Jmdeppa

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Critique

While as individual critiques people offered supportive feedback, when grouped together everyone's opinions clash. Many people offered critical feedback which focused on little things which could be changed in my piece, such as the jarring background, redrawn stem and "mushiness" of the flower. Yet in a broader sense, I received a lot of conflicting feedback. About half of the critiques told me the juxtaposition of styles worked well and that the painting would not be successful without it; the other half thought the two canvases was jarring and lacked unity. In a sense of my ongoing theme, many told me to continue with multimedia and the texture of paint while others discouraged this continuation of 3-D elements and heavy paint because they said it was distracting. However, one theme in the criticism was that I should again revert back to more personal objects of my childhood instead of doing a singular flower which is harder to read. Thankfully, I had planned to do a more personal theme in this next painting already, so I resolved the issue without having to change direction. Another thing I thought was interesting from the critique was that some people took my theme to be a very natural one, perhaps even with a "garden theme". In fact I hadn't even noticed this was the case, but after it was said it makes sense. My next piece however will break this up because it is indoors and will play very much on light and space in floorboards and walls.

Monday, February 28, 2011

Reflection

A picture of the real garden gate and of my construction in process.

The finished piece:

Last class we critiqued our finished pieces, and so we received some valuable feedback with which to move forward into our next exploration. Some of the comments about my piece were that it was "playful", "busy" and not of a real life landscape. Others remarked that it was hard to tell whether the white swirls at the bottom was snow or a pond. Indeed, when creating this I at first had perceived it to be snow (and so I added a reflection). Yet because this reflection was so strong, now it can also be perceived as water. I liked the mystery between the two concepts, which are both very natural and would both fit in such a scene. Another girl said that it had too much white. In the future I will double check my colors at the end to see what stands out, because after I've been staring at a piece for a while I start to ignore certain aspects of it.

So moving forward, I want to continue this slight air of mystery in usual, everyday objects. For my little piece I am starting now, I am blending the properties of a real-life, complex flow bud with a very representational stem. This piece I am expecting to alternate with my main one between class and out-of-class studio. Here are some internet photos I am using to base my flower off of:

The ones of my own:

For my large project, I want to do the idea of children's forts imposed with Nomad-style tents which people actually live and survive in. As a kid you think you are braving the wilderness of your family room, and the thrill was quite exciting. I want to show this again in my next piece. I received positive feedback from the size of my last one and time put into it, so I think I will continue the larger-scale painting again. This time it will be two layers of canvas stretched on one stretcher. I want to rip the first layer away to resemble someone looking into a regular, canvas tent. Inside the second layer of canvas I want to put this mystical haven I used to pretend I lived in when I was a child.

This picture is the beginning reference to this, but by no means final.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Artists

I am really interested in this piece of Todd Lanam's because of the way it is rendered, with transparent layers. It is interesting how one can see through the brick wall into the greenery on the other side. This is the complete opposite direction in which I have been going in my current piece because I've been constructing blocks of wood to make the wall as opaque and obvious as possible, but I wonder if I could use this effect in blurring parts of the background. I love the contrast between the red and the blue paint and the corner- it finishes if off really nicely.

This Rauschenberg is a favorite piece of mine, mainly due to the left-hand side. I really want to look into collaging and pushing that more than I have in the past. Its interesting that he added vintage-like photos. Maybe by adding some vintage elements I could antique my pieces in attempt to date them- but I don't want to cross the line of being cliche. I'll have to think about this more in my upcoming pieces.

I think Yu-Shioh Wong's Afternoon Light is an interesting way of combining two ideas about one object! My side piece critiques two views of a plant but both are 2-D. This takes it a step farther into actual life.

I love Gerhard Richter's textures:

I played around with something very similar to this in my painting this morning, but so far I am not convinced it works in the context of the rest of the painting. Maybe I will go back to this textural painting style once things are more established.

Jennifer Bartlett also had to work to ensure that she conveyed all parts about the image she needed to while having the canvas split up and some parts of the image unavailable:

David Hockney's portrayal of paths is one solution to a problem I've been trying to work with in my painting: how to add a fantastical path which trails off into the background while making it halfway convincing at the same time (and not dominating the image!) This image is really helpful to me:

I really enjoy this image by Eggebrecht. Ive never seen it before, so thank you! Very captivating, mysterious. Not too much is revealed but it still has a surreal, mysterious effect to it. Interesting how she made the wood very realistic. Do you know if this is a collage of real wood or is it painted?

It is really interesting that you brought this image up by Van Gogh- I did a painting of shoes about 4 years ago which looks similar to this, but I've never seen this image before. How interesting! Although his use of texture is much more convincing than how I painted my own set of old boots. I really enjoy this picture, and will definitely keep this in mind when working with more found objects of my childhood in later paintings.

here's my old painting:
(I'll post this later because for some reason it keeps rejecting it in the upload)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Painting Proposal

As I stated in class, I wish to compose a set of memory-scapes for this semester. They will explore the difference in stationary objects as you yourself change and grow up. I wanted to explore this idea because it is my first year at college, and I am noticing things which I used to view in a different way when I was little. I think the fact that a stationary object can in a sense grow with you as your perceptions of it change. Its fascinating and a little frightening. Yet as someone pointed out in class, my idea is mainly conceptual without a lot of technical backing. This and hunting for effective source material will be my biggest foreseen challenges.
Currently, I have two pieces in mind, one which I will start tomorrow and the other I will start at home and bring to class next week. One will be a diptych which is set on top of one another. My father worked on a nursery for a while and therefore I grew up with many flowers which have certain meanings to me. As I grew up, my drawings of these flowers changed from simple representational drawings to more observational studies. I want to explore the difference between two different painting styles which both convey the symbol of flower, yet can be effectively joined to mean the same thing. For my second painting, I wish to represent the symbol of a garden fence which always seemed huge and imposing to me as a kid. I want to construct an actual fence out of wood which seems to be gigantic in scale, and then to paint on top of it one's perception of an old weathered fence which most people would pass by without looking at. At the end of this semester, I wish to have about 5 to 8 paintings which will be pretty large in size. I want to push my boundaries in size and also in painting surfaces.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Blog Post: 30 Studies

For me, the most challenging aspect of creating these 30 studies was timing. I am a procrastinator in all things and take long periods of time to work out challenges in my artwork. Likewise, I prefer completing a few large paintings instead of lots of sketchbook drawings. For these reasons, I knew from the beginning that this project would be a challenge to my usual way of painting. Even though I knew that the multitude of pieces would come to haunt me in the final week, I still procrastinated more than I wanted to.

Because we were encouraged to do things out of our comfort zone, I took a lot of chances at little obscure pieces (mainly abstract). Interesting enough, I started to realize a certain style which was appearing in some of my landscapes which was never my style beforehand. It involves very basic shapes and simple, representational landscapes. I surprised myself because I actually am fond of this style, even though it is not what I am used to. I am not sure if I will further this in the future, but I am certainly glad I attempted it during this experimental period.

I played around a lot with color and the use of line. In two of my paintings I played with the fluidity of lines and colors in order to convey themes in nature(patterns and human veins). This was an interesting style which I want to pursue further this semester. Another theme in my pieces was lots of sketch marks to show how I corrected my lines and outlined specific parts I wanted to emphasize. I liked these pieces and felt they were pretty successful at the small-scale size; however I don't think that they would be successful as larger, more refined drawings or paintings. One conceptual theme which is evident to me (although maybe not the viewer) is the merging of two ideas into one piece. I played a lot with brain-storming activities by thinking of two words and trying to represent the merging of them in little drawings. For example, I merged the idea of a DNA cell with a caterpillar in a cocoon for two pieces, and the thought of beads with hot air balloons in another. I had a lot of fun with these mental exercises and these pieces are my favorites out of my 30 studies because they are so conceptually different than all of the others.

Much of my previous work has been very conceptual, with a lot of underlying political and philosophical statements. For this reason, I was really conceptually tired out. Instead, I took these 30 studies as an escape from reality in order to play with the different mediums a bit and to force to try something new. The photographs used to create my pieces were taken by myself, and many of them have personal ties. For example, the painting of the lamb stemmed from a photograph I had taken two days earlier of our newborn lamb at my house. I wanted to create the piece in order to document my life currently and also to have a reminder at school of my life back home.

Oskar and Chelsea, oil painting

I like this painting but I think I will keep it as is; I don't want to further this study

Windmills, oil painting

this was a little abstract study of texture and color, but I don't think its very successful

up-close of squid painting, acrylic

this is one of the veiny paintings I referenced. I want to play more with this style this semester because I find it more vibrant than most of my other pieces

up close shot of my palette painting, oil and acrylic

This was a pure study and a little representation of sustainable painting! I had a lot of fun with it but don't think I'll continue with this thought

Chaos painting, acrylic

I don't like this painting. That's all there is to say about this study

Dad in white fields, watercolor and pen

I had fun with this, but it wasn't a very technical piece. I want to work with this picture again but in a different medium and with more attention to detail.

hill, valley, forest, pen and pencil

I had a lot of fun with these studies and for some reason I really like the finished product as well. I see a lot of similarities between the three- that's why I grouped them together. Its nothing like what I have done before. I want to play around with this more in the future!