I'm a tad behind on my projects, had to work 6 days in a row and I'm wiped, today is my 1st and only day off this week, go back to work tomorrow so trying to get as much done as possible. Also I'm not an Ed major, I'm an Art major. Drawing to be specific, taking this class as an AOI, mainly to fulfill my required classes.
This project is based on Deviant art, the mass social Gallery site anyone can use to set up your own online gallery, sell prints, and collaborate with artists from around the world. http://1manarmy-toukai.deviantart.com/ Is my homepage (Don't mind the silly name, its a pretty old account) Do be wary though if its your first time to deviant art, while the browse feature is very nice and there are thousands of beautiful pieces to look through, your virgin eyes will no doubt be scarred for life with some of the submissions. This is a free art hosting site for all of the world with no real limitations except for straight up pornography/violence etc. There is no Good or Bad in the art world, it all sorta blends together into some wibbly wobbly, grayish mass.
With that said this is a fantastic piece of web 2.0 for an artist to use. Virtual hosting, selling, and gallery options is basically a dream come true. If the work can be uploaded or done on the computer, it should translate well into Deviant Art. To demonstrate I uploaded 3 new works of different types. A Lithograph, an Intaglio piece, and a Linoleum Reduction Print. There are 4 pieces displayed on my home page, the 1st 3 are the newest ones I posted, and the 4th titled Amalgamate is a very large piece I did in photoshop. It's also a nice place to put rough work, rough work for those who don't know is basically what you'd find in an artists sketchbook. Theres an entire section for that, and while I myself don't have much in my gallery/scrap folder, I think its a decent example for what can be done with this tool. The tool itself is very simple to use, you may need some basic java plugins or flash for some pieces, but other than that it should run fine on almost any computer. Jpgs are the majority of file type and both macs and pc's should have no trouble pulling any of them up.
The trade off when using Deviant art lie more in the mass of people using the system. There are so very many people using it your likely to never be noticed among the sea of artists. Unless exceptionally talented, or at least have way to much free time. You trade away the social networking of hosting an original work show in town, there will be no word of mouth when using Deviant art, perhaps among a few of the high school kids who like your work but most significant artists are made through Shows in town, rather than online gallery shows. Less face to face interaction is not the only trade off. More and more models are beginning o upload their images in the Stock images section, encouraging users to just browse through the selection with a search of the pose your looking for, and then asking for credit if you use the piece in a work. While that is fine in a business standpoint, a lot of models refuse to do live posing, which is very important for the budding artist (even veterans) The computer screen is flat, and no matter how expressive an image may be, it will be flattened by being on a 2d surface. Their are certain things that can only be captured with your eyes when face to face. A lot is lost in translation and people don't even realize it.
This site was very interesting to me - thanks for sharing! It sounds like it could be a great asset for artists to store/share/sell art. Do you prefer sharing your works this way, or in a more intimate/face-to-face setting?
ReplyDeleteI like this site and really liked the art work on your page. I'm curious to know if it would be appropriate for students to have full viewing access to all the pictures? Could you make a teacher Deviant Art site for just your classroom or for only certain works of art?
ReplyDelete@Jaci - I myself use Deviant more for storing, if I share its with people who happen to like the field i draw in, and comment, or friends of mine who also use the site. If I want to show my work, I prefer face to face settings.
ReplyDelete@Mary - 1 thing about Deviant art is that there is a censor, you have to to engage it and it filters out anything with a Mature tag on it. So it could be useful in a class room, but chances are kids will find a way around it. They always do.