undergroundartschool

G Money

2009-11-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

Dave's Answer:

You're not alone in being interested in the terrific Google AdSense program. Leveraging its powerful page analysis system, Google's AdSense program automatically matches the best possible advertisements with the content on your Web page, making the ads magically quite relevant to your content.

Behind the scenes, it works like this: an advertiser goes to the Google AdWords system, signs up, and creates one or more advertisements that they want to pay to have appear either on Google's search result pages or on "content pages". Those content pages are Web sites run by individuals and organizations that include AdSense, which is the "consume" side of this equation.

What makes this more interesting is that advertisers don't pay to have their adverts show up on either Google or separate content sites, but instead pay when the ads are clicked by customers, what we call "pay per click" or PPC. A percentage of the amount that the company pays Google for displaying the ad is then shared with the AdSense-enabled web site owner.

If, say, the advertiser pays $1.00 for a visitor to their site through AdWords, then Google will pay a percentage of that amount (the exactly amount has not been stated by the company) to you, perhaps $0.20, perhaps more.

I realize that $0.20 doesn't sound like much money, but if you have a few hundred visitors a week, and some percentage of them click on these adverts, you could easily make $20-$50 or much (much!) more from your site each week, without having to do any work other than add the special AdSense code to the pages in the first place.

It's simple, easy to accomplish, you never have to negotiate (or even talk) with advertisers, you don't have to bill anyone at all, and every month or two you'll get a nice little check from Google corporate. Nice!

10.1.09 New Site

2009-09-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Next Thursday, October 1st, we will be unveiling our new website. The theme of our next issue is Simplicity and with having a blog and separate "official" site, things just seemed too complicated. It was time to walk the talk and simplify.

It will be a really easy and painless transition, we promise. All of our current blog series will be there [Art Schooled, Student//Teacher, Q&A's]. If you're a recent graduate or just beginning your career in an art related field, there's a sweet addition for you! Fiona Clark will be contributing posts about the applied arts sector of the art world. Put that degree to work!

You'll have an opportunity to design our banner and share with our community your gallery/thesis shows and events. Plus, there will be lots of hand drawn typography which makes us cry tears of awesomeness just thinking about it.

We really hope to see you there.

Student//Teacher: Irana Douer

2009-09-18T08:00:00.000-07:00

We know a lot of students worry when they don't have a visual identity by the time they are seniors [particularly in the applied arts]. We know this because we were one of those students! Spend less time worrying and more time understanding the materials you feel comfortable with, the subject matter that excites you, color palettes you see before you begin, and artists you feel some weird connection towards.

Maybe not having a face becomes your identity. Just look at the many faces of Argentinian based artist Irana Douer. If you're committed to your art, you'll figure out what you look like.

Student//Teacher: Jessica Wohl

2009-09-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Jessica Wohl is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Georgia [lots of excellent work coming out of there!]. Jessica's series; Multiplicity, caught our eye because of the weirdness we felt looking at it. Turns out, that was what she was striving for:

Families are strange, and I'm interested in why we try to pretend like they're not. Dressed in matching attire, we coif our hair and smile for the camera, knowing images of our perfect family will soon grace fireplace mantles and refrigerator doors, proving that through it all, we are a wholesome, happy family. We’ve attained the American Dream. There is security and comfort in these alluring visuals that we create, surround ourselves with and ultimately believe, but what do these images of staged perfection truly reveal? There is a familiarity we seek and feel with commonplace portraiture, and I investigate methods of making these familiar images seem oddly unfamiliar.

Pass a Note! Share the Links!

2009-09-08T08:00:00.000-07:00

Want to pass a note along? Share us with your friends by putting Underground Art School on your blog. Just choose your fav, copy and past, or drag the images to your desktop and upload onto your blog! AWESOME! Hi-5! If you need the HTML code to make an image as a link, click here.

Student//Teacher: Paul Wagenblast

2009-09-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

The work of Paul Wagenblast, a recent grad from Portland Northwest College of Art makes us want to cry. We were going to write "unbelievable talent" but that's not quite it. It's more like believable talent causing unbelievable emotion from just one image.

Art Schooled: How to Survive Foundation Year

2009-09-01T07:30:00.000-07:00

How to Survive Foundation Year

Remember Britney Spears in her "crazy" days? Foundations Year can feel a lot like those wild nights shaving hair and piercing umbrellas through paparazzi car windows. Some nights you will find yourself sipping on a Red Bull trying to stay awake to finish a 2-D project due the next morning. Due to the caffeine shakes you won't be able to fall asleep when you finally finish and wind up having a mere two hour window to nap before class. Don't sweat, we've all been there before-you can and will get through this! Here's my guide to surviving your foundation year:

Defend Your (Good) Ideas

One of the hardest parts of foundation year is being told “No” to an idea that you think is awesome. Sometimes the way you explain your best ideas make them an easy target to be shot down. Learn how to explain the most important parts of your ideas with confidence, and when you are met with resistance, learn how to defend your ideas with persistence if they are, in fact, a good idea. This leads me to my next point…

Don't be Afraid to Throw Away an Idea You’re Invested In

Art school is about learning how to come up with a vision, following it through, realizing it’s awful, understanding why it’s awful, and tossing it to the side. You will have a lot more awful ideas than good ones when you start, you will spend a lot of time trying to make these awful ideas into good ideas, and you’ll be hesitant to cast them off due to the amount of time you’ve invested. Chalk it up to experience and move on. It is OK to have a bad idea. The best part about a bad idea is it always leads you to something better. Art School teaches you how to weed out those bad ideas from the first seed.

Critique Without BSing

Nothing is worse in foundation year than staying up all night, putting your blood, sweat, and tears into finishing a project due the next morning and then you get to class and have to listen to a bunch of timid students either say nothing in response or bs about your work.

“I really like that you used green. It’s very organic”—that is not a critique, it’s a comment, and the word ‘organic’ is possibly the most overused word in the average art student’s critique lexicon. Don’t be that student. It's OK to have an opinion in a critique, we’re not here to rub noses, we’re here to offer our honest opinions on the work presented and offer ideas on how to make it better. I remember being nervous in my foundation year that if I was to say anything too harsh that it would make it harder for me to make friends (as I would be labeled as ‘that bitch in critique this morning’). Don't take critique comments as being a jab at you, the artist, the student. You are learning skills in foundation year, these skills and how they are applied are being critiqued. In the same vein, learn how to critique your own work in the same way.

Learn How to Generate Ideas

Always, always, always idea-generate before starting a project, regardless if it's an applied arts or fine arts class. Even if you think you’re dead set on your initial idea; sketching, envisioning, and talking over other options might help you to make that first idea stronger or realize that there is an entirely different route you should be taking. The ideas you come up with when you are pushing yourself to brainstorm oftentimes can be the best ones. Make lists, write word associations, flip through books at the library, sketchbook, learn how to make time to explore.

Save your Unused Ideas

I always wrote down lists in my sketchbooks of ideas that I—someday—wanted to pursue. Occasionally I’ll go back and read lists from freshman year and I’ll say “Wow that’s brilliant.” But more often than not I’ll say, “What the hell was I thinking?!!” No matter how small, write down your ideas that you haven't used just yet, you’ll never know when they’ll come in handy, and if anything, they will show your progression and commitment to your art.

Kathryn Proulx is a Senior at Parsons The New School For Design. Kathryn is studying Communication Design and runs a blog, Faux-Beau, where she writes about art school, breaking into the design industry, inspiration, and about her own experiences as a young designer. If you'd like Kathryn to answer your question about art school in a future post, please email her at kathrynproulx[at]gmail.com

Student//Teacher: Brian Hitselberger

2009-08-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's interesting to see when an artists work translates from the 2D realm to 3D such as the work of University of Georgia -Athens MFA Candidate Brian Hitselberger. I always wonder what the transition is like, and when does one know to make the choice to move?

Student//Teacher: Evgeniy Sunik

2009-08-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Evgeniy Sunik is a 24 year old photographer studying at Fresno City College. Here's an introduction to what he has to say about his on going photographic series The Infinite of Finite:
"The work explores the unique quality of the medium of photography to record the infinite number of the states of the world. The length of every act of photography is finite. However, the act is essentially is the effect of the infinite number of the states existing during the process of taking a picture. The nature of the film and the sensor allows to accept the non-discreteness of the world."

Student//Teacher: Fay Elizabeth Heffer

2009-08-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Beautiful black and white images from Fey Elizabeth Heffer, a recent graduate from the Norwhich School of Art & Design in the U.K. Experimenting with illustration, lighting, and photography? Yes, please!