Dive Into The World of Arts

Art produced by Google’s Deep Dream Artificial Intelligent - Google Deep Dream

There are huge definitions of art and whether we understand the meaning of art or not, we might contributed or came crossed it without even realize it. Before we go through some definition of arts one thing we can be sure, art is important in our lives.

These are few definitions of the arts from various sources;

Google Dictionary:

• the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
• the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance.
• subjects of study primarily concerned with human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects).
• a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.

Wikipedia:

•  Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artefacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

Drawing of ancient woodworking from Egyptian painting. - Photo by: The Yorck Project

Well, we know that’s not enough to explain about the arts. So we can see few other references, perhaps from Huffingtonpost, or something deeper from Mentalfloss, and don’t forget to check on details discussion “What is Art? and/or What is Beauty?” from Philosophynow. So arts can be in many forms from the way we talk, to the way we walks (it’s everything) and we are all doing it with the different impacts to our surrounding.

Here's what we are going to share few forms of the arts that we knew well. Perhaps we can learn more about it in details. We also will share few people that good at it, and few sources that we can learn more about it. So, we can choose which form of arts that we like and go through it more deeply. These resources will be added from time to time (just follow the link provided).

Drawings:

The starry night by Vincent van Gogh vallued at more than hundrend millions - Photo by: wikimedia

Drawings are the most basic form of arts. Even though some other arts don't require drawings, many others rely on drawings as their basic such as pottery, woodworks, ironworks, glassworks, architectures, and many others. Whether there’s a physical drawing or not, those arts need to start with some drawings.

So let see drawings in general through their media;

Drawings; pencil drawing, charcoal, ink or monotones.

Coloured drawings/paintings:

• Colourpencil
• Crayon
• Pastels
• Chalk
• Watercolours
• Acrylics
• Oil paintings
• Airbrush.
• Pen - ballpoint pen, technical pen, fountain pen, nib pen, marker

* Other forms of drawings such as graffiti, mural, comic or manga can be related back to the panting media above.

Crafts:

Craft is another broad form of arts that can be categories into few different classes. Here we will list few of it and will try to add more as much as we can. Usually craft also will be linked together with drawing skills.

Textiles:

Even though the process of producing the textiles itself is an art, but the arts that related to textiles are developed tremendously. The arts of textiles including producing products from the textiles and also the patterns using the same materials or additional materials as additional.

•  Applique
•  Beadwork
•  Crochet
•  Dyeing
•  Embroidery
•  Knitting
•  Lace
•  Patchwork
•  Passementerie
•  Quilting
•  Rug & carpet making
•  Textile printing

Pottery:

For pottery it is easier to classify the arty types using the materials that use (as the arts mostly known by their materials).

• Earthenware
• Terracotta
• Stoneware
• Porcelain
• Fritware
• Egyptian faience
• Ironstone
• Jasperware

Wood working:

Chinese wood carving at Green Lake Hotel, Kunming. Photo by: thisiscolossal.com

It’s hard to classify the woodworks as I am not so sure all of them. So if there’s any opinion to add on this topic, please don’t hesitate to add it in the comment or send me an email. Here I will list some of them base on how the woodworks process;

•           Wood carving
•       Parquetry
•       Japanese carpentry
•       Spindle turning
•       Pyrography
•       Clogs
•       Lacquerware
•       Craft with plant materials - coconut shell, bamboo, rattan, and etc.

Glass:

Glassart in Formosa Boulevard Station, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan – Photo by: wikipedia

Same goes for the glass, the process has also become the classification of the glassworks. One process might have different distinctive results. Usually craftsman will only mastering one type of glasswork - because it requires different type of tools.

-        

•       Glassblowing
•          Stained glass
•          Glass sculptures
•          Etched glass
•          Cold glass
•           Enamelled glass
•           Glass mosaic

Metal:

There are different types of classification of metalwork, it’s either by the types of metal that their use or the product that they produce. Sometimes we also known them with the process. But here let us list some of it to see the different;

-        

•       Goldsmith
•          Silversmith
•          Sculptures
•          Masks
•          Metal plates
•          Ornaments
•          Furniture
•          Jewelleries
•          Musical instruments

* Goldsmith and silversmith can also producing jewelleries, but they are specified to each metal if they only work with one metal only.

Creative Arts:

Writings:

Popular novels - kosmosaicbooks.com 

Writing is also another important types of art. From the basic form of writing it’s allow us to record some important information in the history. Today we have different types of writing for different purposes even for different languages.

•          Journals
•          Diaries
•          Essays
•         Storytelling
•          Poetry
•          Memoir
•          Scripts
•          Blogging
•          Free writing

Performances:

Photo of book cover: Michael Jackson: The King of Pop by Chris Roberts

Acting, singing, theatre performances, magician, stand-up comedy, dancing and live performances (acrobatics, mix of performances).

Cooking:

Japanese foods presented with beautiful decoration. - Photo by: savvytokyo.com

Cooking is another huge topic to talk about, but still so important in our history. Every dishes need to prepare accordingly or it cannot be eaten. We might add extra decoration – that will be different part of art. We will try to list some of it, but then we only get clearer picture when we go through it one by one.

By process;

•          Roasting
•          Grilling
•          Blanching or boiling
•          Sous-vide
•         Steaming
•         Baking
•         Stir-frying
•         Fermenting
•         Salads

* There are many other types of cooking arts that we need to discuss it in more specific articles, especially when we talk about specific dishes such as specific dishes related to some part of culture, e.g.: sushi, kimchee, tom yam, rendang and etc.

As you can see, there are too many form of arts and I cannot list of all it here. So I will come back to add more of it in this list. From here we can see more articles to help us to develop the skills or to learn more from those who are good at it, or maybe we just want to get more information about it. Hope this will help for us to enrich our knowledge.

10 Inventions With Greatest Impact To The World

The blueprint of Wright Flyer.

All inventions are important but some of them lead to bigger changes in human lives than the other. In this article we are going to see for the 10 most important inventions that give biggest impact to how we living in this world today.

Printing Press (1950)

Print was invented earlier with slower and complicated process. Anyway printing press machine invented by Johannes Gutenberg 1440 not just allowed the printing works to be faster but also make books available at cheaper price. This is what contributes to any other knowledge to be spread exponentially.

Before printing machine was invented, the knowledge texts only available to few selected people. These materials prepared by selective people consist of monks and few learned individuals. With this invention however changed the whole Western Europe by 16^th century by mass produced texts with diversity of topics.

Telescope (1609)

Human always fascinated with stars in the sky but only with the invention of telescope that allow us to understand more about them. Even though invented earlier by Greek mathematician Giovanni Demisiani in 1611 the good quality telescope only produced later by Sir Isaac Newton in 1668 with his reflecting telescope.

Besides telescope another same optical apparatus that look at smaller objects also considered one of the most important inventions is microscope. Before microscope was invented no one knows that we living in the world with full of microscopic organisms that also have bigger impact in our lives.

Steam Engine (1712)

Even though steam engine no longer used today as how it’s been used before, most electricity generated by huge steam turbines to rotating it’s giant magnets. The steam machines evolve from the first machine produced in Egypt by Hero of Alexandria in the first century AD.

Steam engines were incredibly inefficient until few popular figures in steam engines come with better improvements such as Thomas Newcomen, James Watt and Matthew Boulton. Steam engines are the first machines that allow industrial practices to be implemented and created mass production of materials.

Plastic (1856)

Plastic is another invention have bigger impact to the world until today. Even though today we think the usage of plastics give negative impact to the nature, yet the invention of plastics creates many products at cheaper price. On the negative sides today we struggle to clean up all the plastics that float in the ocean and endanger their creatures.

Plastic was first invented by Alexander Parkes in 1862. A few years later American inventor John Wesley Hyatt came out with first synthetic man-made plastic. Today there are many types of plastics with different characteristics to allow many other materials to be produced with most of our household products contained plastics.

Telephone (1876)

Telephone was invented by two men separately and only one of them known as the inventor since he arrived at the patent office earlier. They are Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray in producing device that can transmit voice electronically.

Bell keeps on upgrading his invention that allows his invention to be more successful from any other inventor work on similar device. On March 10, 1876 he uttered the first word to his assistant Thomas A Watson: “Mr Watson, come here, I want you.”

If we look on how our phone works today, it will be far different than the first phone invented by Graham Bell, where today we have computer instead of phone on our hand.

Airplane (1903)

Airplane was another great invention in human history, while human already can fly with glider in short distance but not truly flying - without engine that provide enough force to keep on flying.

Orville and Wilber Wright also known as Wright Brothers were businessman with bicycle shop. It took them few years to develop Wright Flyer the first plane that flies on 17 December 1903 for 36.6 meters with its own engine. One year later Wilber flew and improved Flyer II for five minutes.

With advancement in aviation technology today the air travel not just become easier but also cheaper. Keep on travelling.

Television (1926)

Television is more complicated device with more electronics parts in it. Start with visionaries of the invention of such product to the invention of the product itself was not produced by single man. Television requires different discoveries by different inventors to further develop the fully functional television set.

First thought to be nothing good will comes out of it until to be one of the devices we can find in every home. The television becomes the most popular electronics in 21^st century that also used to spread ideas, commercials, news and entertainment.

Touch Screens (1965)

Touch screens was invented earlier by English engineer EA Johnson in 1965 that simplify the input device to computer. Anyway it took very long until touch screens technology to become cheaper to be able to use with smaller device such as smart phone.

There area to types of touch screen: resistive and capacitive. In the early introduction resistive touch screen was more popular, while today capacitive touch screen usage is wider. With touch screen the control of devices become easier, faster and more accessible by everyone.

GPS (1973)

GPS was technology developed for military usage to allow them to firing missiles accurately. It was developed by American Ivan Getting and Professor Bradford Parkinson on military request. Then the GPS network was proposed with network of radio transmitters with each having an in-built clock. That’s requires an atomic clock for high precision measuring of time.

GPS satellites were launched by the US military in 1978 and were used for military purposes only, public usage of this technology only available in early nineties. Originally there were 18 satellites in 1979 and 24 by 1988, that number is now closer to 30.

Internet (1960 & 1989)

The best invention that allows the acceleration of information to be transfer, share and to make it more accessible is the invention of internet. Anyway the invention of internet itself requires the platform of network system.

The invention of the network start as early as 1960’s when Advance Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of US Department of Defence created ARPANET. This network allows the communication between computers across the network.

While the internet as we know it today start with the invention of websites (the World Wide Web) that was invented in late-Eighties. It all start when the researcher at CERN called Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues develop a system that will allow user of the internet to access text-based ‘pages’. This is possible by the usage of HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), allowing communication between network servers and computers. They released the early web browser to the public in 1992 and the advancement of internet begun.

Those are among 10 best inventions that shape out our world today. There are many other best inventions, but these ten are inventions that allow the other inventions possible or inspiring it to happened. Well, we know it can’t be just 10, as we all have our own criteria of what best inventions is. Anyway, it is better to keep on inventing than just rather to talk about which one is the best than the other.

Lego The World's Most Famous Construction Games

Classic Lego pieces that can construct into various objects.

Lego is the world’s famous construction game because of its unique function. It was designed by a carpenter named Ole Kirk Christiansen (1891-1958) from Billund, Denmark in 1932. Almost all of today's generation recognized Lego though most of us have never played with the real Lego sets.

Lego favored because of its ability to function in producing various shapes according players’ creativity. Even today there are sets that can only be formed into certain models, original Lego pieces is still popular in forming objects without limits. Through various changes in business this game, Lego also opened its own theme parks. Up to now there are six theme parks around the world and one of which is in Nusajaya, Malaysia. Up to July 2015, about 600 billion Lego parts were produced. In February 2015 Lego also replace Ferrari as "the most famous brand in the world" by Brand Finance.

Lego is derived from wood which began its produced in 1932 using the original name "Automatic Binding Bricks" and patented in the United Kingdom in 1939 and first marketed in 1947. The design was later modified by sample generated for production using the 'injection molding' machine, which was later bought by Lego. Lego pieces are then produced using cellulose acetate.

Today Lego has various shapes.

Lego can build the replica of a city.

Lego has a very attractive motto "det bedste er ikke for godt", which means "only the best is the best" or can also mean "the good is not the best". This motto is still in use to this day was founded by Ole Kirk to encourage his employees to not reduce the quality of their goods. Until 1951, plastic toys account half of the material produced by Lego at the time of plastic items is considered as less suitable for children's toys materials.

By 1954, Lego management was taken over by the son of Christiansen, who’s named Godtfred and it is also the start of a Lego empire expansion to foreign markets. Some of the reforms done to make it easier to match Lego pieces (into forms that are more versatile). In 1958, Lego has a modern design but it takes about 5 years to Lego using better materials of ABS polymer (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). The modern Lego patented later on January 28, 1958.

In addition Lego introduced Lego Duplo, in 1969 that was designed to be larger up to 2 times the size of the original Lego to target those children in early stage. Design of a little man was first introduced in 1978, which later became part of complementary sets of next Lego.

Rivendell from Lego.

Among the models of Lego.

Lego has known, because of its ability that allows children to explore the potential of their skills in field of constructions, creativity, cognitive and so on. Arguably most of us recognized Lego although many of us never touched it. Lego is not only for children to play but also beyond its original functions and become part of the world community pride.

In May 2011, Lego joined spacecraft Space Shuttle Endeavour, mission STS-134 with 13 sets of Lego to the International Space Station to study the effects of micro-gravity on the resulting model. Results of this study will then be shared with schools as one of educational program.

In May 2013 the biggest model produced using Lego on display in New York on 5 millions Lego pieces to produce real size 1: 1 model of the X-wing fighter. In addition Lego also produces 112 foot tower and railway tracks spans 4 km (2.5 mi.).

Lego is constantly producing new releases in accordance with the passage of time. Even Lego has a strict quality control in which the high quality produces piece of Lego only has the tolerance of ± 10 micrometers. This is to ensure that each piece can be perfectly matched and can also be removed again.

The development Lego is due to continuous efforts of improvements not only in producing high quality goods but always producing new competitive designs. It is also not underestimate the ability of its competitors. Lego has a design staff of 120 people located in several areas such as the UK, Spain, Germany and Japan.

X-wing fighter produced using Lego.

One of the 6 Legolands in the world.

Apart from the production of the game and active in the promotion of the production of the largest models and so on. Lego also have movies, video games, board games and many more areas that make it always be remembered. Even today Lego also opening their "theme park" in number of areas, namely the first in Billund, Denmark; the second of which is located in Windsor, England; the third built in Günzburg, Germany; the fourth is in Carlsbad, California; the fifth is in Winter Haven, Florida; and the sixth is located in Nusajaya, Malaysia.

That such a little story about the unique history of the most famous games in the world of Lego, for those who can afford it, may make Lego as part of the game for their kids or a part of family activities. It is one game that proved to provide many benefits to children in forming a positive development.

Games That Improve Your Child's Interest To Education

Such games can helps your children in developing their talents.

Our environment in today's modern world is much different from the situation once where child where we were more exposed to interaction with the outside world while playing that help in stimulating the development of a smarter brain. But today's children depend on games that are available (toys) in addition to the popular games mainly video games.

As a parent or guardian, determine the right type of games for children are important. This is to help them develop smarter thinking, creativity, decision-making and so on. Without your help, this is difficult for them to choose the game which can provide such kind of benefits.

In choosing the right game for your kids, choose few key features such as;

1) How does it help your child think to solve the problem of the game?

- Games like Lego stimulate children's thinking ability in solving designs to be produced. In addition, it also includes some of other benefits.

- Games like the abacus also have the same benefits, but it requires training and attention from you or other individuals.

Lego is one of the best stimulant games for your kids.

2) Does it have to do with the of everyday’s life, particularly education that includes science, geography, astronomy, economics, creativity, cognitive and so on?

- Some games are built to stimulate child interest in careers such as doctoral (doctor’s game sets), astronomy (telescope), scientists (microscope), culinary (cooking sets), music (musical instruments), and sports and etc.

- Some games equipment constructed by using the principles of science that can stimulate children's interest too, for them find out more like a pendulum, lava lamp, magnetic games, gyroscope, Magnetic Field Viewer, Super Springy and many others. These are the games that require some skills to explain how it works.

- Games like these are the starting point for determining the likelihood of your children interest at the early stage. These will help you to identify their interest instead of your interest for them.

Science and astronomy toy.

A game that stimulate thinking ability.

3) Does it help to provide other benefits such as sensor motor, balance and health-related benefits?

- Some playground equipment has other benefits such as health and flexibility of the body system. Games such as roller blade, skateboard, badminton, bicycles or other sports equipment have these kinds of benefits. At the same time they also stimulate the benefit of thinking skills.

- For such kind of games, parents and guardians should make sure children get enough exercise and comply with safety guidelines to prevent any possible injuries.

"Roller blades" requires high balancing ability.

4) How can you help to make the sure the game can achieve the desired benefits?

- Parents or guardians need to ensure how the selected games can provide positive benefit to the development of education and children's creativity. This will allow parents or guardians to ensure the objectives of the games are reached.

- Although it seems like a burden, but it will be more fun when you yourself involved with the games played by your children. At the same time this will indirectly making them more focused on the outcome of the games.

- Some games also require additional training such as music and professional sports. Parents who can detect a tendency talent of their children at an early stage will have the opportunity to help them hone this at the early stage.

"Magnetic globe" - using magnetic principles.

Wonderful magnetic game "klikyballs".

There are still plenty of rooms for us to make sure our children get a worthwhile entertainment. Through our involvement with proper monitoring will make sure they can develop interests, abilities and talents. It also gives you a chance to discover something new if you've never been involved with the games that they played before. At the same time can also foster closer family ties.