FA Portfolio: Continuing

 This week I really focused on making progress to the Pretty Thing painting. It is slow because of all of the intricate petals, but I am satisfied with how it is progressing, and my vision is taking form. I have to be careful to maintain a sense of holistic form to the body of the leopard.  I could lose sight of this working on all the different small shadows and highlights, but I try to remedy it by stepping back and assessing regularly, more often than I normally would.

 when I first began I had trouble achieving the level of liveliness that I wanted in the roses, but as they are developing, I am not at a point where I am satisfied with how they look, the liveliness and the style. Therefore, going forward the entire rest of the body will look this way.

I had to carefully consult my initial sketch to refocus the head and face. I wanted to capture a more nuanced expression rather than just simple anger that there seemed to be before. I readjusted the brow, the eye shape, the location of the pupil, and the lighting to do this. I want to evoke a wariness, exasperation, surprise, as well as some anger.

This week I also worked on a small block print, to be printed on fabric for wear. I am not sure that this will be included in my portfolio, but it is among some art that I was excited to make recently.

I was originally going to hand write the letters onto some tracing paper and then flip and transfer onto the block, but I decided it was too thin, and I wanted more control, so I created it on the computer. It is still hand drawn, I used the touch screen on my computer and wrote this using the paintbrush on illustrator- and then I reversed them and chose the best from my options. I then printed it out and transferred to my block with graphite paper.

Concerning the story panels, I want to sort of put them to the side for a while so that I can think about them more, and feel more driven in creating them. At the moment the painting, the toilet, and my prints are getting most of my attention. I may also start another oil painting soon. That being said, I did rework and totally write out the story line for the panels, so that when I return to them, I have a more clear route through which to proceed.

This week I am inspired by French photographer Andria Darius Pancrazi. I love the pale pink almost monochrome palette,  and how this together with the minimalist structure and tight compositions create an otherworldly feeling. Since my water color panels are working to make an outrageous story that is based off dreams and metaphors, I may think to try some of these methods to make them seem more ethereal. I am working with some of these ideas in the Pretty Thing painting, dreamy palette, and minimal composition.

FA Portfolio: Cardboard Toilet Saga

This week we were challenged to create the work of one of our classmates. I was given Madi, and I was excited to work on this as I had never woven before. I like to crochet and knit, so I am familiar and comfortable working in this medium, and I had always wanted to pick up this skill. I started by creating a cardboard loom, and selecting my palette, since Madi has shown us abstracted landscapes, I went along with this creating a wheat or corn field depiction. I decided to make it at nighttime, as something I would like to see in Madi's work is a grounding in space or time. I connected two panels via crochet, as I like the seamless continuation. lastly, I left some warp strings as tassels to allude to the traditional history of weaving, and added a white border and abstract half circle design to signify a modern twist.

For my own work this week, I was very focused on continuing to form my cardboard toilet. I created the hardest part of the structure-the bowl-using a series of curved arches and a mosaic like process with smaller pieces arranged onto them to create a curving bowl. I think that I will likely leave the raw cardboard on the toilet at least because it is nice to see the material manipulated in this way, that is out of the norm for it, and perhaps off-putting. The gritty disposable and fake nature of it also speak to what I want the rabbit character to represent (his personality and on being an unreliable narrator).

I also worked on one of the panels, inking some of the lines and beginning to add color. however, here I made a mistake in putting the black ink down before the color, and profuse bleeding of the black ensued. I plan to restart this one as I am also not totally pleased with the way the various elements are arranged on the paper. I also am considering adding more black and making the panels more graphic.

The reading this week was about how artists establish and project themselves as artists and the necessity to form one's own standards to achieve this. The narrator went on to describe the issue of confidence in an artist's own status and identity. In the past I have thought of this, in the form of feeling doubts and hesitation before creating something, as I almost felt I was not entitled to create what I want because I was not sure it was really "me" as I am not very interesting. Lately as with the story panels that I am making now and some other recent projects, I have begun to try and just make what I want to make and then examine and polish after the fact.

This week I am inspired by the work of Marcel Janco, with his cardboard masks. I like that the material itself is manipulated but not to such a degree that it is hidden what it is made of. There is also a playful tone and much personality carried into such a regularly nondescript material; this is something I am striving for with my own cardboard piece.

Portrait of Tzara, 1919. Image via dada-companion.com; Mask. Image via judaica-europeanea.eu

 

FA Portfolio: Cardboard Toilet, Story Panels Progress

 For my work this week, we had an objective to create something of different dimension from what we had shown previously. Since I had mostly been working in 2D, I decided to create a 3D sculpture. One of my friends had gotten a new door, and had the cardboard box leftover-I wanted to use this cardboard to create something. I decided that It would connect in some way to my current story within the watercolor story panels.

I chose one of the characters, which was not divulged yet in the panels I had shown, and I wanted to display him in this way to add slightly more dimension, physically in real space, as well as more conceptually. I drew the plan for another panel featuring this character in the story.

In this week's reading, the writer discusses viewing your work within a historical context. The speaker identifies three components to achieving this: the history of your own work, circumstances and events while the work was being made, and lastly, the history of the given artistic field. The second section focused on "frames and filters"; lenses that we view subjects from, derived from historical influence. I infer that analyzing or identifying these various filters is an important key to understanding the meaning behind a work.

This week, I am inspired by the playful and awkward illustrative work of Harry Mckenzie. In some of my work I am striving towards a similar tone, and I also would like to increase the use of text, and plan to employ it in the water color panels.

FA Portfolio: Watercolor story panels

For my work this week, I decided that I wanted to control the narrative of the work more in contrast to my approach last week, with translating story through observation. I plan to work these out in watercolor, and I currently was only able to outline a couple of the panels, and am going to have some color in them for next week.

This story for me is based off of dreams, so for the viewer I want them to have some sense of confusion about what's going on and particularly about the timeline to echo a dreamlike set of guidelines to the situation. I want the viewers to go through the process of piecing the story together from what they see in front of them, so that is why I chose to start the panels from the end of the story rather than the beginning.

I am considering inlaying the papers onto wood panels, perhaps with metal hinges to create some sort of box structure (having 4 story panels), so that the viewer is placed at one angle of the story and sort of forced to go around until they have found out what is going on. I am also going to put banners with single phrases of text to add more context to each panel, but those can also be used to throw them off the trail at the same time.

The reading this week continued on the subject of fear in art this time focusing on the artist's fears about themselves. One of the sections that I found very interesting was that on "Magic". The speaker points out a fear that I never realized that I myself possessed; that great art has some sort of unidentifiable but irrefutably present element to it that allows it to be classified as true art.
They also mentioned the questioning of credibility an artist has in their work they perceive to have turned out well in comparison to the ones that did not turn out well. I find myself doing this often, seeing the outcome of my art among other occurrences, and automatically formulating the failures as "a sign", whereas the successes mean nothing. It is an interesting contradiction within my own superstition and many other artists that I have met as well.

This week I am inspired by drawing and printmaking artist Orit Hofshi. From viewing their work, get the sense that the separate panels are perhaps telling different parts of a story at different times and yet the same location. I find this interesting given my intention to manipulate timeline for my viewers with my upcoming work. She also had this to say of time in her work:

"the consistent preoccupation with the dimension of time. I am constantly searching for ways of making time palpable: personal time, the present time, historical time....examining these different temporal dimensions vis-à-vis the universal temporal dimension, a dimension that may exceed the limitation of human understanding."

Alternative, 2014, ink drawing and carving on pine wood panels, 78 x 78 in

 Emerge 2018, carved birch wood ink 80 x 97in

Chronicle 2016, ink drawing, woodcut on handmade paper, carved pine wood panels, 118 x 220in

FA Portfolio: Second Painting Progress

 For my work this week, I decided to begin by staying in a fixed place, and rapidly drawing all of the interesting people that I see. I did something similar to this in the past, however the renditions were used for a different purpose, more as material for the per-established content. This time around I wanted to let the people and their stories stand on their own a bit more.

I sat on a bench on St. George, and gave myself a two hour time limit. Part of this was for scheduling purposes, but also I knew from past experiences that if I did not limit it in some way, I would be fine to do it all day. In that time i drew about 4 pages of the people that most caught my interest. I decided to paint the figures on canvas with an indent in it to manifest the different perspectives that people bring to each other, or have within themselves. The figures change when viewed at different angles.

Due to the rushed nature of sketching these moving targets going about their own business, The sketches can at times be exaggerated, with some influence of my own interpretations; reflecting what I find to be one of the parts that makes it so fun to do, which is speculating on or creating the life story, or just the story of the day for each passing figure. I painted them in grey scale acrylic on black canvas. After making progress, I had thoughts of perhaps adding color or doing it ink on paper instead. I do not feel this piece is resolved at all yet.

This week's reading focused on the art never seen: the ideas that never materialize, the ones that go unfinished, and the messages that never get conveyed as intended. It tackled the issue of apprehension in the art making process and suggested that the extent of these struggles may be unique to "our age". Here is something that I have been thinking of recently. Artists farther in the past painting portraits, or still life that needed to say nothing more, or a set of classical subjects that were expected, stories repeated.

Imagine Finding Me
1985 and 2005, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China

This week I am inspired by the artist Chino Otsuka. I was looking at her series of photographs where she was inserting herself as she was presently into old family photographs or herself. I was interested in the idea that the past you becomes removed and is like a separate person, and through the lens of who she is now, is in a way re imagining the story of the photograph, putting a piece of her new self into it.

http://chino.co.uk/index.htm

FA Portfolio: "Pretty Thing" Progress

I started this project with research. I chose to model the cat after a leopard. I began by watching many videos of leopards, and looking to pictures of their anatomy. Next I thought of a pose, and developed a sketch; this process took longer than I anticipate.

 I then continued onto the painting, blocking out the form of the body and shadow areas, and started to fill in the rose petals. I intend to cover the entire body in clusters of roses. I am not satisfied with the way the roses look yet; I want them to be more alive. Hopefully in the coming progression I can eventually reach a point where they look more lively, a matter of tweaking my palette, and really concentrating on the fine details for a great deal of time. 

              I want to put some language onto the piece, and thought about several phrases, but for the time being, I have settled on “Pretty Thing”. I am still in the process of deciding how to render that text. I aim to have the painting completed by next week.Thematically, I think that the element of repetition I was considering is applicable here, I need to think further on these implications, and articulating those of the text.

The reading this week discusses the process of critique. A closer look at how it may unfold for those involved. I tend to consider that an area that I need work on, being naturally of a more reserved nature. I hope to improve on optimizing helpful feedback for my fellow classmates this semester, which in turn will also help me in my own processes. One topic I focused on was the subject of declaring and exploring intention; here is an area I often struggle with. The way it was discussed was interesting, pointing out that we usually do not really know our own motives, even if we think that we do. This along with the advice given by the professor to make honest work has me thinking that perhaps I should just focus on producing the work, and not dwell or worry too much about the intentions. 

 

Summer on the River Wye, Oil, 12x12

Daffodils, oil 16x16

An artist I look to for inspiration this week is Michael James Smith. Smith is an English landscape painter who works primarily with oils. I do not exactly want to emulate that advanced hyper-realism; I am more so drawn to the way which he is able to so effectively capture vivid life in his paintings. The subjects: plants and landscapes are also relevant for my current project. I also would like to work towards his level of dedication to his process, and confidence in his abilities.

https://michaeljamessmith.com/gallery/

Masked Identity

Frowning

18 gauge galvanized wire, tracing paper, red ink

approx. 22" x 12" x 19" 

For my mask I decided to play with what I consider a stereotype: that women should always be happy or smiling. I have a naturally serious looking face, and this coupled with my more reserved personality, has led to countless instances of people I know-or complete strangers-demanding that I smile; no matter what I am doing. I wanted to go for a more humorous tone to reflect how ridiculous it seems to me to feel the need to plaster on a fake smile while doing even the most mundane activities, like waiting to cross the road, or throwing away trash. In fact, the next day after taking these photos a man I did not know emerged from the bathroom while I was waiting for the elevator and told me "It helps to smile" followed by "feel better".

I chose a public setting for the photos to increase interaction with people and also represent my normal daily life. Ironically, the sight of giant frowning lips made many people smile. I shot the photos in pairs with the idea to be presented as a progression; the first one looking away, and the second one gazing at the viewer (presumably after being told to laugh or smile).

I incorporated the color pink because it is a stereotypical feminine color, and I feel that the idea of projecting happiness constantly is an expectation more often geared towards females.

The renaissance symbol that I chose to use was the closed book, which represents the continuation of education and learning. This made sense to me because I am currently in college. Another reason I chose this is because I am still learning how to deal with this problem. Being told to smile more used to make me very angry. However, now, I have come to see some humor in these situations and recognize those of the group that only want others to be happy.

Process Photos: