A World, Illustrated

Kate's digital notebook of Fall Quarter 2018

Week 10- End of Quarter, Evaluation Week and Results

After all of the stress, disorientation, and discoveries of the quarter, the TPOP program decided to host a student art show as a celebration of our finalized work. Here are the official results of my final project, and the conclusion to my 2018 Fall Theory and Practice of Painting program.

 

Revised Studio Plan and Weekly Reflection for Week 9

The end of the quarter is almost here, and week nine has been a time for critical evaluation, final touches, and reflection on the broad topic I have attempted to cover through my final project. During Thanksgiving break, I allowed myself time for experimentation and risk-taking, and was tempted to explore the idea of adding two new individual pieces into the mix. (Pictures and details of these attempted pieces can be found in my week 8 studio plan.)  I decided to abandon these new developments for a few reasons. Firstly, time management and project constraints would not allow for the same quality of work to each piece with two more to be completed by the end of the quarter. Secondly, after working on them in the earlier stages of progression, I found that my own personal bias with the new characters/animals I had chosen to depict warped my perception of their form and did not support the idea of the project. Unlike Little Bear or The Angry Beavers I’ve never watched Will E. Coyote or Bambi in depth, and therefore felt indifferent about the stereotypes and symbolic references that these characters imply to many people. That indifference gave me the ability to pull them out of their specific context easier within my work, and view them with a neutral perspective.

On Wednesday of this week, we had our final critique before the show, and recieved some outside feedback given by a guest critiquer from the University of Washington. This was the most intensive review of the class’s entire body of work so far, with fifth teen minutes devoted to each student’s work. Our projects were critiqued as finalized pieces, and included commentary from Nate and Shaw. The first two images of this post are of the paintings before entering critique, the second two are of after critique, with minor adjustments made. During my projects’s review, I was given many helpful points of feedback about composition, figure/ground relationship, content, and areas that need improvement. The composition was noted as similar to photoshop or collage, without much figure/ground relations throughout either painting. Because of this disconnect, the pieces seem a bit too literal, too blunt, or fragmented when theoretically read.

To be honest, I feel that I have discovered my first tastes of how good abstraction might enrich my work after this critique, and have gained acceptance that I have a long ways to go before understanding it fully. I have never taken an art class that has been so immersed in abstraction and contemporary art. Throughout this quarter, I have struggled with many of the theoretical ideas we’ve discussed in class, such as pure abstraction, ingenue vs. genuine art, and subtle vs. literal content. I feel that I have overthought a few ideas throughout this project, and became stuck in my own interpretations of ideas a few times, but those mistakes have helped me reflect on new ways of thinking. When personally reflecting on my own work after receiving feedback, I began to realize how literal and blunt these paintings were, although while making them, I felt that my compositions were subtle and complex. This has reminded me to not get stuck within my own personal vision of what a finished project could look like, because the best content comes naturally and is not forced.

Although this project is too late in its development to change fundamental decisions about the way I chose to paint and think about it, I attempted to add a few final ideas and risks within the paintings to add to their theoretical content. I have chosen to blur the boarders that keep each form separate from each other by using pigment heavily thinned with linseed oil medium, in order to allow hints of a figure ground relationship between layers. Aesthetically, this will help the audience to view the paintings as unified compositions, with less of a disconnect between the two individual ideas each painting is depicting. It will also reset each viewer’s point of focus (background in focus, foreground is blurred), which will force them to view each composition in a different way. Theoretically, it hints at a few different subliminal meanings to the more literal ideas this work is displaying. The breaking of boundaries between layers implies an intermingling between the symbolism and objectivism I am investigating, while the variation of focus between objects implies its relevance to the topic at this current moment in cultural and artistic history. Physically, this alteration may not fully achieve the goals I hope for with such little time to complete, but I feel that the knowledge I have learned from my past choices and mistakes is being applied within it.

Overall, this class has been a journey of uncertainty and feeling lost in the process, but has given me a sense of clarity of different ways of thinking for the future. I’m excited for the show and to celebrate all the work and growth that my colleagues and I have endured over the last ten weeks within our own experiences as artists. The reason an artist creates and the choices (good or bad) that they make during their process are just as important as the end product that they produce.

Wednesday Life Drawing Session-11/14/18

This quarter, I was only able to attend one life drawing session due to complications with my set work schedule, but still benefitted greatly from being exposed to such a great resource on campus. Before this quarter, I had heard of mysterious mentions of a free life drawing session held at some point every week on campus, but never saw much advertisement for it around  besides word of mouth. It was a bit intimidating to explore art at the college outside of the confines of this program, but felt freeing at the same time. During the class, I was free to apply techniques of rendering and composition learned through workshops in the class without the pressure of feeling like I had to preform these skills the “right” way. It also gave me more time to work with a live model without tight time constraints, or a certain goal to accomplish by the end of the session. I attended the session later in the quarter, and although I wish I would’ve found away to use it to my advantage during the figurative work in week five, I was glad that this practice was fresh in my mind while I worked on my final project. My final project does not necessarily include human figuration as a subject, but I feel that the practice still applied when understanding the anatomical structure of the skulls. I attended the session on Wednesday, November 14th, 2018. Here are some examples of the work:

REVISED STUDIO PLAN FOR WEEK 8 AND BREAK WEEK

This project is an investigation of animal content in contemporary painting through the lens of symbolism and objectification. My goals for this project is to question why animal portraiture is becoming less and less prominent in post-modern painting, and why the use of animals can dangerously boarder on kitsch in modern times.

I will be working on a total of four paintings, two on homemade stretched canvas with dimensions of about 18’x24′, and two on primed canvas board with dimensions of 7’x9′. All of them will depict a separate animal in two ways layered on top of each other. The first layer will show the animal in their “cartoon” form, or in another pop culture reference to represent the anthropomorphistic symbolism that humankind applies to the animal. The second layer with depict the respected animal’s skull as a representation of objectification. Once cropped and combined together, these two layers will act as a landscape instead of figurative portraiture. This action will create an improvised post-modern “environment” for the general subject matter to exist in. On top of this landscape, small generalized silhouettes of the animal will be placed along the abstracted forms in the background to further imply landscape instead of figure work. These paintings will be in oil paint, with glazing and indirect painting elements applied.

Until the end of the quarter, I hope to improve my work by adding extra references and expanded “practice” work/thumbnails to help structure the project and work through problem solving.

Supports: Two handmade stretched canvas, with wooden stretchers and gessoed canvas. Each canvas is primed with a thick and textured gesso, with different colored acrylic underpainting on top. Dimensions: 18’x24′ Canvas board primed with thin, non-textured white gesso. No acrylic underpainting applied. Dimensions: 7’x9′.

Technique: Use of glazing with linseed oil and gamsol, indirect painting and prolonged process. Detail-oriented work will be a focus, and layering of content is essential to the project.

Subject: Use of animals in contemporary painting to convey multiple meanings and ideas

Content/Imagery: Animal portraiture and figurative work. Use of animals in different contexts: as cartoons, as still-life of skulls, and as abstracted and generalized silhouetted forms. Four different animals, one for each painting: Coyote, Deer, Beaver, and Grizzly Bear.

Style/form/scale:  Two larger paintings on stretched canvas, two smaller paintings on canvas board. All “cartoon” layers are expanded to the point of cropping as a form of abstraction, “skull” layers cropped, but not as much as the cartoon layer, this magnification helps transform the forms into landscapes instead of figures. Silhouette forms are small, with multiples for each painting in order to fit into landscape.

Productivity: I hope to complete all cartoon layers by Monday, November 26th. All skull studies will be completed by Friday, November 31st. Detail work, silhouettes and finishing touches will be made over the weekend.

Genre: Still-life, landscape, and portraiture. Abstraction through the use of cropping, distorted color schemes, and brushwork throughout the pieces. Pop-art, impressionism, and stylized realism all have elements throughout composition. The most relevant genres are landscape and stylized realism.

Constraints: Limited color schemes for each painting. Varying size, two panels smaller than the larger, more detailed paintings, with less priming and preparation involved. The two smaller ones are on canvas board to reduce time-consuming prep work before starting the actual painting process.

2 Artist Mentors: Georgia O’Keefe (Practice:Imagery, style, color use and form abstraction) Andy Warhol (Theory: Pop-art, use of kitsch and superficiality within work, commentary about modern times, and human consumerism)

My long range goals are to develop a style and a background in the use of animals in contemporary art. I want to develop a knowledge base of how humans use animals as tools to convey meaning in art, and how they view them within their own own anthropocentric perspective of the world. This will help me develop my own perspective of animals in art, and how to depict this content in a more-informed way through my art in the future.

Current Discussion Question: How does the contemporary Western world depict and use specific animals of North America in post-modern painting?

Week 8 Weekly Reflection

Week 8 has been a week of revision, theoretical process and narrowing of ideas for me. I have not done any physical progress on my painting this week after comments and feedback were given to me by the professor and my peers. I hope to work on thumbnails and more studio development throughout my project in the week to come to supplement all of the theoretical revision I’ve been given.

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about genre in my own work, and how that fits into the post-modern times we live in. During critique, peers described my in-progress paintings as pop art and landscape, partially due to the fact that the figures I’ve depicted act as the background, instead of having their own relationship with space. I think I can categorize my plans for finalized work as mostly conceptual with hints of ambiguous abstraction, landscape, and still life, but I’m still uncertain.

The idea of following a question instead of a statement within the process has also been a relevant topic of the week. After receiving feedback and revision of my creative essay, I’ve realized that the ideas I have put in place are no longer following a line of inquisition, but instead acting as a statement to support the art I do. This isn’t because they can’t be taken further, but rather because I have subconsciously chosen to end them through my explanation and interpretation of ideas. What I mean by this? Well, instead of leaving my essay open ended, I end it with “there is an infinite amount of ways to interact with animals, and we can’t investigate them all. Here are three concrete ways of doing it.” After reflecting on this, I’ve come to the conclusion that as an artist, I subconsciously feel uneasy when a project or topic doesn’t have an end point or definitive answer. This is a hard realization to come to, but I hope to be more aware of these tendencies, and  be more open to new pathways of thought in the future.

Speaking of new pathways of thought, I’ve also been reading articles given to me by Shaw on the anthropocene, sustainability, and how human-animal interaction relates to it. It’s been hard for me to let go of my already established ideas and bring this into the mix, but I feel that the information I’m being given is too beneficial to my expansion of thought to leave out. I’ve also decided to cut my structured ideas of anthropomorphism as it’s own separate theme out, because I feel that it is not part of my own context and I don’t know enough about it to represent it accurately and in a non-kitschy way. I feel much more connected to the ideas of sustainability, urbanization, domestication through my own experience than that of anthropomorphism. That isn’t to say I will cut it out completely, but rather reference it in terms of symbolism that try to talk about it as its own entity without much cultural or personal background.

Some of the resources that have influenced this shift are: What’s Behind Art’s Current Obsession with Animals? (Article found of ArtNet), The Presence of Animals in Contemporary Art as a Sign of Cultural Change (PDF given to me by Shaw), Late Harvest (Book at the Evergreen Library that documents an Art Exhibition in Nevada), and Making Nature, an exhibition referenced in a few separate articles.

Another question that I hope to examine in my work came from a few of the exhibitions of contemporary animal art I’ve looked at. There seems to be a big boom in Animal depictions of art in the contemporary art work, but most of the critically examined pieces were sculptural or photographic. Why is there not the same abundance in contemporary painting?

To be honest, I feel a little hesitant about my plans for painting in this project. I’ve been struggling to translate the massive body of information that I believe is relevant from writing and words into painting without being too obvious, muddy, or kitschy. I believe that my plan of layering could work, but may not be able to get across everything I need to say. I might need to plan on a third painting, and definitely need to develop thumbnails and sketches before working on finalized work this week. I’m in the process of untangling my newly revised ideas as we speak.

All of the feedback I’ve been given on my paper and concepts has been tremendously helpful. The conversation I had with others about anthropomorphism and how to condense information will help me stay on track without expanding too much, and the editing and annotated side notes I was given by Cambria and Gerri will be extremely beneficial when polishing the final draft of my essay. I was given feedback from a few peers on my paintings, including areas of form that needed to be worked on, expanded and polished.

The feedback on my overall plan of development and composition of my paintings was a bit contradicting. I feel that the professor’s criticism was cautionary about moving forward, but many of my peers were supportive in the advancement of my plans. The only person who can decide the right path to take as I move forward is me though, and a decision needs to be made soon. I do know I want to paint over the Bambi and Coyote regardless, because of viewer’s interpretations of my connections with Disney and Warner Bros, which were not correct. I’m just not sure of what to paint and how many layers are necessary or too much, which hopefully will get worked out through sketches and thumbnails I plan to do over the weekend.

This week, I was proud of myself for accepting the fact that I don’t like not knowing. This was a big accomplishment because of the fact that I seem to trick myself into thinking that I’m out of control and taking risks, when really, I’m still staying in the confines of my own comfortability. I’m not really sure how to proceed into a place of unknowing without simply not knowing, but I’m hoping that the more open, uncomfortable, and risky I feel, the more I will let go of the mental control I try to maintain at all times. By breaking down the three solid categories of depiction I’ve developed, by letting go of my already established plans for a final idea, I’m attempting to take that step, without an obsessive want to know exactly where I’m going with this.

Is this what it feels like to be a genuine artist? I don’t even know anymore.

Weekly Reflection and Revised Studio Plan: Week 7

This week, we as a class have been working through our final project ideas, paintings, and essays as the end of the quarter looms in the distance. I have been toying with a variety of ideas this week, but wanted to focus my time on layering. This is in the physical sense of layering paint on canvas, but also with the layering of perception that come along with the idea of portraiture. The ways in which people interpret and interact with their environments of nature are infinite, and too large for me to investigate all at once. Therefore, my final project question has been morphing throughout the week, and currently it is:

How does the contemporary western world depict and interact with specific animals in North America?

This has changed a bit from my previous idea, but still has the same ties in symbolism, human projection, and animal/portraiture content. I’ve whittled down what I’m really looking for in this project, and although it is a still a very big range of questioning, I feel more comfortable with the constraints I’ve allowed myself in terms of theory. My research has taken me on many different paths through multiple genres of study. Even in this specific field of questioning, the perspectives that I could depict in my paintings are far too many. I’ve created three general categories of interaction/perspective that condense much of the information I have already gathered. These categories are Animism, Symbolism, and Objectivism. Each of these categories will be represented by a different style and form of how we view deer and coyotes.

There has been a lot of valuable material from my pool of research this past week, but some of the most influential books and vessels of information have been Sigmund Freud’s The Totem and Taboo, books on Warner Bros, and Disney Animation, the movie Bambi, and Animals with Faces, a exhibition dedicated to artists who use animals as literal and satirical content in their work. These resources helped me develop my categories and think on broader terms as to how animals are used by humans as content and objects.

On Monday, after presenting our question and studio plan in class, I felt stuck. I had spent so much time in theoretical research, that when asked about how I was going to paint this question, I have nothing more to say than “stylized realism” on stretched canvas. Shaw helped me change direction by questioning how these paintings were going to be different than any other kitschy animal study devoid of deeper meaning, and got my thinking about depth, layering, and transparency. During our “sketch in writing” critiques, my colleagues gave me good feedback as to how I could narrow my research question into focusing on the actual act of perceiving these animals, which relates to the concepts I have for my painting more than my previous question did.

I’m letting go of my sense of control this week by choosing to layer different representations of these animals on top of one another, to allow a more abstract yet well-rounded final profile of each animal. This will be done in stages, with the first representation being laid down in transparent, medium heavy oils. Come Monday, I will scrub most of the center of each painting away, and add my next layer of portraiture on top of the first. This week, I finished the first stage, which is representing the symbolic/iconographic view. Overall, I’m satisfied with how the first layer turned out on both of my pieces, yet didn’t expect to feel as apprehensive about painting over each one next week. This is all part of the experimentation process though, and I’m devoted to taking the risks that will come with next week.

For me, the most significant accomplishment of this week was the act of thinking outside of my comfort zone with how I am going to conduct this project, and letting go of the perfection that usually surrounds my work. I don’t really have a final vision of how these pieces are going to look at the end of the quarter, but the act of not knowing is enjoyable and new in itself. I hope to continue this pleasure even into next week, when I really have to allow myself the freedom to mess up or fail, but I’m proud of taking that first step towards that act.

Next week, I plan on adding my second/middle layer and category of thought, which is Animism. I hope to depict these in a general way, with naturalistic renditions of both animals with humanlike features incorporated into the portraits. Part of me worries that these might become overwhelming and confusing with the many layers of different content I’m choosing to add, but the other part of me thinks that helps add to what I am trying to get across to my audience-Human relationships with animals are complex, confusing and very messy. Only next week will be able to real veal how it will turn out. The week after that I plan to add the top layer, which is representing the category of Objectivism. This layer will be detailed studies of each animal’s skull, cropped on top. Plans will change as obstacles arise. To learn more about what I am putting into action next week, refer to my studio pan for week 8 in the Final Project Category of the website.

Art Inspiration and Research from Seattle: Week 6

On Thursday of Week 6, our program took a day long trip up to Seattle to experience First Thursday Arts Walk, The Henry and Jake Museums at the University of Washington, and The Seattle Art Museum. I wasn’t completely sure what kind of content or inspiration I was looking for in relation to my project, but by the end of the day I had an arsenal of techniques, concepts, genres, and mentors that could be applied to my work.  Attached to each image below is a description of the piece, information known about it, and what concepts, techniques and ideas I found relevant to my project within it.

Monday Presentation of Two Artworks by Artist Mentors

 

Deers Skull with Pedernal Painting by Georgia O’Keeffe

Deer’s Skull with Pedernal, Georgia O’Keeffe, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 30 ⅛ in, 1936

O’Keeffe was a prolific American Southwestern artist in the early twentieth century who is known for her rich interpretations of surrealistic landscape and still life. In Deer’s Skull with Pedernal, there is tension portrayed in the contrasting color scheme between the foreground and the background. Her forms tend to be naturalistic, following organic threads yet allowing geometric highlights when needed in order to represent her figures realistically. The minimalist gradient of royal blue that comprises most of the background lends focus to the forms gathering at the bottom on the piece and objects in the foreground. The Pedernal, which refers to the butte in the background, had specific personal meaning to O’Keeffe due to the fact that it was near her place of residence near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The artist has a tendency to have a strong personal connection to her work, depicting her own internal experience with her environment. Balance and harmony are key elements in this piece, with the thin, vertical foreground objects seemingly splitting the composition into two almost equal parts. O’Keeffe chose to render a deer skull instead of a live deer, and a dead pinon tree instead of vibrant, living specimen both in rich, neutral tones. These deliberate acts, coupled with the vibrant, stylized color scheme of the landscape behind it, imply commentary on the balance between life and death.

Young Hare, Albrecht Dürer, Watercolor and Bodycolour on Cream Wash, 9.9 x 8.9 in, 1502

Albrecht Dürer was highly influential painter, engraver and mathematician of the classic German Renaissance during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. Before the seventeenth century, animal studies were not recognized as an official genre of art, therefore Dürer’s realistic representation of a hare as it is without any implication to religiosity or symbolism was considered avant garde for the time period. The depiction of the hare is almost hyperrealistic, with precise attention to detail to anatomy, fur texture, and positioning. The background is minimalist, which draws the viewer’s attention solely to the form depicted in the painting. The form is created with delicate layers of indirect painting coupled with soft textured brush strokes, which give it dimension and depth. The color scheme spans over an array of both soft and rich neutrals, lending itself to the colors a physical specimen of rabbit would display.  In this study, the audience is able to pay attention to the subtle detail that a real hare would have, which allows them to reach a conclusion of tangibility and organic materiality. Unlike O’Keeffe, Dürer’s representation of form in subjective, unbiased, and lacks personal motive for the piece. This helps the audience understand his images through a broadened scope, without interruption of bias or subliminal meaning. Dürer was interested in the intangible meaning of nature itself, without the impact of humankind. This piece is an investigation of natural forces outside of human control, and how they can be viewed from a perspective devoid of humanistic symbolic interpretation.

 

Annotated Bibliography: Week 6

Annotated Bibliography_ Week 6

(For the fully formatted version of this text, see file attached.)

Annotated Bibliography: Week 6

November 3rd, 2018

Kate Cochran

Theory and Practice of Painting

 

Brotherton, Barbara. S’abadeb, The Gifts: Pacific Coast Salish Art and Artists. Contributions by The Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Art Museum in association with The University of Washington Press, 2008

This source provides both theoretical resources pertaining to animal totems and human interaction with nature through a Northwest Indigenous lens. It also provide visual art sources on naturalistic form, representation, and composition. (Subject matter and visual art references)

 

Caughley, Graeme. The Deer Wars. Heineman, 1983

The Deer Wars provides theoretical information on human interference and relationships to deer on the island of New Zealand in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It provides further information on sustainability of the species, and how the deer population was perceived and used by the public. (Theoretical reference)

 

Chapman, Joseph and Feldhamer, George. Wild Mammals of North America. Illustrated by Frances P. Younger, The John Hopkins University Press, 1982, pp. 447-459 and pp. 862-877.

This biological journal describes in-depth scientific profiles of both the coyote and mule deer for theoretical use in my project. It also includes illustrations and photographs of live and dead specimens of these animals available for reference. (Subject matter and visual art references)

 

Feder, Martin and Lauder, George. Predator-Prey Relationships.The University of Chicago Press, 1986.

This source provides subject material on the interaction between predator and prey, relationships between animals without human interference, and behavioral tendencies of different sub-categories of mammals. (Subject matter reference)

 

Lowe, Sarah M. The Diary of Frida Kahlo. Introduction by Carlos Fuentes, Harry N. Abrams Inc, in association with La Vaca Independiente S.A. de C.V., 1995.

The Diary of Frida Kahlo outlines the artist’s thoughts and process of art, along with resources pertaining to her style, use of color, and use of form to portray content. (Visual art reference)

 

Mitchell, W. J. T. “Romanticism and the Life of Things: Fossils, Totems, and Images.”  Critical Inquiry, Vol 23, No. 1, The University of Chicago Press, 2001.

This article investigates Romanticism in the physical world in depth, and over a range of cultures, historical periods, and genres of art and literature. It also gives me a better understanding as to what a totem is, and how this term is essential to my project. (Theoretical reference)

 

Prothero, Donald and Schoch, Robert. Horns, Tusks, and Flippers: The Evolution of Hoofed Mammals. John Hopkins University Press, 2002, pp. 72-85.

This biological journal furthers my understanding of deer, their tendencies, behavior, and life cycle. It also outlines how they have evolved into their modern forms, and why they exist the way they are. (Subject matter reference)

 

Savage, Arthur and Savage, Candace. Wild Mammals of North America. Western Producer Prairie Books in association with The John Hopkins University Press. 1981.

This biological journal continues my studies of both coyotes and mule deer from a biological standpoint. I chose to reference multiple biological journals to understand the animals I will be portraying to gain an unbiased perspective on them before digging deeper into the connotations and stereotypes associated with them in human culture. (Subject matter reference)

 

Strauss, Walter L. The Complete Drawings of Albrecht Dürer. Vol. 2, 1550-1509, Abaris Books, Inc. 1974.

This volume of Dürer’s work outlines his perception and artistic style of the nature world. It has a focus on animal and biological studies, with many pieces consisting of animal profiles to refer to. It also outlines Dürer’s romantic tendencies within his art spanning over a variety of subject matter. Dürer is also one of my artist mentors. (Visual art reference)

 

Weiss, Jeffrey. Mark Rothko. Contributions by John Gage, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, Barbra Novak, Brian O’Doherty, Mark Rosenthal, Jessica Stewart, and The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., Yale University Press, 1998.

This collection of Mark Rothko’s work highlights his use of abstraction and color as a way to convey emotional response and spiritual content. Although it is not part of the official Romantic genre of art, I feel that the heavy themes of the sublime and spiritual connection have relevance to what I am trying to investigate. His use of minimalist form and color in something I hope to incorporate into the background of both of my pieces to add depth and highlight the forms depicted in the foreground. (Visual art reference)

 

Webb, Todd. O’Keefe: The Artist’s Landscape. Twelvetrees Press, 1984.

This photographic collection of Georgia O’Keefe’s work and environment in which she worked is essential to one of the perspectives of romantic nature I am trying to investigate: The American Southwest. It includes visual references of landscape, animal skulls, and other objects related to the content I am referencing. I hope to look closer into O’Keefe’s actual work as a reference for my project, but this helps gives context into what O’Keefe was trying to convey in her work. The deeply contrasting images of subject matter and form will be useful in my studies of her. O’Keefe is another one of my artist mentors. (Visual art reference.)

 

Final Project Proposal and Studio Plan for Week 6

Revised Question:

In what ways and why does humankind romanticize objects in Nature?

My intention with this project is to investigate idealization and archetypes of different objects found in Nature. I am hoping to look into this through a variety of perspectives, (both personal and external), culture, and geographic relevance in North America, and why this phenomenon happens.

Some follow up questions that will help me dig deeper into the subject are as follows: What is Romanticism as a verb? How do these perspectives vary from culture to culture? What about from person to person? What are some examples of this seen visually in art, media, and stories? What are some consistent themes of romanticization? How does this apply to me? To society? Does this idea correlate to multiple different styles and genres of art? What is the sublime? What is humankind looking for when engaging in this act? What am I looking for when engaging in this act?

Studio Plan:

I hope to accomplish at least two paintings of animal portraiture mixed integrated with still life studies of skulls that relate to themes of Romanticization and human projection by the end of term. Each painting will be 18×24 inches, rendered with precise realistic detail, and varying color schemes. Each painting will investigate the idealization of their respected animal being portrayed, and contrast each other via differentiating archetype. Some of these contrasting ideas could be: 1. Good vs. Evil 2. Pure vs. Corrupt 3. Innocent vs. Trickster

Supports: Two 18×24 stretched canvases, one primed with an Indian red ochre acrylic paint, the other with a deep red violet acrylic gesso. Both should have varying organic texture.

Technique: Vibrant underpainting, Grisaille, mixture of indirect and direct painting. Some instances of glazing. Use of complimentary color schemes, each painting containing it’s own unique scheme pertaining to theme/archetype it is depicting. Although I want these pieces to have a naturalistic feel within their styles, the use of juxtaposing color schemes will be deliberate to show different ways in which the content can be romanticized or perceived.

Subject: Romanticization, stereotypes, archetypes, cultural significance, contrast, sublime, Nature, symbolic interpretation, human relation with nature, human interaction with nature, life and death, good vs. bad, pure vs. corrupt

Matter/Imagery, Content: Portrait of Mule Deer (Doe), Portrait of Coyote, studies of Mule Deer Skull, Studies of Coyote Skull, gradient background, expression through color, stylized background depicting environment, implication of landscape through abstraction.

Style, Form, Scale: balance between skull and animal, heightened value relationships, figure/ground relationships, cropped imagery

Productivity: I hope to have an outline of composition and basic underpainting (grisaille) done by the end of this week (Sunday) on both pieces. I also hope to further my idea of each color scheme, and plans on how to achieve the amount and range of colors needed for each piece by Sunday as well. Supports have already been stretched, primed, and painted with the most basic underpainting of colored gesso.

Genre- German Renaissance, European and American Naturalism, Photographic painting, South/Northwest Contemporary

Constraints: I originally planned on doing three pieces, with the third consisting of commentary between two the contrasting archetypes depicted in the other paintings, I’ve chosen to go down to two pieces with just the separate investigations of each one due to the massive amount of information each painting could hold in itself. I’m confident that the audience will naturally compare and contrast the pieces without the added personal interpretation. I’ve also gone down to two because of the simple fact of time, and because of my desire to fully investigate each painting separately through concentrated technique and style. I will limit myself to controlled unique complimentary color schemes for both as well, due to my tendency to get lost in the process of mixing paint.

2 Artist Mentors: Albrecht Dürer of the German Renaissance, and Georgia O’Keefe of the Contemporary American Southwest

Long Range Goals: I’ve been creating portraiture and figurative work of animals since I was a small child, and have always been drawn to what the symbolism of these animals means to myself through personal experience. My body of work throughout the years has had consistent themes centering around animals and symbolic meaning. I never stopped to think why I’ve done this, or how my perspective is interpreted by others. I’ve also had a tendency to subconciously idealize or “make things prettier” than they actually are, which has given my work a “fairytale-like” tone to it without my consent or intention. I hope that by doing this project, I am able to have a better understanding as to what my previous work is about, and how to control these tendencies and content for future progression. I also hope that by understanding other artists’ and peoples perceptions of the same subjects, I will be able to broaden my scope and experience with these stereotypes and animals, which will in turn give my work more external meaning that is relatable to an public audience.

 

 

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