I had a terrible first self portrait attempt over the summer. I'll be honest. However, even if my own face isn't what I'm good at painting. One of the strongest things I do is recreate children illustrations. They might not have been successful when I tried to venture off on my own but there are pretty awesome when I look at a reference image and stick to it, First Sketch Second Sketch Final Product I'm really proud of this painting. The only thing I would have done better is Peter Pan's face. It looks a little wonky.
As soon as Mrs. Maclay said the words social commentary everybody who knows me well knew that I would be focussing on the Adopt Don't Shop movement, campaign, motto, what have you. However I started to become a little irritated with my classmates for not listening to basic facts when somebody had wanted to do an anti-trophy hunting piece. So the first half of my sketching time was really me just ranting in my sketchbook. The first page or two is dedicated to ideas that I knew I wouldn't go with but the topic was under my skin. Let me explain. I am Pro- Trophy Hunting. I know it sounds ridiculously cold hearted but there are tons of reasons behind it. I believe that if somebody is going to stand behind an opinion that opinion should at least have some facts to back it up. By choosing to close out any argument that contradicts your own opinion is incredibly infuriating to me. However, in one or two instances I might have been guilty of that. The first page of my sketchbook says this: Pro-Trophy Hunting Kill More Cecils (that was purely putting something shocking to get a reaction) What did banning hunting do? End of 19th Century- 100 left of Southern White Rhino Legalized it. Now- 20,000 South Africa has 16,000 of 20,000 because they allow trophy hunting. Which incentives locals to protect them for the money they get from people paying to hunt them. Jobs are created and locals are now paid to protect instead of the animals being a nuisance. Trophy hunting in South Africa is a $744 million business employing 70,000 people which means it is more important to South Africa to protect the animals than to let poachers kill. If anything you should be against poaching and habitat loss which is actually the biggest reason for extinction. Without this business there is little incentive and plenty of disincentive for people who actually live with these animals. In Kenya giraffes are viewed as competition for water and when one is killed Masai cattle-herders cheer and don't mourn it's death. To westerners giraffes are cute. In Kenya they are the enemy. Elephants are also viewed this way. One elephant can devour or trample a farmers entire crop in one night. Another reason to allow hunting is because hunters usually work the hardest to preserve their game. Ducks Unlimited, a water fowl- nonprofit has conserved more than 13 million acres of U.S. wetlands and grasslands. To allow a hunter to hunt one lion can cost $50,000 and that money goes to the preservation of others. If you want to ban trophy hunting come up with another $744 million fundraiser idea. I disagree with others in the class but with those the entire class didn't gain up on me. In fact I was not able to get in a single fact or word after trophy hunting is actually good when an uproar occurred. I just had to get this out here. What people should actually fight are poachers and habitat loss. Now, Adopt Don't Shop. This means to adopt animals and not buy them from a breeder or pet store. Millions of animals are put down every year in America alone. There are shelters who put dogs down just 18 hours after they walk through the door. They simply don't have room! There are many more depressing facts and many of the dogs I looked at to paint had already been put down for this reason. However, Mrs. Maclay has to read this and I don't want her to get too sad. I really made her upset these past few days working on this project. Something I learned from doing this project had to be just SPEED UP. I took a lot of time on this when I should have started on the details a long time ago.
This project asked that an animate object become an inanimate object or an inanimate object become animated. There should have been around six transitions, give or take. These transitions could have been separated into different scenes or as one picture with the transitions happening on that one canvas. I decided once again to be influenced by childrens illustrations. The transitions would be like a story board. The first thing that popped to mind was a roly poly. I don't know why but I ROLLED with it! From that point I thought the first few transitions could be the roly poly minding his own business when it suddenly notices that somebody, the viewer is watching him! Then he rolls up. That took care of the first three slides but what should he turn into? I brainstormed stairs for some reason, then a wheel, then settled on a leaf. He was on a tree branch in my head, anyway so it made sense that he would try to camouflage himself. I used water color for the sky and then a block print for the only consistency, the branch. Then added some water onto the ink to blend in the rougher texture. I then just blobbed colors of where the roly poly would be and went over that with ink so that the colors would not be completely in the lines. It looked cartoony and it was a style I enjoyed more than the first 144 project. This was a fun project. If I did it again and wasn't trying to meet the criteria I would have just cut off the last two transitions. They don't really make sense to the original little story that created this. Also the last two just got too messy, there was a bloom in the last transition that I hadn't even notice was there and was not supposed to be until I presented it. I should have just stepped back for a little while and look at it with fresh eyes instead of just churning it out rather quickly.
Scholastic 144 Parameters? The area of the canvas could be no larger than 144. Upon a group discussion in class some themes were given. I chose creepy. Here are some inspiration images that lead to sketches and eventually the final painting. First when I thought of creepy, my mind went pretty creepy. But then I stepped back. This was the first project and I have been pretty interested in children book illustrations so my mind went back to the book, "There's a Nightmare in My Closet!" and I remembered how scared the Nightmare was. So instead of the monster being the menace, this time the nosy child is. These were my sketches. The most difficult thing to figure out was the dimensions of a room with no reference image. Since this was from my imagination, I used a doorway and Mrs. Maclay as my reference image. This is not my best work. I think if i could have done it differently I would experiment with different styles. Even if you knew every single painting, drawing and print I've ever done it's not like you can look at this painting and recognized that it's mine. I'm still trying to find my groove and style but I'll get there.
Alberto Giacometti Born October 10, 1901 Died January 11, 1966 I was introduced to Alberto Giacometti by my art teacher Mrs. Maclay two years ago in design class. We were introduced to his work through a dark and depressing short film. We met a sad and tortured artist whose sculptures were closing in on him. They came to life and I have remembered that video for years. I spent half a year working on prints and although he is most well-known for his sculptures he was also a very talented printer. I love how his mood and rough mark makings is consistent to all of his works through all his years and through all the mediums he worked with. His Father, godfather, uncle and two of his brothers where all artist, giving him an early interest in art. Although born in Switzerland, he developed himself as an artist primarily in Italy and France. Early in his career he experimented with cubism and surrealism, creating many of his famous sculptures during this time. Later in his career he moved away from surrealism and onto existentialism. His sculptures were primarily of his loved ones. However, they were not done for accuracy, they were done through emotion. The sculptors were often elongated and looked rather creepy. As he gained notoriety his sculptures became larger and larger while somehow getting thinner and thinner. He is know primarily for his sculptures but he is also a painter, illustrator and printer. Another artist that I was introduced to in an art class was Chaim Soutine. In Mr. Site's advanced painting and drawing class we were randomly assigned an artist and told to research. I was assigned Chaim Soutine and thoroughly enjoyed the project because I thoroughly enjoyed his work.
Born on January 13, 1893 he was the tenth of eleven children. Soutine was born in Russia but spent most of his career as an artist in France. Known for oil paintings and gore. For a time when he was doing a series of carcass paintings the police got many calls from neighbors concerned he had died or murdered someone. On one occasion, his friend stopped by his apartment and saw blood dripping out of the doorway and shouted that Soutine had been murdered. Soutine would just remind his friend and the police the importance of art before hygiene. When I heard that story that made me like his work even more. He had a rough start. My favorite painting of his has to be The Bellboy. This painting, featured below, is of a boy who asked Soutine for money. Soutine went back to his apartment and angrily painted the boy who probably had more money than he did. All of his paintings portray the mood or state he was in while he painted them and I love his paintings because of the encounters and stories behind them. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.
Categories |