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.