Final Drawing and Painting Reflection

Final Drawing & Painting Class Reflection

I am proud of my creative development in drawing and painting this year which is best exemplified by two pieces: the Mapping Project and the Portrait of an Artist Project. 

My intention in the Mapping Project was to avoid getting stuck in my head! I tried not to think while I was creating these small pieces … to be spontaneous. The way Chris talked about drawing what you know, drawing whatever comes to you, and going with your instincts was helpful. I really got absorbed in this project and wanted to continue working on this project longer than some people did. 

Since I had previously approached several self-portrait projects from a realistic perspective, my intention on the Portrait of an Artist Project was to take a more abstract tack. Three sources of inspiration had been in my idea box for a while: David Poppie’s sculptural artwork using colored pencils, Lucy Brigg’s silhouette last year, and the fabric of a dress I bought at Anthropology. As I thought about this self-portrait project, those ideas coalesced in an interesting way. Given my love of color in art and in all aspects of my life, colored dashes would be a central component of my piece. Another of my initial intentions was to experiment with the reversal of positive and negative space. In considering what sort of interplay I wanted between the silhouette and the dashes of color, I decided to place the dashes around and behind the silhouette as opposed to inside the silhouette. As a highly observant person, I am constantly stimulated by the world around me. As I aim to maintain an open mind, a blank silhouette seemed appropriate.

My least successful work this year was the still-life project, in which I created a net-like overlay by painting black lines over a photograph. The lines became too dominant and overshadowed the rest of the piece. 

I believe my greatest strength is artfully rendering weird island shapes … :-) I love this class and have given it my all throughout the year. It feeds my soul in so many different ways. What I’m most excited about in the future is working on my Mapping Project Part III and developing my realistic drawing skills. I also plan to continue my use of vibrant colors.

The 80 Drawings Project taught me a great deal about the benefits of spontaneity and taking risks, and these things apply to all aspects of life. The nature of the project went against my love of precise details and forced me out of my comfort zone as I made quick sketches off the top of my head and with very limited forethought. In the end, I found this approach very freeing and productive in terms of idea generation and creativity.

Final Photo Reflection

Final Photo Class Reflection

I am proud of my creative development in photography this year which is best exemplified by two pieces: Chairs Within Chairs from The House of My Mind project and White Lichen from the Defying Ms. Seal project. 

My intention for Chairs Within Chairs was to integrate several pictures of Biedermeier chairs, which I saw in an antique shop. I loved the elegant simplicity of their design and the way their different styles complemented one another. As I studied the pictures I had taken, I zeroed in on the idea of converting the back frames of the chairs to distinct frames for additional pictures. It was a very laborious process cutting out chair legs from other pictures to drop into the chair backs in the main picture, but the care and precision I applied had a striking effect. I think the concept of frames within a frame worked quite well in this picture.

In White Lichen, my intention was to collect a living substance from nature, then remove it from its natural surroundings, transform it through the use of paint, and photograph it out of context in a studio setting. Through this part of the project, I experimented with the use of studio lighting to not only illuminate the intricate details of my object, but also to exaggerate its abstract qualities. The symbiotic relationship between the stick and the lichen is accentuated by the white paint, which disguises as well as integrates them. The black background provides a sharp contrast for the object and quickly draws the viewer’s eye into the interwoven tentacles of the lichen.

My least successful work was Bark Meets Tin from the Transforming Materials project. After repeated attempts I finally made a decent print, but this picture is my least favorite. Perhaps because its subject matter is so simplistic, I find it a bit boring.

I believe my greatest strengths in exploring creative expression through photography are my attention to detail (e.g. Chairs Within Chairs) and my out-of-the-box thought process that enables me to envision and capture striking and unusual juxtapositions in nature (e.g. Blue Snakes). It took me a bit longer than I would have liked to develop the concept I wanted to pursue for the Defying Ms. Seal project, but once I got going with it, I had a blast climbing the tree, positioning my painted sticks within the branches, and using lighting elements as I photographed the anomaly from different angles!

I believe my overall effort in this class was quite solid; although, I could definitely improve on posting my reflections in a more timely manner. The photograph that I put the most effort into was Chairs Within Chairs, and my effort clearly paid off in my opinion.

I look forward to continuing to pursue photography as an art form and to integrating the skills and techniques I learned this year into my future work. Some of these techniques, such as the Fibonacci spiral and grid, are also applicable to my drawing and painting pursuits. And, of course, the pride and feelings of accomplishment that go along with the high standards I apply and my focused execution as I express my unique vision are applicable to almost all other aspects of my life!

Defying Ms. Seal

Kill Your Darlings, Fibonacci

Fibonacci Project Reflection

By focusing on a common ratio (1:1.618) that appears in nature and creates images which are appealing to the eye, I discovered this project helped me to develop my craft by causing me to think carefully about how I framed my pictures and by illuminating particular types of visual perspectives I had not previously considered. The concept of the Golden Ratio originated in ancient Greece and has been applied in many different fields, such as music, art, architecture, and film, down through the centuries since that time. Some artists and philosophers believe that the repetition of these patterns in nature implies a harmonic order of the universe.

 

Actually, in terms of applying the Golden Ratio, the word “focus” is somewhat of a misnomer, because the act of seeing these patterns required me to view a scene in a more holistic way. By framing my pictures using the Fibonacci spiral and the Fibonacci grid, I sought to achieve an attractive balance in the composition of my pictures.

At first, I found it challenging to intentionally seek out the spiral Fibonacci patterns, but once I found a few such relationships, I began to see others more easily. As my project gained momentum, my curiosity grew about these patterns, and I realized they are pervasive not only in nature (e.g. my pictures of a succulent plant and of severed stems from a palm tree), but also in man-made structures (e.g. my pictures of stairs, stacked boxes, and a metal sculpture) and in the integration of people into spaces (e.g. my picture of a seated man inside a coffee shop).

I encountered some film problems while working on this assignment and ended up shooting four rolls instead of two because two rolls were ruined when they failed to advance due to the holes in the film not properly engaging with the sprockets of the camera. This was a frustrating but useful lesson for me to learn!

The photograph I chose to display in the library was a picture of some concrete stairs, which fit the Fibonacci grid pattern. The reason I chose this particular picture is that I felt its subject matter fit in best with the other photographs in the group display. My classmates’ feedback and preferences mirrored my own views, and there was general consensus that my strongest pictures were those I uploaded here.

Book Project (project title: Future Tense)

My intention for Lack Thereof  was to practice careful observation in exploring textures of common objects found on the Branson campus. By photographing the objects up close, I was able to give the images an abstract dimension and to challenge the viewer to observe textures and patterns he/she would normally never even see. The experience I was aiming to evoke was one of questioning what the object is and increasing one’s appreciation for careful observation of his/her surroundings. I hoped to remind the viewer that to really see takes time.

The formal commonalities the images share include textures and a lack of vibrant colors. The absence of striking, or shocking colors creates a certain stillness and enables the viewer to focus on the textures themselves. Whether zooming in on a deteriorating baseboard in the old cafeteria, the bark of a tree, the collection of dust particles on a garbage can lid, a water reflection in a fountain, or scratches on metal I found interesting juxtapositions and beauty in unexpected places. 

Stop Motion Project

isabelle from Ms. Seal's Art History on Vimeo.

1. What is the narrative of your project? When is the moment of crisis?
• The video starts off with a boy named Charlie, who is playing with his toy car. SUDDENLY, he gets a brilliant idea: to use the tires of the toy car to draw a picture! The video follows Charlie through the process of creating a drawing of his dog, his house, and himself. Not only does Charlie use his toy car's tires to draw this scene, but also he picks up other objects, such as lipstick, a banana, an orange, scissors, a leaf, and a twig, which he uses to add color and detail that enhance the black line drawing. After the main portion of his drawing is complete, he reaches up to the sky and grasps a chunk of the sky, which he attempts to throw at the canvas. The sky fails to stick to his drawing, and the piece of sky falls to the ground. The video shows his moments of frustration as Charlie gets up and tries again. Finally, he has success, and the sky in his picture suddenly turns blue. His drawing is complete!! The kind of smile that only comes when one triumphs over the prospect of failure appears on his face as the audience is led back to his colorful picture. The End.
2. How does the combination of imagery and music shape the mood and experience of the short film?
• From the group critique, people said that my music really fit with my piece.
3. What are the strengths of your project?
• I feel that my narrative is strong and imaginative.
4. If you were to do another one, what would you do differently?
• I would take more pictures on two different days so I could cut out some of the weaker ones and have more strong images from which to choose.
• I also would take the pictures on a less windy day.

Lastly I would like to say thank you to Charlie Gooding for sticking with me though the lengthy photoshoot and to Ms. Seal for providing not only technical support, but also comic relief throughout the editing process.

Portrait of the Artist

       Three sources of inspiration influenced my original conception of this painting. The first was a sculptural artwork created by David Poppie using vertically split colored pencils. I saw this piece at an art gallery in San Francisco in the summer of 2010 and found it mesmerizing. By placing the pencils of different lengths and different colors right next to each other, he was able to create interesting patterns, dashes of colors, and geometric shapes, which caught my attention. The second source of inspiration was a silhouette, which Lucy Briggs incorporated into her mapping piece last year. I found the clean lines and absence of detail in the silhouette of the girl with a ponytail intriguing, and it stimulated my imagination. The third source of inspiration was the fabric of a dress I bought at Anthropology a few years ago. The off-white cotton fabric punctuated by dashed lines of different colors created a sense of motion and flare.

         Since I had previously approached several self-portrait projects from a realistic perspective, I decided to take a more abstract tack with this project. The three sources of inspiration had been in my idea box for a while, and as I thought about this self-portrait project, those ideas coalesced in an interesting way. Within the first two class periods that we started working on these pieces, I had a very clear idea about the final product I was aiming to create. This is somewhat unusual for me.

         Given my love of color in art and in all aspects of my life, color would be a central component of my piece. Please excuse the cheesy metaphor, but if my life were a tapestry, I would use thousands of different colored threads to weave my story. Furthermore, the thought of using multi-colored dashes to represent the diverse parts of me was appealing. Each person is made up of an infinite number of unique thoughts, ideas, and qualities, and the vastness of this wonderful diversity is intriguing.

         Another of my initial intentions was to experiment with the reversal of positive and negative space. In considering what sort of interplay I wanted between the silhouette and the dashes of color, I decided to place the dashes around and behind the silhouette as opposed to inside the silhouette. As a highly observant person, I am constantly stimulated by the world around me; in this sense the dashes represent stimuli.

         While most self-portraits portray a figure as the main focal point of the piece, I wanted to create a more playful piece that is open to different interpretations by different viewers. I intentionally left open the question as to whether the main subject is the silhouette or the patterns of colorful dashes. My hope was that by only revealing an outline of my profile and by leaving the outline blank inside, the viewer would not automatically make the silhouette the subject. Instead I wanted the viewer to be left with some uncertainty about what is the subject. Furthermore I am intrigued by what initially stands out to the viewer, the dashes or the silhouette and what that says about the viewer.

         One of the keys to the successful making of this piece was sticking to a daily routine where I painted at least one color of dashes every day. The structure of this process propelled me to complete the piece sooner than I might have otherwise. Also, having a very clear idea about the final product I was aiming for grounded my initial intentions and guided my process.