Over the past 8 weeks, I have learnt a lot about the history of graphic arts, and have developed many skills during the process, mainly researching into past artists work and seeing how they shaped the graphics arts industry, from Avant Guard to postmodernism.

Although when I began this research blog, I had a dislike to the work I was studying, being the type of art that in the past I had disliked in the past I grew to like such as Shepard Fairy’s work that I learnt was more than just branding and a seeming cult type movement, it actually had meaning and was there to try and open our eyes to what’s around us.

What got me most was the counter culturism, I actually liked a lot of the work involved especially from the psychedelic work of Bob Masse and Bill Graham, i loved the art style and the colours they used as well as the way they use their work to express and provoke society in a sense of rebellion and going against the norm. I love the way they work with bold colours that shouldn’t be seen together, such as yellows next to purples yet it adds to the effect, my favourite artist was Bob Masse who used one of my favourite artists as inspiration, Alphonsa Mucha, an art nouvaue artist who’s art is one of my favourite to look at and I happy to see that someone has taken on his work and made something interesting out of it, by keeping the style of Mucha yet using colours to bring it into the counter-culterism movement. making it elegant and fun at the same time.

I prefered the works where I could explore my own interests, such as task 2 where I compared two images that I liked and had similar relations to my own work. I also enjoyed the publish or perish task of choosing my own images that I enjoyed and wanted to describe and look into more detail about how, I got to look into things I liked and share them with other students on the blog. It also makes me look at things more closely such as how a piece of art is put together, the colour schemes used and why they are used. As well as how they the piece works as a whole and if it completes it’s purpose, a lot of the work I have studied has influenced my own work, and has given me new inspirations and ideas that I can work with in the future with my own artistic career and has made me think about what really goes into a piece and what I’m really trying to say with my artwork, as well as it’s purpose, and makes me want to continue this research further as I progress with my study.

One thing I would do better next time is to research more into my artists and give more analysed reviews, as well as being more organised with posting my blogs and understanding the work more.