Announcement 4: Due Date for Submitting Last Images for our Mural Design

This Saturday, April 3, by 5 p.m. will be the due date for submitting any more images for our mural design. Next Tuesday, April 6, will be the last day for finalizing our mural design. There will be no more extension given to anyone. As I have told you if you didn't contribute any images or ideas for this design process, you will lost maximum of 30 points in this mural painting class. If you were absent from last class, you should be make up your missing time and check with your peers to see anything you need to do, like reading the mural books which we circulated during the class and the following week. Also, I have posted the draft mural design on our blog to let you keep up with the design process. If you have any questions, please send me your comments via our discussion forum. Remember, the success of this mural project is depended on individual accountability and group interdependability.  

Thanks,

Prof. Kong Ho

Mural Painting Production Time Frame

·      February 16 & 23, 2010: A series of Powerpoint presentations of American mural art movement. Set up our course blog for both ways communication and blog journal.

·      March 2& 8, 2010: We each flesh out our individual contributions to prepare preliminary ideas and share images and sketches. Comment on common themes that we see emerging from our ideas, images, and sketches. Some of us will respond for documentation of our design process.

·      March 15, 22, & 29, 2010: Distill our comments down the first draft of major themes, and the content that will represent these themes. Compose our initial digital mural design collectively through class meetings and blog communication.  Finalize our digital mural design by the end of March.

·      April 5 & 12, 2010: Begin working on our mural color layout and enlarge the linear layout. Some of us document our painting process.

·      April 19 & 26, 2010: Troubleshooting to solve any unpredictable problem in composition, layout enlarging, and mural painting practice. Then we work on any additional work such as wall and colors preparation needed to be done ahead of time before actual mural painting

·      May 3 & 10, 2010: Start our mural production first stage: underpainting.

·      May 17, 24 & 31, 2010: We work collaboratively together on actual mural painting.

·      June 1-4, & 14-25, 2010: Begin our final production stage & varnishing.

·      June 28, 2010: Participate our final critique, reflection, assessment, follow-up with documentation presentation and celebration, and seek appropriate opportunity to work together for another mural in the future.

Instructions in Using YouSendIt.com

Herewith are two illustrations to show you the instructions in using YouSendIt.com to send your digital images to me. If you have any more question, please feel free to email me. 

Thanks,

Prof. Kong Ho

Announcement 3: Sending Digital Images Instructions

I would be grateful if you can separate the image from background and save that layer with psd extension, Photoshop format, or tiff extension, TIFF format with transparent background, before you sent it to me via YouSendIt.com, www.yousendit.com

Also, please send me the image with the resolution of 300 dpi and the image size not larger than 1920 px X 2560 px and with 1 layer. You can delete the original image layer before you save it. The image size per layer should not larger than 14.1 MB. If you want to send me 3 layers (maximum) with different altered images, then the final image size of that layers image should not larger than 31.7 MB. Some of your peers may need help from you in sending out the images, so please be helpful to your peers. Remember all your participations are important to this mural painting project. If you have any question, please let me know.

Thanks,

Prof. Kong Ho

Mural Design Discussion Ideas from Kong Ho

Mural Design Discussion Ideas from Kong Ho:

My answers to the Think-Pair-Share Activity:

A1: My roles in this community mural project are facilitator, advocator, leader, mentor, partner, designer, and muralist. My past experience in community murals will be applied in this project and help me to be a good mentor and partner in this collaborative project.

A2: I expect the viewers to admire the diverse and similar cultures between Bulgaria and America with highlight in the arts, and understand the value of cultural exchange through art in this mural.

A3: Through comparison and contrast of two cultures, I expect to find a harmonious visual relationship in presenting the themes of culture and art.

A4: Any historical figures who has contributed to building the connection between two cultures no matter in art, science, or humanities.

Guidelines for Mural Design Research

Public Art: Mural Painting Prof. Kong Ho
Spring 2010, Tue: 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Phone: 088 837 4557
National Academy of Art, Sofia, Bulgaria e-mail: koh1@pitt.edu


Guidelines for Mural Design Research:

Discussed Mural Design Ideas during Think-Pair-Share Activity:

Technological images, digital expression, spiritual icons, traditional design patterns, geometrical elements, poetic images, historical figures, ….

Below are the questions for the Think-Pair-Share Activity:
Q1: How do you see yourself and your art in this community mural project?
Q2: What do you want the viewers to see or to gain from this mural?
Q3: What are the most significant factors in visualizing our themes?
Q4: Which actual individual(s) or historical figure(s) should be used as part(s) of visual images for this mural and why?

Suggested questions to guide your thinking process in this mural design:
Q1: What is the similarities and differences between Bulgarian and American cultures?
Q2: How do we interpret the term culture? (history, language, beliefs, values, innovations including scientific and economic, arts, people, customs/traditions, social/political structure, etc.)
Q3: What are the significant symbols or icons of Bulgarian and American cultures?
Q4: What kinds of art work we will commonly use to represent Bulgarian and American art in traditional and contemporary sense?

Suggested topics for organizing your research or discussion:
Try to think about culture in terms of popular culture, such as history, holidays, sports, religion, cuisine, literature, art, music, dance, theater, fashion, television, films/cinema, and architecture, public art, firearms, etc.

Try to list the significant cultural identities between two cultures:
American culture: mainly composes by European ideals, especially British, and the ideals of Greek and Roman in building its capital; and domestic originality formed by cultural diversity or ethnic/racial difference.

American beliefs: democracy/freedom in expression, capitalism, civil liberties, monotheism (mainly Christianity), materialism, competitiveness, …

American cuisine: fusion of multiple ethnic or regional approaches in 20th century, hot dogs, hamburgers, pizzas, pastas, sodas, potato chips, corn cereals, etc.

Bulgarian culture: mainly related to Thracians, Greeks, Romans, Slavs, and Bulgars

Bulgarian cultural identities:
Excellent in goldsmith, 5th millennium BC;
Cyrillic alphabet, the second most-widely used alphabet in the world;
John Ataanasoff, a US citizen of Bulgarian descent, father of the digital computer;
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, famous for environmental art

Bulgarian beliefs: mainly Orthodox Christianity, little Muslim, democracy after 1989, …
Bulgarian cuisine: salads, soups, lucky charms, wines, etc.

Wikipedia links to Bulgarian and American cultures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thracians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_cuisine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_the_United_States

Announcement 2: Permissions set for our Discussion Forum

Announcement 2: Permissions for our Gmail Blog Discussion Forum

I just want to let you all know that I have added all of you as authors and readers in our discussion forum. From now on, our discussion forum is executive to our invited authors and readers only. That means no other bloggers can view or comment on our community blog but you. So please respond to the invitation by signing in with your Gmail address and password to browse our posts and post your comments or posts.

Thanks,
Prof. Kong Ho