Final Reflection

The term has come to an abrupt stop. It feels way too early for this to be happening, but sure enough, Senior Studio, along with my High School days, come to an end tomorrow. I have learned so much, discovered new things, and even found some some new flaws. I wouldn't say this term in Senior Studio went perfectly for me what so ever, but I wouldn't change it for anything.
At the start of the term, or more so the start of the idea process, I had a very very clear idea of what I wanted accomplished, how it would look, and exactly where in the gallery I wanted it to hang. That never happened. I have learned that one of my biggest flaws as an artist is over-planing, then not following through. I had a "prototype", numerous planning sheets, and even started the thing, but it never got past Sin. Although it's disappointing seeing what I thought would be the master piece of my art career thus far just fizzle away, I did get some great concepts and methods out of it. From this Sin project, came two individual pieces that I love just as much as what I thought my Sin project would be, if not more. I have learned this term that art for me is unpredictable. One day I may just be painting a space landscape, the next day I will be sticking a see through dragon head on it. But no matter how random, my color pallet stays the same. That's just something that seems to happen, but I feel is a good thing because it helps bring a connection between my pieces.
This term if I could change anything it would be this blog, or rather, lack there of. I love coming up with ideas, and I get inspiration from nearly everything. I just don't like to blog about it because these things, these inspirations, happen really "in the moment" and they happen so quickly and make such a large impact on me that the last thing I'm thinking of is blogging about it, I just want to work from the inspiration. Sort of like I want to "capture the genius before it leaves me" sort of thing. I know that sounds silly, and is no excuse for my lack of blogging, but that is really the only thing I can think of for why I don't blog often. I love coming up with ideas and sharing them verbally and feel that is kind of my blog in a sense... but that can't be traced for authenticity I guess. But back to the topic, if I could change anything this term, I would have blogged much much more.
Like I said, this Senior Studio term did not go perfectly for me what so ever, but I would never change it for anything in the world. It has made me feel so close to my work and so motivated in my decision to continue art in college.. In short, this class was amazing.

Being a genius vs. having a genius.

I am both confused by what she said about talking to an empty corner of a room, as well as completely amazed. I can't personally say that I have had the experience of talking to my "genius" (not to assume that I am good enough to have one by my side) but I bet having one is more than agonizing, at least if you are trying to follow up a complete success piece.
At this point I think I would encourage my genius to go about what is doing, and to not be afraid to really speak up. It's their ideas that feed my creation, my inspiration, and I feel that it is always very cautious to come out a say what it needs to say. This may sound weird, i know, but really in this point in my life I feel like my potential genius still needs to make a voice for itself, and I cannot wait for the day that it decides to really speak up loud!

Erin Mitchell

Strolling along the blog My love for you is a stampede of horses (a blog that anyone will love, thank you Ms. Roberts!) I came across art made by artist Erin Mitchell. In this collection she uses hair as her main subject of each piece. Each one was unique in its own way, but this one stood out like a sore thumb for me! Not because of the braided hair, but because of the mix of color and texture she used. I know for a fact I am "stealing like an artist" from her already! In the figure 5 class I have already started a painting that has the same sort of color scheme and lay out of colors as this exact piece. But no worries, I'm making it my own. one could say I "took those hand!"

Stephen Webster

These are Stephen Websters rings, each one representing one of the seven deadly sins. This is definitely one, if not only, main inspirations on wanting to do art on the sins. Each one is crafted so perfectly whether it be little details like the eye on the ring for envy, or bigger ones like making the entire ring represent a mouth for the gluttony ring. I love these rings and hope that my piece, although very different, will be able to match the intensity.

Reflection - April 15

And the project begins! I have finally started to make that great idea from my mind a reality, an actual, physical thing! I have to say it does not look like my minds eye had originally thought it would look, but with every modification I make, the more and more pleased I am with them. I didn't know what I was going to do with all my tissue paper but after a quick second of serious thought, I decided, just go with it, great ideas don't come to you, you make them. So after getting a square of wood and stretching canvas over that I just started. My technique: one layer of black tissue paper glued on to the canvas board with mod podge, a layer of clear wax, another layer of black tissue paper attached on with hot wax (thanks to the heat gun), another layer of clear wax, then a layer of GOLD tissue paper attached the same way, and to finish up, a layer of black (ink mixed with wax) wax. Once all of that is done, you just go to town with a scoring tool to make the entire board look like it was clawed at. Last week was my planning week, this week was my revelation week!

Reflection - April 8

This week I have dubbed as my planing week, that is all I have been doing. What I have is my color palette and subject matter, what I need is a way to express it visually. What I tend to do, which is something that generally gets the ball moving for me, is OVER planing my piece. I ended up with at least 6 different "plan sheets". Each sheet I would write down my ideas of course, but in addition I would try to do something different with each plan sheet that may translate to what I want my end piece to look like. I have to say, the planning stages are one of my favorite parts of the entire art process, on par with the actual making.
In the end I ended up creating one plan sheet of what I believe my final project would look like. It involves mirror, flowers, branches/twigs, damask wallpaper pattern, and gold+black+white+silver tissue paper.. I made 6 copies of that one planning sheet and made it me pro-typing sheet. In all, this week was a very big step from last week!

Reflection - April 1

My starting week, moving in, getting settled.. not much work done, but idea's are over flowing! I figured out just what colors I want to use, as well what subject matter: The Seven Deadly Sins. The main outcome of this week were pieces of pink and gold tissue paper painted with ink and white/black paint... I folded the sheets of tissue paper on itself to try and get the pattern to spread. Sadly it didn't stick, instead the piece of newsprint I was using to keep the table clean turned out to look very very cool.

How to steal like an artist

Quote: “If you think a man draws the type of hands that you want to draw, steal ‘em. Take those hands.”

This quote speaks a lot to me in terms of this is what i feel every person, artist or not, wants to do. If someone is good at violin, but meets someone who is say 5x better, they may feel like they want to "steal their talent". This mentality goes for mostly anything. However, so steal someones talent... or hands.. may be difficult to do. So what I do when I meet someone who has a talent that I wish I had, I think about that talent and try to manifest that want into a piece of art, some talent that I already have. Thats what I feel anyone should do when they feel this, take that emotion to make their own talent stronger!

The Critique Handbook by Kendall Buster and Paula Crawford

Critiquing is usually a tough experience for both the artist and the viewer. As the artist you never know what to expect, people always change the way they act on a normal basis when in "critique mode". As well, as the criticizer you want to be able to give helpful comments that don't overly praise the artist, as well as doesn't completely destroy them. Critiquing is difficult, but done right can mean a world of difference.

I like that in this handbook, Kendal Buster breaks down critiquing into different sub sections, such as: The language of Critique, and, the General Critique Dynamics. Buster really helps to show the reader, whether they be a brand new criticizer or one aged with experience, some new perspectives into the critiquing process.

As far as this class, Senior Studio, goes, I feel that friends should try to distance themselves away from the idea of, "I'm critiquing my friends art, so I want to be really nice and give them tons of compliments, and maybe one pointer." and see themselves more as an outsider seeing the work for the first time. It is much easier said than done, but I feel that that would be the most helpful.

My first "real" critique happened last summer at my mixed media summer intensive at MassArt. The kids there, although very kind to me usually, completely destroyed one of my main pieces. I felt terrible after that, but started to think of my piece from their point of view. now that piece became the head-liner of my entire art portfolio. I'm not saying one has to be destroyed during a critique in order to get something out of it, but that there needs to be a disconnect from friendship and criticizer.

Twyla Tharp reading

"Scratching is where creativity begins. It is the moment where your ideas first take flight and begin to defy gravity. If you try to rein it in, you'll never know how high you can go."

Scratching is a term that Tharp uses to describe the process of How not Where she gets her inspiration from, where her ideas stem from. I love the way she describes it, especially the part of scratching that I have quoted on the top of this entry from the reading. She first goes on to talk about BIG and little ideas, good and bad ideas in a way that is both obvious yet insightful. After that she goes on to explain her concept of scratching.
The definition I got from the passage on scratching is: every part of the the design process, not including actual physical work on the piece, is scratching. Scratching is the little ideas you get from your surroundings, the images that pop into your head when you see this or hear that, or even the feeling you get on a certain day. Your "journey" for inspiration is the idea of scratching.
For me, although the reading went on to talk about more things, scratching was the most important part. For senior studio I have struggled thinking of not what to do my art work on, but how to do it (how it should look, what materials etc...) But over the break I got a BIG idea, one that I consider a good idea, on how my piece should look. I took the quote from the passage that I put on top of this post there because I feel that I have scratched out an idea that can fly to the highest heights.

Me... The senior artist

Art as a whole for me was a journey these past couple of years, the destination unknown, the price unimaginable, but the lesson unforgettable. I have found myself in so many ways through art, but most importantly, I found growth. I found the never ending evolution of art, and how it has directly affected me as an artist, and as a person.
My journey started as a young freshman with only drawings of fictional characters in his sketchbook. Art was nothing more than my hand, a pencil, some printer paper, and an endless imagination. I was content with that, until art decided to change on me. It grew first into being my hand, charcoal, newsprint, and an endless imagination. Now art has blossomed into being my body, an endless array of tools, any surface, and an endless imagination. Although art these past years drastically changed my technique, it kept one thing untouched.

Stepping away from the artistic writing, my art has changed so much since my freshman year, the most important change was finding my love for mixed media. It seems that now every piece I make has some sort of mixed media component, in fact, the main piece of my portfolio was a mixed media piece. Back in 9th grade I would have thought that piece would be a sketch of something.
Also, I have noticed an evolution in the themes I use to create art. Before I would try to make art about themes by making a picture about that theme directly, now I portray the emotion of that theme directly to my canvas, I also have noticed I incorporate flowers into most of my pieces.
For Senior Studio I want to create a collection, or just one big piece, based on the Seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Wrath, Pride, Lust, Greed, Sloth, and Envy. I want these pieces to show the darker side to art I have, because I feel I haven't tapped into that side so much.
So this was Me... The senior artist