Interim Blog Post

For this project I have really been following my previous goals of just going with my gut and seeing where my artistic mind takes me. I have spent the last couple weeks exploring and trying out new ideas, each one different from the previous but with similar ambitions. I have been playing with ink directly out of the bottle and using that as my paintbrush. Then I took a pencil and played with pulling the ink out leaving some pencil marks behind.  I also played with the energy of the piece adding some flowing marks and dripping marks to juxtapose my crazy pine bee hive like motions.  I feel like at this point I have three or four different series. I plan on focusing on the more formal watercolor painting and hopefully bringing in some of my previous more colorful, whimsical pieces into this painting to juxtapose the more formal watercolor.  These are my intentions thus far and I hope to bring both ideas into my final piece possibly as a few series or as a single piece.

Culminating Process Intentions

At this point in the process I have a few ideas, but have not really made final decisions on my intentions for this piece.  Originally when the project had been presented to me I thought about representing my growth as a artist through the growth of a tree.  I would start out with a leaf then move to a small branch, then a larger branch, then part of the trunk, then the entire tree.  I was thinking it would be fun to represent this by creating a book and each page would represent a change.  I have been playing around with which materials I want to use to create this project.  Originally I was drawn to the ink on paper because of how well it worked in the last project and also just how much I enjoyed the lines I could make on the page.  I do feel like I might want to explore a different medium I am just not sure yet what that would be.  Last year I never used pen once, and I always struggled when I tried to draw simple sketches with pen, so for me it is really interesting this year to work with pen because for so long I have struggled so much with it.  I enjoy working with pen because it forces me to go with my errors and not focus on each tiny little detail trying to make it perfect, but instead the overall image.  Other mediums I have used are always very forgiving, you can always erase or paint over a mistake but pen doesn't allow you to do this so it has forced me to dive into mistakes and make them success.  I have to say while sketching I did get excited again about the idea of secret messages within my work.  As I was working away Tuesday a drew a leaf and added some shadow and all of a sudden I looked down and realized it looked exactly like letters that could create a word, which is what inspired me to possibly carry the theme of my last piece into this piece.  I am not sure exactly what my style is going to be in the future but creating secret messages that the outside person can't see, but by looking deeply can understand is a concept I really enjoy.  I feel like it overall reflects me as a person really well.  On the outside I look like a normal nondescript human being, but once people get to know me they understand and enjoy my company more.  Personally I feel like it is hard to uncover some of those deepest secrets I keep inside of me and it takes a lot of trust and friendship for me to share my feelings, and so the art I am working on and being inspired by I feel shows a lot about my personality.  I am not sure exactly how this process is going to go, but I am just going to follow my instincts and see how it turns out.  I am not sure exactly what other artists I should be looking at, but one that caught my eye for the last project and had some similar intentions was the artist I posted on my previous blog post.  The work this artist created with the masks definitely has a secret message that the reader has to understand and try and explain on their own which I think is kind of what I am looking to do.

Study of the Figure

At this point my intentions for this project have completely changed.  In the beginning I was very focused on creating the figure as a whole but through experiments I realized that I really liked working with the hand much more than the entire body.  From there I realized that to create the hand I could add a lot more detail with a black pen than with charcoal.  I was able to focus on lines and that brought more delicacy and fine tuning to my pieces.  From there I was intrigued with not only representing hands but showing a deeper secret message within them.  I decided I wanted to lash out at society in a very secret way and picked the word "trapped" because I feel we are all trapped in society.  I leave this work up to the viewers interpretation though I do not want my original intentions to be the only way to interpret this piece.  When I was talking to Elise she knew that the work was trapped but interpreted the piece as being that those who couldn't speak and use sign language felt trapped.  To me the best artwork leaves the viewer up to the interpretation and allows them to come up with their own ideas about the piece.  Thus far I am just going to continue with my finishing touches.  I still have to create the "e" so that is what I plan on focusing on after break.

One of the works that really inspired me was by Desirée Holman.  She created a really interesting piece like the one above where there is a person under a mask, but parts of the piece really look like their faces and at first glance you can't even tell that the person has a mask on.  She also created each of these pieces with colored pencil which was really intriguing because they still had a lot of rich lines and often most people think of colored pencil as being very soft, but she was able to incorporate both in her pieces.  I think this helped to inspire the secret message idea as well as the idea of leaving the piece up to the viewers interpretations.

In the last project one of my favorite parts was how I just let myself go.  I didn't focus on what my final project was going to be I just worked and in the end ended up with something I liked for my final.  In this piece I was able to do something pretty similar.  Once I got started on the hands and then the word my classes became a little more scheduled but before that I just let myself work and find the product I liked.  I think that is the best kind of art and I really enjoy it.

Figure Drawing Intentions

My Intentions

In this project I have really enjoyed getting to fully understand the figure and play with line and shadows to create a figure.  Through this process I have really enjoyed working with hands and trying to draw hands in their relaxed positions, but really focusing on the shape and shadows within the hand.  I have really enjoyed playing with lines and the effect of building up lines, making them thicker and opposing that with thin light lines.  I have done a little with the face and features of the face, but I would like to study that further as the project progresses.  I have also really enjoyed looking at different people and doing quick sketches because it forces me to look at the overall figure and bang out the general form before turning to small details which is opposite what I usually do in my process.  I would like to also really try and get the whole figure on my paper, for some reason I keep enlarging my image making it hard for me to fit it on the page.  I really like my work with vine charcoal, I did a little work with ink, but I like how fluidly I am able to work with charcoal and how loose I can be with my hand, but also meticulous with details.  The drawing of Kennedy where I focused on her facial details I feel really needs to be worked on more.  I feel that the face needs some added details and shading to look more humanistic and to tone down the eyes, because the eyes seem to be very strong in this picture.  I really like the picture I drew of Gustavo sitting down as I feel it ended up very proportional and looking as I wanted it to.  I really like how his back turned out with the ruffles in the shirt showing him sitting leaning up against something.  I see myself continuing to delve deeper into the figure and continuing to work with charcoal to see where that takes me. 

I was really impressed with the stop action film made by William Kentridge.  The was he was able to create a picture and then through little changes create a movie was incredible.  While I don't think this will be part of my process it was a really inspiring and interesting process that I learned a lot from.  I also really enjoyed the work done by Kara Walker with her figures.  I thought it was really cool that without any shadows or lines she was still able to create such an incredible figure.

William Kentridge

His use of line and shadow here is really exemplary especially in the face reflected in the mirror.

Kara Walker

Poem Illumination- Walking Across the Atlantic by Billy Collins

Reflection

My intentions for this project from the last blog post have not changed dramatically.  I have stayed on the same path of going with my instincts to create my final piece.  For the final my first instinct was to draw the water from the fishes point of view looking upwards.  After successfully creating this piece I decided that I wanted to incorporate some part of the fish into my final as I had spent a lot of time understanding the different aspects of the fish and I wanted to include these findings in my final.  That is when I decided to include the fish tail and part of the fish body with the scales.  I decided not to put the fish on the same piece of paper as the water because I wanted the fish to really stand out so I created the fish on  a different sheet of paper and then pasted it on top of the water.  I though about doing two fish, but decided against it because I thought it would look like the fish were swimming away from something as oppose to just swimming in a natural direction.  Through my use of line and direction I tried to create movement on the page which was further created with the addition of the fish tail to show movement across the page.  The other formal element I used a lot was color and using different colors to create a very vibrant scene.  All together I think this project was a really amazing experience for me because I had a really in depth process that went all different places which was really interesting.  I enjoyed just going with my initial instincts and not being so worried about what I was going to end up doing in the end, but instead just following my instincts and seeing where those ended up taking me.

Poem Intentions

My Intentions

So far I have gone with my instincts on each of my works.  I started out with a focus on fish looking up at boots.  From there I focused on fish and how to make them as realistic as possible.  At the same time I focused in on boots and tried to draw detailed and realistic boots.  The fish led me to bubbles.  I created a few small bubbles with fish and boots inside and then got into an idea of a larger bubble with the other images around the bubble.  The spherical shape of the bubble led me to the idea of earth because of the shape but also because of the water on earth.  Then I started thinking about eyes and went a little rogue with the idea of an eye ball.  I decided that wasn't exactly what my intentions were, but it did help me with my next impulse, which was to think of the water from the eyes of a fish.  That is where I am now with the image in the middle of the picture above which is suppose to be the water looking up at it as a fish.  I am not really sure where this might take me, but for right now I am planning on finishing this image and then deciding if that is the path I want to take for my final, or if I want to go back to some of my previous instincts and expand on those for my final.

Project 2: Artist Emulation

Van Gogh Emulation

I really enjoyed this project for many different reasons.  First of all this project helped to give me a new understanding of the challenge it takes not only to copy an artists painting, but to go further and really understand an artists style.  The ability to understand their tendencies and then to actually take that knowledge and apply it to your own work was an incredibly interesting experience for me. It really helped me to understand just how challenging painting can be especially if you do not get to fully rely on your own styles and intuitions, but instead have to think, what would your artist do.  Van Gogh was very surprising in that most of his paintings were inspired by personal events in his own life as oppose to movements in the art world.  Van Gogh focused on short strokes of color that when seen together created one object, but separately were just strokes of color. Van Gogh didn’t necessarily mix colors, but instead just put two different colors next to each other so when seen together they looked like the color Van Gogh wanted.  He did many different studies of different scenes, but I always think of him as being best know for his landscapes so that is what I decided to focus on for my final.  I really enjoyed the short lines in different parts of my final piece, because I felt it did a really good job of coming together to create the final scene and it gave it more of an interesting point to draw your eye to. This is a style that I might try and bring into my works, not for the whole piece but for different parts of it.  While I tried my best to incorporate the idea of not mixing and just putting two colors next to each other to create one color it just doesn’t fit my style.  I like to mix my colors and work to get as close to the color as I can and this style of Van Gogh’s didn’t work for me.  I still like putting different colors nest to each other I just like it better when they are a little more neutral so there is only a slight difference between the two colors. Overall this project taught me how to take another artists style create your own study in the artists style.