Personal Research Article, also I'm an insane Harry Potter nerd.

For the article I'm talking about, click here.

This article is entitled Vietnam War Stories: Innocence Lost, but I'm only really looking at the second chapter Innocence, because the full article is about 233 pages long.

I typed that and went back to the article's tab in Safari and now it wants me to pay for the website, so I'm just going to talk about what I actually got to read.

The first few pages were all about the Vietnam War and how these men where so young that they had to grow up in combat. One quotation stood out to me immediately, "innocence savaged and destroyed". As soon as I read this small phrase, I saw the image of a young boy in an army uniform too big for him with a helmet falling over his eyes shooting a gun. Fighting in a war. And in many ways, I do believe that's what the draft did. It took young boys, not truly even men yet except by the the legal age, and thrust them into what I could only call perdition. I assume that going to war would take every scrap of youthful vitality out of you, leaving an empty shell of a person, totally different from the one that left home. Sorry to be a dork here, but in my mind I relate it back to Harry Potter. For Tom Riddle to become the immortal Lord Voldemort, he had to create these Horcruxes. To do this he had to kill people, in the books it was called 'splitting his soul', I mean that's why he didn't have a nose anymore, because he had dehumanized himself. By making those young boys become soldiers, forcing them to kill, are we not doing the same to them? Dehumanizing and splitting the very soul that keeps them together? I think this article will stick with me because my concentration is about innocence and how you can lose it. Most likely, my next piece when we come back from Christmas will be that small boy who doesn't know what he's doing but is fighting nonetheless.

Art Director type things

An art director oversees the art (the photographs, drawn images, sets, costumes, props, and locations) that appear in newspapers, magazines, ad campaigns, TV, film, and on book covers. The Art Director is responsible for the entire design department, working with photo editors and editors to coordinate what images will match up with what words/ideas. In this job, you do more than hire people to do the art, you work with them to come up with the concepts to create an overall image. There are many different types of companies that use Art Directors, advertising, in book publishing, TV, fashion, film, and at magazines. The type of work they do depends on which subset of job. Most art directors have degrees from art schools, where they’ve studied graphic design, photography and drawing; a background in graphic design is usually essential for most art director jobs today. In today’s job market art directors also need to know various computer programs that allow them to work with everything from photographs to font sizes. While photoshop is a standard program all art directors should know, this is just one of many. For a portfolio, Art directors, who often work up to that title (from assistant positions), need to show examples of their work. Someone looking to work as an art director in an ad agency, for example, needs to show a potential employer sample ad campaigns he’s created. To get these samples, you need to have experience from an internship or from your art school experience. The average salary of an Art Director is just under $100,000, but this also varies between subsets. The only start up expenses you really have are your computer and college degree, after that, most likely, you’ll have a firm or large company to work for. 

I think I would be well suited for this job because I think I have the conceptual skills to come up with ideas for ads or book covers or many of the other things Art Directors need to do. Also, I find this job to be really interesting because you could really go anywhere; from desk job, to traveling the world. 

Response to history.

"And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns, and having seven crowns upon his head. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to earth." (Rev 12:1-3 KJV)
"The Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun" by William Blake

Elements:

Line: Blake uses line here to contrast between the biblical red dragon of hell and the woman of heaven. He juxtaposes the dragon's harsh, bold line with the light flowing contours of angel. 

Color: The color of the piece is used to emphasize the difference between good and evil/heaven and hell. He uses the dark, muted colors for the red dragon, but brighter, more hopeful, golds for the woman. 

Shape: The dragon's form is so huge that it overpowers the whole piece. I'm not sure if the artist meant it this way, but looks as if the dragon is winning almost because he is so gargantuan in comparison to the other figure. 

Principles: 

Balance: I feel that the piece is pretty well balanced because the top portion is so dark, it seems not to take up as much of the overall space as the bottom half. 

Emphasis: Obviously, there is emphasis on the woman. She is the only true highlighted feature in the painting, unless you count the highlights on the back of the dragon. 

Contrast: I think I've already stated that he has contrasted the two figures. 

Btw, I didn't choose this for any particular religious reason. I just really like the Hannibal Lector movie, Red Dragon.