Opie Otterstad: Heart and soul of Baseball Paintings

Opie Otterstad paints the game from within. He has become, in some respect, as much a part of baseball as the players on the field who he spends much of his year with. It is from this perspective that Opie shares with us his reverence for the games past and present. Through this, the viewers are able to effectively feel the atmosphere in the stadium there. Just by looking at the example above, the artwork entitled ‘Los Angles Angeles Victory’, one can feel the celebratory mood that is spilling out from the canvas. From this, I was inspired to paint like that, having th ability to let the viewers feel the exact feelings of the players in that situation. Opie Otterstadhas studied and painted sports for a long time, and has rich experience in capturing the exact moment and feeling of the situation, and also being able to exactly copy those feelings and atmosphere and put them on canvas. I am inspired to become that kind of artist – to be able to let the viewers be able to be totally immersed in the painting.

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Mural Paintings

Mural Paintings were my inspiration for the canvas size and canvas set-up in my coursework. The mural paintings were able to efficiently engulf the viewers into the scene on the walls. The viewers were able to immediately able to feel the supposed atmosphere and hence would be able to further understand what meanings the artist of the mural paintings are trying to convey. For my coursework, I wanted to let the public have more exposure to softball (as softball is somewhat a close-to-extinct sport ) and one af the greatest greatness is the atmosphere in the stadium. Thus i had initially wanted to paint a certain part of the school wall, however, much had to be done in order to get approval and the plan fell through. Hence i decided on a 360 degree effect using 2 canvases and placing them at right angles to each other. In that way, the viewers will also be able the be engulfed into the scene on my canvas! (:

Ieoh Ming Pei: Architect of the Louvre Pyramid

I was only introduced to architecture stuffs since last year. It was every since I saw my father brought home a small model of a house. Since then, I have been meaning to make a small model of my house, however, due to the lack of time and lack of resources, I have yet to make an architecture model. Early this year, during chinese culture lesson, our teachers screened this documentary, talking about asian chinese who have made an impact in the western countries. One of the very few chinese in none other than Ieoh Ming Pei, more commonly known to me as the architect of the Louvre Pyramid. In a sense, he did not exactly inspire me in any of my art works, however, he did inspire me to be an architect. He inspired me to have more creativity and simplified thinking. This is due to the fact that Ieoh Ming Pei designs his buildings mostly in the manner of modern architecture, a phrase which refers to art with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and creation of ornament from the structure and theme of the building.

Founding father of animation: Walt Disney

Background info on him:

Walter Elias Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966) was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon and philanthropist. Disney is famous for his influence in the field of entertainment during the twentieth century. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Disney became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world. The corporation he co-founded, now known as The Walt Disney Company, today has annual revenues of approximately U.S. $35 billion.

Disney is particularly noted for being a film producer and a popular showman, as well as an innovator in animation and theme park design. He and his staff created a number of the world’s most famous fictional characters including Mickey Mouse. He received fifty-nine Academy Award nominations and won twenty-six Oscars, including a record four in one year, giving him more awards and nominations than any other individual. He also won seven Emmy Awards. He is the namesake for Disneyland and Walt Disney World Resort theme parks in the United States, Japan, France, and China.

However, Disney died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966, a few years prior to the opening of his Walt Disney World Resort dream project in Florida.

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Throughout Walt Disney’s journey to success, he suffered through many failures, but yet was still able to persist and become the founding father of 2D animation. His creation of Mickey Mouse – my favourite cartoon character – lead him to his stardom. In doing so, he developed the concept of 2D black and white animation, as well as 2D coloured animation. His contribution to the society has been so great that even after 43 years after his death, he is still remembered dearly, as the founding father of animation, as well as a great contributor to the entertainment industry – be it animation wise or theme parks wise. When I was small, my life revolved around Disney cartoons. I had a dream – to create my very own 2D animation. I would draw small animations at the corner of my textbooks in primary school – the days when 2D animation was still in the market. Disney’s works has inspired me throughout my entire life. Be it, the various morals behind  the stories that inspired me to become a better person or the concept of animation, just the creation of Mickey Mouse itself. Mickey Mouse was the first thing that I drew on my own account. I was usually force to draw, for the art lessons in school, however, Mickey Mouse made me see the fun and entertaining side of art, drawing, and animation. Without Walt Disney and his various creations, especially Mickey Mouse, I would not be who I am now. Thus, Walt Disney is the GREATEST inspiration in my life.

Singapore Biennial 2007

The names of the artists of this artwork are Agus Suwage & Titarubi, and the title is ‘Crossroad’. It is a mixed media installation which was made in 2006 for the Singapore Biennale.
There is a wagon, a bomb-shaped sculpture made out of artificial flowers, long tracks and shattered ceramic body pieces in this piece of art. The lines, formed by the long tracks are placed on the ground so that there is a cross shape, with the bomb-shaped sculpture on the wagon right at the edge of the cross. The shapes of the objects in this artwork are proportionate and realistic. The space in this artwork is spacious, thus the artwork is in the outdoors. The colours used for the shattered ceramic body pieces and the tracks are dull, making the atmosphere rather sad. While the colour used for the artificial flowers in the bomb-shaped sculpture is bright, cheering up the atmosphere a little. I feel that there are no patterns in this artwork.
The most significant art principle that was used in this artwork is unity as the elements used in this artwork are seen as a whole and not just a series of independent elements and separate sections. The artwork is also well balanced from the front view of the artwork. The wagon, bomb-shaped sculpture made out of artificial flowers, long tracks and shattered ceramic body pieces are very proportioned.
Through Crossroad, the artists are trying to raise money for the earthquake victims of Yogyakarta, the hometown of the artists. In this piece of artwork, there are also shattered ceramic body pieces on the track representing dead people. The bomb-shaped sculpture suggests that the shattered body pieces were caused by a bomb attack. This is slightly similar to the earthquake that occurred in Yogyakarta, just that the people who died in the Yogyakarta died in an earthquake, while the people in this artwork most likely died in a bomb attack. The colours used for the shattered ceramic body pieces and the tracks are dull, making the atmosphere rather sad. While the colour used for the artificial flowers in the bomb-shaped sculpture is bright, cheering up the atmosphere a little, as if there was a little hope to the survivors of the bomb attack. I think that the artists did this artwork in a way of asking us to donate to the earthquake victims of Yogyakarta, giving them hope for survival after the disaster.
I feel quite sad when I looked at this piece of artwork as it reminds me that there are a lot of other people around the world that needs help and that we should help them, giving them hope and happiness. I like this piece of artwork very much as it has a lot of meaning hidden inside and I feel that it is very important in bringing awareness to the needy people around the world.

Photoshop Course

Magical Hat

Photoshop

2007

Overall Rating: 6/10

This magical hat was done during my photoshop course for sabbaticals. It was rather simple to do, and I didn’t really have any troubles doing it, as I have very detailed instructions to follow in order to create this wonderful looking magical hat.

Google Sketch-up Mini Project

Singapore Polyechnic Alumni Guild House

Google Sketchup

December 2008

This project was actually done for my Uncle. He is into the Feng Shuai Business, and I think his client was the Singpore Polytechnic Guild House comittee. Due to the fact that at that time, I was blabbering to my family about building those kind of miniature architecture models, and my uncle who was there at that time, decided that I should try this out first. The programme used is Google Sketchup, easily download-able from google. I had to familliarise myself with the various functions first. Because thie programme works more effciently if the user uses all the shortcuts, I had to spent 3 days remembering the various shortcuts, in order to efficiently build this virtural structure. My uncle gave me the blue prints and various pictures of the guild house and I was off. I had a hard time starting, as no one has taught me how to start. I didn not know whether I should build 1 big rectangular structure and start reducing it into the shape of the building, or I should just building sectiosn by sections. I had to do multiple trial and errors, before I could get into the groove of building the structure, whereby a routine was made. I would look at the blueprints and then build up the various sections of the structure. The most challenging part of building this structure was the roof. The roof consists of 4 huge arc, overlapping each other. Due to the fact that this programme  does not drawing curves (even if there were curves, they were made up of tiny straight lines) thus I had a hard time constructing the arcs. I also had a hard time constructing the swimming pool. I spent a whole afternoon consturcting it as I did not know how to construct it in a way whereby the depth of the pool is increasing. To make things worst, the pool was rather curvy. To add on, the details o the sturcutre were very time consuming. To get the details right, such as the corridors, and windows. These areas took alot of patience to complete. Though this project has yet to be completed, I am looking forward to continuing it, and adding in the greenery to make the structure more realistic looking.

Besides this project, I also tried designing my own house, however, I have yet to finish one proper design.

Coursework: Field and Uniform

These are part of my prep work. for the field, I was trying to introduce the positions of the softball players. And for the uniforms, on the right, I was playing around with the colour combinations and the designs for the jerseys. I decided not to use the black combinations as they were bright colours and would be easily over-looked(which is NOT what i want) thus, i decided on the blue and red design, rather contrasting colours, so as to differenciate the different teams.

Coursework: Fielding

Through this prep, I was studying the various poses during the fielding section in softball. The top left drawing is a drawing of the catcher, stretching high up to catch a wild pitch. The stretching movement and shape of the body – whereby the left side of the catcher’s body is more stretched as compared to her right side – aids me in my future painting of the final.  I did not include the catcher in my final, I was still able to use this body stretching concept to the other athlete figures. The other drawings includes the grounder catch, the dive catch, the ready position, the first baseman stretch catch, and the throwing position. By doing these prep works, I am able to study how the clothes creases up as the body moves.