This week the research that I had to do focused on using colour and identifying specific artists whose artworks attract and inspire me. I must say I am a colour freak...I once had a lecturer comment that I need to work alot more on my colour. However, the assignment for this week did not cut it for me. To be honest, I did not enjoy working on it and found the theme too broad, overwhelmingly with the use of a variety of mediums. I guess I am one of those that would rather have a topic that I can focus on with a direction to it. Or maybe I still have yet to discover myself. In the end, I tried testing out a few and decided on one that I feel I can relate to.
I played with some greens, browns and yellows to give that slightly warm feeling but cold at the same time. Being here in Boston, away from family often leaves me feeling melancholic and the colours of choice expressed just that for me. I loved how tissue paper is so absorbent and sticks immediately to paper when it is wet with paint. The tissue papers were weaved and laid to show interlocking moments of our lives, like a tapestry weaved together. The words or phrase that I drew inspiration from have been painted on the surface. The branches speak for itself. I used part of a picture of a leaf and its branch, pasted it down and then expanded the picture by painting the rest of the branches. If you look closely, you would see the picture I pasted.
Below are two more pieces that I toyed around with but still I felt like it was not enough. I feel like a writer with writer's block except I should call it more to the sound of "artist's block". Bleargh...this wasn't a good week...
Lastly, here is the phrase that I used:
Familiy
like branches on a tree,
we all grow in different directions
yet our roots remain as one...
Thank you for posting your earlier attempts in addition to the piece you are happiest with along with your comments. Mixed media isn't for everyone, but it's important to try it at some point. My goal with this assignment is not to make you a mixed media artist but to push you to think beyond traditional materials. Therefore, in the future if you are creating a drawing or painting with a specific concept, perhaps this would push you to think about whether or not there is a non-traditional medium you could use to illustrate your idea most effectively.
ReplyDeleteWith all of that said, I agree that the last piece is your most successful. Of all of them the concept is clear, your composition is well balanced and the text has been incorporated successfully. There are a couple of places within the image, however, that it could be improved. First, "Family" could either be a little less obvious OR more obvious. Right now it looks like you couldn't decide if you wanted the word to look like trees or words. Now I realize you wanted both but it would have been more successful had you chosen one or the other. Right now the transition between the letters and the branches is a bit awkward. The most successful letters are "I" and "L." In both of those cases you treated each letter more like the trunk of a tree thus the branches grow out more fluidly. Do you see that? Is that something you struggled with?
One of my favorite aspects of the piece is where your thin green lines interact with the yellow tissue - that layering is what mixed media can really bring to a piece - depth. It happens again with the text and with brown watercolor. However, my other suggestion would be to incorporate more of that brown color. That would have created even more depth and eluded to the leaves on trees even more so when layered with the yellow.
Additionally, by using more brown you would have created more of a melancholic mood. At the moment when I look at the piece I see yellow, which I understand you used as a cool color, but yellow also signifies happiness, and that is the mood I am getting from the piece most of all.
Although the other two pieces were not as successful, is there anything you learned from them that you might use again? Or NOT use again? Using photographs in a collage can be difficult. It often makes an image seem disjointed. I actually like the image you chose of the girl, but then I can see where you got lost on the right side of the image. The piece doesn't quite come together. However on the left side, you have done a nice job of layering and using color to create cohesiveness.
Going back to the discussion of color for a moment, you use color well. I would love for you to embrace that in the next assignment. When I look at the artists you researched and some of your older paintings, your love for color is obvious! I would encourage you to go bold but also look at Georgia O'Keeffe's color. She was not afraid to use color at all, but she also limited herself. Her palettes are well thought out and they make a statement without using every color in every piece.
Leonid Afremov, on the other hand does use a lot of colors in each piece. His work definitely shows passion and love of color, but at times I find it too overwhelming and his colors then compete with one another. That's not to say, that he isn't talented with color but O'Keeffe lets her colors complement each other. She lets your eyes rest at times with a subtle color so that you can appreciate the vibrancy of another. Someone who might be right in the middle of the two is David Hockney, specifically his grand canyon series. They are some of my favorite pieces! Check them out!
Great work and research this week!
Yeah I see what you meant by the letters "I" and "L" being more branch-like and flowing fluidly. I did struggle a little with trying to get the other letters to look like branches were coming out. And my favourite part of it was to paint the branches on the tissues. The effect was interesting.
ReplyDeleteFrom the other two pieces that felt like epic failures to me, I learnt that I had to really gather my thoughts around what is the actual idea and them that I wanted to focus on. In addition, using pictures in a piece of work is so difficult as it was such a challenge trying to find the right picture but then not know what the "right" picture was!
One thing I probably would not USE again are the dried leaves. I initially wanted to create that old, vintage feel and had some dried maple leaves at hand. However, getting that stiff dried leaf to stick on the paper was a hassle and add to the difficulty in trying to paint on it. I used gouache initially and repainted it with acrylic in the hopes that it will help to get it to adhere better to the paper. Alas it was to no avail. Just had to rely on the trust old glue. Perhaps a different type of leaf would do the trick better.
And I will definitely look more at David Hockney's works. I have been wanting to try out O'Keefe's style. Maybe I will try a series of close ups just like hers for my next assignment. Will keep you posted. Thanks Kate.
Well you can't say the assignment was a complete failure because you did learn a few things! Even if one of those things was learning that you don't enjoy collage, that's fine! It also sounds like you learned more about materials and how they work together - glue, dry leaves, paint.... sometimes experimenting with different materials can teach you new ways to do things. Even if you don't end up loving the pieces you make, sometimes the exploration is good enough!
ReplyDeleteHahah yeah enough of exploring with random pictures for now. But just one of the few things I have been wanting to do is a mised media sculpture done using recyclables and items that we want to throw away, then spray painting it a solid colour similar to Louise Nevelson's style. Love her work. Will probably continue to update my works in this blog after we are done with the course.
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