Opposing Graffiti

Is graffiti art, vandalism, or both? The bright colors and designs that cover the streets' walls may look appealing to the eye, but also a sign or gateway to petty crime. According to Jeanna Bryner's article: "Graffiti Triggers Crime and Littering" graffiti that is present in the public increases the crime and litter rate. A group of researchers did a few experiments to test out this theory, which in fact, turned out to be true.

A passage from Jeanna's article tells us some of the experiments the researchers did:

"In two other experiments, the researchers found that graffiti and litter can lead to stealing. They stuck an envelope that contained cash partway into a mailbox so that passersby could see the envelope and the money within. In one scenario, graffiti covered the mailbox. And 25 percent of passersby stole the envelope from the graffiti-covered mailbox, while just 13 percent stole from the clean mailbox.When litter was scattered around the clean mailbox, nearly 30 percent of passersby stole the envelope, compared with the 13 percent in the litter-free and graffiti-free scenario."

In another article that I have read, the author dives into the modern day perspective of graffiti. Killian Tobin states that graffiti started off as a form of artistic expressions from young people. It was a way to get kids, especially young boys, to show off their artistic skills and thoughts to the world, until it started getting onto the walls of private property owners. This is where things got out of hand when graffiti artists had to compete for space and private owners were offended by their markings. They started to categorize artistic graffiti as gang graffiti. It is very unfortunate that something so beautiful could have a bad reputation because of what other's judge.

 

"Artistic Graffiti" 

This is art.

"Gang Graffiti"

This is not art.

I, too agree that this form of art grew into an activity that vandalizes personal space of a private owner, but I don't think people should be scared every time they see a design or a basic word written on the wall. Spray painting art in the public may be illegal, but it won't stop those who rebel against it from expressing themselves to the public.

Though graffiti is a crime, it is still art. Maybe we should try covering up those gang signs instead.

Words of Art (poetry)

Roses are red, violets are blue
What is poetry to me and you?

   Poetry, in actual definition, is the literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. It is a way to write out one's thoughts and emotions to relieve an internal conflict, whether it's positive or negative. When people think of poetry, they often think of it having a rhyming scheme. This does have a lot to do with poetry, but this is not always the case. My previous English teacher once told me that poetry has no rules or regulations; it comes from what you think is poetic and expressive from your own mind and heart.

   How can one understand the basics of poetry or even make it? Well, poetry is broken down into many different elements, just like how art, in general, is divided into many parts. According to the Lifestyle Lounge in their article The Basic Elements of Poetry, the main elements of poetry are:

• Theme
• Symbolism
• Meter
• Rhythm

Other elements include:

• Rhyme 
• Alliteration
• Simile
• Metaphor

   I've also stumbled across an interesting slide-show on Google where they included personification and repetition as other forms of elements. The list still continues because again, poetry has no specific rules or regulations; it can be composed with a lot of things.

 "To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first."  -William Shakespeare

   A couple of my favorite poets are William Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. Shakespeare is well-known across the world and has composed over a hundred of poems in his lifetime. Majority of people are familiar with his famous plays Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth. The quote underneath his picture above is one of my favorite quotes by him. It is a simple statement that means so much and can be used for motivation in any situation in life.

Emily Dickinson

   Emily Dickinson is another one of my favorite poets because she was a private poet and lived a reclusive lifestyle. I find that interesting because I'm the same way, but with my poetry. I never seem to share my poems and I keep them locked away. What's unique about her poems is that they often lacked titles, contained short lines, and used unconventional capitalization and punctuation. This is specifically why I believe poems should not have any restrictions. Emily did it without a care and all because she was expressing herself and was not doing it for any reward or "academic writing skills".


   As an artist, I am a very sensitive and expressive person. I've previously stated that I express myself through my art and poems. This poem was constructed by me some time in the beginning of the year 2011. The poem in entitled "Dead" and it is based of a heartbreak that I have experienced in the past.

"Like a dying rose your words still untold
As my heart squanders and tries to unfold
Your presumptuous heart is highly elated
While my heart is truly devastated 
Will be dead.
Your love, evanescent, was very inconspicuous and brash
The burning flames confiscates my lungs with the burning ash
But my own solicitude for my fervent heart will stay
As your delusions and lies will be vanished away
Beginning to be dead
Looking back at the memories but on a new quest
My spirit is ascending, and my mind is more deft
As my journey comes to an end, I've finally arrived
You're still buried in your lies, because you never even tried
Dead."

   Words are beautiful, and poems say so much with just a few lines. Reading them, and picturing it can really make a person feel the pain or happiness of the writer.

Oil Pastels

Using crayons and chalk can be fun, but using oil pastels are even better! Oil pastel is a painting and drawing medium with characteristics similar to pastels and wax crayons. Oil pastels consist of pigment mixed with a non-drying oil and wax binder, which makes it more difficult to blend than "soft" or "French" pastels. Soft pastels are more powdery then the oil pastels.

The history of oil pastel is quite interesting and started off in 1921 where two brothers-in law created a crayon that combined the soft, smooth color application of crayon with the brightness of pastel. In 1947, artists Pablo Picasso and Henri Goetz decided to make a more professional version of the product. According to The Oil Pastel Society, Picasso convinced Goetz to create a medium in which he can use on anything without having to prepare or prime a canvas. Two years after, in 1949, Henri Sennelier invented the first professional oil pastels with the help of Goetz and Picasso. The history of oil pastel continues which is available on few websites like The Oil Pastel Society.

Greg Albert wrote in his article "Painting with Oil Pastels for Beginners" about different tips and techniques to use when working with this form of art. Some techniques he has stated here are:

• Underpainting
• Cross-hatching
• Blending
• Layering and impasto
• Scumbling
• Scraping

Oil pastels can be used on any surface, so drawing on top of acrylic paint, or even water color can bring out the different shades of colors and leave a visible background. This process is called underpainting. Cross hatching on the other hand is an artistic technique used to create tone or shading effects by drawing closely spaced parallel lines that cross each other. Blending oil pastels is a bit difficult to do because the medium is so wax-like, but this can be done by using paper towels or blending sticks. Layering and impasto is important in oil pastel paintings. The word impasto refers to a technique used in painting, where paint (or other medias) is laid on the surface very thickly. Having thick layers can lead to other techniques like scumbling and scraping that provides a broken, speckled, scratchy color over another color. This technique shows the lower layer of color.The result gives a sense of depth and color variation to an area.

Other sources of using different techniques in oil pastels are YouTube videos. This artist in this video, Oil Pastel Techniques: How to Color with Oil Pastels mentions stroke work and how to move and blend in the direction of the picture. She demonstrates few tips like highlighting and contrasting the picture to give it a more vivid look.

After reviewing these few techniques, I did a little experiment on my own. I have once worked with oil pastel in the past, so I compared my old drawing to the one I recently completed, using some of these tips.

I've noticed that I used an extreme amount of color to create this landscape. Now since oil pastel never dries, I went back and added the scraping effect in the corners of the page.

My blending in this oil pastel painting is way better than the first painting. I used scumbling/scraping, a little bit of stippling, and blending to create this drawing. The hardest part of the drawing was blending the colors in the water to give a reflection look.

Working with the product is pretty simple. It may be difficult to use for others, but it's easy to work with and to create originality in a painting or drawing. During my senior year of high school, my art teacher gave us an assignment to imitate a landscape using oil pastels. I personally disliked it at first because the drawing looked nothing like the original picture. Another thing that made the project even more difficult was the fact that we could not use the color black. These restrictions ultimately stressed me out, but it dawned upon me that we are only imitating and using the picture as a reference. Using oil pastels can help an artist become more colorful and original with their works because its almost impossible to make the painting look exactly like it's original/reference.