What is Art?

That's a broad question.
According to Dictionary.com, art has 16 different definitions.

I have this book that was printed in the 1900s, with quotes on various subjects by people time has generally forgotten. There are a couple of quotes from this book that get me thinking...

"The object of art is to crystallize emotion into thought, and then fix it in form." - Delsarte

"The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts.-Illusion on a ground of truth, that is the secret of fine art." - Joubert

"The artist ought never perpetuate a temporary expression...A masterpiece of art has, to the mine, a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant of a crystal." - Emerson

Is there really an answer as to what art is? And, more importantly, how can an artist define something they have done as artistic, when in their nature, it is to not define themselves?
Are any of us artists anymore?





Fan-Art for Hope from Marvel's X-men.
Created entirely in Photoshop, with my Wacom.
Took about 3 1/2~4 hours
Reference image found here

Maybe I can get into the swing of things, once I can define myself as an artist again.

The Vexel art movement does not exist.

So there is this 'art movemet/style' that people call vexel. If you ask for my opinion, it is a bit of hogwash in the digital media world. It ranks up there with putting DHTML on your web design qualifications.

vexel: a newly created word for an entirely pixel-based form of raster art that imitates the visual appearance of vector graphics technique. (definition courtesy of wikipedia)


The techniques you use, does not explain the art movement or style.

The person that artists can thank, or blame, would be Seth Woolley. You can find his explanation on his blog here.

Vexel is about creating raster images that look like vector.
Vector is a medium within the digital media world.
The digital Media world does not have itself defined as an art movement.
Therefore, vexel can not be an art movement.


PS - Above image's media is digital. The specific medium would be vector.

Totally not a Hiatus

I am totally not on haitus. I have, as usual, been working on things. Mostly Illustrator cuteness, logos and packaging design for the coming conventions.

But one of my more recent obsessions has been...sadly... Dragon Age: Origins. It is an obsession that can not be thwarted. At first, I just wanted to play the game. Then I found myself wanting to get all of the gamer points. Now. I just want to play through the game to find out the different endings... but always have a girl in order to be with that adorable little guy up there. Alistair.
The bastard prince, turned Grey Warden.

I do not fan girl over many things. But this guy, I have. It is the first guy fan-girl I've ever done. It is so new to me. And it is a bit dirty in that way. *sigh* Oh Alistair.


Anywho. I'll post more stuff later. Just hated leaving this empty. ;3;

SUMMER COME BACK!

This winter break has been a bit of a productive ordeal. Mostly, it has been a lot of researching on how to make certain charms, get them to look the way I want them too, and practicing in Illustrator some more.
This little guy is from a small series I did of popsicles. I looked up the original flavors for Kool-Aid and based my colors off of that. This one is Lemonade. What I am trying to do here, take popsicles, think of what dreams I would have as a popsicle, and the nightmares...then translate them into mini illustrations Here, the lemonade is radioactive and glowing. XD

Truth be told, theses are vectors made from sketches for clay charms (Lemonade one is a mixture of yellow and glow in the dark clay since it holds a level of transparency). Their original intent was to accommodate packaging. But I am thinking of making stickers out of them as well. Or maybe people will have in their package the charm and a stick of the charm as well. hmmmm.