Remember when you were a kid and in between eating fistfuls of paste you had your box of poster paints? Red and blue make purple, right? So why did it always turn out black/brown-ish purple mess? Because red is not a true primary color. Red has yellow in it. Let’s get past red, yellow and blue with today’s subject, basic color theory. I touched on some of the aspects of this in our previous article but I thought some further information and visuals might be fun.
The two major ways colors are created are applied and light which then play into each other but that’s getting too deep for today.
Put simply, applied is paint, though that is seriously simplified. Pure pigments aside, basically any color can be created using the CMYK breakdown. In printing this is called process color but most art students get to use these colors in gouache for color theory classes . C=Cyan, M=Magenta, Y=Yellow and K=Black. With these four primary colors you are able to create most other colors. C+M=Purple, M+Y=Orange and Y+C=Green for your basic secondary colors. All three together make a warm black. Brights, neons, metallics and white are not possible to create using this method. The large majority of things you see printed in magazines, newspapers, books (not old books), anything that shoots out of your home printer is printed using this way. Art prints often are not and it depends for textiles, but usually not. It is a basic and cost effective way to get the rainbow. An uneven mix of CMY will create a brown. An even mix will create a grey.
Light, on the other hand, is a bit more complex. Light is how most computer art programs function so it’s good to know. RGB are Red, Green and Blue. Secondary are R+G=Yellow, G+B=Cyan, B+R=Purple and all three together equal White light. All brights and neons are possible with this mix. Hence all the bright and shiny colors on your television. Some of the secondary colors seem counter intuitive but if you look at the graphic you’ll see they are basically the inverse of applied color with a couple shifts. Ah, patterns in nature.
As a little interesting end tidbit I left our friend ROYGBIV off of the chart. He is the basic colors visual light wavelengths. He is the rainbow. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.
Now get your hand out of the paste and go paint something!
Welcome to the liveblog of the 2011 Oscars award show! It’s Missing Peace, Dancing Queen, and 2/3 of Ms. Anthropy here with your Academy Awards coverage. While we are excited about the show and have been making ourpicks for the winners all week, we have to admit that the red carpet is what we get most excited about.
This year, the Academy Awards will be co-hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway, or Francaway, as we’ve dubbed them. We hope they re-enact this. Continue reading →
Welcome to the liveblog of the 2011 Oscars Red Carpet! It’s Missing Peace, Dancing Queen, and 2/3 of Ms. Anthropy here with your Academy Awards coverage. While we are excited about the show and have been making ourpicks for the winners all week, we have to admit that the red carpet is what we get most excited about. The action starts on E! with live red carpet coverage at 6 ET/3 PT and moves to ABC when the ceremony begins at 8 ET/5 PT and at that point, we will move to another post because we have so much to say about everything Oscars! Continue reading →
So, dear friends, we had a grand plan to publish one Oscars story each day this week and then ACCOUNT SUSPENDED happened. That’s okay though because we know it was just Crasstalk winning the Internet. We are all Honey Badger about it.
What that means, though, is that today is all about the Oscars! Missing Peace, Dancing Queen and Ms. Anthropy are on it to bring you a full day of Academy Awards coverage. We’re starting with a fashion pre-cap this morning to get you warmed up for the main event – a liveblog of the show tonight, starting with the red carpet coverage on E! at 6 ET/3 PT and switching to ABC when the ceremony begins at 8 ET/5 PT. Join us – no false eyelashes, boobs, or smiles required!
We are dying to launch right into the fashion review of tonight’s Parade of the Stars but FIRST!, we offer a look into the fashion trends as displayed by the men and women who have strutted, peacock-like, down this season’s red carpets that don’t matter because they are not The Oscars. The pressure of being a stand-out on the Red Mile, watched by millions of people around the world and analyzed by fashion experts (and us), can bring out the best (even if you forget to thank your husband later). It can also bring out the worst. Speaking of the worst, did you know Gwenyth Paltrow is performing a song from Country Strong? We sincerely hope she remembers a bra this year. How many times have you yelled at the television: “FIRE YOUR STYLIST!” or “Baby, you couldn’t look better if you were covered in bacon and chocolate!” Yes, tonight is as much an amateur fashion critic’s dream as it is Joan Rivers’ foreplay to her post-Oscars climax.
It was seafoam for Amanda Seyfried last year.
Will Nicole Kidman wear a weddingdress for the 67th time? Will Mark Ruffalo comb his hair? Will the first “age appropriate” offender be one of the babies or an old? We’ve got our Tim Gunn bobblehead and black Sharpie at the ready, so let’s go!
Chris Pine is so fine.
Here’s a review of last year’s Oscar red carpet. We are still waiting for the explanation as to why Nicole Richie was invited. As for the ladies, highlights were the pre-breakup, sleek and stunning Sandra Bullock, which is much different than the sheepdog hair she sported at this year’s Golden Globes. We needed her to be more “wash that man right out of her hair” and then style it, rather than just leave it to airdry on the way to the show. Mo’nique, who apparently didn’t spend one moment away from her man long enough to take a solo shot on the red carpet, looked lovely in blue with some hairy-ass legs. You want to know how to stand out on the red carpet? Just study Vera Farmiga.
First time nominee last year only to return with a second nomination this year, Jeremy Renner changed it up from the typical penguin suit. Will he go more traditional this year? We’d like to see him “cleaned up” a bit more like this. How you improve on Colin Firth’s perfect perfection (thank you, Tom Ford) is a mystery to us, but it would not be this (come on with the tennies, RDJ – you’re too old for this). Also, Tom Ford should be at every awards show. Honey wears the hell out of a tuxedo.
The 2011 Golden Globes offered us visions of Angelina, Mila, and Ms. Zeta-Jones in multiple textures of emeraldgreen, shimmering neutrals, and whatever it was that the kooky Helena Bonham Carter had on (scraps of leftover fabric from Alice in Wonderland costumes?). We’re not feeling the 80s dresses, complete with shoulder pads and crystals – there isn’t anything new being done with that to make it feel fresh or worth revisiting – let’s hope the ladies got that out of their systems at the lesser awards.
Hopefully, this daisy-sprinkledMia Farrow-wannabe disaster is a thing of the past – doesn’t she know The Great Gatsby remake has already been cast? Will Johnny Depp’s love affair with the pirate look off-screen continue to merge with his Hollywood Star/French Countryman/Everyman look (otherwise known as the rich hobo)? More men should look like the man on the left, so please make that happen, and that includes you. We’ll wait.
Our Co-Host for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards James Franco
We know how difficult it is to dress when you are expecting but there is no need to look like a box of dollar store Valentine’s day chocolates. Or worse: looking like a lop-sided damaged one even when you are not expecting, for that matter. Also – use a steamer! You’re a celebrity, dammit, demand it!
Our Jakey adheres to the Tom Ford rule. Please note the well-fitting suit, appropriately shiny shoes, and proportional bow tie.
The 2011 BAFTA’s brought out some of the best in this year’s nominees. Her performance may have been so-so but Annette Bening radiated on the carpet and somehow managed not to look like she was wearing a wedding dress. We think this will probably be the only time we can say that SWINTON knocked it out of the park. (Ms. A begs to differ and bows to the Swinton – suck it haters.)
Thandie Newton strikes a stunning pose at this year's BAFTA's
We can’t forget the classics, however. Will we see an updated version of these red carpet figure skating outfits vamping it up tomorrow night? Is Cher coming to the Oscars? She really should, we need the fodder.
Also, will Natalie Portman take a rather obvious cue from the original swan woman? It might make for good maternity wear.
Who are you excited to see? Who will “make it work” and who needed to “edit.” Who will be a hit or a miss (see what we did there)?
Don’t forget to join us later today for a liveblog of Oscar night, starting with the red carpet arrivals on E! (6 ET/3 PT). We will also be doing a champagne-soaked, Spanx-free Oscar re-cap on Monday so be ready to dish!
Well, hello there! It’s Missing Peace, Ms. Anthropy and Dancing Queen here with Day 2 of our guide to the Oscars.
We are handicapping our picks for the winners in the “big” categories: Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Picture. Yesterday, we brought you the Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Today, we get to look at the Supporting Actress race.
Today’s category: Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Last year’s winner was Mo’Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire. We’re pretty sure that is the shortest name of a winner in combination with the longest movie title, ever! Anyway, she was a force to be reckoned with in a heartbreaking film. While she didn’t need to shave her legs for the part, she probably should have done so for the red carpet. Let’s take a moment to reflect on her odd 2010 Golden Globes red carpet reveal:
Mo
But we digress! On to this year’s wide-ranging nominees in a category that engenders a certain scrappiness in its contenders. Female character actresses sometimes suffer from an also-ran mentality: many of them have never been quite right for lead roles in film (read: not conventionally beautiful), but their talents may far outshine those of the Kidmans and Roberts and Bullocks of the world. Relegated to supporting roles, these talented ladies bring years of pent-up angst and desperation for recognition to Oscar night. It is not enough to be nominated in this category. Winning is the only thing that will grant them the blazing spotlight for three glorious minutes. They are the Jan Bradys of the Oscars, poised at the ready to smother Marsha in her sleep and blame it that dolt, Cindy.
Nominee: Amy Adams for The Fighter
Amy Adams in The Fighter
Advantage: Boy, is this lady versatile! She easily moves from a singing, dancing fairy tale princess to a gritty, “I ain’t scared of you, mother f*ckers” bad*ss chick! In The Fighter, Adams stands by her man, and perhaps more importantly, stands up against the performance turned in by Melissa Leo. The Academy has had Adams on their radar, even before her stripped-down performance in Doubt erased any doubt that she is nothing more than a modern-day Debbie Reynolds.
Disadvantage: She maybe this generation’s Meryl Streep but the other performances in this category were bone-chillingly good. It’s not her time. The Academy expects to see more great work from Adams and will likely wait until she lands a juicy lead role in a classic Oscar-bait film before granting her the statue.
Nominee: Helena Bonham Carter for The King’s Speech
Helena Bonham Carter in The King's Speech
Advantage: Oh how Hollywood loves a British period piece! The accents! The pretty costumes! Royalty! There is strong momentum behind The King’s Speech but it seems to benefit Colin Firth and the picture itself more than the supporting cast. However, folks seem to love the quirky Ms. Bonham Carter and she is a strong contender. It is nice to see her in something significantly more understated than the maniacally spiteful Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series.
Disadvantage: Is she too quirky for the academy? Her delicate beauty and fine acting abilities are often overshadowed by her over-the-top antics. We love her, but are mismatched shoes a dealbreaker? Also, there may be too many opportunities for her to fall up and/or down the stairs while attempting to accept her award. Actually, that may be an advantage. The Academy likes a wild card and unscripted wackiness. Great fodder for the press for weeks after the Awards.
Nominee: Melissa Leo for The Fighter
Melissa Leo in The Fighter
Advantage: Um, she wins everything. Seriously. She has won the Golden Globe and the Screen Actor’s Guild award for Best Actress for this role. Plus, Hollywood LOVES a physical transformation and she does that here. Besides, even Sissy Spacek and Holly Hunter specifically asked Oprah to tell Leo how much they love her. Yes, they were on Oprah for a pre-Oscar show a few weeks back, and yes, Missing Peace (and Dancing Queen) were watching. We dare anyone to say they could recognize Ms. Leo on the street, dressed in her civvies, based on her performance in The Fighter. However, she took a major risk that can sometimes backfire by taking out “for your consideration” ads herself. Will the voters forgive her for these?
Melissa Leo does her best Krystle Carrington impersonation
Disadvantage: The cheesy self-promotion campaign may have given the voters another opportunity check the box for HBC. If we were Academy voters (fingers, crossed – someday, we will be!), the poolside fur would have been a deal-breaker. We don’t like gauche self-promotion. Get a blog, Melissa Leo!
Nominee: Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit
Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit
Advantage: Hailee Steinfeld is the definition of breakout star in this movie. Young actresses in the Supporting Actress category tend to ruin the party for their, ahem, more seasoned counterparts. See: Patty Duke, Tatum O’Neal, Anna Paquin. Steinfeld held her own among a cast of veteran male actors in a gritty Western; this bodes well for her. In fact, she’s already been cast as the lead in the new adaptation of the novel Forgotten. Steinfeld might benefit from Academy backlash against Leo and a desire to shake things up for ratings.
Disadvantage: Being so fresh and untested can be a huge disadvantage. Many Academy voters may hold off, thinking Steinfeld has a long career ahead of her. She has been nominated for almost every single award possible for this role and hasn’t won yet. The Oscars are not the likely occasion to break this trend, opting for a wait and see attitude on Steinfeld.
Nominee: Jacki Weaver for Animal Kingdom
Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom
Advantage: Animal Kingdom centers around the activities of a crime family in Melbourne, Australia, with Ms. Weaver playing the family’s matriarch. The movie made its mark in the US at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2010, but has only earned $1 million at the US box office. The movie cleaned up at the 2010 Australian Film Industry Awards where Weaver earned the award for Best Actress.
Disadvantage: Who? Yeah, that’s what we said. We have to imagine that many Academy voters said the same thing, especially given that Weaver has not been in the US promoting Animal Kingdom during the months leading up to the Oscars. The people need face time and she’s off working in the theatre in Australia. Is there theatre in Australia? Other than that white opera house thing-y? We thought it was all outback and beaches and hot volleyball players. People spend time indoors down there? Acting? Huh.
Our pick for Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo. This woman would rip your kid’s gold star off his spelling homework if she knew where you lived. Not that she doesn’t deserve the win – she is a powerhouse performer. But if you are an actress who wants to win an Oscar, you better make darn sure that Melissa Leo didn’t make a movie that year.
Our dark horse contender is Helena Bonham Carter for the upset. Is it wrong that we want to see Melissa Leo’s face when the camera cuts to her tight, fake smile as she watches someone else flounce away with the Oscar and wonders how soon she can break away to call her contractor and cancel the plans for the shrine in the entry hall?
Who do you think will take home the award for her performance in a supporting role? And maybe the better question is who deserves it? Those are two very different questions.
Remember to join us on Sunday, February 27th, for a liveblog of Oscar night, starting with the red carpet arrivals on E! (6 ET/3 PT) and switching over to ABC when the Academy Awards ceremony begins (8 ET/5 PT).
I will start with a caveat: If it is true anywhere that rules are meant to be broken it is in the creative fields. However it is also true that it is always good to know some rules are as ignorance is embarrassing and gets you nowhere.
Don’t be afraid. If you don’t think you’re creative treat it like a math problem. Things like basic geometry, perspective and color theory are all math/art crossovers. Many of the same principles apply.
So with these guidelines I hope that you too can make beautiful um, party invitations?
Fonts
• 3 fonts maximum in any given design. A decorative or header font, a sub-header font, if you want/need, which should be bolder or larger than the…body font, which should be plain the smallest & most importantly, easy to read. Please keep legibility in mind especially if you have any older readers.
• The 3 fonts rule excludes the use of italics as an additional font but includes weight changes (bold, other than for emphasis in paragraph, light, roman, demi) of the same font as additional. I swear that sentence made sense. Really.
• Only one crazy font per layout. Less is always more!
• No large amount of body text should be in a decorative font. Who wants to read paragraphs of curly, distressed hanwriting-y craziness? People on acid, that’s who.
• No all caps in a script/handwriting font! It will likely be hard to read. Also, I’ll murder you.
Color
Two colors, not counting neutrals (black, white, greys, tans, nudes) is a good rule however variants of the 2 should be used freely. Variants include: Tints – Base plus White. Lighter. Pink is a tint of Red Shades – Base plus Black. Darker. Maroon is a shade of Red Tones – Base plus Grey. Hue shift. Brick is a tone of Red Temperature – Base plus warm or cool compliment. Usually yellow or blue. Be careful with temperature as if you move to far in one direction or another you’ll reach a new color. Too much yellow in red makes a proper orange whereas a nice orangy red might be fine. It is all very arbitrary, isn’t it?
General Layout
• There should be a central image, phrase or word. You are trying to communicate something I assume. This is about design, not pure art.
• Having said that that design is all about communication. It needs to look good but that is the vehicle for the idea rather than the main objective.
• People hate reading. How the hell did you make it this far? Do make it interesting to look at.
• Don’t be afraid of white/empty space. Be afraid of clutter. Less is always more.
• Don’t be afraid to overlap things so long as you can still tell what’s going on and/or can read it.
• Do not have tangent (Math! Friggin math! Look it up.) items. Barely touching items looks like a mistake. Either space or overlap them.
• Do line up things. If one item is only slightly off from another it will look sloppy. Line them up or make the difference bigger.
• Borders and rules (lines) can make things pop and help to prioritize.
• In that same vein, breaking up boxes and lines can add visual interest.
• Keep very squared-up boxy layouts for more conservative designs.
• Do look for a geometric flow in your layout. Is it a circular or triangular arrangement? It could be just a diagonal sweep from one corner to another.
Life, the Universe & Everything
• As with everything, be consistent.
• If at first you don’t succeed, blah blah, however…
• If you keep picking at it, it will never heal. Therefore…
• Don’t be afraid to start over.
• Try something you think will look bad. You might be wrong.
• Ask for help.
• Oh yeah, break the rules.
In the early days Crasstalk was a backwater with few visits but so many great things to share. To help bring some of those early posts to light we present Crasstalk Classic. Our first classic post goes all the way back to December 2010 when Coffee and Cigarettes brought us the amazing Gentlemen of Bacongo about the exquisitely dressed gentlemen in the book from Daniele Tamagni. Now go relive the magic.
Everyone who knows me is aware of my severe weakness for well dressed men, and African accents. Pair those with my fondness for great photography, and you’ll understand why I’m currently lusting over this book by Daniele Tamagni. Full of amazing photos featuring members of the Congolese cultural movement called Le Sape, this book is a must have.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time poking around the internet in the last decade will know that one of the internet’s gale force powers to be reckoned with is the power to make you famous for doing or saying something stupid. In dork-speak I think this malevolence would be referred to as chaotic-neutral. Doesn’t seem to matter what kind of stupid. Funny, dangerous, offensive, et al. If it was recorded, the world will see it and judge. The internet only facilitates.
I feel bad for many of these once and future memes. Haven’t we all said something dumb or had too much to drink and said “I can make that jump”? You’re a liar if you said “no”. That being said I thought I’d volunteer a couple of wickedly dumb things I’ve done in the past in hopes that you may too and we all may judge a little less harshly.
I was an art major in college. Specifically painting. As anyone who has gone to college knows you often enough end up with holes in your schedule that you can’t find anything degree-useful to fill with. After paying tuition the extra class fee seems kinda whatever so I would fill these holes with random classes. Anthropology, ancient Chinese history, whatever. I tried to do it with other art classes if I could which is how I ended up taking a marble carving class.
This class was awesome. I’m glad I took it. For one thing every other sculpture class I took firstly involved a long discussion of what equipment, fumes, radiation, glue, et cetera would kill you. This class started off with “Marble is calcium. You can eat it.”. Win! Maybe that’s what’s wrong with my teeth…
Most art carving is done with a pneumatic hammer these days. However to get the basic chunk of marble ready you need to cut it with a saw. We used handheld circular saws. The particular saws we had were equipped with safety switches whereas holding the button down it was on, slip your thumb off & it went off. I guess this prevents people from setting down saws that have watched too many Tom & Jerry cartoons that would then chase you and have a lunchbox would land on your head.
You know that rule about not wearing loose clothing around dangerous machinery? That’s a good one. Know the one about maybe not using a piece of dangerous machinery while by yourself out in a stoneyard? That one if it hasn’t been written should be.
I was cutting a block of marble by myself after hours with a loose sweatshirt on when said sweatshirt got caught up in the saw wrapped itself around my hand disallowing me from releasing the safety switch and thusly pulling the (running) saw closer and closer to my abdomen.
Fortunately I’m not much for panic. I walked over to where the two extension cords powering the saw went together, pulled them apart with my feet, put away my tools, walked downtown and proceeded to pummel my near death experience with Jack Daniels.
I’m a lot more trepidatious around power tools these days. Evisceration didn’t seem like it’d be much fun.
Oh and if you want to make fun of me for being a girl using power tools poorly I will pre-empt this urge of yours by informing you that I know how to weld. Not solder. Weld.
It’s Friday morning, so you know what to do. Take us way back (or as far back as you can go). What song did you play in the when you were getting ready for school in junior high? What song did your older sibling make you listen to that you hated then and love now? That song that made you run to the radio so you could record it on your cassette tape, what was it? Ready? Go!
