Week 15

some more drawings and collages....

Week 14

I worked a lot on my painting. It needs a few pushes and pulls particularly around the figure and the people in the foreground so that they are more integrated. I am happy with how it is going and plan to be finished by next week.

I also continued sketching and collaging for more possible composition ideas. As I was working on my presentation I also feel like I consolidated my ideas of what I have been doing lately. I am making landscapes that are not all real but instead explore fantasies and enchantments drawn from elements of past that no longer exist. The extravagance in these landscapes is an attempt to get back to New Orleans and the simplicity of home as a child.

Painting - 18 hours
Sketching and Collaging - 6 hours
Stretching Canvas - 1 hour
IP Presentation - 3 hours

Week 13

This week was all about painting. I worked mostly on the painting of the float in the swamp that I started last week. I think its off to nice start. I have been avoiding working on the people in the foreground of the painting however because I have been unsure how to approach them. I think that the way they are approached will effect the overall feel that the viewer takes from the painting.  I want to also make sure that just because the float and the person on it are very centered that they do not become the main focus and the only thing you care about. To make sure this doesn't happen I have started trying to make the surrounding elements interesting to look at, starting with the trees. This weekend and in the following week I want to try and get this painting to a state where it is basically finished.

I also worked some on the painting of my dad, myself, and the cars. I am still not really feeling it, but I will keep it out as work in hopes of being inspired.

This weekend I want to stretch another canvas and decide on a composition to start another painting. I also want to continue to work on the other two paintings and do some more sketching/collaging.

Painting ~ 15 hours

Thanksgiving

Last weekend I began sketching and collaging to come up with possible composition ideas. I want to make sure I explore ideas fully before I move to a canvas. From these explorations I started an under painting for a new painting.

For next week, I want to work on the painting I started this week and go back to the one with the cars. I also want to continue sketching.

Building, Stretching, and Gessoing ~ 2 hours

Sketching and Collaging ~ 5 hours

Painting ~ 2.5 hours

Week 11

Last Friday I started a new painting based on a image of my dad and I outside of our fence looking out at the street. I thought it could fit into my project idea as a loss of simplicity and easiness when you hold your dad's hand and nothing in the world could possible harm you. As I worked however I found that the composition and just everything about the painting was just not interesting. The painting went through many stages this week and with the exception of a small area on the bottom right I am completely not satisfied with what has happened. I have decided to put it down for a few weeks, so I can have some space and decide if it is worth moving forward with. This painting really taught me how important and essential more planning will be in choosing my subject matter for the rest of my work. I want to have much more sketching possibly both in drawing and paint before I start another.

This past week I also worked some on my first painting trying to put some finishing touches. I called it done and put it in the All Student Show on Monday. Although there are a few more things I think need tweaking, I also felt it just needed some space from it.

This first painting happened with much more ease then the one I started this week and I have tried to think about why this is. I think the subject matter is important. Although it is a Mardi Gras parade, the painting still gives a lot of mystery which I very much enjoy. As I think about home Mardi Gras keeps coming up. As a local and child, our Mardi Gras is very different then the one which is portrayed to the rest of the world. Instead its about family, friends, and fun. Its about the anticipation in the weeks leading up to Carnival. Its about the contest you have with your siblings and friends to see who can collect the most beads. I think the term The Big Easy, which New Orleans is often called, not alone applies to the city, but also this time in my life as I child when things were simple and fun. I want to explore the this ideas of how Mardi Gras can represent home because to me it really did define so much of childhood. After Katrina it was so important to all of us from New Orleans that Mardi Gras happened. There were comments from people around the country that we needed to focus on rebuilding and not on a party. They did not understand what Mardi Gras is to the people of New Orleans and how much getting back to normality really was. Having Mardi Gras gave us a sense of hope that everything could be alright again.

This week I want to explore this idea more through more thought but also sketching and starting a few new paintings. Yesterday in small groups it was brought up about working on more then one piece at a time. I  think this will help me a lot because when I get frustrated I will not have to keep working and working on the painting like I did this week but instead I can just work on another. All of the paintings being out and visible while I work can help me figure out problems in each of them because they are related.

Because I was frustrated with the painting I was working on this week I did a few quick sketches about me and my brother. I'm not sure exactly what they mean, but I definitely want to make sure I am sketching more about my project.

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I found an artist this week named Woody Shepherd who does work with landscapes and I just thought his work was absolutely beautiful and smart.
Woody Shepherd - Recent Works 2006-2007

Painting - 22 hours
Artist Research - 1 hour
Sketching - 1 hour

Week 10

This week I continued to work on my oil painting, spending the majority of my time doing so. I am at the point now where I just need to push and pull certain areas, thinking about exactly what I want to tell the viewer. I am really liking where this painting is going and I hope to finish it next week.

The following pictures are two drafts of it throughout the week the second being to most recent.

This coming week, I want to continue to work on my other painting that I put aside for the week as well as sketching more possible landscapes that represent home to me and starting another oil painting. 

Painting - 12 hours
Stretching Canvas - 3 hours
Writing Grant - 1 hour

Week 9

Painting 1 (22" x 32") - 9.5 hours

This painting is in oil and began based of one of the manipulations that I was working on. As I began working I really enjoyed where the painting was going without using the manipulation so I have moved away from it. This week I want to continue working on this piece, paying attention to brush stroke, color choices, and edge relationships.

Painting 2 (15.75" x 24") - 12 hours

I struggled with this painting a lot this week. Initially, it too was based of one of the manipulations.  I put down the first layer and afterward just put down the second. Because of this way of applying the layers at different times and not putting enough thought on how they would connect, they are very separate and the painting is not working. I have began to try and merge the two together as can be seen in the bottom left. I think there is potential here and this week I want to try and dig myself out of the hole that I created. I also want to start using oil paint on this piece because a lot of color is getting lost in the acrylic as I begin to unify the painting. Plus for some reason I think I am more aware of mixing color when I use oil paint.

Working on the both of these paintings and seeing both the successes and failures in each, I realize that I have been making things over complicated for myself. I want to begin to make more abstract landscape paintings that represent my different feelings and associations with home, something that I really enjoy and think is working in Painting 1.

This week Jim Cogswell shared with me a book on Pierre Bonnard and I am feeling very inspired by his work. The brush work and color palette/choices are beautiful and very smart. I really enjoy the figure ground relationship and how often the figures will fade into the background. 

Under Paintings

Last weekend I continued with the sketching and manipulations (the first 3 below) that  I had began last week. I think they have been very helpful and given me a direction to go in as a I move into paint. I think this transition will help me figure out exactly how I want to use the source information.

These are the beginnings of under paintings that will be inspired by some of the sketches and manipulations. They are in the beginning stages and I hope to have a better foundation on each in the next couple of days.

Sketching and manipulations - 10 hours

Building and stretching canvas - 4 hours

Under paintings - 4 hours

Week 7

The first part of this week I spent at my parent’s house in Texas. It was nice to see them and it also gave me the opportunity to go through lots of old photographs. Anything in our countless albums that reminded me of home or just sparked some sort of emotion was scanned. Looking at the earlier happy photos made me think that maybe just because I am dealing with the idea of dislocation doesn’t mean that all of my images need to be negative or sad. I do have positive memories of home as well as negative and that maybe through happy memories works with a “lacking” of a true sense of home will be given something to be compared to to enhance their feelings of loss.

I also began sketching based of some of my findings, in hopes of finding how I want to ultimately visually represent these ideas. I worked with sharpie markers again, but not quite as abstractly as before. Although I felt like I was working looser, this week I want to push the boundary of abstraction. I also worked with layering photos on the computer. (The last of the four images) I struggled with this some and came up with many ideas that were just not working but I did come out with one image that I want to explore further. This week I want to continue these sorts of sketches and add paint to the material I explore in. Also I got the book Color Image Scale from the library and I want to start reading what different color combinations make people feel.

Finding and Scanning photographs—8 hours

Sketching both by hand and on the computer—10 hours

Week 6

This week I did a lot of thinking and planning about how everything I have been exploring will come together. I decided that I want each piece I ultimately do to be a series of sort of landscape of places or memories that I associate with an aspect of my own personal home. Each of these places will be based on how a word that will be the title of that individual piece relates to this personal experience. The words I have thought about including are:

            -Family

            -Loss

            -Separation

            -Loneliness

            -Hope

            -Future

            -Traffic

            -Rebuild/Rebirth

            -Struggle

            -Play

            -Laugh

            -Cry

            -Displacement

            -Belonging

I think it is very interesting how just one word can change ones perception on how a work is perceived by a viewer. Especially since I do want the landscapes or places to be abstracted to some degree, the title will give the viewer a direction to go in when thinking about the pieces, but since they are wide-open words it still allows them to make connections on their own. I still have a bit of fine tuning and planning on how the image and the word will relate but I think it is a step forward.

I have been journaling a lot this week to help figure out how to answer these questions. I read Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans this week, which is book of essay collection from both before and after Hurricane Katrina on the power of place, loss, culture, etc. It was very interesting and sad too, but it definitely gave me a lot to think about in where I fit into New Orleans.

Today I am going “home” to my parents house in Texas. Not only am I excited to see my parents but also I am also excited to gather source material especially by scanning photos from the hundreds we have in photo albums. I think they will be very helpful in determining what the actually landscapes of my different feelings of home will ultimately be. I want to sketch and plan based on my findings this weekend.

Reading—6 hours

Project Proposal—1.5 hours

Journaling—5.5 hours

Week 5

This week I made a third abstract landscape painting (14 hours) using the dot system I had done on the previous two. (New one in the middle and new one from last week on the right) I think I have learned a lot using this technique of putting down color and I am starting to think about how I can make alterations and changes to have the same effect using other ways of applying paint. I want to not only very the size of the shapes but the shapes themselves. 

This (unfinished) painting (8 hours) is the beginning of this exploration of different ways of applying paint still using the idea of a landscape but this time one from New Orleans. Looking at this image makes me think of all the long hours we spent in the car  and in traffic going over the Mississippi River Bridge on the way to school.

I like the way these styles have a bit of mystery about them but you can also make guesses about what you are looking about. I think they could be very important in expressing emotion for my final work. In the three landscapes, the new one this week is most recognizable as a landscape, creating less mystery. These differences of subtle between the middle painting and the two that surround it are very important to what I am telling the viewer. The one in the middle definitely tells more and gives the viewer less room to make decisions for themselves. I also think that there are certain colors I need to be more careful about mixing more carefully like blue. I want to continue to explore these ideas in sketches and paintings this week.

These paintings also lead me to a lot of research on Neo- and Post Impressionist artist, especially those who used the style of pointillism. The artists I looked at included: Paul Sagnac, Henry-Edmond Cross, Georges Seurat, Theo Van Rysselberghe, Giovanni Battista Segantini, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent Van Gogh.

This way of working with paint really applies to me not only because of the brokenness it creates but also because it really is two different viewing experiences from up close and from far away. They also create a sense of emotion and mystery in their work with this paint application. Color choice also plays apart in their work and this week I want to do some research about the meanings of different colors because I feel that will be a very important part to my final work and the emotions I want to convey.

I also finished 1 Dead and the Attic and Coming Back Stronger this week and I hope to start new books this week. I also want to continue to journal entry, trying to find answers to the big questions I started asking myself this last week.