Minstrel in the gallery

Major inspiration at the St. Louis Art Museum.

First of all, I looked at a lot of fauvism because I know we're trying to draw like fauves next in drawing class. I liked this piece by Kandinsky even though it was so much paler than the stereotypical fauvist/painting by Jaimie Mertz color explosion:


I'm still stuck in the painting frame of mind though, and I appreciated it a lot for the technical aspects of the painting as well as the imagery and art history elements. I've never worked with oil, but these washes are doing a watercolor thing that I really like in the blues. Also I'm starting to totally get why pure washes are "a bland diet" and "one note," though; the thick white chunks they're layered with totally make this texture.


And this is why I love having a 12.1 megapixel camera. I can see the layers of paint here better than I could in the gallery. And you can see close up in the impressionist paintings how so many colors come together in paint to create an image at viewing distance. The amount of time and planning and just eye that that would take is really awe-inspiring.


Lastly, I looked at some Gerhart Richter, because I feel like he's going to be a big focus of the study abroad I'm (hopefully) going on in June. It's on propaganda and design, and this piece is not only about German reconstruction, which had to deal with government messages from all angles, but also a good mix of imagery and abstraction, and so totally graphic.


Just kidding. Lastly was this painting that I totally love but looks so impossible and time-consuming to try to emulate, by this contemporary surrealist whose name I totally forget. Crap! Susan something I think, but I can't find the piece on the museum website either.

Poem on the underground wall

Project Planning: Designing an identity, letterhead, business card, and envelope for Groundwire.

Research:
They started in 1995 as an organization to help environmental groups use technology. They're called Groundwire because they want to be associated with people on the ground and because "ground" is associated with the environment, and the "wire" part is about connecting people and are using technology.

Also possibly significant: To people who know about electricity, a ground wire apparently provides a conducting path to the earth which is independent of the normal current-carrying path in an electrical appliance.

Current logotype design:
Also they used to be called ONE/Northwest, and had a fern logo:


For Wednesday I need at least 20 thumbnail sketches of a logotype idea (a predominant use of a typeface to identify Groundwire) and 20 thumbnail sketches of a symbol design idea (a combination of two different visuals merged into one image), all in black and white.

I think it's helpful that I don't like the logotype they already have. There's a lot going on, with the some letters connected and some not, and then the plugged-in g, and it's not very consistent or easy to read.

The Huffington Post's Green Living initiative appeals to a similar audience with a much more hand-drawn look, and it's still tech-y and online:
I'm thinking maybe some root imagery, because roots deliver resources, and because they symbolize both earthiness and connectedness. To go with this, I want to use a much less sleek, more hand-drawn-looking typeface. I kind of like the font, for example, because it reminds me of trees, and it's apparently Windsor SB-XBold Condensed.

Shapes of things

Welcome to the working week

"We're trying to create this suspension of belief that you're looking at a chunk of reality. Or at least a sort of reality." --Patrick Craig

I love drawing so much.

No colors anymore I want them to turn black

Any colour you like

How come you taste so good

Bad to the bone

Protected by a silver spoon

You got the silver

Promise: There are posts saved for today and yesterday, they're just hiding so they don't ruin a surprise.

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth

Ref image for the next (food-related of course) painting:

She comes in colors everywhere

Final day of the first painting in the teacup series, on the deadline I set for myself, no less. A birthday present for Mom, so I didn't have much of a choice. I went back to the wild colors, I couldn't help myself. Now it goes with the bagel.

On another note, I have to start taking better photographs. That glare is just no good.

Furthermore, I've discovered that in addition to listening to music, I really enjoy talking on speakerphone while I paint. It's just good to set those conversations up out of the area of Jack, or cats. We had more than one run-in with a wet palette today, and when I say run-in, I mean that they ran in it. And then they ran on the couch, carpet, my bag, and Jenna's forearm.

You think we look pretty good together

Turn and face the strain

Pretty big changes. In response to Jenna's inquiry as to "why are there green parts?" I've chosen to tone them down a bit. When I got criticism about my randomly colored shadows from my fellow painting students in in-class critiques I resolutely ignored their advice and concluded that they just didn't get it, but now that my 7-year-old sister doesn't get it, I've decided that it probably doesn't make that much sense. I still haven't decided what color the background's going to be, but that's going to be the next dramatic step, because I know it's not staying white. Also I just hope that it gets a lot more dimensional. I'm sitting here looking at it next to the bagel and it just looks ridiculously flat.

She wasn't a fool that glittering girl

A little better than before

Everybody needs a light

Painting aided by the light of my new lamp. This is exactly what I imagined when I made this resolution: sitting alone getting in a really good mood painting. I had a little wavering of faith in self today thinking about why I'm doing this, because sometimes it's just making me needlessly stressed and cancel plans for a somewhat arbitrary deadline, but tonight was kind of therapeutic. Also I've realized a really unintentional byproduct of blogging every day is that you not only have to get on a computer every day, but you also have to log onto the internet every day. It's kind of interesting that this is like, in no way the obstacle so far.

Strip cartoon is all I'm after

First things first: working in the phthalo green. Defeated the canvas againnn with white mixed with gel, and then cartooned a little to get the composition laid out to scale.

It's all the same fucking day, man

Another day of matte medium-ing and waiting to dry. That canvas texture should be pretty damn defeated now.

Three cups of coffee and I can't clear my head of what went down last night

Sketching in a wet medium now...

It was a new day yesterday but it's an old day now

Ok so I didn't technically make any new art today, but I did catch up on some documenting things that I made this semester and will almost certainly destroy soon because I'm completely incapable of taking care of my things. So still portfolio development.

Untitled, Part I
acrylic on canvas
10x10"
Fall 2009

Untitled, Part II
acrylic on canvas
10x10"
Fall 2009


Untitled, Part III
acrylic on canvas
10x10"
Fall 2009


Untitled, Part IV
acrylic on canvas
10x10"
Fall 2009

Untitled
acrylic on canvas
26x26"
Fall 2009

Untitled
acrylic on canvas
36x24"
Fall 2009

At anytime an invitation you can't decline

Composition sketch for the painting at about scale. Not a lot of detail, not a lot of trying, but getting a feel for the proportions of the object, which always scares me.

Thick as a brick

Canvas for the first teacup: 18x24

Priming (after gesso, and some yellow paint. Not sure why I had a gesso'd, slightly yellow canvas between my desk and the bed) with new matte gel. Hoping matte gel is like gloss gel, but less...glossy. I also plan to use this for creating the impasto, but I wanted to cover the canvas in it before I even got started to defeat the canvas texture.

Basically,

+

=

Gotta find a woman be good to me, won't hide my liquor try to serve me tea

Next project: series of coffee mug/teacup paintings. Thick impasto, outlines like Thiebaud, variety of shapes and sizes.

Reference image:
But with the composition more like this:

Close-up to the point of near abstraction, as per ushe.

I don't really like how those colors came out, but I do want to try to retain that eye movement that the shadows that Photoshop's magic wand picked up, particularly that sideways-backward S in the middle in the blue and purple that goes over the rim.

Color inspiration:
Mostly I'm excited about using Pthalo green/the entire rainbow for no reason in the shadows, I really liked how that looked in the bagel. Even though in critique it made everyone be like wait wtf is that.

Thiebaud does it, look:
Deadline: at least one by January 18.

No particular place to go

Still just playing around trying to get the hang of illustrator.

Could we have kippers for breakfast, mummy dear mummy dear

Stuck in the middle with you

All in all you're just another brick in the wall

I am a rock, I am an island

Rock painting with Jenna