The Health Benefits of Creating Art

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Art does more than help people create. It actually makes them healthier. In a number of studies on how creating art improves personal health, the evidence is clear and so are the benefits.

It Keeps Your Mind Sharp

People’s minds lean toward deterioration and a lack of cognition skills as they age, most notably memory and focus. Harvard published the results of a study on geriatric patients with dementia creating art. The results show that these patients, regardless of ability to make art, improved their cognition and memory functioning to the point where they could talk and relay memories they had long forgotten.

Many artists who work as artists report that their ability to focus is very much improved during and after they have made some of their art. The act of creating something involves multiple parts of the human brain that are responsible for problem solving, visual spacing and recognition, color theory and application, etc.. With all of these different areas of the brain waking up to make art, it’s no wonder that art helps patients with dementia restore some cognitive function, even if it’s temporary.

Art Not Only Reduces Stress, but Also Stress Hormones

The body produces a number of stress hormones. The hormones are in response to situations where someone is afraid, overwhelmed, or unwilling to say no to a request when they have already said yes. The hormones cause you to become angry, frustrated, and sometimes aggressive. Thus, the “fight or flight” response is activated, and people strive against those impulses to complete the tasks requested.

However, one study shows that engaging in the act of creating art daily not only reduces stress, but also reduces the production of stress hormones. It’s in the meditative feeling people get while creating that they are able to slip away from what is causing the stress, and find a sense of relief. When people are calmly engaging in creating art, their bodies revert to a moment when the stress hormones were not needed for a “flight or fight” response. It is similar in nature to thirty minutes to an hour of quiet meditation practice, although many find that creating art is more enjoyable than meditation.

What to Know About Licensing Your Art

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Being an artist can be a hard job when it comes to making money and getting customers. One of the best ways to turn your art into income is by licensing your artwork. When you license your art, you’re allowing a bigger company to reproduce it on their end. This isn’t something that needs to be done for all of your pieces, but every artist should have a few in mind that they would like to share with a larger audience. Many times licensed artwork is put onto tote bags, phone cases, pillowcases, and many other products. Licensing agreements state what percentage of sales an artist will receive. Before jumping the gun and licensing your art, here are important things you need to know about licensing.

 

Manufacturing

There are so many ways and places you can license your artwork. Many times opportunities of collaboration will come up with someone you know or even a brand that saw your art on social media. Check out small local businesses that may be interested in teaming up with an artist to work on their products. Some restaurants might want to rebrand themselves by having new cups and coasters for tables and selling merchandise. If you’re interested in working with a larger manufacturer, then check out options on online stores. Redbuddle is an online shop where over 700,00 independent artists sell their art on just about any product you can think of. This option is great for artists who may not have time to create products themselves.

 

Understand your Deal

Every licensing deal is different, so it is important as an artist to sit down and understand the terms. For some companies, you may be asked to create art that is specifically designed for them to manufacture. If you team up with a well-known company to license your art this most times means that they take care of work behind the scenes. From manufacturing, shipping, and customer service, none of these things will be on your hands. Look deep into your deals to see if you can license the same pieces of art to more than one company. The most important thing to consider in a licensing agreement is the responsibility of you as an artist and the amount of money you receive from sales.

 

Enjoy the Benefits

After licensing your art you will begin to gain new customers and attract followers on social media. Your sales won’t only increase through licensing but as well as your selling. It can take some time for your art to be noticed, but once it is, it’s up from there. By continuing to create art and selling it from your home or a local store, and licensing other pieces of art, you’ve created multiple streams of income for yourself! 

An Introduction to Color Theory

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Color theory is the science and art of using color. Color is a powerful element in art when used effectively as it can invoke specific emotions; be sure to check out my blog on color psychology. For artists, painters, and designers, color theory provides guidance on the relationship between colors and the physiological impacts of certain color combinations. By understanding color theory, you will better understand the relationship between colors and how we perceive them.  Color theory is complex, but today’s blog will cover just the basics. 

The general principles of color theory have existed since the 15th century, evident in the writings of figures including Leone Battista Alberti and Leonardo da Vinci. It wasn’t until the start of the 17th century that Sir Isaac Newton developed the first color wheel, a powerful tool still used to this day. Altogether, the color wheel consists of 12 colors: three primary colors, three secondary colors, and six tertiary colors. 

Primary colors allow artists to mix virtually any color on the spectrum. These are the building blocks for all other colors and cannot be created by mixing any other pigments. The primary colors are blue, yellow, and red. Secondary colors are created when any two of the primary colors. They are equidistant from each other on the color wheel and are orange, green, and violet. Tertiary colors are formed when mixing a primary color with a secondary color. 

There are a few terms in color theory that you will encounter, including hue, value, and saturation. Hue refers to the “root” color, and is often used similarly to color. It generally refers to the dominant wavelength of color out of the twelve colors on the color wheel. For example, the hue of navy is blue, or for burgundy, its hue is red. Value refers to how light or dark a color is. A color can be lightened with the addition of white and darkened by adding black. However, different colors can have the same value! Saturation is a measure of a color’s intensity or purity. To reduce the saturation of a color,  add grey or the color that is opposite of your color on the wheel. Adding the opposite color essentially neutralizes the colors, thus making it less intense. 

The World’s Best Street Art

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Today, many cities commission artists to decorate walls, utility boxes, and selective areas as part of their beautification program. However, there are still artists and gangs around the world leaving their mark on the walls of their neighborhoods. Either way, street art has gained world recognition.

 

Street art has gained popularity in its expressive and uncensored nature. It also allows free viewing for those who are less inclined to visit a museum. Art within the environment is more likely to be seen and appreciated. These are five cities around the world with the most expressive street art.

 

Los Angeles

 

The City of Los Angeles considers graffiti illegal. Bold text and gang tags divide neighborhoods. As a result, L.A. commissions local artists to paint over graffiti and decorate its massive murals with colorful street art. Downtown’s Art District welcomes Latino heritage art on walls under freeways and neighborhoods. Guided tours are available to tourists for a more intimate look at the art on the walls.

 

London

 

North London in Camden or the Leake Street Tunnel near Waterloo are two places where street art is prevalent in London. The street art scene is huge in the neighborhoods of Shoreditch and Hackney. They are London’s locales for spray-painted walls such as Michelin-starred restaurants. Visitors can take a tour of Shoreditch to see London’s best artists.

 

Mexico City

 

Mexico City is the home to the most poetic, political, and traditional street art. Its neighborhoods of Juárez, Roma, and Condesa are known for the giant vivid murals. History and Latino culture are captured on the walls of businesses. Tours guided by graffiti artists are the best way to see Mexican art.

 

Buenos Aires

 

Both international and local artists have left their creative mark on massive murals on the streets of Buenos Aires. Political, traditional, and light-hearted collages adorn various neighborhoods (barrios). The barrios of San Telmo and Colegiales Crespos depict historical urban movements. Guided tours are the best way to connect street art with each barrio.

 

Berlin

 

Berlin’s graffiti-covered walls date back to the Cold War. The hip Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough houses the remaining stretch of what was once the Berlin Wall. Today it is known as Berlin’s East Side Gallery where 3-D street art adorns the facades of business and buildings. Visiting this neighborhood is the best way to explore Berlin’s art

Artificial Intelligence Takes on the Art Industry

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Artificial intelligence is making inroads into just about every industry. Finance, medicine, and marketing are all being changed by discoveries made with artificial intelligence. One world that most people didn’t expect to be overtaken by AI is the art industry. However, like any other, it is being heavily influenced by the automation and technological advances of AI. Pieces created with neural networks are taking the art world by storm.

 

Just over a year ago, the portrait “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy” sold for over $400,000 at Christie’s in New York. It had been expected to sell for about $7,000 to $10,000. This painting, made with convolutional neural networks, is just one example of how the art world is reacting to artificial intelligence. This new technology is making a bigger splash than many people had expected.

 

Computers use convolutional neural networks to arrange and analyze images. This technology isn’t just used in the art world. It has applications in a number of industries. It’s the same type of artificial intelligence that is changing the way the medical profession interprets images from X-rays and MRI images. CNN uses style transfer. This process changes the tone of an image without changing the content. This is similar to the idea of a filter on an Instagram photo.

 

While some purists are alarmed that AI-created images are sharing space with the work of classical and popular artists, it is important to remember that computer-generated art dates to at least the 1950s. Some artists in the postwar period saw this art as an important antidote to emotional manipulations. For people who had lived through the rise of fascism and Hitler’s propaganda films, an art made without feeling seemed like a relief. It was hard to imagine how such works could be manipulated by politicians, and that seemed comforting.

 

Frieder Nake and Max Bense are some of the important names in that early period of computer-generated art. Although many people today feel that AI-generated art is just a grotesque display of technology, it’s important to remember that many respected art forms started off that way. Today, films are preserved by governments for posterity due to their cultural value. When that industry emerged, it was made up entirely of outsiders. It was considered vulgar. It will be interesting to see how history views AI-generated art.