Professional Artists Research Articles

Polygonal-Pyramidal Method of Structured Anatomical Analysis in Professional Art Education

This article examines the author's method for teaching professional art education through the utilization of polygonal and geometric shapes. It delves into the fundamental principles, tools, and techniques involved in working with such forms. Academic Drawing, a cornerstone discipline in painting education, is explored within the context of this method. Specifically, the article discusses the Method of Anatomical Polygonal-Pyramidal Structured Analysis and Geometrical-Plastic Modeling of Form, implemented within the professional art education curriculum at the Lugansk State Academy of Culture and Arts, Russia, under the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Department of Easel Painting. To assess the method's effectiveness, a study employing the stratometric modeling method was conducted with five student study groups, comprising female students aged 18-25, all pursuing training in Stationary Painting. The study spanned various periods, revealing the method's capacity to expedite professional development and yield significant student achievements. The article concludes by underscoring the method's importance in nurturing spatial-artistic thinking, rooted in the identification of anatomical nodes influencing overall figure structure and internal plasticity. By connecting these nodes into a cohesive system, the method facilitates the expression of artistic constructive form. Through the transformation of triangles into volumetric geometric forms and their layered application, the method enables the creation of tonal gradations and overall figure volume. Moreover, it cultivates anatomical constructive thinking, enhances understanding of human structure, and fosters proficiency in applying mathematical principles to creative problem-solving.

The impact of advanced augmented and virtual reality technologies on the evolution of modern professional art education

The impact of advanced augmented and virtual reality technologies on the evolution of modern professional art education

DynBioSketch: A tool for sketching dynamic visual summaries in biology, and its application to infection phenomena

Having simple methods of illustration is essential to scientific thinking. To complement the abstract sketches regularly used in cell biology, we propose DynBioSketch, an easy-to-use digital modeling and animation tool, enabling biologists to resort to less simplified representations when necessary without having to call professional artists. DynBioSketch is an interactive sketching system dedicated to the design and communication of biological phenomena at the cellular scale that can be illustrated in a few minutes of animation. Our model integrates 3D modeling, pattern-based design of 3D shape distributions, and sketch-based animation. These elements can be combined to create complex scenarios such as the infection phenomenon on which we focus, allowing a narrative design adapted to communication between researchers or educational applications in biology. Our results, along with a user study conducted with biology researchers, highlight the potential of DynBioSketch in enabling the direct design of dynamic visual summaries that convey relevant information, as shown in our infection case study. By bridging the gap between abstract representations used by experts and more illustrative depictions, DynBioSketch opens a new avenue for communicating biological concepts.

3D sketching in immersive environments: Shape from disordered ribbon strokes

Immersive environments with head mounted displays (HMD) and hand-held controllers, either in Virtual or Augmented Reality (VR/AR), offer new possibilities for the creation of artistic 3D content. Some of them are exploited by mid-air drawing applications: the user’s hand trajectory generates a set of stylized curves or ribbons in space, giving the impression of painting or drawing in 3D. We propose a method to extend this approach to the sketching of surfaces with a VR controller. The idea is to favor shape exploration, offering a tool, where the user creates a surface just by painting ribbons. These ribbons are not constrained to form patch boundaries for example or to completely cover the shape. They can be very sparse, disordered, overlap or not, intersect or not. The shape is computed simultaneously, starting with the first piece of ribbon drawn by the user and continuing to evolve in real-time as long as the user continues sketching. Our method involves minimizing an energy function based on the projections of the ribbon strokes on a proxy surface by taking the controller’s orientations into account. The current implementation considers elevation surfaces. In addition to many examples, we evaluate the time performance of the dynamic shape modeling with respect to an increasing number of input ribbon strokes. Finally, we present images of an artistic creation that combines stylized curve drawings in VR with our surface sketching tool created by a professional artist.

Audience perceptions of Foley footsteps and 3D realism designed to convey walker characteristics

AbstractFoley artistry is an essential part of the audio post-production process for film, television, games, and animation. By extension, it is as crucial in emergent media such as virtual, mixed, and augmented reality. Footsteps are a core activity that a Foley artist must undertake and convey information about the characters and environment presented on-screen. This study sought to identify if characteristics of age, gender, weight, health, and confidence could be conveyed, using sounds created by a professional Foley artist, in three different 3D humanoid models, following a single walk cycle. An experiment was conducted with human participants (n=100) and found that Foley manipulations could convey all the intended characteristics with varying degrees of contextual success. It was shown that the abstract 3D models were capable of communicating characteristics of age, gender, and weight. A discussion of the literature and inspection of related audio features with the Foley clips suggest signal parameters of frequency, envelope, and novelty may be a subset of markers of those perceived characteristics. The findings are relevant to researchers and practitioners in linear and interactive media and demonstrate mechanisms by which Foley can contribute useful information and concepts about on-screen characters.

Self-perceived relations between artistic creativity and mental illness: a study into lived experiences.

To explore the self-perceived relationships between experiences of creativity and mental illness and to understand the meanings behind these relationships. The idea that mental illness and artistic creativity are somehow related dates back to ancient times. There is some evidence for an actual correlation, but many questions remain unanswered on the nature and direction of the relationship. Qualitative contributions to the debate are scarce, and mainly focus on the potential benefits of participation in the arts for people with mental illness. An explorative, interpretive study. Twenty-four professional and semi-professional artists with self-reported experience with mental illness, were recruited purposively. Unstructured in-depth interviews were conducted and transcripts were subjected to interpretive analysis, guided by a hermeneutic phenomenological frame. Participants experience a range of interactions between artistic creativity and mental illness. Three constitutive patterns describe what these interactions look like: "flow as a powerful force"; "ambiguous self-manifestation"; and "narrating experiences of suffering." The findings show that both the concept of creativity and the concept of mental illness, as well as their interrelationships, are layered and complex phenomena that can take on different meanings in people's lives. The findings provide starting points for further research that goes beyond the polarized academic debate. Understanding the experiences of artists with mental illness can help shape the role of art in public mental health and mental health care.

“Two Sides of the Same Coin”: Benefits of Science–Art Collaboration and Field Immersion for Undergraduate Research Experiences

This study examined how incorporating art into an upper-level undergraduate field-based ecology research course influenced students’ communication and collaboration skills, their career goals, and how they conceptualized the scientific method. Student pairs designed an independent research study that used artwork and a scientific research poster to disseminate their findings at an end-of-term exhibit. Students enrolled in either a local or a (subsidized) travel abroad section of the course. Students in both sections found new or deeper connections between art and science, developed a more sophisticated understanding of the science method, became more confident with their science skills, and reported an expanded perspective on their future careers (often including field work and a wider geographic job search). Science–art student teams indicated they wanted more opportunities for collaborative work in the future, and that their final products were more professional due to their collaborations, as compared to science–science teams. Additionally, the travel abroad students benefitted from experiencing new ecosystems and cultures, from working with science and art professionals from other countries, and from working in an isolated field station without distractions.

Encountering the image of thought in artmaking

Drawing from observations by contemporary art critic Jerry Saltz that recent art-school graduates are producing work that imitates the styles of successful and established artists and movements, this article explores how the ways in which artist-students are taught in university art programmes might potentially impact their postgraduate art practices. If art school-educated professional artists do indeed tend to adhere to prescriptive modes of artmaking, what are some ways in which university art educators might disrupt these habits at the outset for art students who are just starting out in a college art programme? To contemplate this question, this article engages Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s philosophical concept of the encounter as one approach that might trigger a new kind of thought in learning and artmaking, which informed a teaching experiment that I undertook with one of my introductory art courses. The implantation and reflection on this teaching experiment illustrates how teachers at all levels of art education might create their own adaptive forms of experimenting with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the encounter to short circuit such emulative modes of thinking in students’ approaches to artmaking.

Melding or Singularity from 2005-2024

This research paper centers around the question of how Al will impact the art market, meaning, will it dilute it with artificially made artworks, will it create its own sub-market within the broader art market, or will it just dissolve due to the current negative perception of Al? This entails an analysis of a general audience's perception and critics' perception of already existing artworks, the perception of Al outside of the context of art, the differing perceptions of Al in different cultures, what people consider creative, and many more factors that will be broken down in this study to conclude on the central question. This study is crucial because Al is in its infancy and has taken the world by storm. So, it is imperative that a projection is made as to how generative Al algorithms focusing on visual art will impact the art market because it has massive implications for ethics, creativity, and what gives art value. Right now, there is a significant bias against Al, especially in the professional art world. However, dissidents are expressing that they see immense potential in Al as not only a tool but even something that will define the next century of art. So, there is no straight answer as to what happened. No one can see the future after all, but it is definitive that Al, independently or as a tool for artists, will send ripples through the art world and art market in the coming years and even decades.

Making a living moment more resonant: an exploration of the role of the artist in co-creative work with people living with dementia

Background Despite a growth in interest in recent years in the benefits of working co-creatively with the Arts for people living with dementia, little attention has been given to understanding the role of the professional artists within this context. Our main question here is ‘How do professional artists apply their skills and knowledge in co-creative arts groups with people with dementia?’ This paper has been informed by the insights gained from a series of conversations, observations and journals that were kept by four UK based artists (two musicians and two dancers) who reflexively interrogated what they were doing during the course of an 8-week co-creative arts project with people living with dementia. Methods The research used an empirical case study methodology, with the authors adopting a thematic approach to the analysis of the data. Results Thematic analysis resulted in three main themes: Authenticity, Enabling Risk and Togetherness. These themes characterise the skills, techniques and specialised knowledge used by the artists during the co-creative sessions. Conclusions Following this analysis, the article argues that the beneficial effects for people living with dementia of co-creative art-based work come about through the conscious application by the artists of their shared skills and knowledge, acquired through training and ongoing artistic practice. Rather than an assumption that ‘The Arts’ are in themselves beneficial for people living with dementia, we must consider the active role played by the artists who are so integral to the process.

Design and Implementation of Dongba Character Font Style Transfer Model Based on AFGAN.

Dongba characters are ancient ideographic scripts with abstract expressions that differ greatly from modern Chinese characters; directly applying existing methods cannot achieve the font style transfer of Dongba characters. This paper proposes an Attention-based Font style transfer Generative Adversarial Network (AFGAN) method. Based on the characteristics of Dongba character images, two core modules are set up in the proposed AFGAN, namely void constraint and font stroke constraint. In addition, in order to enhance the feature learning ability of the network and improve the style transfer effect, the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) mechanism is added in the down-sampling stage to help the network better adapt to input font images with different styles. The quantitative and qualitative analyses of the generated font and the real font were conducted by consulting with professional artists based on the newly built small seal script, slender gold script, and Dongba character dataset, and the styles of the small seal script and slender gold script were transferred to Dongba characters. The results indicate that the proposed AFGAN method has advantages in evaluation indexes and visual quality compared to existing networks. At the same time, this method can effectively learn the style features of small seal script and slender gold script, and transfer them to Dongba characters, indicating the effectiveness of this method.

Distinction, difference, and the place(s) of Latine working-class immigrants in the creative city

ABSTRACT This urban ethnography examines the “place(s)” of working-class Latine immigrants who participate in the production of cultural spaces in the creative city. In order to better understand their power to shape the space and the city itself, “place” is framed using theories of habitus and the production of space. Moving beyond professional elite artists and complicating the established categories of artist and worker, the analysis focuses on 37 in-depth interviews with first- and second-generation Latine immigrant artists and cultural workers. Based in the City of Santa Ana’s historic and gentrifying downtown, the research examines different locations from which working-class mostly Mexican immigrants help produce the creative city while also accepting and dissenting their various political, economic, and social positions. Latine immigrants in the creative city inhabit multiple physical and social locations with shifting levels of visibility and mobility shaping both minimal and maximal forms of difference. Although mostly temporary, expressions of alternative subjectivities and dispositions can exhibit distinctions associated with cultures of solidarity for working-class immigrant communities facing both exploitation and displacement.

Investigating User Experience of VR Art Exhibitions: The Impact of Immersion, Satisfaction, and Expectation Confirmation

As an innovative form in the digital age, VR art exhibitions have attracted increasing attention. This study aims to explore the key factors that influence visitors’ continuance intention to VR art exhibitions using the expectation confirmation model and experience economy theory and to explore ways to enhance visitor immersion in virtual environments. We conducted a quantitative study of 235 art professionals and enthusiasts, conducted using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), to examine the complex relationship between confirmation (CON), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Aesthetic Experiences (AE), Escapist Experiences (EE), Satisfaction (SAT), and Continuance Intention (CI). The results show that confirmation plays a key role in shaping PU, AE, and EE, which in turn positively affect visitors’ SAT. Among these factors, AE positively impacts PU, but EE have no impact. A comprehensive theoretical model was then constructed based on the findings. This research provides empirical support for designing and improving VR art exhibitions. It also sheds light on the application of expectation confirmation theory and experience economy theory in the art field to improve user experience and provides theoretical guidance for the sustainable development of virtual digital art environment.

ОСОБЛИВОСТІ РОЗВИТКУ СОЦІАЛЬНОГО ТА ЕМОЦІЙНОГО ІНТЕЛЕКТУ У СТУДЕНТІВ МИСТЕЦЬКИХ СПЕЦІАЛЬНОСТЕЙ НА ЗАНЯТТЯХ З ІНОЗЕМНОЇ МОВИ

The article deals with the development of social and emotional intelligence in art students at foreign language classes. Social and emotional intelligence is important for various spheres of a person’s life, as they increase their professional and personal success and improve their social interaction. For art professionals, a high level of social and emotional intelligence helps to improve communication with the audience as well as to feel more deeply social and emotional phenomena that need to be reflected through art. The article analyzes the features of social and emotional intelligence as psychological phenomena, their common and distinctive features. By comparing the structural components of social and emotional intelligence, their close relationship and the importance of complex development for the individual are proven. The authors made a theoretical analysis of the definition and understanding of social and emotional intelligence in modern psychology. An empirical study was conducted to investigate the level of emotional intelligence in art students of the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture (NAFAA), Kyiv. The research method was Hall test of emotional intelligence, which measures the general level of emotional intelligence, as well as its level according to scales. The results of the empirical study show that the students have mostly a low level of emotional intelligence. The article attempts to provide recommendations how to foster emotional intelligence development at foreign language classes which take into account students’ psychological characteristics and future profession. The practical results of the study can be applied at foreign language classes at art universities in order to increase students’ social and emotional intelligence. Key words: social intelligence, emotional intelligence, foreign language classes, methods of developing emotional intelligence, empathic listening, empathic discussion, holistic learning.

Pemberdayaan Budaya Visual Erison J. Kambari dalam Ranah Pelestarian Budaya Lokal Sumatera Barat

This article reveals the sides of photography by local photographers. The method used is to analyze the work of Erison J Kamari and the appreciation of the audience for his photographs. The method used in this research is qualitative. The result of this research is how to promote and introduce the local potentials of West Sumatran culture by Erison through his visual records. The actions of this photographer from Kurai provide realization in professional art creation management. Capturing moments that cannot be separated from patience, basic understanding of photography techniques, selection of ideas, writing captions and being able to help promote the tourism sector. Erison's gait was able to invite young photographers to care about the culture of West Sumatra, one of which was through the Jawi race. The implication of this research is that it has a positive impact on the tourism sector and the economy.Keywords: Erison J. Kambari, Visual culture, Photographer and West Sumatra. This article reveals the sides of photography by local photographers. The method used is to analyze the work of Erison J Kamari and the appreciation of the audience for his photographs. The method used in this research is qualitative. The result of this research is how to promote and introduce the local potentials of West Sumatran culture by Erison through his visual records. The actions of this photographer from Kurai provide realization in professional art creation management. Capturing moments that cannot be separated from patience, basic understanding of photography techniques, selection of ideas, writing captions and being able to help promote the tourism sector. Erison's gait was able to invite young photographers to care about the culture of West Sumatra, one of which was through the Jawi race. The implication of this research is that it has a positive impact on the tourism sector and the economy.Keywords: Erison J. Kambari, Visual culture, Photographer and West Sumatra.

The Art of Promotion in the Age of Social Media: A Study of Online Marketing by Daniel Asham

The subject of this research is the analysis of Daniel Arsham's marketing strategies in the field of art. The object of the research is the promotion of art in the context of social media. This paper deeply examines various aspects of the topic, including how Arsham overcomes the traditional time and space constraints of exhibition activities, using a combined online and offline approach to expand the audience and increase the visibility of his works. Special attention is paid to the use of social networks to interact with the public, whose impressions are enhanced by creating a unique experience of art perception. The study also analyzes Arsham's strategies for establishing links with business media, contributing to the promotion and increase of the commercial value of his works. The author notes the innovation and practical applicability of these marketing strategies in the art market, emphasizing their positive contribution to the formation of Daniel Arsham's art brand. The research methodology is based on an integrated approach that includes case study, observation, content analysis and interdisciplinary research methods, which allows for a comprehensive analysis of art and its marketing aspects. The results of the study show that Arsham has successfully increased the recognition and commercial value of his art through innovative marketing strategies, harmoniously combining art and business. The contribution of this research consists in an in-depth analysis of Daniel Arsham's marketing approaches and their impact on the branding of his works. In addition, the work illustrates the effectiveness and innovation of these strategies with concrete examples. The novelty of the research lies in the emphasis not only on Arsham's artistic work, but also on his use of marketing strategies to promote his work and form a personal brand. This interdisciplinary perspective provides a new theoretical framework and practical guidance for the art market and represents a significant revelation for artists and art professionals.

Preparation For Flight: The Physical Profile of Pre-Professional and Professional Circus Artists in the United States.

Established norms for fitness and performance measures are lacking in circus arts. These would assist healthcare professionals and coaches to screen for readiness to participate in training or performance, determine post-injury return to performance, and develop targeted conditioning programs. The purpose of this research was to establish norms for trunk and extremity physical exam and performance measures in circus artists by professional status, assigned sex at birth (ASAB), and age. Descriptive laboratory study. Circus artists (n=201; ages 13-69y; 172 females ASAB, 29 males ASAB) from 10 cities across the United States underwent a baseline physical examination including shoulder, hip and trunk measures of passive (PROM) and active (AROM) range of motion, measures of flexibility (shoulder and hip), strength (manual muscle tests, grip strength), cardiovascular fitness (3 minute-step test), balance (single limb and handstand), and performance, (pull-ups, and the closed kinetic chain upper extremity stability test [CKCUEST]). ANOVAs were used to determine between group differences by age and T-tests to discern differences by ASAB or professional status. Differences existed by professional status for shoulder external rotation PROM, hip PROM, hip flexibility, shoulder and abdominal strength, and cardiovascular fitness. Sex differences were seen in active scapular upward rotation, hip and shoulder PROM and flexibility, hip and grip strength, and for functional performance measures (pull-ups, CKCUEST). Differences by age were limited to active scapular upward rotation, shoulder PROM, flexibility and strength, cardiovascular fitness, and balance. Overall, professionals outperformed pre-professionals for lower abdominal strength, pull-ups, handstand balance, cardiovascular fitness, hamstring, and straddle flexibility. Generally, males ASAB demonstrated greater shoulder flexibility and upper body functional strength while females ASAB had greater hip and lumbar flexibility and hip strength. No measures showed consistent declines with increasing age, though some showed differences between adolescents and adults. These normative values for physical characteristics and functional performance in pre-professional and professional circus artists may be used to guide screening for readiness to participate in advanced training or performance, return to performance after injury, and the development of targeted strength and conditioning programs. 3.

GAN‐Based Multi‐Decomposition Photo Cartoonization

AbstractBackgroundCartoon images play a vital role in film production, scientific and educational animation, video games, and other fields, and are one of the key visual expressions of artistic creation. However, since hand‐crafted cartoon images often require a great deal of time and effort on the part of professional artists, it is necessary to be able to automatically transform real‐world images into different styles of cartoon images. Although cartoon images vary from artist to artist, cartoon images generally have the unique characteristics of being highly simplified and abstract, with clear edges, smooth color shading, and relatively simple textures. However, existing image cartoonization methods tend to create a number of problems when performing style transfer, which mainly include: (1) the resulting generated images do not have obvious cartoon‐style textures; and (2) the generated images are prone to structural confusion, color artifacts, and loss of the original image content. Therefore, it is also a great challenge in the field of image cartoonization to be able to make a good balance between style transfer and content keeping.MethodsIn this paper, we propose a GAN‐based multi‐attention mechanism for image cartoonization to address the above issues. The method combines the residual block used to extract deep network features in the generator with the attention mechanism, and further strengthens the perceptual ability of the generative model to cartoon images through the adaptive feature correction of the attention module to improve the cartoon features of the generated images. At the same time, we also introduce the attention mechanism in the convolution block of the discriminator, which is used to further reduce the image visual quality problem caused by the style transfer process. By introducing the attention mechanism into the generator and discriminator models of the generative adversarial network, our method enables the generated images to have obvious cartoon‐style features while effectively improving the image's visual quality.ResultsA large number of quantitative, qualitative, and ablation experiments are conducted to demonstrate the advantages of our method in the field of image cartoonization and the role of each module in the method.

Artists’ and Creators’ Reframed Relationship with Nature Since the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract This report is part of a wider research project, Reframing Creativity, which studied how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the work and creative practice of professional artists, producers and makers. Here we discuss a specific finding about artists’ and creators’ relationships with nature. After conducting a first round of interviews with 11 participants, we identified that around half of them had talked about having found a valuable connection with nature since the pandemic—even though nature was not a topic in our sequence of questions. This led to a deeper analysis of nature and creativity through a second round of interviews with 11 further participants. For both rounds of interviews, we used a semi-structured questionnaire with a snowball sampling method for recruitment. We conclude that artists and creators developed new meanings and perspectives on their relationship with the outdoors as an unexpected result of the new first-hand experiences they were able to have outside, that is, as a result of the opportunities the pandemic enabled. We also argue that creators face an urgent need to find a healthy balance between the unstoppable advancement of digital technologies, accelerated by the pandemic, and the fundamental need to be connected with the natural world. These new creator-nature connections should be fostered, preserved, and researched further.

Cinematographic Camera Diffusion Model

AbstractDesigning effective camera trajectories in virtual 3D environments is a challenging task even for experienced animators. Despite an elaborate film grammar, forged through years of experience, that enables the specification of camera motions through cinematographic properties (framing, shots sizes, angles, motions), there are endless possibilities in deciding how to place and move cameras with characters. Dealing with these possibilities is part of the complexity of the problem. While numerous techniques have been proposed in the literature (optimization‐based solving, encoding of empirical rules, learning from real examples,…), the results either lack variety or ease of control.In this paper, we propose a cinematographic camera diffusion model using a transformer‐based architecture to handle temporality and exploit the stochasticity of diffusion models to generate diverse and qualitative trajectories conditioned by high‐level textual descriptions. We extend the work by integrating keyframing constraints and the ability to blend naturally between motions using latent interpolation, in a way to augment the degree of control of the designers. We demonstrate the strengths of this text‐to‐camera motion approach through qualitative and quantitative experiments and gather feedback from professional artists. The code and data are available at https://github.com/jianghd1996/Camera-control.