Working with Pallet Knives

For my preliminary work on my final culminating oil painting of my back yard. I decided I wanted to try a dreamish look to fit my theme (Dreams).   I stretched a canvas.   I treated it with gesso because the canvas absorb too much paint if I didn't.    I originally wanted to do a painting with a brush but was advised to try a pallete knife.   I checked on the internet on how to paint with a pallet knife.  There were lots of sites and videos on how to paint a landscape with a pallet knife. I was advised to roughly divide the canvas into three sections, top third, middle third and lower third.  After this I started to paint the sky with a mixture of titanium white and ultramarine blue.  I painted the water in the pond with the same mixture and added a bit of burnt sienna.   For the trees and grass I mixed blue and yellow with some more burnt sienna, now and then.   I enjoyed using the pallet for its texture and how quick it was. 

Finishing Finale

 

For my last piece of artwork I did a painting to do with the theme of dreams. In order to do this I had to think of a setting, and what this painting would show. After some thought I realized most dreams take place in a familiar setting so I based the picture on my back yard.My mother suggested to me I should use pallet knives after seeing how the knives were used I saw they could create a desired effect. The effect was when you are far enough away it looks rather accurate but the closer you inspect it the more of a mess it seems. Another addition to the painting was the upside down tree to show strange things are in dreams even when everything else is normal.  

Getting a Start on Cross Curricular

With much thought I have decided against my early idea to do a cross curricular on biology. Instead I have decided to do a painting on my involvement in our fake law case. Seeing as I was a DNA and fingerprint analyst meaning I will likely show a representation of law, blood and someone's finger prints likely my own.

After Thoughts on Cross-Curricular

My thoughts on the finished product of my cross-curricular are mostly positive with a few minimal errors including the lack of tracing I should have used in order to create a more accurate scale and ironically keep it more on scale with the painting. Some things I did like about this painting is how I combined the blood and finger print analysis of my law class into a single hand print and how given the height of the scale it fits into the painting rather well.

context with Brian Jungen

Red Sea Eagle by: Brian Jungen
My thoughts on the red sea eagle are it is an interesting piece especially given its story. In my opinion this art piece symbolized the artists view on airplanes. This is made evident in the artist's story of how he found inspiration for the red sea eagle. Another interesting  piece by Jungen is his Basket ball piece. This piece is so interesting as context is almost a necessity in order to understand the true value of the painting. The context is so necessary as it enrichs the painting as a whole to understand its meaning is based around the place where the piece was built. The place being a building in Detroit which was formerly a sweat shop (the sewing tables) and how the seems to be abundant with recreational basketball courts ( the basketball nets and markings).
  
Picture Sites.
www.animalplusart.com

co2-art-sustainability.blogspot.com

Struggle Assignment

Struggle Final Draft

For my finished art piece of Struggle I decided to make two significant changes from my rough draft leading to several smaller changes in the final product. The first major change I had made from my rough draft to the final product was I had decided to do a camera photo instead of drawing as I was not yet talented enough to do a pencil based picture of someone's face . the next change I made was to get rid of the "good" and "bad"words on my models face as after review with my teacher it seemed all but to obvious the unnatural darkness represented an evil of sorts and the unscathed part of the face represented good. My final thoughts on this art piece are that it evidently shows an inner struggle of black and white (good and bad) literally.  

Brainstorming for Cross Curricular

For my cross-curricular art assignment I have narrowed my subject to biology as it is the study of life and nature which are two exceptionally broad subjects. My first few ideas are to do with mitosis which is cell division. If I were to use mitosis I would try to use a stain glass window like art style as in most visual diagrams of mitosis there are several bright colours from which I could use to my advantage. Another way of dedicating an art piece to biology could be by using natural objects to do a portrait of a model showing all life is related and the usage of matter. My last idea for an art piece to do with biology is to possibly do something with all of the human systems of functioning (respiratory, digestion, etc.) but I have not fully grasped what exactly I could do.        

Getting a Footing on the Grounds of Culminating Assignment

After conversing about what I should do for my culminating assignment my initial thoughts on the subject of dreaming were to use a certain abstractedness (which could be found in a dream) to represent a person through visual images representing their characteristics. This idea is related to dreams in many ways including how everyone's dreams are unique and how what kinds of dreams we have may reflect things in our lives like when happy people dream of happy things like ice cream and puppies. While talking with Mrs. Rose she also mentioned two forms of art known as surrealism and data which I will delve into in order to possibly find inspiration of sorts or more ideas.

Things That art considered Art and art not considered Art

All forms of art or the absence of it can be put into three categories things everyone or a vast majority of people consider art such as paintings, sculptures, and certain architecture. The other group art can fall into is the grey area where it can be argued the subject or item is art or the other way around. Subjects or items can also be seen in this grey area if they create huge controversy or are such a vast category they include things that are art as well as things which aren't. The Items falling into this area are as follows Nature, advertisements, movies, buildings, food, Etc. The last category includes things which cannot be considered art by anyone or only a slim majority.some examples of this category are weights, fesses, a bar of steel, Etc.

Land Art from dummies

                                                        The Making of                                                         
For the Land Art assignment I have gathered up a group consisting of Brittany, Aidan, and Myself. Our initial plan for this land art project is to go over to my house were I have a backyard unscathed by anything other  making it ideal in both size and quality of landscape. Once we arrived at my house it was soon discovered the "ideal" location was atop the septic field making it unusable as far as the concerns of our project. We then traversed my country property in order to find a location fitting to our needs. After approximately half an hour of searching we had found it and began to sketch an outline with snowshoes. together we worked out Aidan would use his snowshoes to loosely( both figuratively and literally) draw the Celtic naught whilst Brittany and I led him in the right direction.

                                               Why We Chose a Celtic Naught 
The reason being for why we chose a Celtic knot was Aidan had been looking for designs to do with his and couincidently my heritage and found a design simple enough for us to do.

                                 Thoughts On the End Result and How th Picture was Taken
After we had finished we found a snow bank big enough to take a picture from. Our initial plan was to take the photo from the top of our barn but we reconsidered after observing how dangerous taking a shot from atop the barn could be. In order to get a picture were the groves in the snow could be seen we took the photo with the sun at our backs. After observing the picture we found it to be satisfactory in both the time taken to make the art and the qualitty.

Struggle Assignment Pre-Plans and Thoughts

                                              Initial Plans

My initial plan for this assignment is to focus on inner strugle rather than an outer struggle I can relate to. As for the plans on the actual look of the picture I plan to draw a models face and use shadows to depict a villinous figure and vise versia to demanstrate an internal struggle to be a better person. I would also like to demonstrate my struggles to keep on focus by having the main image not put into the centre of the picture.

Neoclassicism Art History

Neoclassicism was an art period which took place in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The overall tone of art for this specific art period at first glance seems to be related to older forms of art constructed by the Greeks. Some reasons for why Neoclassicism shares similarities to the art of the ancient Greeks (envisioning pure human models) is through the workings of Nicolas Poussin (the companions of Rinaldo) and Claude Lorrain (Sea port) during the Renaissance and helped to keep the form of art alive so to speak. My chosen piece of art to represent this period of art is Napoleon crossing the alps composed by artist Jacques-Louis David. The reason why I chose this picture to illustrate neoclassicism is for its popularity and how it em pictures the model (Napoleon) similar to models in ancient Greek. Some other famous                                                art pieces from this period of art are the Oath of Horatii and Angelica                                                          Kauffmann's Venus Induces Helen to Fall in Love With Paris.                                                                Neoclassicism Was really relevant to the culture of the 18th century by having                                                influenced the fashion of the era and also impacting architecture to the present                                                day.

Napoleon Bonaparte 
Jacques-Louis David

things from which art considered art or not art (Rough Draft)

Art is a very controversial and opinionated subject. Some things are very easily considered art such as paintings and statues. Other forms of art fit into the grey area where it could be argued for either the object being art or something else entirely. The idea of something not being art is if the said object or subject requires no creative design or effort. The latter category of art (or lack thereof) is also  a category of art from which derives little argument over if the subject falls into a category of art. The opposite of something considered universally not to be art is the first category of art the category in which the artwork is universally considered art. This category of art may be the most beautiful but usually takes less observation to comprehend which may be seen as a positive or a negative way of judging this category of art. The second category of art (the grey area) heavily relies on on the viewer/ participator's opinion.