Bird and Cat Sculptures

I think that the most successful aspect of my sculpture was the bird and the bird's nest specifically. The branch that the bird and the nest were sitting on came out well, and the texture worked well with the texture of the nest, and the texture is what made them look realistic. If I were going to make another clay sculpture, I would put more glaze on the sculpture. The glaze on my cat is blotchy and you can see the red clay through it. I would also be more careful with the structure of the peices, because the cat's arm broke off, and the cat came of the base during firing.

Family Portrait Reflection

To make my family portrait I wanted to make something that when you look at it the first time just seems like a normal family picture. However if you look closer and you think about it you can see the subtle differences. I wanted it to be a reflection of my real family, which has its little differences. On the outside, we are a good example of the "perfect" family, mom, dad, one boy, one girl and a house in the suburbs. I tried to represent how my family differs from the norm and also show that we are truly happy together most of the time. The fun, bright colors that border the Polaroid-like picture in the middle represent the fun that we have together, which holds us together. I think the biggest strength of my family portrait is the drawings that I did of me and my family. I think I did a good job of drawing us accurately.

Sculpture Reflection

The sculpture that I made was a dolphin, which was meant to symbolize my mother. Her favorite animals are dolphins, and they generally represent intelligence and kindness, which is how I think of my mother. To make the dolphin, I started with making a frame from mesh, and then putting the rest of the peices on around the frame. I tried to use shiny or slick metal objects to make the dolphin look more realistic.

Principles of Design Book Reflections

The story that I told in this book was a story of an old couple, and when the husband goes to find wood for the fire, it starts to snow, and he gets lost in the woods. While he is missing, his wife remembers their life together and worries that he won't come back. The last picture is of him standing outside their house, and her looking out the window at him. I used three different xeroxes copied multiple times. I made some of them smaller or bigger in order to tell the story. One of the principles of design that I used to tell my story was emphasis, which I used in the picture of the husband, alone, surrounded by white. This showed that he was alone, and nothing was around him to help him get home. 

Self Portrait Reflection

The two aspects of my personality that I was trying to show in this picture were the shy more reserved side of myself that only people who really know me see, and the more outgoing , giggly side of me tha I how to everyone. I showed the shy side by using pale and brown colors, and the exciting side using bright, interesting colors. The difficulties I had when doing this painting were trying to make it as realistic as possible while still trying to make it look silly on one side and sad on the other. Another challenge that I faced was trying to blend the lighter paint with darker paint to make the shadows look real and believable. One of the successes that I had were the blending of different colors to make my hair look like actual hair. I used lighter browns for the highlights and darker ones for the shadows. If i were going to do this painting again, i would spend more time on it, and be more careful with the details and the shading. I would also probably choose different colors for the more serious side, because I dont think that they portrayed what I was trying to say correctly.

Works of Art I know - sculptures

Queenie II, Duane Hanson

This is a sculpture of an average woman who works as a janitor or a maid. It could be any person, and I think that was the message that the artist was sending, that it was just an average person, not a celebrity or a posed model, just any person you might see on the street. Hanson made the person look extremely realistic, in order to highlight the point that she is just an average person who has a life story that you might not be able to recognize just by looking at her. 

Works of Art I know

Mary Cassatt, American, 1901, Title: Sara in a Green Bonnet

 Joni Pienkowski, American, 1999 Title: Courtney

How are they similar and how are they different?:

The two paintings are similar because they both have the same subjects: young, smiling girls. They are also similar because they seem to highlight the innocence of the girls, using their smiles or the way they are dressed. They both display the children in happiness or contentment, so the mood is the same in both paintings. They are different because the one by Cassatt was done using brighter, and more, colors. That painting is much more vibrant and bright. 

How do you think the artist's visions are the same?:

They both seem to know the girls in the paintings, and show their personality through the way they are posed or the way that they are smiling. They both seem to enjoy painting the particular subjects.

Family Painting

Nancy and Olivia
Alice Neel, American

I think that the artist's point of view about family is that a family doesn't have to be the typical mother, father and two children, kind of family. It can be just a mother and child as well. I think that all that these two people have in the world is each other, which is a definition of family. A group of people who love each other.

This painting demonstrates the principle of design, emphasis. The artist is emphasizing the faces of the two people, because that is where the most detail is, and the mother's arm surrounds them, like a frame, so that you look there first. Another principle of design that the artist used is movement. You look at their faces first, but then you are led down by the mother's arms and legs, which are surrounding the baby. She seems to be trying to get as much of herself around the child as possible, as if she is trying to protect her.

Nighthawks

My First Impressions:

In this painting, there is a dark background and a well-lit foreground. This demonstrates emphasis, because Hopper wants to emphasize the people and the restaurant in the front of the painting. The walls are white, and it is brightly lit. Also, maybe he wanted to display the man behind the bar, because the eye goes to him almost immediately. He is dressed in white, which contrasts against the dark colored bar, and the other people at the bar, who are wearing dark colors. I think that the story that he is trying to tell with this painting is the story of people who are out late at night when no one else is awake. This bar is also the only place open on the street. There is a couple, a man and a woman, sitting together at the edge of the bar, and there is a man, sitting alone, with his back to the window. This makes that man a little bit more mysterious, because you can only see his back, and there is shadow over his face and hat. It makes you think that he is lonely. 

What I've Learned:

The painting is of a typical diner during the era, one near where Edward Hopper lived, in Greenwich Village. Light is always a central part of Hopper's paintings, and it is definitely important in this painting. The whole mood relates to the lighting and the placement of shadows. Hopper usually painted places important to him, or just familiar. Somewhere that he had been many times. He rarely painted from imagination. This local diner is no exception. However, he took something so incredibly simple, a diner that he saw all the time, and gave it a story and a specific mood, just by using the lighting. 

Reflection

If you could do one of the projects again, which one would it be and why?
If I could do one of the projects that we did in class again, in would be the self portrait, because I loved working with color. Color is my favorite aspect of art. You can do so much with different colors, such as expressing emotion and illustrating the passing of time and light. I also would take more time and pay more attention to details and colors.


Of all the artists you've researched, which one do you think is most interesting?
The artist that I think is most interesting is Mary Cassatt. I chose her painting Elsie in A Blue Chair for my portraits blog because I thought that the way she painted the expression in the little girl's face was interesting and different. I thought that it was fascinating how she mainly painted women and children, and focused so carefully on how they were feeling while she was painting them. You can tell from her paintings that she had some kind of connection with the subject of her paintings. All of her portraits are slightly different from "normal" portraits. The people in them are doing other things, or just thinking, but none of them are just sitting and having their portrait done.

Works Of Art I know

Tara Donovan, American
My First Impressions:
I thought that it was interesting how, from far away, this looks like something completely different than when you come up close and see what it is actually made of. I first saw this when I went to the ICA last month. It reminds me of coral or seaweed, but to others, it looked like a sandcastle. I think that the artist left it unnamed for this reason, so people would use their imagination when they saw this artwork.

What I've Learned:
Tara Donavan makes sculptures out of everyday objects, such as buttons, scotch tape, plastic straws, cups, and toothpicks. To make her art, she uses hundreds or thousands of the same objects. She tries to make the her art look like things you find in nature.

Works Of Art I know

Marcel Duchamp, French
Self-Portrait in Profile

My First Impression:
I though that this piece of artwork was very interesting, because it's a different way of looking at a self-portrait. Instead of a detailed painting with colors and an actual face, it just shows you the artist's profile, which makes you think about the person, more than just showing it to you would. You can also get some sense of the person's feelings just by the profile. To me, the man looks depressed, because of the way he's tilting his head. He doesn't look happy.

What I've Learned:
Marcel Duchamp was a French artist who tried to change the way art was thought about, and change what people thought was "art". One of the things he did was take a urinal and call it "Fountain". He made sculptures, painted and took photographs. He made things called Readymades, which were basically everyday objects that he altered and called sculptures.

Works Of Art I know - Portraits

Mary Cassatt, American
Elsie in a Blue Chair

My First Impressions:
The main element of this painting, I think, is light. The little girl in the center seems to be glowing with the brightness of her dress. I think that the artist was trying to show the innocence of the little girl, using the color white, which is often used to symbolize innocence. The girl also looks bored, as if she has been sitting there for a while, posing for the picture while wanting to play, or be somewhere else. I think that this is an interesting way to paint someone, since usually, when you are doing a portrait, you are trying to make the person look good. This might mean that the artist knows the little girl very well, and is having fun painting her, and making sure that she captures the girl's mood.

What I've Learned:
Elsie, the little girl in the painting, is Mary Cassatt's niece. Cassatt was one of the few female impressionist painters.She was born in America, but travelled in Europe and loved France, so she moved there and lived there for most of her life. She went to school at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She never got married. Her favorite subjects for her paintings were mothers and children.

Works of Art I know - Color

Frantisek Kupka, Czech 

MoMA, NYC

My First Impressions: This painting uses a mixture of different types of colors, such as cool, warm, and light colors. At first, you cannot even tell it's a portrait. The main focus seems to be the colors, and not the face of the woman. However, the colors could also be reflecting the mood, or even the personality of the woman he is painting. For example, she could be happy and funny and entertaining most of the time, but now she has big patches of sadness in her life, as represented by the big blotches of blue and cool colors. Whoever this person is, its apparent that the painter knows her well enough to know her personality and what is happening in her life. 

What I've Learned: The name of the painting is Mme Kupka Among Verticals. I think that that means that this is a portrait of his wife, who is someone who he obviously knows very well. It was painted in 1910-1911.

Works of art I know - Shapes (week 3)

Romare Bearden, American

My First Impressions:
When I first saw this painting, I thought that it made a peaceful setting, such as the woods, busy and full of life. Even though there are only a few animals in the scene, it makes everything else come alive, too, such as the snow and the trees. The artist does this by combining shapes and using them to make everything pop. They also make the whole thing busy and confusing, and you can look at it for a really long time, and keep discovering new things about it.

What I learned:
This was created in 1985, and it's called Winter (Time of The Hawk). I also discovered that winter was not one of Bearden's usual settings. He usually created tropical scenes, with a lot of vibrant colors.

I See The Light Drawing

Title: Coyotes

The story I'm trying to tell with this drawing is when, last year I was walking my neighbor's dog at night, around eight, and I heard a whole pack of coyotes howling really close to us, in the woods. I was alone outside with no protection except for a small dog. It was probably the scariest moment of my life, and the darkness had a big effect on why it scared me.

I used value in my drawing to make the area under the streetlight more prominent and what the eye focuses on first. I also made it the brightest spot in the drawing, so that it was clear that I was alone. The darkness in the background contributes to the mystery of the picture, because you dont know whats there or what might be hiding in the darkness. Even though the person who is looking at the drawing cannot hear the coyotes, the can see the fear in the darkness.

The most challenging part of this drawing was the changing from the light to the dark either gradually or abruptly, like I had to do with the streetlight. Also, trying to make it dark enough as to make it beleivable that it actually is nighttime.

I think that the most succesful aspect of this drawing is the streetlight and the darkness behind it. It looks like i wanted it to, and I think that it conveys the feelings that I was trying to display.

Works of Art I know

Edward Hopper, American

My First Impressions:
When I first saw this painting, the story that I immediately thought of was a lonely young girl, probably in her twenties, sitting by herself in a cafe. It made me think about why she was lonely, and if she had been left by her husband, or if her parents had died, or if maybe she misses a friend. It could be any number of things, but the most important part is that the painting makes you think about why shes alone. Hopper used the big, black space behind her to make her look smaller and a little bit helpless. She almost blends into the colors in the background, the greens of the wall and the yellow of the chair and the heater match those of her coat and hat.

What I've Learned:
It was painted by Hopper in 1927, on a medium canvas, about 3 feet long.
The painting is called Automat and it's on display at the MFA in Boston.
It was featured on the cover of TIME magazine in 1995.

Works Of Art I know

Georges Seurat, French 

My First Impressions:
When I first look at this painting, I see a crowd of people sitting on a riverbank, probably in the summertime. The darkness under the trees contrasts with the bright sun, and the people in the shade seem to be more relaxed and the people in the sun are standing up and moving around, generally being more active.

What I've learned:
It's a painting of the island La Grande Jatte, which is on the Seine in Paris, France. On the island, there is a public garden. He mainly focused on the color and the light. He used a type of painting called pointillism, which is the combining of many little dots to create one large picture.
It is on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_Afternoon_on_the_Island_of_La_Grande_Jatte
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/seurat/seurat_themes.html