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| | | | | | ARTS 100 - Part 4 - Master Artist Copy
By margot.foster on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 @ 5:08 AM | | | |
73 Views :: 0 Comments ::  :: ARTS 100, Acrylic Paintings
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Project 4 was something that while historically is a common training technique for artists is actually something I had never done before. That is doing a master artist copy. The idea is to take a peice from a master artist and copy it. When copying it the goal is not to copy it stroke for stoke but to use the brush to evoke the same feeling. After doing it I have to say that it did help me look at the piece differently. To a certain extent I had to try and deconstruct it. I had a lot of fun with this piece and it was an interesting challenge and not only a good way to study technique and art history, but also training the eye.
I spent about half an hour looking through books in the library trying to find a painting I wanted to do. I ended up paging through a book from the Picasso Museum in Paris and found what was to be my eventual choice. Picasso's "La femme avec les bras levées" or "Nude with raised arms." this was done during the African period which is the same time period as "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon." The Demoiselles paintings have been among my favorites for quite a while so it is always good to start with what you know. I used a 16x20 canvas which is fairly close to the original size. The original was done in oils, I used acrylics as this is what I had on hand. I started by drawing out the basic shapes on the canvas. I then went in and started to create shapes with black. I then went through a continual process of layering on color and texture. I think that one part of the process that often gets overlooked is what I call the Staring period, the time in which we sit back and get away from the piece and stare at it. This time is spent looking for flaws and minor changes that can be made to improve the piece. I think that pretty much any creative process goes through a phase like this. Where you go back and review what you've done and make changes and corrections. I believe writers have a convenient term for this, editing.
I do not have an image of the original as a comparison, I only had a color copy made from the book and the book itself and I have not been able to locate an image online. I have included below a few examples of images from a similar time and style. If you get the inkling go to Google Images and search for Picasso 1908 and then search for Picaso 1909 and see how drastically the styles change. Picasso is interesting in the way that his style continued to evolve but in general he always enjoyed the same subject matter.
As a reference here is the Demoiselles d'Avignon
and here is Dryad (1908).
And here is my rendition of Femme avec les bras levees.
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| | | | | | ARTS 100 - Part 3 - Color/Self-Portrait
By margot.foster on Saturday, June 13, 2009 @ 5:28 AM | | | |
113 Views :: 0 Comments ::  :: ARTS 100, Acrylic Paintings
| | | | This is Part 3. Wait, wait what happened to Part 2? Why have we suddenly skipped to Part 3 as if it never happened?
Well Part 2 of the class was on drawing. I have no problem with drawing I'm even pretty OK at it, but no one needs to see my blind contour drawing. Other than that the primary project was that we were given a 1.5x1.5 section of a photograph and used grids to enlarge it to a 8x8 and then we put them together and pinned them all up and they made a whole picture. It was kind of interesting, but out of context the image doesn't mean much. Part 3 however was a lot of fun. Part 3 was an introduction to color. For this we did two self-portraits (acrylic on canvas). This assignment was supposed to have a pop art inspirations. The professor took each individuals photo, put it on the computer and increased the contrast, and printed it off. The assignment was to take our photo and draw out shapes to simplify the face. We then transferred this to the canvas. The first part was to do a monochromatic piece. I chose a bright orangey-red as my base color and was able to get a very good range from a light pinkish color for the skin tones and a deep reddish brown for the background and shadows. i had a lot of fun creating the hair texture. I added some contrast by doing a very dark background and then painting the borders with the true color. The true color also makes an appearance a little bit in the hair and then with my glasses. 
The second part of the assignment was to do the same thing except where she said she normally has students use a complementary palette we each chose a painting and used colors from that painting for our second painting. Where my first piece had more dimension and used much softer color variations I decided to get way into the pop art inspiration and chose very bright colors and lots of contrast. Another girl in my class gave me the idea of leaving the glasses white on this peice. I think it is a nice touch. I thought both of these were pretty good and a lot of fun to do. I did not realize how much of a focal point the glasses are until someone pointed it out to me. I can't really argue the point; I think I look really strange without them. |
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| | | | | | ARTS 100 - Part 1 - Collage
By margot.foster on Saturday, June 13, 2009 @ 5:08 AM | | | |
108 Views :: 0 Comments :: :: ARTS 100
| | | | So Spring semester of 2009 I needed a class that was only offered during the day. I made the arrangements at work to go to the class, but here's the kicker I get counted as a Day student and not a Night student and all of a sudden they are asking for an extra 7K in tuition... Well i did get a scholarship and additional grant money and a couple extra loans but decided that I ought to get my money's worth and added an Art class, nothing difficult ARTS 100, Intro to Studio Arts.The class ended up being as easy and enjoyable as expected and I got an A despite skipping both of the papers. The first project was a collage, with the theme, "A Sense of Place," I hadn't really done any collage type work since a Design class I took that I like to call "Intro to Cut and Paste" followed by "Advanced Sharp Objects" I didn't do as well in "Advanced Sharp Object, but I still have all my fingers and the scars are almost gone. My idea for this project was the idea of a river that comes through all the parts of life. Not only is on the river somewhere that I've spent a measurable portion of my life but the river is also symbolic as a source of life. There are five sections that are represented. I will refer to them (top to bottom) as Sky, Mountains, Forest, Desert, and Grassland. 
Overall I think it was pretty successful, nothing to write home about, but successful. I may have to do a blog on the word successful in art. I like the way the grassland and desert areas turned out, along with the contrast between the flat and textured areas. I could have done more in the forest and sky areas and I wish I'd found more texture pieces for the mountain area, or maybe done what I did with the grasslands and made some with paint. The areas I like the most all had repeated shapes in the textures, with the grassland area i even stenciled in the shape a few times with paint which looks really neat. |
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