In Progress Critique

As of right now I don't have anything solid to document but I was able to run my idea by my group. I am following in the footsteps of Lisa Escherik for this project. I want to make a realist painting but not with a lot of details. I really like how Escherik's lines are somewhat hazy and don't have a set boundary. The color shifts maintain the "boundaries" of each different part. I have been taking a lot of pictures at school to practice and get an idea for color and contrast again but I'm going to use a picture from a field by my house to model my work after. It'll offer new subject matter for me to work on and the spot I am using has lots of different aspects to it that will make my painting more interesting. My critique group members didn't have much to critique me on because I didn't have anything to show yet but they liked the direction in which I was going.

Mapping Project Final

This project offered my a very different view of mapping than I had seen in the past. I was able to expand my view of what I believed a "map" was and create a new definition in my mind. Instead of a map showing specific things, I took lots of different parts and pieces to create a larger image. The project allowed me to further explore what I believe my artistic voice is, at least at this point. I enjoyed working with wood and other materials but also working in my experience with painting in order to create a complete piece. My original intentions actually managed to stick with me throughout the entire project. I liked the idea of using wood and whatever other materials I could find in order to create the shape of France. I then used painting to liven up the scraps and create a fluid background that displayed good contrast. I didn't really have a particular artist I modeled my work after, the project was more of an idea I came up with myself after taking quite a while to figure out how I wanted to approach "mapping". The critique helped me finish up and touch up some details in the piece in order to finally give me a sense of being done with it. In terms of giving advice, I found it easy to help others with their work and provide new insights for them and as I did so, it actually help me voice some ideas that I wound up using myself. I believe that the project was successful and it will be a great piece to show in the upcoming gallery opening.

My work photographed with better lighting:

My work on display in the gallery:

Interim Mapping Blog Post

At the beginning of the project I wasn't really sure what direction I wanted to go in. It took a lot of experimenting with different mediums to finally figure out what I wanted to do. I thought I was going to move towards creating a piece that was an all-encompasing map of the world, but I wound up enjoying focusing on a specific country more. It offers a sense of freedom in how I want to represent my subject. For this project, I am carrying over a good deal of the elements from my last project. I am going to loosely trace France onto a large, painted block of wood that I will use as my base. On top of the base, I will use cut out pieces of wood in order to construct the country on top of my base. I'm excited about using my last project as a spring board for this one. Also, representing a subject that I like and have personal connections to is always fun. I can try to represent France in a way that I have never thought of before. Having worked on conceptual values such as of color, different textures and compositions in my last project will really help me move forward with putting my project together. Three questions I would ask my group are, "What sort of emotion are you trying to convey with this project?", "What specific mediums are you exploring/planning on using in this project?", and "How were you inspired to go in the direction you have with this project/are there any specific artists you are modeling your work after?".

Self Portrait

 For this project, I ventured outside of my comfort zone quite a bit. I chose to take a more abstract approach to the self portrait. I worked in part with paint by painting over wood blocks, yet I also worked sculpturally by creating a three dimensional piece with my blocks. Usually I like to work somewhat abstractly, but this project took it to a whole new level. My intentions were very similar throughout the project. I wanted to convey feeling through the contrasting colors, textures and shapes instead of relying on precise and exact drawings. It was hard to challenge myself to come up with formations that really resonated with me. There was originally going to be a second half to my sculpture, but instead of adding a second half that I was not as pleased with, I stuck with the main part which I believed conveyed much more feeling. All the different aspects and details of the sculpture related back to the self portrait theme because it felt as if each part, however small it may be, corresponded to the very different events and important things in my life. They were not specific by any means, but just represented everything as a whole and how different each thing could be. I mostly used Chris Johansson as inspiration for this project because his works conveyed a very similar feeling to what I wanted to express. I really liked how he used lots of different textures and colors while also creating intriguing configurations that added depth to his work.

Intentions for Self Study

I would like to take a more abstract route for my for my self study project. This past week I have worked on both realistic and abstract portraits but I am straying towards abstraction. For inspiration, I began to look through the work of other artists. One artist whose work I found to be very conceptually pleasing was Chris Johansson. I would like to incorporate some of his style into my self portrait. In order to do this, I am going to be using lots of different colors and textures to put across a vibrant feel in my work. My goal for this project is to create a piece that represents me less with physical attributes, but more with emotional feel. I may even attempt to create a series of pieces and form a set that fits together. I plan on mostly using wood on canvas for my piece and this will allow me to work with multiple different textures in order to create the feel I would like. Overall, I would like to challenge myself to create a work that fully expresses myself without actually implementing any realist work.

Here are some of my sketches from this week:

Final Blog Post Of The Year

I believe that my Edward Hopper painting from our artist emulation project was my most successful piece. I was really able to spend a lot of time on it and therefore I had more time to refine and revise my work. In this project I was able to explore my use of color and texture. I used contrasting colors and texture in order to draw the viewers eye around the whole painting. Also details contrasted nicely with the very vague painting. I think that I was able to successfully achieve my goal of creating a quiet, peaceful scene just like Hopper did in Early Sunday Morning. The smooth colors help to relax the whole feel of the painting which is exactly what I was working for.
The most challenging project of the year for me was our final landscape project. I find that I have a harder time trying to represent realistically which is why I lean more towards the abstract or even half-abstract. My final work only somewhat resembles my early sketches. My early sketches were fairly detailed and specific, but when I got to the painting, I found the paint hard to control which led to me using less detail. The whole final work wound up pretty abstract but I was still able to go back to using strong colors and textures as good contrast. Also, the composition wound up a little more "cookie cutter" than I would have liked but I was able to work on that and try to make it less predictable once I had the basics down.
I think that the formal strength I worked on this year the most was balance. This goes for every aspect of my work. Whether it was color, texture, composition or light, I felt that I was always able to find a fairly good balance between what elements were working well.
As a technical strength, I believe that my painting has come a long way. I have painted for most of the year, especially with oil based paints and therefore I have had virtually A whole year to hone in on my skills.  I would still like to master details better though. That was the one thing I had trouble with all year while I was painting. SOme works could have been a little better if I could have added detail. That is what I would really like to work on next year.
Lastly, as a conceptual strength, I believe that I have learned what my favorite style of work is. I like to let my imagination go and while I do try to keep some realism and some basic aspects of realism, I really like to work abstractly.  This will help me a lot going forward because now I know what I do well and also what I can look forward to working on next year!

Landscape Final

Throughout this project while studying and creating my own landscape, I have simplified my definition of landscape. I believe that a landscape could be as basic as a large captured scene. I think this definition relates to my "artistic voice" a lot because I have noticed over the last year that I have found a particular interest in a mix of realism and abstraction when representing landscapes. This mix really showed up in my last work of the year. As I have compared realism and abstraction, I believe that I have also relied a lot on contrasting colors and textures to get across certain emotions in my works.

In terms of feedback, a lot of what my classmates had to say was about my use of strong colors. They said that the harsh difference in the building's color and the background's color really made each aspect of the work "stand out". It was also interesting to see where the viewer was brought into the painting. Everyone had a different place that their eye was drawn to. There were lots of possible "entrances" to the painting. Other comments that were added were: I maintained good brushstrokes throughout the work, I created a peaceful scene and maybe I could have added some more detail to the building. The two comments that stood out to me were about the contrasting colors and how the viewer's eyes navigated through the painting. I feel like those comments show me that I was able to get my intentions across. My whole idea at the beginning of the work was to maintain the contrast and provide an intriguing picture that movers the eyes around a lot.

I do not believe this represents all my knowledge to this point as an artist because this project was shorter and I did not have much time as I had liked. However, I was able to get across some of my development this year using formal techniques such as color, contrast and texture.

I could have pushed myself more if I had had more time. I could have refined my details a lot and worked on my background to make it less regular. I was still able to "stretch and explore" by experimenting with colors and just going for it instead of paying attention to every little detail.