Studio Saturday

I'm going to start off with my master painting that was due on Tuesday. The artist I chose was Rene Magritte and before spring break I wasn't sure which painting I was going to copy. I finally went with The Lost Jockey and am glad I did. I do love the giraffe one too and may use it as inspiration to create something with a giraffe.

I can't say that I got this one dead on. To get the layout right, I gridded both a print out and the paper I painted on. I found numerous colorings online so I went to our library and found this painting in a book. The book image had a mauve sky so that is what I used for colors. Books are more accurate than the computer. We were to paint it the same size and use the same materials as well. This piece is gauche on paper. I have never painted with gauche before and really should have done a few practice paintings first to get a feel for how it goes on paper. I really liked painting with it and will probably invest in more colors.

Chad loves my version of this painting and wants to frame it. I'm pretty proud of it too and am loving the way that Magritte created his trees. I may take that into future work as well.

The project I have to blame for me not getting much time to work on anything else was for my painting class. On Tuesday, we were assigned to paint ten paintings of a single object. Oh, and this was due on Thursday. Between my other classes and my late nights at work, I had only an afternoon to work on them. But I finished and am happy with most of them.

My object is an adorable kitchen timer that was given to me by a friend. To create the ten different paintings, I used a variety of materials and techniques. I also took it as an opportunity to try out some new-to-me materials and see how they reacted. This assignment was graded, so I wasn't just going to turn in crap, but he wanted some creativity.

I had this same instructor for a drawing class and he assigned a similar assignment for that (except it was 25 drawings to be done in two days). I had fun doing it then and took it as time to play and stretch myself. I can't say that I went quite as far with this one, although if we had to do 25, I would have got there eventually. One of the pieces I did for drawing was a collage made of dog food and treats (my object for that was a dog mannequin).

On a side note about painting, I'm finding that I love water-based media more than oil. In high school, I loved to paint with oils. I even bought paints with the money I was making working after school and painted so many things. I did eventually get rid of most of these because they were horrible paintings. Time and other distractions got me away from painting altogether until recent years when I took up watercolors. I'm kind of amused at this change and am going to try to sell my remaining oil paints from this class as I won't be using them again. If that changes again, I can just buy new ones.

I haven't progressed beyond my test shots for my photography project. It's been so humid lately and my hair goes pretty crazy. Even though this is for a class project, I still want it to look good. I have trouble taming it too (and it's made more difficult because I am trying to wean myself off of using a hair dryer). Also, she has been surprising us with showing our projects, or in the case of the last one, wanting us to make postcards and sell them. Another reason I have vanity issues here.

I'm hoping for an overcast day over the weekend so the lighting is right for photographs. I will be shooting them with film and want to get into the darkroom to process them. If they don't turn out, I will just use my digital camera as my plan B.

I do have samples of printing on different things, but they really aren't that exciting. We were to use non-digital papers (honestly, I had never heard of digital paper before a couple weeks ago), fabrics, and non-porous surfaces. I printed on handmade paper, canvas paper, osnaburg, some Kona cotton, plastic, and pleather. The pleather didn't work too well though. I still haven't decided what material I'm going to print on for the final projects. She gave me some ideas, but I'm not really into them. I do want this to be visually pleasing to me.

Finally, my sculpture project is stalled. My instructor likes my concept but thinks my visual representation is too literal. I think most ideas start out this way and the artist works with them enough to arrive at something that isn't. I left class early on Wednesday after having a slight breakdown that involved tears (thank you, stress and not sleeping) and came home to take a nap. While in the near-sleep stage, I did come up with a couple other ways to show my idea.

Yes, I'm being a little vague. I kind of think this project will need its own post. Let's just say, that my feelings on technology are going to be addressed here as well and the project is dealing with the concept of nothing. Since I have nothing to show you, I don't think explaining it will make any sense.

That about sums up this week for school. Due next week is a self portrait for painting and then just working on the projects in my other classes. They are not due this upcoming week so expect some more on them next Saturday.

I'm going to do my painting and write a paper, but also work in some time to sew, cook meals for the week ahead, and some cleaning. How about you?