'A' Blog

Now, before you think I’m taking the easy way out by choosing one of this famous, over analyzed overrated piece of work, you should know that this is one of my favorite paintings ever. This painting has not only had a great influence on the way that I view art and artists in general, but it also effects me on a deep, personal level. Vincent Van Gogh is my favorite artist. I love his brushwork, his use of color, the way he plays with values, the emotions that seem to be engraved into every canvas, solidified with lines. To me, Starry Night is a struggle to find the beauty in life, the points of light in all the trivialities and all the darkness that seem to flood our every day. It’s a rush of emotion, overpowering everything in it’s path. It is a frame from a whole stream of movement, froze in time, and still as powerful to me as the day it was first painted. I could get lost in this work of art, it tugs at my heart stings in a way that most art doesn’t. While, most people just lump this piece in the same room as the Mona Lisa and David, infamous works done by infamous artists that every elementary school kid is taught to identify this painting will always be something more to me. 

Blog 'C'

I think I struggled to get a foothold in my concept at the beginning of the year, but after I understood the direction I wanted to take my concentration I was able to continue to produce more quality work. I think my pieces that I’ve completed towards the end of the year is better in general the work I’ve done at the beginning of the year. I realize that a huge body of my work is collages, but I think they are the best of my work and I actually put the most time into them. I struggle in other mediums generally, but I think I manage to get the point of my message across despite my inabilities. 

These first two pieces are from the first nine weeks. They aren't very high quality, and they are generally unfinished. 

These last two are from this nine weeks. 

Blog 'F'

I completed both these pieces, the pastel and the collage this nine weeks. The first one I completed was the photo transfer collage and the second one is the pastel. Naturally, I like the collage better, but the pastel was more of a venture into a different medium. I like collages because I have control over the imagery without the limitations of my own abilities, the pastel fell flat I think, because I think I could have done more with the clockwork imagery inside of the eye, but I got frustrated and quit. I always think my collages are stronger, because I actually enjoy making them, so I just assume that means people enjoy viewing them. 

'B' Blog

I have been using a lot of clockwork imagery in some of my later pieces. I think that time plays a lot with our perspective of things, and while my original concept was to tell visual stories, or to at least inspire my viewer to imagine their own stories, I think the time element plays into that. Everyone has their one connotation connected with the passage of time. Time flies, time gets away from us, time ticks away while we’re waiting for something important, there is always something to look forward to and always something to drudge through and we spend most of our time watching the clock no matter how much we might like to deny it. 

Blog 'E'

From a realistic perspective, it’s very challenging to become a studio or professional artist. I think one obvious career path for people interested and passionate about art is to become a teacher, but I feel that teaching isn’t for everyone. Some people have neither the patience or the aptitude for teaching any age of student. While others thrive and inspire their pupils without turning them into carbon copies of themselves and letting their students develop and grown into their own personal style after teaching them proper techniques. Those unfit or unsuited for teaching have plenty of other options, they could run and organize galleries, which isn’t exactly producing more art, but it’s still working in the arena that they want to. 

Blog 'D'

I am going to review Leah’s work. I think Leah’s work has grown and evolved over the school year. She has a strong foundation in photography, but when she expands into other mediums she is usually very successful. I think she has found a way to incorporate what is so brilliant and beautiful about her photography into her other pieces: composition, lighting, and color. I think her theme has slowly shifted since the beginning of the year, from women and relationships to more of a focus of the intricacies of women’s roles in society and the hidden strength within themselves. I think she does an excellent job in conveying her concept even if it’s in subtler ways. 

kind of exciting news

THE BLOCK IS FINISHED!
I printed it a few times, and it looks pretty good.
Started a collage this morning in class, and I'm kind of digging the way that it's looking. I love collages, collages are fun. I think this next collage, it's gonna be pretty great. Mrs. Stamper gave me this super cool book today in class, and I went to the library and copied like half the book. I want to try like everything from this book, because it is so cool. It's like, I wish this book was all my work. Seriously.

junk drawer post

These are some pictures I shot when I was in St. Louis over fall break. I thought that you would like to view them with your eyes, because I haven't posted anything in awhile.

portrait of a lady

This is my workspace at home, aka our dinning room table.

My inspiration 

My work so far

so, I'm posting this post, because blogging hasn't been happening a lot lately, or at all. I pretty much showed everyone in A.P. around the table this morning. I was pretty sure the Stampster was about to bust a cap in me, but I'm trying to get my act back together. I pulled my test print and it looks so la-la, but I still have a little work to go before it's 100% finished. Anyway my new project is ANOTHER collage, but this one had more fabric involved which is a butt to deal with, but I like the texture of it. I think I can finish both projects by the end of the week. That's 2/8! Bravo. Enjoy the pictures, because they are for your visual enjoyment.

Collages, love.

So, I think I've already made it clear that collage-ing is one of my favorites, ever. I need to get in some more breadth or whatever and I don't really like charcoal. I think painting is in my future. I've done a little bit of oil work in the past and it's really frustrating, but really rewarding. I think I've found a nice bridge to painting though.  I stumbled upon this artist Ann Baldwin's work online. I don't know how legit she is, but I really like her work anyway. I want my next project to be inspired by her stuff. Here are some pictures from her online gallery.

New Beginnings

I started a slightly adapted version of this illustration in first block today. I think I'm going to leave some of the faces in the background and perhaps use some lines of text either hand written or like cut and pasted from an old newspaper or something. The weird block things are because I zoomed in and took a snap shot and the website I got it from uses a strange program. I think it'll turn out interesting enough, plus I need to get some stuff actually finished and hopefully this won't take me twelve years, three weeks, and four days. My other projects some photographs, probably from the posts of all my photography. The ink drawing, I'll probably try to finish up this weekend. I want to have some stuff to show at the critique next monday. Huzzah for critiques! :/

Research Time!

Going all the way back to my moody board, one of the comments I remember is that all my items seemed old. Another was that a lot of my items told stories, which I really liked. I like stories. . .anyway so connecting things together in my mind, I thought of old, victorianish illustrations, which I like. I might base my next project off of one or try to draw, ink, whatever of my own. I really love how they have a duality to them. Like it's always a really pretty lady in a dark alley or something. There is always more than meets the eye, ect. I found this website http://www.dmvi.cf.ac.uk/ which I think is a good resource for the type of images I've been looking at.

Then, a few of the ones I found that I like.

Even more. . . .

Continued

S

Some more photography from me. :D