Metals in Progress

 A picture of the cutting process of my metal

This week I started working with metal. I came up with three designs, but it came down to one that I love. Working with metal is very demanding to say the least. Once you have your design you have to make a prototype of it. When you like the way your prototype turns out you then have to figure out the type of metal you want for each part of your design. Then you have to outline each of your pieces on the appropriate metal you want to use. Finally the most irritating step up all. Sawing. You have these tiny saw blades that will cut through metal. It's actually quite astonishing how powerful they are. Did i forget to mention that this is all by hand? You have to saw up a down in a light motion. The slightest bit of pressure and snap! There goes your saw blade. Once you finally get into the metal from the edge it takes a while to achieve a simple cut. For the past four days all I've been hearing are saw blades against metal. Not the most pleasant sound. Although the process is monotonous the outcome is very rewarding. I'm not nearly finished yet, but what I'm seeing so far is satisfying. I can't wait to see all of my pieces textured and put together! I'll keep you updated throughout my process.

 A picture of my design. The color of the pieces represent the type of metal I'll use.

i.d.entity

This marking period I created a self-portrait, which portrayed my physical identity. I then created a collage that illustrated my hidden identity. An identity that wasn't obvious to the naked eye. My collage is fairly clustered. I started out with magazines, cutting out pictures that drew to my attention. I then brought in some of my own personal pictures. When I went through all these pictures I picked out the ones I enjoyed the most. Figuring out how to put feelings and emotions on a piece of cardboard was a challenging for me. I started out with crumpling little pieces of tissue paper. I then went over them with paint of the primary colors. Mixing those colors to make different ones. I then added pictures of icicles which represents the sad and dark feelings I've had and winding string that symbolized my never ending thoughts. There are some hidden pictures of my friends, events that have occurred in my life and even some quotes. I learned from Mrs. Kiick how to make pictures less evident. Techniques where you could make a transparent sheen over pictures or make your paint matte and not shiny. As an art class we all had to write a lune that went with our collage. Mine is... 

slowly opening up

masked by colors and textures

emotions deeply buried

It was a fun process making my collage. Being able to to glue on a bunch of stuff, but have it mean something more than just stuff. 

  

A Painted Face

Over the past couple months I've been working on my self portrait using the method of tempera batik. Here's a link I found that describes tempera batik- http://www.juliedunnfineart.com/content/view/46/94/. I worked for a long time on a substantial painting/portrait of myself. Right off the bat I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this assignment. The more I worked on it I found out it was pretty interesting to see if the finished product would look like me. The picture I decided to use for this assignment was a picture of me smiling pretty straight on. The most difficult part about this project was the painting. The paper we used was rather thick so the paint seeped right into it and dried quite quickly. It was hard to figure out how to shade with paint. All we were allowed to use was the color we created with black and white added to it. The black paint making your custom color darker and the white paint making it lighter. I found to be using more of the white than the black, but the black did come in handy, especially with the shadows of my face. Once I finished the painting part I inked it. I was hesitant to ink. All that work on the painting and now i have to cover it up with black ink?! I knew it had to be done though. Once the ink dried I rinsed it off and then went back into my portrait with colored pencils. I only used four colored pencils to achieve my finished portrait, a shade of purple, tan, white and black. My favorite part of this whole process was working on my teeth. Sounds kinda weird huh? Well it seemed to be that I was the only one who had braces in the portrait. It surprisingly wasn't that challenging for me to draw and paint them in. I think they give my portrait a unique touch. While it was long, tedious journey, I am exceptionally happy with the end result.

An Inspirational Artist

Andy Warhol

(1928-1987)

Andy Warhola, know as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement know as pop art. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928. Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied commercial art, which is art created for commercial purposes, at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology. 

Here is a picture of one of his many shoe advertisements


In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his fanciful ink drawing of shoe advertisements. These were done in a loose, blotted-ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showing at the Bodley Gallery in New York.

Warhol was an early adopter of the silk screen printmaking process as a technique for making paintings which creates the painting to look like the texture of a television scree in front of an image.  With bright colored images it looks like the painting sparkles. The effect is most visible when viewing bright white or very light colored images.  

Painting of Marilyn Monroe. The technique of silkscreen was used.

 Warhol began exhibiting his work during the 1950s. His first one-man art gallery exhibition was on July 9, 1962, in the Ferus Gallery of Los Angels. This exhibition marked his West Coast debut of pop art. It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans and Coca- Cola, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founding "The Factory," his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. His work became popular and controversial.

In 1964, The American Supermarket exhibit was held. It held Warhol's famous painting of a can of Campbell's soup. The exhibit was one of the first exhibit’s that made the public aware of pop art.

Something interesting I found out about Warhol was that in third grade, Warhol had chorea, the nervous system disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities, which is believed to be a complication of  scarlet fever. He became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. He became an outcast at school and bonded with his mother. Confined in his room he drew, listened to the radio, and collected pictures of movie stars. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality.


I like Andy Warhol because he brought a new meaning of art to the world. He used color so differently then artists before him. He made people ask themselves what is art. One of my favorite paintings of his is Ten-Foot Flowers. The first time I saw this painting was in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It was right above the ticket desk. Even though he painted this same painting, but in different colors, the one in the MoMa is so mesmerizing. The alluring teal color makes it so beautiful.

Ten- Foot Flowers painting in the MoMa.


I enjoyed learning about Andy Warhol. He is such an inspiration and will never be forgotten.

Reflection

This marking period has been such a learning experience for me. I have found talent I didn't even knew existed. In the beginning of the marking period I was expecting to draw some pictures of objects and that was about it. We did start drawing objects, like apples, but we took drawing apples to a whole other level. I learned how to shade and think about value. It's fun to see how a little bit of shading makes your drawing come to life. Later we began to work with colored pencil it was exhilarating to see colors blend together in ways I didn't think possible. Now we are working on self portraits which I mentioned in my latest post. Its been going well, but it has been the most challenging piece of art I've worked on.

I think when I felt a "shift" in my artwork was when we started to draw the pencil still life of fruit. It was my first time working with three different types of pencils. I started off just drawing the outlines of the fruits. I later went back in and started my shading and value scale. Near the end of my drawing process my fruit was coming to life. It was mind-boggling to see this drawing come from my hands. It was a quality feeling. 

I'm excited to see what else I am capable of throughout the year!

Self Potratits

The past few weeks we have been working on self portraits. First we started off with a large white piece of paper. We then sketched a drawing of our face from a photograph we had. Once we had a sketch we were satisfied with we outlined it in black sharpie.  Not too much detail. The next step was to fix up a paint color of your choice, the only rule was not to use white or black. When you had the color you were satisfied with you then took a smaller piece of paper and cropped out a section of your face onto the smaller piece of paper. The reason for doing so is so that you could practice. These smaller pieces of paper with paint on them are called color study's. With your custom color you then could add white or black to see how light or dark the color would become. Right not i'm only on my first color study. The color I created was an orange and now i'm trying to figure out how to show shading through paint. It's been challenging, but i'm getting there. Once i'm satisfied with my paint job i will ink the piece of paper and let it dry. Then I will use water to wash off the ink and an abstract painting of part of my face will be produced. It's going to take me a while to figure out what I like before actually starting to work on my huge picture, but I will keep you updated! A picture will be coming soon with my first color study.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! It's my first time having a blog, but so it's been really cool learning how to use it. Over the past few weeks in my art class, we have been making booklets. So far we have been painting intricate designs using acrylic paint, water color, magazine cut outs, and even saran wrap! Once you start on a piece of paper you just let your hands do all the work. It's been interesting seeing what I'm capable of. I can't wait to see the finished product! I will be sure to post a picture when my booklet is done.


Till' next time...