Graffiti

I took this picture when we were wandering around London when we first got here. This is the first example of bad street art that I saw. This tagging is more vandalism then anything else. It doesn't contribute anything aesthetically significant, make any social commentary, or beautify the street in any way. This is just a rude way of getting your name out there and is just very unnecessary and shows that someone doesn't have much pride in where they live. There is graffiti covering both of the mailboxes clearly from different times and no one has done anything to clean off the tagging that was already there.

This is another example of bad street art. This occurred in Trafalgar Square because of protests on Saturday. You can clearly see "Fight Back" written on the lion, and there is more graffiti with similar sentiments covering other parts of the square. Although I consider this graffiti to be vandalism at least it is social commentary and definitely gets a point across. Unfortunately this sentiment was achieved by destroying an important monument and takes away from people's enjoyment of the square.

Both the above and below photos were taken of street art graffiti in Soho. I would even love to have the one below on my wall, I've always loved this photo of Albert Einstein and I like it even better since its been adapted to this format. It put a huge smile on my face when I saw this. This is the kind of street art that I really like and can actually contribute to the surrounding area. It isn't just someone tagging their name or vandalizing a billboard, it is actually creative and pleasant to look at. The size of the art is even more impressive and the way it is laid out on the booth couldn't have been easy. You could say the same thing about the street art above. I'm still not completely sure what it is a portrait of but if I had to guess I think it might be DeNiro from Taxi Driver. This one really makes an impact and an impression. It is a powerful image and it is so cool seeing pop art taken and adapted in this way.

National Portrait Gallery

1. Critique the logo
Does the logo relate to the architecture, galleries, and collections?
Do you have any suggestions based upon a collection surrounding portraits?

The logo is boring and has no distingising features. It is easily forgotten and maks no impact what so ever. It consists of a very average, plain font, with the three words stacked on top of one another, and has black lettering against a white background. Considering the interesting and unique portraits inside the gallery including colorful Andy Warhol and other famous portraits, the logo does not reflect anything within the museum. I would suggest that if they're really committed to keeping the font they could copy andy warhol's style and have the logo multiple times in all different colors. Or even use someone's face from the gallery to replace a few of the letters. There needs to be something that pops and reflects the varied collection.

I chose Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley for myself. She wrote Frankenstein at the age of 21 and was a really interesting person. I saw myself in her mostly because I recently got really into the book Frankenstein and I love scary horror stories. She was the original scary monster writer and started the genre. I loved that she was a young writer and I really enjoy writing fiction, especially scary stories as well. Also, if I lived in the 180s I would definitely steal that off the shoulder dress from her!

This portrait of Paul Merton made me smile as soon as I saw it. It is just so silly and ridiculous and completely different then any other portrait in the whole Museum. This portrait reminded me of Max Florian. He is the goofiest person I've ever met and does anything for a laugh. If he was to create his own portrait I bet anything that he would do something ridiculous like this.

As soon as saw this portrait of Joan Collins I immediately thought of Ally Stavis. The sunglasses were the major reason. I don't think I ever see Ally without her signature sunglasses. Joan Collins is also an actress and I could see Ally having some of those characteristics and running off to Hollywood.

This painting of the dancer Darcey Andrew Bussell reminded me of Stephanie Tucker. She is such a happy person all the time and always wears such colorful outfits that I feel like the vibrant multicolors in this painting definitely relate to her. Also, she was a skater for a long time and dancing is very similar in style, grace, movement, and music. I thought this ballerina could absolutely be Stephanie if you just added skates.

This last portrait of John Maynard Keynes (a Baron) and Lydia Lopokova (Lady Keynes) reminded me of Abby Siwak. I mostly focused on drawing Lydia since she was the one who interested me the most. To be painted smoking in the 1920s indicated that you were liberal and had a very free kind of life, living outside the social restraints of society. Abby is very unique and definitely lives to the beat of her own drummer. Like Lady Keynes I doubt Abby lets society dictate what she does or cares what people think of her.