At Semester's End...

Well everybody, I have that feeling again--that nostalgic feeling, and we're not even gone yet. I have grown used to struggling to get to class on time with my cumbersome Drawing equipment every Monday and Wednesday. I have grown used to drawing while listening to Prof. Jason's music, and laughing to myself when a song comes on that's full of obscenities to the point of being hilarious. I started liking this hatching and cross-hatching exercise. It's probably one of the most fun things we've done all semester.
     I have to say that I wish I had done a better job in this class; not just in Drawing class but my other classes too. I've grown as a draftsperson overall this semester; I can now nearly finish some in-class assignments, which is a huge stride for me since I could hardly fill up the page or get more than halfway finished in high school art. And, now I can draw on huge paper like 22" x 30" without getting overwhelmed. At the beginning of the semester, I thought 18" x 24" was big. Hah! Anyway, drawing in general has become much easier for me, partially because I trained myself to hold the pencil correctly from the beginning of the semester and partially because I had to move faster if I wanted to even come close to getting the numerous in-class assignments done. Not that every class period had a lot of assignments; I was just so used to high school, in which we would spend a 3-week session with one of our 3 art teachers at a time, and were expected to produce three artworks in that time. Some days in Drawing I, we've done two or three drawings in one class period.
     I've always found it a big advantage that we were only producing drawings with line. In high school, we had to shade or paint or whatever to make a complete composition. We had one sketchbook homework assignment every week, but I sometimes had difficulty finishing those, and that was in a thin sketchbook, compared to the one we're required to have here. Now, I can make two-page spreads with little to no difficulty, depending on what the spread is about. That's a huge improvement from one page a week, worked on for two hours, or more, in my books. So, I actually think I've grown a lot as an artist in this class, although I still have a ways to go. Some of you guys draw great compositions and at a much faster pace than I do. I think I'm the slowest drawer at this school (at least in the class anyway). And, sorry Ira, but I have to say you always do such professional quality drawings, in my opinion. You other guys are good too, and we each have our unique drawing style. Actually, Ira's drawing style reminds me of a classmate I had in high school who did high-quality work too. Of course, everyone should be good in at least some of the areas; that's why we're all here at Memphis College of Art in the first place, right?
      I wish I had managed my time better this semester and made my blog more interesting, informative, and entertaining. Some of you I may see next semester, some of you I may not. It's been an interesting semester and I'll miss going to class with you guys (somewhat). So, I hope every one got from this class what I did this semester, and maybe I'll see you next semester. Bye!

Pickahu! I choose you! (Just kidding everybody).

Seriously though, it's a little hard to pick a medium of choice, since I have my qualms with all of them. But, they each have their own advantages.

Graphite Pencils - these are the cleanest of the materials we've used this semester, but they break in-two after being knocked around between travels. They're a bit fragile, being pure graphite, and they don't always act right in a sharpener, unless, of course, it's just my sharpener or the pencils I chose to buy. Other than that, they're pretty easy to work with, except for one thing: line variation. It's not hard to get those thinner lines, but even with 6B you have to put down a little extra pressure to get what you want sometimes.

Charcoal Pencils - talk about a mess. They don't always like to act right in the sharpener either, but there not as easy to break as a graphite pencil; that's not to speak for the charcoal tip. Besides that, they leave a big mess in charcoal gratings and all over the paper, with the ruler. They rub of on you pretty easily too, unfortunately. It's hard to get the light, crisp lines even with 2B charcoal (at least to me it is). And it is extremely difficult to erase if you mess up, as we all know. But once you acquire some skill, they make lovely drawings.

Conte - conte, conte, conte. This is the king of the evils. It doesn't smudge quite as easily as charcoal, but it still smudges. And it gets all over your hands as you draw. Worst of all though, you can't sharpen it like the other materials. I hate rubbing that thing on paper because it takes forever to get even edges. I've tried to expedite my troubles by sharpening it with an Exacto blade, but when it comes to the conte crayon, it's not always so exact. But it works -- to a degree, and it saves some trouble. This medium is the easiest too get crisp, thin lines from. Thick, dark lines aren't hard either, but they wear down the edge quicker, which is annoying. Conte also makes beautiful drawings, on the bright side.

When it comes to my medium of choice, I'll say charcoal. Despite my misadventures and qualms with it, it is pretty fun to work with, when I'm not working at the last minute.

Does anyone else feel slightly nostalgic?

It's been a while again folks, but I'm back (again again). Anyway, the semester's winding down and I kind of regret it -- only kind of. What I kind of regret is that I didn't reach my personal goal of making this blog and my sketchbook five-star, kick-butt material. Oh well, there's always next semester for me to be a better student.

Guess Who's Back? - Back Again.

Susan Rothenberg- According to Michael Auping, the Chief Curator of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and longtime associate of Rothenberg, the art world began to embrace "figurative painting" anew via the New Image Painting movement, "a movement that would explore ways of re-engaging figuration"(11). Rothenberg's opportunity can be interpreted as the result of Georgia O' Keefe's innovations decades earlier, although their ideas are not related, writes Barbara Buhler Lynes, Director of the O' Keefe Research Center and Curator at the O' Keefe Museum (9). What these two artists do have in common is that they both work with "the opposing forces of abstraction and figuration" (8). That's just a little context for you: here's the nitty-gritty:

Susan Rothenberg, Cabin Fever, 1976

I guess this is oil on canvas. I like the resemblance it bares to cave paintings. Actually, the cave paintings in Lascaux are among her influences. The gestural quality, to me, is most evident in the brushstrokes. In Art History, we call this a "painterly" technique. Even though this painting is on a mostly monochromatic color-scale, the browns range from a light greenish-brown to a medium reddish-brown. The black, shadowy outline, stroked on the underbelly, under the legs and on the horses head and neck, give the horse a position in space, while intimating a sense of movement. And the shapes stroked behind the legs nearer us indicate the legs on the horse's other side as being in shadow.

I like to practice MLA-style citations, but I guess I should start trying to practice Chicago documentation.

Work Cited

Auping, Michael. Susan Rothenberg: Moving in Place. Ed. Stefanie Ball Piwetz. 2009. New York:     Delmonico Books/Prestel. Print. 8-11.

Contour Self-Portraits

Charcoal pencil (2B)

                      Black Conte

Bamboo brush and ink

Sharpened stick and ink

        This is probably going to be the quickest homework assignment we will have all semester. The physical undertaking was relatively easy and fun, but my portraits each turned out a scribbled mess. I should have done what Angelique did and practiced getting familiar with my facial contours in my sketchbook. I didn't know for sure if we were supposed to include the contours of facial features, but I attempted to anyway because it made sense to me to include them. Sadly, you can't actually make out any of these details on my drawings. They kind of remind me of Picasso's drawings, but that wasn't the goal, so I'm embarrassed about putting these on the wall in class today. By the way, I don't know which 'gauge' my brush is, but those lines were incredibly thick. On two of my drawings, I was so dissatisfied with the initial result that I used the extra white space to try another self-portrait next to the 'terrible' one. It looks like my eyes and my hand still aren't cooperating with each other.

By the way...

I ran into Professor Fred Burton in the library today, and asked him for some research advice pertaining to sketchbooks (particularly in IPC).  Toward the end of his good advice, he advised me to look up an artist called Peter Beard for good examples of dedicated sketchbook-keeping.  After a bust on ARTstor, I "Googled" him, and the first link was to his website, www.peterbeard.com.  I clicked on the link to some of his 'selected works,' and they were spectacular.  I don't know what is meant by "gelatin" as a medium because I'm sure he doesn't mean he used the gelatin we eat, but I don't know.  Any way, he actually smeared some blood on parts of the pages as part of the composition.  I'm assuming it's real blood, but I wonder if it's his own... Each page was occupied by a black-and-white photograph of an African animal in its native surroundings, blood smears applied like soft pastels, and extensive notes written in ink, surrounding the photograph as a frame.  This covered the whole page.  I didn't look at but a handful, so I'm sure all the rest don't have all the same materials because on of the last ones I looked at didn't.  But the theme among the ones I viewed was unified.  Beard currently lives in Kenya, but he's originally an American citizen.  The site also mentioned him as living in New York, so I assume that means he stays in New York for a time and goes back to Kenya as his main residence.  If you get a moment, check the site out.