FIN 211 Unit 1

Improvisation

• Tulip – Just a rough sketch I started with oil pastel, before I started really getting into the material practice more… this was just a free-hand.

Early on for improvisation, Process & Material Tests:

Xoxo – For this sketch, I set certain parameters while also keeping elements of improvisation: I believe I sketched out with my right hand, for using crayon, had my eyes closed. The ‘xo’ repeated shapes were a way of adding a different ‘texture’ or repetition. I actually don’t mind it, either…as you can see, you can layer a similar idea with different colours or darker values, allowing for gradient if you used certain mediums or had certain colours available.

Car Dreams:

For this drawing, I used oil pastel again, and although I wasn’t as aggressive with the application as the cubist drawing, it was an interesting exploration of style and theme, in that I chose to draw from memories of dreams and recurring dreams specifically. I think that experimenting not just with what the composition or erratic drawing could mean, but the subject matter itself is equally as important with the early process experiments, because this would’ve been very close to the theme I was going to attempt after cutting up my Improvisation drawing. When Cindy saw this one, she told me that I definitely have a ‘style’ which is something I rarely think of myself as having… she referred to another piece I’d made or brought to one of our courses in the past. I think this really helped me believe in that and encouraged me to want to pursue this idea further (and I think I will; with this medium, so long as it suits the themes I’m exploring.)

Cubist/Geometry:

For the geometric drawing, I am not the hugest fan of cubism, but I’ve seen portraits by artists like Picasso that have made me think about it and gain curiosity in the sense that cubism allows for opportunities to play with abstract VS realism, and make art that is so abstracted that the idea of a portrait doesn’t register until a while looking at, or researching a piece. This was more of an exploration of colour and shape, for me. I was using a medium that I didn’t expect to make my full drawing with, but it was helpful to remember how blending works with oil pastels & the type of effects involved with pressure. I used a type of vegetable oil to blend some of the colours as well to try a new method of blending (with paper towel.) I don’t think it’s entirely necessary, but I think you can see some of that in the red in the orange sphere shape. This process was therapeutic & enjoyable.

Emma:

More exploration into oil pastel, I didn’t get to finish this one but I was thinking about skin tones, how to reflect realism with this material (which was actually really fun & helpful, it’s something I’d attempt a portrait with again and I think it has a certain liveliness or vibrancy that is easier to capture than with multiple layers of chalk pastel which sometimes dulls the effect or colour.) I like the addition of puzzle pieces for a piece about childhood/featuring a child.

Chalk & Watercolour

I don’t actually remember if I worked on this pastel & watercolour paint piece during Improvisation stage or later, but I believe it was improvisation stage. I used the tubes of paint to drag watercolour across the canvas, I was paying attention to the ‘space’ of the composition & where to add different colours as I went, for contrast or to balance the canvas. I actually really like this as a general drawing & thing that it looks more vibrant in real life, too.

Ink splatter from exploration in class. This was using string, ink & a blow dryer.

At this stage, with trying to draw things or in ways we didn’t necessarily enjoy, some light washes, perspective lines, oil pastel & geometry, architecture. The car is a nod at drawing things free-handed or in a general & representational way that I don’t do very often in my art (similar to the house.)

I feel this drawing took on some kind of political nature, at this stage, with the smoke stack and American flag being incorporated into the drawing. The ink splatter done at home with hair dryer was pretty heavy. I was still incorporating colour and ideas that I didn’t think necessarily meshed well; while I wish I’d pulled back a bit earlier before getting too into the next stage, I think now I’ll have a slightly better eye for that if I try something that starts out in a similar way, again.

The drawing took on a new appearance and I was fighting some low energy over all the disparate elements at this point, but this was a great time to branch away from class to not have to think about it for a while, or consider other avenues.

In class, we discussed having greys near the top area to neutralize some of the drawing, which was also something I was trying to do in some of the building areas with neutral markers.

Although I do not have a finished product for this drawing, and cut it up, I do feel that it gave me motivation to want to try something, if not the same process again, or at least to have more bravery in cutting up my own pieces for collage, when possible or when leftover drawing elements exist – they can always be turned into something else, and I really like that potential for recycling and reclaiming your own work. I think that’s actually just a big problem solving element of how to consider a piece of work like this, too, which seemed to be one of the main functions of creating in this way. It was an overall really enjoyable experience for me and effective in helping me to not just make fun of, and lose a bit of my critical eye that acts according to a ‘standard’ of art, but also to do that type of problem solving.

In the end, I had two different ideas about how the piece would’ve manifested & both gave me strong considerations into the future. One, being a political style portrait of a trans advocate in recent talks about legislation happening in Florida, US, and another was to continue down the avenue of pursuing my ‘dreamscape’ drawings. At the moment, although the theme feels heavy even thinking about it now, one of my other recurring dreams had to do with living situations, the decay & pressure of society & accessibility to homes – I will occasionally dream about hotels, some of which are defunct & have somewhat of an unstable or urban nature to them & the surrounding area. I thought this would be really interesting to explore & did a basic inital material practice to see what it might entail.

What I enjoyed about the look of the material practice for the pastel drawing specifically, was the ability to kind of ‘mute’ the value into a haze that really felt a bit like some of those dreams – the haze of night time or of time moving at this odd pace that can’t be explained or measured.

I’m really impressed with the amount of material process that was able to happen due to not just the natural process of the assignment, but the hurdles I came across. It really gives me an idea of how having a certain amount of time allotted to approach different stages of a piece (even in deconstruction & reconstruction) can introduce you to multiple new ways of working & switch things up.

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Choice Project

• Two different kinds of tape, ink, whiteout on paper

In this stage, taping works on as I’d seen other students do in the past, mapping things out & deciding placement. I enjoy that after this stage & while gluing things on, consideration was made into whether those initial placements were still working, and later adapted to the dialogue about environments.

Notes from during Process – Drawing #2

• Gessoed Paper
• Pencilled out and used a grid over top of my photo for proportions
• Decided I would mask the collaged and hand drawn areas with tape while I:
• Inked the background with diluted ink. Sprinkled rock salt over top, and sugar as well, while the ink was still wet.
• I began the same folding process for this part that was tried in my process experiments, but it was more difficult with a larger substrate to have so many tiny folds. I resorted to bunching areas up, continuing to try to fold where the paper would not be too fragile or felt as if it was going to break. 
• Between scrunching up areas and folding, I was able to achieve a texture that I’m happy with. I’m also pleased with the texture and blank spots left behind by both the gesso and salt / sugar.
• Areas like the hand will be glued down and drawn over later as that is a bit more easy to access detail than masking with painter’s tape. (ended up painting this over as part of the process in acrylic)

Collaging:

• Inner self / child dialogue with consideration of the impact of environments, childhood environments and formative years…what we protect our inner selves with, the sacrifice of vulnerability VS the feeling of comfort and safety (nature, protection, protection by parents (lions,) etc.)
• Instincts and our ability to connect with our experiences, our initial responses to trauma, our natural emotional reactions to situations and what they are rooted in, how they go back to childhood.
• At this point I’m leaving it overnight because I am in consideration of wanting to see it with fresh eyes again and see what it needs: adding materials like acrylic paint or black sharpie, or diluted ink. 
• I am also considering using ink for parts of the hair and hands and leaving certain pencil marks on.

Intro’ing new materials:

• Had been looking at this drawing for days which is frankly the opposite of what helps me and my instincts. I’m not sure if it’s as if, from the time of working on it in class, then I benefit from at least a few days not seeing it *at all,* but will have to at least try that long next time. And I mean, completely out of sight. Can’t see it rolled up anywhere that can trigger ‘you *have* to work on this’ feeling so that it adopts that feeling of ‘work’ vs art. I think that is one of the big possible, mental shifts for a piece for me, although maybe in the last 2 days I did start to see a sort of ‘attractiveness’ or things I enjoyed about the way it looked, aesthetically, at least. But at that stage it wasn’t feeling ‘enough,’ it was feeling like little more than an incomplete drawing or collage, felt like a bit of a ‘sham’ because how hard can it be, to glue some things onto a substrate and call it ‘done?’ 

Well, regardless of if I had introduced many collage elements, through magazine or otherwise I finally just said, you know what, have to do something. Had a bit of breakthrough moment of, going to just start by applying some paint – white, then later mixing in some Payne’s grey and magenta.

It was enough. Just that was so much more than enough for me at the moment, because it meant colour – that I Introduced to the drawing myself, or felt like I had, paint, another factor to make it feel more cohesive to me, like it wasn’t any longer just a mish-mash of gloss-finish pages and my ink background. It was enough suddenly. The chalk pastel just furthered the feeling because it was enjoyable for me to not make the hair too tight initially in a style or realism; later on realizing I was going to need the reference for a bit more of what I wanted tacked in, though, in terms of that, so again this has all been very helpful for my mental process and *comfort* that goes alongside the drawing. What I mean by comfort, for me personally is, it feels now like ‘my’ art even though it’s not necessarily something I’ve approached in an exactly familiar way, or that I think even *looks* like my art, but it does feel now like it’s had a bit more of my personal touch, and I really like that.

I was not going to draw on red hair. For me, in an image where my back is faced to the viewer, there is a sense of non-admittance and shame that is the opposite feeling of making a point to show the red hair. The red hair, whether I like it or not, after a lifetime (mostly) of living with it, is just a trademark part of my ‘external’ imagery or recognition, a part of my being human. If you saw me in this small town, there might be, a chance you just might recognize me based on my hair, and that’s something I’ve always kind of known in the back of my head (and has indeed gotten me in trouble the odd time as a young person.) 

So, it felt like, if there was any sort of ‘self-portrait’ level of admittance about who this is about, it is now undoubtedly, or pretty close, about me, without explicitly showing my face. Someone once questioned in one of my courses “Is there really any (other) way to make a self-portrait (than with the directness of showing the viewer your visage?)” I think there kind of is, even though it’s not fully intended as a self-portrait and never was to begin with; it still definitely has that inner/outer exploration for me, so I guess perhaps that red hair shows up more as the outer.

This phase of the drawing really felt like I was able to feel fully present with my art making process and without judging it too much, I think the earlier part of the unit really helped with that, and in general working around other artists and having us witness our mid-process pieces. I get the sense that the opposite of judgement in all those cases plants a seed, hopefully, in our minds that discourages that natural jump to ‘judginess,’ even if sometimes that might still come up from time to time.

I decide to set it aside at this point, to swap focus of drawings for a bit so that I can try to take some of that innovation and rapidness forwards into the next one, and that the details that need to be added to it, I know they will be returned to.