just one? This blog will be fun, inspiring, and maybe a little odd.