Found Marks

Thinking about drawing and painting

 Drawing and painting allows you to use your imagination. When using a camera, you can't be creative. If you are drawing and realize you want to change the color of it, you can. With digital photography, it is al lot harder to change the look of the image. 

You can tell a story by the way you draw and paint. By drawing, you can add the detail that makes the story feel realistic and complete. Painting allows you to add emotion to the painting. For example, if you are happy, you can use bright colors. If you are sad, you can use blues and greys to tell that emotion.

Artist Statement

I have grown so much as an artist this year. I discovered that I like making art and I am not being that bad at it. No one in my family is big in art but they like looking at it. I am usually inspired by my Great Aunt Dodo who is my role model. She is happy, cheerful and full of wisdom.
I have learned that I love using pastels. I like being able to blend them together and make cool drawing out of them. I think that tennis has a big impact on my artwork as well. For example, I loved making the silhouette and the tennis court in my sketchbook. Being able to smudge the tennis ball so it looked like it was moving fast was very interesting to make.
My favorite piece of artwork that I made this year was my queen collage. Camp is extremely important to me and a huge part of my life. When I can't think of what to make, I would always think of camp. Crowns are part of my summer and there are many cool things you can make out of crowns! Overall this year, I have definitely started to enjoy art! When I make art, I am able to forget about being a perfectionist and just make something that feels right.

Queens

Portrait of Great Aunt

Process Reflection #2

This week I finish my queen project. I finished the collage as the background and also glued the queen head on to it. I really like how it turned out and it was fun to make. I liked being able to find images and put them as the background and working with pastels. Even though the pastel part was not big, it was still fun being able to use them. Today I did not start a new project, instead I wrote a note on the back of my symbolic portrait to the person I made mine about. I plan on sending the picture to her in the future! Next week I am going to play in my sketchbook or work with the pastels on a small piece of a paper and just see what I am able to do when using them.

Art21 #3

I watched Transformation with the artist Yinka Shonibare. I did not enjoy his art that much. He made sculptures of bodies transforming into a character. He added clothing, motion and objects to the sculpture. The part that I found interesting was how he did not have a distinct race to the body. He did not have them be black nor white. The purpose was so it is impossible to base his work off of race. Yinka Shonibare also did sculptures of animals and paintings. He wanted to go back to the basics and start with flowers when he did paintings. I liked his paintings more than his sculptures.












The second person I watched was Carrie May Weems on Compassion. She is a photographer. She takes pictures of Africans and prints them out in red. Then, she puts a piece of glass over and adds writing to the picture. The point of her images are to display Africans past and oppressive past. I am not a huge fan of her work but I like how her photos tell a story and have a meaning behind them.

    

Process Reflection #1

This week I started my independent project. I thought what I started was only going to take one or two classes and not turn into a big project. Instead, I ended up making a collage as the background for my work. It is a lot of work finding the right pictures to go along with what I have in my head. I never really enjoyed making collages but this one I find fun! I like placing the magazine cutouts exactly where I want them and being able to have it look "messy" in a way. I plan to finish this project soonish and then start a new one. I don't know what my next project will be but I want to try something new. I don't want to do the same type of thing I am doing right now. I may try paint or water colors.

Art21 #2

I am watching Jessica Stockholder right now. Her art is very interesting to look at. It has many things going on and is extremely colorful. I really like how she uses color and different types of paint. Her process is really cool to learn about because it is not typical paint, it is more of a paper paint (i think that is what she said). With the paint she uses, you can have it dry and then peel it off to put it onto a different piece of paper. The paint has a different type of texture as well. I would love to be able to try that type out and see the difference because that and acrylic paint. Jessica Stockholder also uses 3-D materials to make sculptures. The materials are things that you would not expect to see in a sculpture or piece of artwork.

The second episode I watched was stories with Kara Walker. She did a nice job of telling her story through her painting. She painted a lot
about slavery and wanted her work to have feeling and emotion. It was cool to watch this one specifically because in my math class I am doing a project on South African art. A lot of the paintings I see are like this because they tell stories through pictures and a lot of them are about slavery. Also, Kara Walker said she uses illusions to make it seem like she is talking about a past historical event. I can not relate to this one as much because her artwork is mainly in black and white and I enjoy seeing color.

Project Planning

When I was looking through my sketchbook, I realized that I used a lot of pastels and pink and purple. I also starting playing around with making silhouettes. For my final project, I have the idea of having a silhouette with a crown colored in with pink and purple. I am going to use pastels to color in the crown.

This is the basic idea of my project:
I think I am going to do a bunch of small projects instead of one big detailed one

Sketchbook Archeology

Looking back at the spreads in my sketchbook, I realized what I like to make and what didn't work out for me. I used a few of the ideas from my sketchbook for my projects in the beginning of the year. I made a flower with pastels and then for one of my projects, I made a bigger version of that. I did a lot of my practice in my sketchbook before projects.
Things that reoccurred in my sketchbook:

• Pastels
• Flowers
• Quotes
• Paint pens
• Combining paint pens with duck tape
• Crowns
• Camp

Initial Reflection

               Looking back at the work I did a long time ago, I can see how I have grown as an artist. Before, I didn't really think that I could do art or even enjoy it. Now, I figured out what I am good at and like to do. For example, I learned that I love using pastels and using them to do what I want them to do. I am now able to smudge them together to blend them. Recently, I was playing in my sketchbook and realized that I like printing a picture out and then working with it and drawing on top of it or adding detail to it. In addition, I figured out that I do not like working with clay. It always seems to break or not look right to me. Looking back at my previous finished drawings, I like and don't like some of them. I enjoyed making the collage of the scenery with the mountains and the sky, but I did not like making the basketball court collage. The first time I discovered that I enjoyed using pastels was when I made two big flowers and used pastels to add color to the drawing. I am going to miss art next term. It was nice coming to art and being able to relax and not have any stress like my other classes gave me. From being in art and learning that I enjoy it, I am going to stop telling myself that I can't draw and actually try to. I am going to put more effort into my drawings and see what happens!

Art21

Raymond Pettibon
         Raymond combined writing and drawing when he does his artwork. He believes that writing is a huge benefit when making a piece of art. Raymond begins all his artworks with writing, which is his form of getting his ideas out. He also believes that writing is a form of art. Raymond Pettibon's work is very interesting. I never thought of combining writing and drawing in artwork. What he does looks very cool together. He reads books and takes quotes and things that interest him and then transfers that into artwork/drawings.

I can relate to it because whenever I read something like a book or article, I always image an image in my mind. That is sort of how Raymond thinks because he has writing and then imagines a picture to go with it

Elizabeth Murray
         The way Elizabeth Murray starts her pieces of art is by cutting out different 3-D shapes and putting them together. She also adds intense colors to the shapes and paintings. When watching the video, I realized she using a tool that looked light a knife to paint the colors on. But before she begins the actual artwork, she makes a sketch in her sketch book to help her get ideas out on paper. To make her artwork even better, Elizabeth goes back to add more and more detail to it. She believes that her pieces are never done and there could always be improvement and changes to make.

I can relate to it because I like having a lot of bright colors and things going on. It is also hard for me to relate because I always like things to be perfect and with this type of artwork you have to be willing to let mistakes happen.

Symbolic Clay Sculpture Portrait

I chose to make my sculpture resembling my best friend Mel. She is extremely funny and very loud. She has a great sense of humor but is serious and helpful at the same time.
Based off of Mel, I am making a sculpture of a monkey. Monkeys are funny and entertaining, just like Mel.
I would put the monkey in a yoga studio. You would never expect to see a monkey or Mel in a quiet and calm place.

Symbolic Portrait

I plan to make a portrait of my great aunt. She is my role model and an amazing person. She lives in New York City at the age of 97. She has a great humor always has a positive attitude. I am going to put New York City in the background and add bright colors as a symbol to a bright/positive attitude. My great great aunt always wears bright pink lipstick with blue eye liner so I am going to incorporate those colors into the painting. I may make a sunset in the background with blue, yellow, and pink. Also, she used to be a dancer and still goes to Alvin Ailey to watch the dancers so I may put Alvin Ailey some where in the painting or add dance shoes to it.

Visiting artist: Hamlett Dobbins

I really like this piece of Hamlett Dobbins work. I like how it has many shapes and has a modern feel to it. Also, looks 3D in a way because the zig zag likes are getting smaller as they move backwards. Another thing that caught my attention was the yellow rhombus. The detail within it is very interesting and unique. The color choice in the painting is very good too. It is good that the zig zag lines are pink and red because the colors go together. Also, having the rhombus yellow makes it stand out more. This painting fits into his others because all his pieces of artwork have something to do with shapes and colors.

A question for Hamlett Dobbins: What inspires you to do the type of artwork you do? Why chose this over realistic drawing?