Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O'Keefe was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, in her family's farm house, 15th November 1887. Her early artistic instruction was through the local watercolourist Sarah Mann who worked at her school, Town Hall School. She attended high school in Madison, Wisconsin as a boarder at Sacred Heart Academy. In 1905 she attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Her piece, Ram's Head, White Hollyhock and Little Hills, was very different to the pieces she had created before, such as No. 13 Special. This work is composed of a ram's skull and horns, a small white blossom and small red hills serve as a backdrop for the bones and flower. The sky slowly and peacefully morphs into soft clouds, on the brink of a downpour. The skull is detailed, yet the hills are rough.

Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky was a friend of Paul Klee, a Swiss painter. Kandinsky was born on 16th December 1866, Moscow. His well known and most complex piece, Composition VII, was made in 1913 and now hangs in the Tretyakov Gallery in Munich.

Composition VII is a complex splash of colour, with vibrance exploding across the canvas. Many amateur critics have had to break it up into pieces to fully understand it and judge it correctly. The piece has a combination of both pastel and bold colours, all combining into a magnificent composition. If this painting was to be taken in from an audio perspective, it would sound as if an explosion was ringing in your ears, and the bright, upbeat song played by a massive orchestra. There even a few elements of taste added to the piece as well, such as the sweetness of icecream and the zing of a lemon shown through meandering and crisp linework. Even as the commotion rages within the heart of the masterpiece, the thick pieces of neutral ground frame the frenzy, the calm browns and creams giving the viewer a break from the turmoil.

Paul Klee (The Twittering Machine)

Paul Klee is a musician and artist who deals with creating suggestions of sound through his artwork. One of his more well-known pieces is "The Twittering Machine". This unusual piece seems to make the illusion of the chattering and twittering of the birds within it.

The soft blue colour of the background allows us to see the more detailed design of the birds without assaulting us with a more vibrant colour, distracting us from the "Twittering Machine". The birds are not the things we see in everyday life, nor do they sing the sweet melody of an everyday bird's song. The birds created by Klee are harsher and more bizarre, singing a crisp, sharp song.

Paul Klee was born in Munchenbuchsee, Switzerland into a family of music on 18th December 1879. His father, Hans was a German music teacher at the Hofwil Teacher Seminar and his mother, Ida Flick had trained to be a singer. Paul seemed to be talented in both art and music, beginning the violin at 7 and begining to draw with chalk at 8. In 1898, at the age of 19, he began to study art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. After receiving his Fine Arts degree, he started to experiment with new techniques, such as drawing on black glass with a needle, which produced 57 pieces, including "Portrait of My Father" (1906). He later taught at the Bauhaus School of Art with his friend, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky. Paul Klee died aged 61 on 29th June, 1940.

Andy Warhol

Hello Again! This time I will be talking about Andy Warhol!

As some of you know, last term there was an Andy Warhol exhibition in Brisbane.

Here is a little informatiion about him:

Andy was born as Andrew Warhola on 6th August, 1928 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He later became a well-known artist and participant in the artistic movement known as 'Pop Art'. He studied at the Carnegie Mellon University and his works include Chelsea Girls (1966), Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966) and Campbell's Soup Cans (1968).

On June 3rd 1968, Andy Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya were shot by Valerie Solanas (a separatist feminist) at Andy's studio. Mario received minor injuries, walking out of the hospital the same day, whereas Andy suffered terribly, surviving only after doctors opened his chest and massaged his heart to stimulate movement to save him from an almost certain death. Even years after the shooting incident, Andy was limited by his physical injuries.

Andy Warhol died aged 59. He had allegedly suffered a sudden heart attack while successfully recovering from a routine gallbladder operation at New York Hospital. He died at 6:32am on February 22nd 1987.

Andy's brothers took the body back to their home town of Pittsburgh for a burial. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with white upholstery and gold plated rails. Andy wore a black cashmere suit, a Paisley tie, a platinum wig and sunglasses and was holding a small bible and a red rose. The coffin was covered in white roses and asparagus ferns. Before the coffin was lowered into a grave beside his mother and father at St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, Paige Powell, a guest at the service, dropped a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview T-shirt and a bottle of 'Beautiful' perfume by Estee Lauder down into the grave.

And there he lies today!

Here are some of Andy Warhol's works:

My PC

I have not added anything for awhile, so I apologise.
Since I cannot find the post about my PC (Personal Card) I have decided to redo it.
My PC is mostly about my passion for music. It involves the lines of the staff, music notes and my name.
It also contains my mobile and home numbers, as well as my home address.
I like this card, it reflects my personailty and passion, but a touch of colour wouldn't have hurt it that much, if we weren't supposed to complete it in black and white.

Cool Website!

There is this amazing 'Arti Wiki' website which has some pretty cool paintings and sculptures. If you enjoy this sort of stuff, there is a link below to some of the coolest pieces of art, and the website itself. We are going to the National Gallery where these exhibitions are held in Canberra on our Canberra excursion on March 25-29. There is also the Sculpture Gardens at the National Gallery. Feel free to have a look around:
http://www.portrait.gov.au/animated/
http://www.portrait.gov.au/static/exhibition.php
http://arti.pbwiki.com/
Keep loving life!
Kayla

Multiple Intelligence Quiz

Hello people! This is my Multiple Intelligence Quiz results, or I hope it is, because the image didn't upload very well when I was downloading it. I have found out that I am a musical (no surprises there) learner and Visual/Spatial learner. I absolutely adore music and learn pieces quickly, so that would work. Also, I enjoy doing 'crazy little doodles' or figurines of me and I like doing crazy things, so I'm a jogsaw puzzle that is different and doesn't always fit together. I also like words. That's why I'm writing my story. If you want to learn more about 'The Journey to Remember' and what it's about, please visit my English blog at http://sthksaichenglish.blogspot.com/

And from now on I'll be doing a 'phrase of the day' on my English blog, so look out for it!

I adore individual and intrapersonal art, and I crave being alone and without anyone else telling what to do, or how to draw, or tell me how to play. I rule my life. I love my life. I control my life.

Keep loving your life!

Kayla