colourpop | ultra matte lip

i've got more colourpop purchases to blog about! so, as some of you may or may not know, i don't really wear make up. but ever since january 2015, i've developed an interest in lipsticks. it started off w red & now has grown to maroons/burgundys/wines. so when i saw that colourpop was having a "buy 2 get 1 free," i knew i had to check it out. my package finally arrived (delayed by hurricane harvey) so i finally get to share them w you guys

so i started off w really wanting Saigon bc 1. it's red & 2. saigon is a city in vietnam. from there, i just looked for the darker colors bc there were a lot of light pinks (which i don't wear). eventually, i found the colors Avenue (which reminds me of the band every avenue) & Circles (which remind me the songs circles by hollywood undead & circles by pierce the veil)

when looking at the colors, Circles & Avenue look really similar, but on my skin, i can see that avenue has more of a brown tint to dull it down while circles has a bit more purple in it

honestly, i probably don't need any more reds/maroons/burgundys/wine lipsticks or i'm going to end up w 100 lipsticks w the same few shades. but what can i say, these were matte & from colourpop!

newest designs

it's been a while since i've shared any of my drawings on here (though i do share them a lot on all of my social media which is all on the right hand side of my blog) so i decided to show you my latest work from this week. i guess hurricane harvey just gave me the time & boredom i needed to actually work on something. i put a lot of time & detail into these & i hope you guys love them as much as i do

!! update !!

i will be changing the blog url soon but i had to make an announcement beforehand in case anyone viewed the blog via url instead of my twitter/fb posts, bookmarks, following me on blogspot. as of right now, my url is heartssopureinthisbrokenplace.blogspot.com but by my next post (probably tomorrow or sometime by the weekend), the blog url will be samizaweirdo.blogspot.com

it's going to be a hassle changing the url on all of my social media but worth it since it'll be easier to find & won't take as long to type. i'm also thinking about changing my theme & header but you'll see those changes whenever i get to it

thank you to all of you who follow me, check my posts, etc. it really means so much to me :)

hurricane harvey | #houstonstrong

i don't think there's anybody in the U.S. that hasn't heard about hurricane harvey by now. it's devastating floods have claimed at least 30 lives so far & have displaced many families. some areas had to evacuate but many areas in houston were unable to. there are so many many people living in houston alone that it would have been more dangerous to try to evacuate the whole city. the traffic would have been impossible & w the roads flooded like they were, it would have been deadly

as someone living in texas, i have been cooped up in my house for the past few days. my classes have been cancelled until after labor day. that means i will have been off for a week due to the flooding. i've been monitoring the waters outside of my house bc i've been worried that we would get flooded. luckily, the waters have not reached my street yet but just outside of the neighborhood, the water has covered the roads, curbs, & grass. i watched people fill up bags w sand to try to make a sand bag barrier at the entrances & exits of the neighborhood. i saw a mom carrying her toddler, who was wearing a life jacket type of thing just in case. i saw a man help a family evacuate in his truck, & a woman crying

as for me, i am blessed that my house is not flooded, that the street immediately outside my house is still visible, & that my family is safe. i may have been cooped up in my house but at least i am able to be in my dry, safe, house. i spent my morning designing these images bc i felt like i just had to do something

if you guys could share my images, or any images that would raise more awareness about the effects of hurricane harvey on my city, on my state, & encourage people to donate their time, food, clothes, money, etc. to causes that are helping houston/texas, i know everyone in this city would appreciate it

if you have twitter, click here for a thread of places that you can donate to that aren't the red cross

Look What You Made Me Do | Taylor Swift | Official Music Video

i don't care what anyone says, this music video was definitely something else

let's talk about the song first. i'll admit, i'm always the first to complain about how i miss the old taylor swift w her curly hair & her cowboy boots* & how i loved her old songs so much. however, i don't see anything wrong w her moving from country pop to pop to whatever else she wants to pursue, as long as she does it well (which i think she does). i loved every album up til 1989 (i actually never got to hear all of the songs bc none of them were available on youtube or spotify for a while) but i actually kind of like this new song. it's very different, w a little bit of a creepier vibe & i'll admit it's a tiny bit silly, with taylor saying "i'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now. why? Oh! 'cause she's dead!" but i really liked it

she disappeared off of social media (possibly bc she was working on her music) & deleted everything & came back one day w a new coming-soon album titled "reputation" & a single called "look what you made me do" which possibly is just her trying to push all of her old reputation- all of the stuff that people said about her- & start over, show that she's not that taylor anymore- that taylor is "dead"

now on to the music video. i definitely had my doubts about whether or not i would like the music video after seeing the teaser & the snake videos. this video is definitely interesting, to say the least. we come in w an aerial view & see lights that spell out "TS" then a headstone that says "here lies taylor swift's reputation" which i thought was funny. then zombie taylor comes out of the ground in the cemetery, throwing dirt into a grave w taylor in it. then next "scene," glamorous taylor is in a tub of diamonds. the scene splits into taylor sitting at a throne w snakes crawling up the stairs & all around her (i don't know why but it kind of give me a tess-from-camp-rock feel). i didn't love this part bc her face while she sang didn't really match the vibe that it was supposed to give off. BUT i do love how when taylor says "Oh!" the snakes kind of do too. then bam, car accident, w taylor holding an award & paparazzi taking pictures of her

my favorite part was when taylor was in this orange outfit on a swing in a cage. it kind of gave me a harley quinn (from suicide squad) vibe. & the vibe continues w taylor robbing a bank in thigh high boots & a baseball bat w her blond hair all messy & a crazy look in her eye. after that, it's like a dictator taylor ruling over robotic/barbie people (???) & then the oh so famous taylor in all black, w curly hair & back up dancers, which has been compared to beyonce's formation & jenny humphrey (taylor momsen) from gossip girl. she wears black once again w the word "rep" on her chest in front of a huge lit-up "T" on top of a hill of taylors, trying to climb up. they are past taylors, like the "you belong w me" taylor. & back to the taylor w back-up dancers, which i also didn't love bc the dancing probably should have been sexy but i don't see taylor that way

at the end of the video, there is a line of taylors talking to each other. taylor swift kind of addresses her 'reputation' by having the taylors say things like "stop acting like you're so nice," "you're so fake," "there she goes, playing the victim again," undoubtedly things that people have said to taylor herself. i watched this & i thought "wow she did that." she took the things that people have said about her & put it into this video like hey look what you made me do now i'm gonna be this whole new taylor that you never would have seen coming

i think that whether or not people like taylor swift or this new song or video, they all wanted to see what taylor was up to (since she had like 400,000 views in 16 minutes). you can say a lot of things about taylor but you can't say that she didn't get people talking





*taylor swift wrote the song hey stephen about stephen liles who also wrote a song about her- "try to make it anyway"- in which he sings about her "curly hair & [her] cowboy boots"

Aug. 20- Aug. 26 | Week Vlog.

art, industry, & mass production | the late 19th century | industrialization & advertising | aesthetic movement & william morris

key terms:
crystal palace & the 1851 london exhibition
specimen books
sans-serif type
american wood type
william morris & kelmscott press

________________________________________________

• term "graphic design" not in wide use until after WWII

context:

-industrial revolution (initially in england)

 child labor, unhealthy conditions

 human & animal power until james watt perfects steam engine

 steam power = increase in productivity 

-seismic change in society

 radical, social, economic changes

• 1851: the great london exhibition (the world fair) in the crystal palace (created by joseph paxton) using ferroconcrete industrial materials (prefabricated architecture)

rise of:

advertising 

factory output 

reading matter 

separation of the design & the printing:

-printing process was laborious for printmaker but was slowly teased out to multiple people

-specimen book: typeface catalog in different sizes & widths

-industrial revolution introduces sans serif type, making it more modern & less calligraphic 

-difficult to keep up w casting letters 

 metal for casting letters can get cracks if made too quickly 

-period of increased demand for public posters & broad sheets

 needed bigger letters (for advertising) but larger metals crack --> 

-american wood type (darius wells)

 usually expensive & slow to carve out

 half the cost of metaltype & easy to smooth rough surfaces

 wells introduced basic innovation that made it easier to cut the type faster --> 

 mass manufacture wood types

• latter half of 19th century - american civil war --> need big posters 
• newspaper editions can come out more quickly bc of steam powered print presses 
• setting type by hand --> automatic type setting 

linotype machine (line of type) - ottmar mergenthaler (german immigrant)

-allowed you to press letters to create several lines of type at one time 

-allowed price of newspaper to plummet- greater distribution- more access

-book publication flourished, not just for upper classes

-illustrated periodicals in circulation --> more advertising 

-gave wider sector of society unprecedented access to weekly news

counter-tide to industrial revolution: aesthetic movement in england

-william morris- designer, utopian socialist, painter, etc.

 thinks everything is happening too quickly & quality is plummeting 

 advocated to return to hand craftsmanship

 against mass produced goods

 looked to revivalist, medieval, botanical sources

-created a craftsman firm/ team who honored craftsmanship & created furniture, textiles, etc.

 designs are costly --> falls into hands of elite

 workers should be closely aligned w crafts they produced

-kelmscott press (printing press): limited edition books that ran counter to tide of journals

 -creates his own fonts w medieval references

 -distribution was limited - not a viable answer to an industrial world

• steam powered printing press & machine manufactured paper
• lithographic printers: created plates (from readily available limestone) directly from artists' sketches

• chromo-lithography: had colors

the invention of photography

• has never congealed as a medium
• first announced in 1839 in france
• depended on copper plate coated w light-sensitive silver solution & chemical bath

in early stages:

-regarded as a natural phenomenon (light exposes an image)

-"photography"= "pencil of light"/"light writing" itself onto a page

-chemistry: photo-sensitive paper

-discipline/field: war/medical/forensic/fine art photography

-more of a mass-consumer object before it was an art form

-slow exposure, weak clarity

• developed by niepce & daguerre

-niepce started the process & brought daguerre onto the project
-daguerre took over the project when niepce died
-daguerre is most known

joseph-nicephore niepce, view from the window at le gras, tinplate, 1826

louis jacques mande daguerre, boulevard du temple (daguerreotype), ca. 1838

theodore maurisset, la daguerreotypomanie, 1839
makes fun of how people are worshiping photography
& wanting to take their picture taken

walter benjamin (on photography):

-sense of permanence of daguerreotype 

-sense of aura & energy

-mysterious & alluring bond w the sitter

david octavius hill & robert adamson, elizabeth johnstone, seated newhaven fishwife, 1843-48

• spirit photography: double printing or double exposure to "photoshop"/"edit"/alter photo --> transforming reality 
• stands & architectural elements used as support for people to stay still

early uses & abuses of photography:

• used in science & governing authorities

-orientalist/imperialist photography

 photographers sent out to accumulate knowledge (photos) of places to colonize

 lead to fervor for orient

maxime du camp, cidi's tomb, upper egypt, c. 1850

-war photography

• do you photograph the real aftermath of war or the prettier picture, more artistic/compositionally appealing?

roger fenton, hardships at the crimea

roger fenton, shadow of the valley of death, 1855

timothy o'sullivan, a harvest of death, gettysburg, july 4th
1863

-medical photography

 duchenne de boulogne, 1850s-60s

 ^physiognomy- facial construction had some connection to who you were as a person (debunked)

--> 

-forensic photography

 forensics: criminals tracked by facial features

 alphonse bertillon --> 

 bertillon system: fingerprinting, collecting info on criminals, mugshot, filing system

 francis galton- early eugenicist 

 came up w average set of features that belonged to certain groups of people (debunked)

• how to make a photograph to show as art

the two ways of life, oscar gustav rejlander
1857
copies what we would see in a history painting (poses, arrangement, etc.)

pictorial photography:

-first movement that is purely photographic

-what can photography do differently than other mediums?

-self organized into "camera clubs"

 "amateur" photographer indicated that they were not commercial

-julia margaret cameron advocated for pictorial photography (highly crafted picture)

the whisper of the muse, julia margaret cameron
1865

venus chiding cupid & removing his wings,  julia margaret cameron
1872
blurriness, romantic, allegorical subjects

• movements feeding off once another before pure photography emerges in early 20th century (similar ideas, composition, styles)

the ring toss, clarence white
1899

dancers practicing at the barre edgar degas, 1877

theories/thoughts on modern art | greenburg vs. clark

clement greenburg:
-medium specificity- hone in to what is central to artists' mediums
  ^moral ideal: makes art autonomous, free
-disciplines free to explore their own concerns
  painting separate from sculpture, dance, etc.
-increasing sense of artist as bohemian
-sees manet being transparent about medium- showing flatness, pigment, rectangular support
-result of centuries of artistic development
  nothing arbitrary about it
  not about discontinuity- about continuous transformation over time

t.j. clark:
-dada, surrealism, etc. could be seen as violent against modernism
-tendencies towards negative
-destruction of the past/tradition/previous aesthetic order
-read modernism as response to social/political/economical systems, in particular, capitalism
  parallels capitalism- farming life is replaced, increased sense of uprootedness
  modernism is story of art in the age of capitalism

modernism's origins | ch. 1

AP art history notes on 19th century art

modernity: broad social formation beginning w the renaissance
modernization: process of arriving at the condition of modernity
modernism: art produced w/in 1850s-1960s

19th century france: 
-center of revolution in politics, culture, economics, etc.
-when modern art began
-end of feudalism
-challenged monarchy
-fought for social justice, equality, political rights
 ex. workers uprising, seneca falls convention, nat turner slave rebellion

• rise of "art for art's sake"
• independent artists, separate from patronage
• academy of fine arts= royal

-hierarchical (history > portrait > genre > still life > landscape)
-paris salon exhibitions: public space of culture; had to be academy member to show work

• "ideal" image from renaissance: one-point perspective, geometry, etc.

ex. Christ handing over the keys to st. peter, the last supper, school of athens

• neoclassical style showed power; enforced for centuries after renaissance

origins of modernism:

1. jacques- louis david

neoclassical style but revolutionary attitude
used history painting for revolution

showed art as a way of intervening w political positions

oath of horatii- jacques-louis david
1785
patriotism, propaganda, nation > family
emphasized oath to nation instead of monarch
vanishing point is the clenched hand
modern: abandoned representational “tricks”

death of marat, jacques-louis david
marat= radical journalist, murdered by aristocrats
painting was paraded down the streets
& during french revolution

2. industrial revolution

1760- 1840

increase in urban life, shift in relationship w environment

emphasis on time & space (railroad)

manual/stable/agricultural --> machine/mass production

rain, steam, & speed- j.m.w. turner
1844

3. photography

technology of images

access to optical unconscious

magnifying reality

4. gustave courbet

independent artist (was rejected from the exhibition so he created his own)

embraced idea of artist as bohemian/free agent

sympathetic to lower class

the stonebreakers- courbet

5. edouard manet

showed work in the salon of the refused

artist as "flaneur" ("stroller," "idler")

sympathized w urban class

painted the cast offs (ex. Olympia= prostitute, Ragpicker= homeless)

luncheon on the grass- manet
rejection of every rule
calls attention to flatness, "painting about painting"
contour lines influenced by japanese print
rejected by the salon

• modernism- thirst for originality, creativity, authenticity; "purified" the form of their work

_______________________________________________

• challenging the modernist narrative: early 20th cent. avant-gardes

marcel duchamp, fountain, 1917
vladimir tatlin, monument to the third international, 1920

• challenging the modernist narrative: american scene painting & regionalism

grant wood, american gothic, 1930
thomas hart benton, the hailstorm, 1940
edward hopper, nighthawks, 1942

• challenging the modernist narrative: the harlem renaissance (battling multiple identities)

jacob lawrence, the migration of the american negro, panel 1, 1940
lois mailou jones

• challenging the modernist narrative: mexican muralism (embracing didactic language & artist responsibility to use work as political commentary)

jose clemente orozco
david alfaro siquieros
diego rivera

• challenging the modernist narrative: art informel (how artists register trauma of WWII, low culture/ high culture, primitivism)

jean dubuffet, volonte de puissance, 1946
wols, champigny blue
jean fautrier, head of a hostage no. 22
________________________________________________

when does modernism end?
-1960: rise of pop, minimalism, neo-dada
-use of non-art materials
-can be mass produced
-art moves out of museums & gallery & interacts w new environments
-ambiguity to work's meaning & artists' intention
 viewer brings meaning to the work of art

Aug. 13- Aug. 19 | Week Vlog.

cali shirt | DIY

when i go thrifting, i like to keep an eye out for plain shirts that fit me in a cute way (& aren't completely hideous) so that i can do my own designs on them. i usually just use sharpie or paint. recently, i came along a plain dark blue long sleeve shirt & bought it. i did some research (on pinterest, etsy, etc.) to find inspiration. i decided to go w a cali-girl theme since i was born there

i used a mixture of fabric puffy paint w regular acrylic paint bc i knew that puffy paint doesn't help when you're trying to do neat letters. in the upper left of my shirt, i had a circle inside of a circle. the inner circle says "cali" while the outer circle says stay golden. the sleeves say "west coast" "best coast" which i liked since it rhymed (& is true). on the back of the shirt, i decided to draw the state of california w palm leaves in it

FRONT:

BACK:

painting all of this on the shirt took me about 2-3 hours while watching gossip girl. i really like the end result, although i don't think i'll get to wear it any time soon w the weather in texas

"pixel forest" exhibit by pipilotti rist | MFAH

i think by now, everyone has seen pictures or has taken pictures at pipilotti rist's "pixel forest" exhibit at the museum of fine arts- houston. it's the one w the hanging balls of lights that change colors. i've been dying to go ever since the first post i saw of it & allison & i finally planned another day downtown to go to this exhibit

the exhibit was not as exciting as i thought it would be (bc after you see it, you're kind of like "now what?") but it was beautiful. the "pixel forest," along w the "worry will vanish" exhibit on the walls make for a vibrant & breathtaking space in which viewers can relax & just lose themselves in the beauty. for more information on the exhibit itself, click here

so everyone comes to the exhibit to take pictures & why would allison & i be any different? we had to do the best we could since we could not have flash on but i think some of the photos turned out great (plus i went back & edited my favorite photos)

it makes me so happy to see beautiful, changing, interactive work like this that people can really enjoy. there has been a lot of hype about the "pixel forest" & as part of the art community, i think that the positive response to the exhibit from the viewers is really special