Body project 1-self portraits continued

I am posting the readings here and on eLearning along with some images that were referred to in the second reading titled, The Body.

Enjoy,
Prof K

From Drawing from the Modern 1945-1975

From, The Drawing Book, Edited by Tania Kovats

From Drawing from the Modern 1945-1975

Albrecht Durer, Adam and Eve, 1504 engraving

Paul McCarthy, Delicious, studies for the Apple Heads, 1997

Paul McCarthy, Keep 'em Chilled, studies for the Apple Heads, reverse side of Delicious, 1997

Ellen Gallagher, Doe, from Deluxe Magazine, 2004

Hans Bellmer, Untitled 1961

Fiona Banner, Nude, detail

Henri Matisse, Yvonne Landsberg, 1914

BODY project-week 1 Self Portraits

This week we are moving from the process focused, non-objective drawings to observational figurative drawings. Using the BFK drawing paper that was specified in the materials section of the syllabus (see below), make four self portrait drawings this week according to the parameters below:

Paper: 4, 18x24” (size is approximate) sheets heavyweight BFK paper

1. Ink pen, blind continuous contour line drawing.  30-1 hr/drawing. This is a slow, sensitive study. Rest your arm and begin again.
2. Ink wash--see Brian Murphy's handling of watercolor in the image below as an example of one way to use your ink wash.
3. Charcoal--compressed, willow, charcoal pencils (any or all). Begin with a toned paper and work both additively and substractively.
4. Graphite pencils--use hatching to create areas of value and the illusion of depth and form.

Think of these as daily drawings. I recommend doing one per day for four consecutive days noting on the drawing (front or back) the time of day it was made, how long you spent drawing, and one adjective that describes your mood. Spend at least one hour on each drawing. If you have more paper, do a fifth drawing, medium and material of choice. This drawing will count as extra credit. Bring your drawings into class next week.

 I will post two short readings to eLearning tonight. Read them and be prepared to discuss next week.

Happy drawing,
Prof K

Here's a link the the art21 video on Laylah Ali: http://www.pbs.org/art21/watch-now/segment-laylah-ali-in-power

Anybody ever see this cartoon called Adventure Time?

Here's a couple of drawings I felt like doing at work. kinda needed a break from process and just did some toon stuff. enjoy!

2/6 Links

I like that the artists all share a similar sense of intuition and purpose in their art. They cannot necessarily predict what comes next, but they know it will match/exceed their aesthetic aspirations. Planning and research are all not ignored, but at the moment of creation control released in a way that allows instinct to take part of the process. This quality has been critiqued as random or easy, particularly in Pollock, but I think instead that it reveals an artistic certainty and a level of inner trust that is enviable.

Links

I found it interesting that both artists played with the viscosity of their paint. Even more awesome was the diversity with which they used their medium. Pollock reached a drizzled and splattered look while Helen Frankenthaler achieved a look of watercolor with the paint soaking into the paper she worked on. Both utilized large canvases, citing the ability to better express themselves by doing so. I very much agree with Pollock upon the reason for making art. Much of my own work is an emotional expression of some kind.

Links~

I really admire Jackson Pollock's work, now that I've seen it and have witnessed how it's done. While I admire the minimalism of Frankenthaler's works, I seem to base myself off of the expressive, almost messy application of media onto paper. Whatever comes to me, I do and act upon, and I feel like Pollock's work especially illustrates that. That said, I am still wowed by Frankenthaler's works simply because she can do so much with so little. From looking at the pieces, it appears as if she didn't use as much of the medium nor did she put that many strokes into applying it, as opposed to Pollock's dripping effects, which gives her work a more controlled, stable feel to them.

Charlene Von Heyl's pieces are beautiful. I love the effect of black and white; it's simple, timeless and gorgeous. The way the two push and pull one another back and forth to create a create a figure-ground relationship. I can either see the black shapes or the white shapes in the foreground of the paintings, which changes them completely into two different works of art in one piece!

Links

I was surprised to find I really liked Charline Von Heyl's pieces.  I tend to gravitate towards the more colorful pieces, but these black and white ones were very powerful.  The black and white stripes with the intruding blob seems to reverberate off the page.

Links

It amazes me how people like Helen and Pollock worked on these huge canvases and felt comfortable doing so. Plus, knowing when to stop just adds to my respect for all of these artists. Helen's technique was pretty interesting, just dancing along and soaking her workspace with paint. I seem to take more of the Pollock method with my big work. I tend to just let things drip on my space. He says that all of his marks are intentional, wheres as almost every other one of mine is a mistake that I work with. Charline's pieces are ones that I really like though because in all actuality, I like working with black and white. Some of Charline's feel like controlled chaos in my opinion. Gabriel sounds like me though, because he said he doesn't really have a technique, and that's how I feel about my works too.

~Paige Horace

Link Response

Watching the videos makes me realize that drawing, and painting have no limitations. As Pollock states in his video, paint has a life of it's own, which can lead you to create unimaginable designs. There is no right or wrong way to create conceptual art.

Links

It was really surprised at the different ways people have done process art. Doing it myself, I didn't really register all the different things I was doing, but watching other people do it, I've noticed how different each method is. I'm also impressed at how they decide they're finished, with no fear of under or over working a section or piece.

Links

The thing that caught my attention about Helen Frankenthaler's art is her apparent ability to know when enough is enough on any given piece. Some of the compositions that are shown on the video, for example, are relatively simple in regards to the amount of paint used or diversity of strokes. Instead of feeling the need to add to the composition or complicate it, she leaves it as is, recognizing the beauty that can be found in that simplicity. I'm also drawn to her eye for balance of translucent and opaque forms.  

Links

I really like Charline von Heyl's paintings and the contrast between straight lines and unidentifiable blobs. if y'all cant tell from my 5x5's I am a big fan of black and white and going from the whitest white to the blackest black like Charline does in his paintings. The videos were interesting to watch to see the variety of non-objectional process art. I also like Helen Frankenthaler process of painting while dancing and Pollock essentially painting how he feels. 

Non Objective Artist

The non-objective artist I choose is Seth Anderson. His usage of mixed media and constructing a piece is unique because it's random. Anderson starts with two materials and adds more to his piece. He will change the media from paint to pen. He would move his piece to a wooden surface and cover it over with a waxy coat. His style of abstract art is something I can learn or try at least once.

Class work 2/6/12

Class,

Thank you all for your blog posts. This week please continue your 5x5s adding ten to the group that you have and further the 15 you've begun. In addition continue your Corplegados projects and bring them in next week for a work day. I am pushing back our first critique to Feb 20th instead of next week as originally planned. This will give you more time to investigate, test, tinker and play with materials and process on a deeper level. Some of you might want to give yourselves parameters to narrow your investigation--fewer media and specific techniques might help IF you are feeling lost or overwhelmed by a large, blank surface.

No reading this week but please view these links and post your feedback:

Pollock painting: "I want to express  my feelings rather than illustrate them"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bICqvmKL5s

Helen Frankenthaler's process: soak stain painting in response to Pollock's all over drip paintings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWRraeo0SnE

More about Gabriel Orozco: Segment: Loss and Desire
http://www.art21.org/videos/segment-gabriel-orozco-in-loss-desire

Charline Von Heyl: a process oriented painter. Please read this pdf article from Modern Painters Magazine.
http://www.1301pe.com/news/detail.asp?NewsID=255

Enjoy the week,
Prof Kristen

Non-Objective Artist

The artist I chose is Morris Louis.  I love the vibrancy and variety of color in his work.  The majority of his work is staining canvas with acrylic pigment in lines, sometimes transparent sometimes not.  It creates a really beautiful and simple effect.

Maggie

Non-objective artist

I chose Lynne Taetzsch as my non-objective artist. I like her work because it looks more interesting than those who just smear color into shapes or blurs on a canvas. I don't really like abstract art in general, but her work is more interesting to me than most because the more you look, the more you find. First you see the work as a whole, then, like in this image, you start to look deeper and find all kinds of shapes and shades used.

Nom Objective Artist

The artist I chose is Michel Keck. After doing a quick image search on Bing, this particular piece immediately stood out among the results. This oil on canvas is, no doubt, non-objective, but it brings to my mind a terrestrial scene. The choice of colors are dominantly earthy; the darker khaki tones at the bottom  contrasted with the upper half of the canvas reminds me of a desolate landscape of some sort. The mix of reds, blues, and whites in the center are reminiscent of a city or a peninsula jutting out upon the scene. The composition balances serenity and bleakness really well.

Chase Wantland

Caio Fonseca

When I happened upon Fonseca's work, it stood out to me for a number of reasons. The color matching is so pleasing to the eye, especially due to the pattern it's in and the repetitive nature of the shapes. I love that I can look at this and see pipes, whales, pelicans, ladles, measuring cups, etc etc the list goes on. It offers a lot of room for imagination. I love non-objective work that can let your mind dwell.

More of Caio's work here

ANISH KAPOOR-                                                untitled 

I chose Anish Kapoor for my contemporary non objective artists mainly because it is simple. He uses natural materials for his art works and uses the materials in different ways. 

Non-Objective Artiiiist~

The artist I discovered is named Tom McNease. What I especially like about this artist's work is the vividness of color and his usage of contrast to make this illusion of a metallic look. Many of his works appear almost web-like, as if obscured by something. This drawing in particular seems almost representational and is reminiscent, to me, of a rock face in a dark forest. There is a shape that appears to be like a moon, and long black shapes that seem like trees. His use of black in this is what makes it so beautiful to me, and there are similar wonderful uses of it in his other pieces.

Here's a link to more of his works: http://www.contemporaryabstractartist.com/nonobjectiveartmcnease.html

~ Christine / Frosty ~

Non Objective Artist.

Ok this is sooooo late. However, I was just now able to access this blog, thanks for your help professor! The artist I chose is name Shawn McNulty from St. Paul, Minnesota His style consists mostly of extremely bright colors and boxy shapes. He typically gives his artwork a lot of texture in order to engage the viewer. Many of his paintings give me the feeling of a floor plan but conveyed on canvas by a child with a great love for flamboyant color.

A non objective artist

Franz Kline does this oil on canvas called "C & O".
And despite the abstract theme his choice of shape and color creates an image of a room, an artists room more than likely. I appreciate his the depth of the painting as well.Even though many of the colors seem in the foreground they give a feeling like they're much further away.



http://www.terminartors.com/artworkprofile/Kline_Franz-C_O

Artist of Interest

The artist that I chose is a man named Taylor Winn. He is an abstract painter based in Austin, Texas. His use of color is very intriguing because he almost always uses colors other than black and white in his paintings. He almost always works on a huge canvas, spanning 8 feet tall to 20 feet wide which is interesting to me because he paints on it in a successful way, whereas I would rater tone down the size myself. His process involves testing out chemical reactions between different kinds of paints, giving his works a certain visual and textural effect. Another reason his work interests me is because of how lively it looks. I love splattering affects and the seems to do it all the time.

Taylor Winn's Gallery

~ Paige Horace

            The artist I have chosen whose work is process-focused and non-objective is Patrick Murphy, whose work was on display this past fall at UT Dallas.  The top photo is one of the pieces that was in the show.  While Murphy does do artwork that is objective and may not fall into this category, much of his work does.  These two photos are abstract polaroids that Murphy creates by taking apart his camera and manipulating it so that it screws with the image that is produced.  This is his focus on process, because he has physically manipulated the photos and rewritten the usual "process" of the camera and the images are not representational of their subject.  This process of "rewiring" the camera creates beautiful non-objective images, each one completely unique.  Although this process is not what we are focusing on in class (because it is photography not drawing), these works are very interesting to me because I feel that the concept behind them (the reworking of a certain convention) as well as the beauty of the final product can inspire me in the conceptual work we are doing in class.

http://www.patrickmurphystudio.co.uk/

Contemporary Artist.

A contemporary artist I have chosen is Antonio Murado. He is a New York based painter, whose main focus is in Contemporary Abstraction. One reason why I find Murado's work interesting is his usage of color. This avid use of color brings a luminosity to the canvas. Another reason, why I find his work interesting, is his technique of using paint. He uses the paint in a almost Rothko - like manner, where he works the paint to express its limitless possibility.

Natalee Daigle
http://www.artnet.com/artists/antonio-murado/

Homework week II-10, 5x5s and Corplegados

1/30  PROCESS AND MATERIALS II

In class: work day and individual instruction

Hmwk: continue 5x5 daily process drawings. Create 10 new 5x5s this week and bring in a total of 15 next week. Use heavy weight paper, card stock or mat board for this project (unless you've consulted with me about an alternative surface). Continue working on your Corplegados folded body project as well and bring to class next week. Blog post: Through web research (see art weblinks on syllabus), find one contemporary artist whose work is non-objective and process-focused. Post an image and a link to their work along with a brief paragraph describing what interests you about the work they are doing. 

Review the Gabriel Orozco links if you haven't already! Have a good week.