Staining

Hello. I havn't posted anything in a while, I've been busy with school, but I thought today would be a good day. This is an older work of mine, I made it during my second year. The assignment was to stain raw canvas. I really enjoyed this project and I also really liked the outcome of it. A lot of people I've shown this piece to are not really taken by it, but I think because I had so much fun creating this work that I like it so much more. The original piece has more purple in it. I used acrylic on raw canvas and pushed watered down paint across the surface with a medium sized paint scraper. The Large shapes the the middle of the piece was the result of pooled water when I let the piece dry.
I think in the summer, I may take on another similar project with staining canvas.

Today is a Lazy Day

On my day off, I am just sitting around my house being lazy instead of working on things that I should be working on, like homework. In this "spare time" when I'm not in the midst of working, I'm constantly faced with the realization that I'm going to have to figure out my life eventually. Every day I ask my self the same question, "What am I going to do about my life?". It just feels like I'm in a giant pile of junk that I can't sort through; I don't know where to start. I know it's an even worse day when someone else asks me "What are you planning to do after you're done school?". Frankly, I don't have a fucking clue.

Right now I'm reading this great book, "Art & Fear- Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking" by David Bayles and Ted Orlando. It's about what it's like being an artist today and how making art is not easy, but you should do it anyway. I really love the book because it makes me feel at ease with what I'm doing right now, but I can't help thinking that it may be a little too idealistic. But as I get closer to the end of the book, it gets a little more realistic.

One thing people always ask me concerning my "career" in art is if I'm planning to be a teacher. I would like to quote a neat little passage (one of many) from this book: "...if you study art with the goal of teaching it, you'll end up with a career in sales. You study artmaking to learn something about artmaking".

Abstraction

So apparently I'm terrible at updating my blog. In the midst of posting all of the figurative work I've done, I've completely ignored one of the main aspects of my art making- abstraction. I don't think I have any abstract work on here except for a piece or two at the beginning of my blog. So I guess I will post some work! I'll upload one piece for now. This is a painting that's 30x 40, acrylic on canvas. It hangs in my room b.c it goes well with the colour scheme. I used a pumice gel on most parts of the painting to give it a rough texture to contrast the smooth shiny brown squares. And I also collaged some brown pieces of paper in it as well. I really enjoy working this way, with roughly explained geometric shapes. It makes them less harsh, I suppose.

The Elements and Ewelina

My final projects in last semester's figure drawing and painting classes worked with the idea of bringing the elements indoors. I find that the seasons always effect my mood and at the time autumn was making me feel really good. Autumn is probably my favorite season just because of the colours of the leaves. Anyways, I made a dress from garlands of leaves (fake ones I purchased at the dollar store) and got one of my friends, Ewelina, to be my model. I took some photographs and did a few quick sketches to start my pieces.
The first piece is 30x 40 acrylic on canvas. It was actually created after the two pastel drawings.
The other two pieces are about 36x 24. It's not the exact size, but close. They are done with chalk pastels. The third piece shown is actually the one I worked on first.
I didn't feel the need to include too much of the background in the works, I wanted to focus more on the figure and the dress and their relationship.

Figure Painting

Today I'm going to post some figure paintings.
The first nude study is a 30x 40 oil monochrome on an acrylic stained surface. I added a bit of a glaze with burnt sienna, and the red around the figure is in oil.
The second figure is also in oil on a stained 30x 40 surface. This one was odd. We had to use a limited palette from a list that the teacher gave us and I chose red, green, white, and black which gave the painting a weird effect. Also, just the position of the pose was a challenge along with my point of view. I remember this model though, he was a pretty interesting guy, a writer. I think his name was Phlip.
The last one is done in acrylic on paper. It is about 5' tall and I'm not really sure how wide it is. This was a 3 week pose, the others were done in two weeks. Each week we get about 3 hours to work on the figure. This was also done in a limited palette of red, yellow, white, and black. But I used blue as the ground to work on as well as the sheet that covered the chair. This one was kind of fun to do and was very different from working on the other poses. I was able to do a lot of layering with paint because it dried so quickly.

Studies

I'm going to post up some studies I made for my figure drawing and painting classes from first semester.
The first are some hand studies on coloured paper done with charcoal and conte.
The second is a skull done with oil on stained paper.
Then there is an 8x 10 monochromatic self portrait that was glazed over with burnt sienna.
16x 20 copy of a master, "Meditation on the History of Italy" by Francesco Hayez.
There is another self portrait done on paper with chalk pastels. The face didn't turn out badly, the hair and background really was an afterthought.
The next is a class study of a plaster cast and skull. It was on of the first things we drew in that class. It's done on craft paper with charcoal.
The last two are just some studies of hands and feet. They are done with acrylic on canvas on top of a coloured ground.
Although these are not really finished works, I think its interesting to post some of this stuff since I learned so much from doing them.

Figure Drawing

Well I havn't posted anything up here in a while. I've just been busy with school, but it's Christmas break, so I can post some more stuff up here. I think just for now I'm going to post some stuff from school. These are just some live models from a figure drawing class.
I havn't had time to make any art for myself, so unfortunately most of the stuff I put on here are things I've made for school.
So these pictures are actually in reverse order. The first one was a three week pose that was created after the first two and is about 5' using chalk pastels on a stained ground. The other two are also done on a stained ground but only took two weeks. The second one is using the three colour technique and i used charcoal and conte. The last (which was the first to be made) is a black and white charcoal monochrome.