Remember Art Class?

Last semester I took an online art class, and since we never met in person, our assignments had to be photographed and uploaded digitally online. One night, in my own boredom, I was going through all of my albums on iPhoto when I stumbled across the one labeled "ART 010". I figured I might as well share some of what I found for the sake of preventing these bad boys from collecting cyber dust.

Our assignment for this piece was to create something inspired by an artist from the surrealist movement. Even though he may be considered more of an abstract expressionist, I got the okay to use Jackson Pollock as my inspiration.

_{(Watercolor and white out on watercolor paper)}

Bear in mind that I am a starving artist (see also; broke college student) working with minimal funds. Having said that, I got great use out of the watercolor set I bought that semester. Another thing, having few resources and limited supplies really forced me to think outside the box and come up with any type of media that I could put to use (white out, anyone?)

This assignment was to create a piece of "mail art" that had something to do with your childhood. I focused mine around the idea that when I was little, my neighborhood friends and I always set up lemonade stands at the end of my driveway (We actually ended up making a lot of money from it! Money which would later be spent on walkie talkies that we used to communicate with each other. Money well spent, in my opinion).
_{(Watercolor and sharpie on watercolor paper)}

This class was great because it helped open up my creativity. After high school, we tend to get muddled into taking long, boring, lecture-based classes that restrict us to doing the same mundane tasks every night. However, with this class, my creative floodgates opened, and I was given the freedom to express myself in a way in which I've always felt comfortable: through art. While my roommates were buried head deep in a jumble of powerpoints and notecards, I was sitting indian-style on my floor with the newspaper spread out, splashing watercolor paint all over the place. Sounds like a solid trade-off to me.

Ring Pops: Fun at your fingertips!

With the semester finally coming to a close and Christmas looming around the corner, I find myself sitting on the couch in my family room at home, TV on, wrapped in a blanket, and not a schoolbook in sight. Just the way Holiday Break should be. However, with all of this free time, I finally have the chance to reflect on this past semester (I can't believe I'm already halfway done with my junior year in college. Where did the time go?).

I've had my fair share of gen ed classes, and as I come closer to the cusp of senior year, I am starting to enroll in some of my capstone classes. Most of these classes serve as preparation for the real-world; so naturally, we engage in projects that mimic what we could potentially encounter in our future careers.

In my Creative Strategies class, our final project was to complete a campaign for a brand of candy. Components of the campaign were: the SAP, two print ads, a mounted storyboard for a TV spot, and a digital ad. The campaign was completed in groups, and I was in a group with 2 other girls. We decided to choose Ring Pops as our candy. While I don't have our final SAP on me (it's saved on my desktop on my account at school, I'll get that uploaded as soon as I get back!), I do have our final two print ads. Our target audience was children ages 8-12, and our slogan was "Fun at your fingertips".

Ghosts of Freshman past

The other day, on a whim, I decided to google myself. I was not surprised when the various social networking sites I use showed up first. However, after going back a few pages, I came across a blog from my freshman year of college. Although the blog was an academic assignment required by all freshman, I found that my young, naive, freshman thoughts still hold enough of a stylistic value to be shared on my older-and-wiser blog. Who needs time machines when you have the internet?

Palmer museum of art

By SARAH ELIZABETH PERRONE on September 23, 2009 12:28 AM | 0 Comments | 0 TrackBacks

Sure, Penn State is famous for it's legendary football team and pristine athletics department, but it also can boast in the subject of fine arts. When walking down Curtin Road, one can see the lion paw sculptures standing before a building that appears to sport whiskers on its doorhandles. That building is the Palmer Museum of Art. The museum is home to 11 galleries, an auditorium, and even a garden. At the Palmer Museum, one can find artists from Philadelphia all the way to Asia. Even though it's just a university based museum does not mean it is inadequate in terms of art pieces.

It's refreshing to see such a sophisticated and well put-together musuem, and it certainly does not hurt that the museum is on campus grounds. Students can enjoy the temporary exhibits as well as revel in the beauty of the permanent collection. Either way, the Palmer Museum of art provides a great source for art critics and admirers alike to flock and enjoy art. Although the Museum closes at 4:30 every day (except on Sundays when it closes at 4:00), that is still plenty of time for everyone, from the football player to the english literarture major, to come in and indulge his or her inner art historian.

While that was just a snippet of my former eighteen year old self, the rest can be found here. Oh, the memories.

The little things about big cities

I love cities. I love the hustle and bustle, the constant motion, and the uninhibited sense of freedom that everyone seems to possess. But some of my favorite aspects of cities are the small, arbitrary things that usually remain overlooked.

Graffiti I saw while in Manhattan

I love being in surrounded by art. The way every visible post or pole shows traces of sticker bombing, the way artists pass out their demos, claiming them to be the "next best thing", and the way building facades are tagged with elaborate and sometimes thought-provoking messages. It's like everyone's trying to leave traces behind, as to make their mark in a place where they would otherwise go unnoticed.

Random sticker slapping on scaffolding in Chelsea (and my cousin in the background!)

There's an unrelenting sense of determination that everyone wants and needs to be heard. No matter how big of a message or how it gets across, the point is--- it gets across. Quite frankly, I think that if someone has the guts to lay a piece of his mind out on the table, to be dissected and picked apart by thousands of critical eyes; then he deserves to be recognized, or at least acknowledged for doing something that so many will never have the courage to step up and do.

Ad Project: Milwaukee Power Tools

For my creative strategies advertising class, one of our projects was to create two ads for an assigned "client", who in this case, was Milwaukee Power Tools. After working on the project for several weeks and putting the finishing touches on our Strategic Action Plans, our professor told us that suddenly "our client changed their mind" and wanted to go in a new direction with the campaign: comparing aspects of the tools to nature. We were told to scrap our past ideas and start from scratch; however, we were to keep our SAP the same. Our final ads along with SAP were to be turned in the next day.

Panic ensued.

The rationale behind the last-minute change-up was that our professor wanted us to focus less on using Photoshop and InDesign and more on creating good body copy. Stressed under the time-constraint and tired after what seemed like an endless back-and-forth email conversation, my partner and I managed to pull together two decent ads.

Our final two ads for Milwaukee Power Tools

In our original SAP, my partner and I had targeted the product to middle aged, white-collar male homeowners with families. We felt that our original slogan, "Build your own memories" could still be relevant with the new theme, so we didn't change it. The most difficult part of this project was deciding which two images to use for the new concept and developing creative headlines that could relate the images to our audience and the product.

Hopefully what we lacked in creative graphic outflux, we made up for in copywriting!