A World, Illustrated

Kate's digital notebook of Fall Quarter 2018

Category: Assignments (page 2 of 2)

Weekly Reflection for Week 2: Still Life

October 12, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Week 2’s themes were centered around the usual concepts that are key to a basic still life. We looked into value, form, and spacial awareness within a composition while working with charcoal and acrylics.

Our assigned homework included the Introduction and Landscape chapters of Painting Today, the introduction and chapter one of James Elkin’s What Painting is, and two podcasts that introduced artist Stanley Whitney.

These articles and podcasts help stimulate internal thought for me about skills that are useful before the act of painting has even begun. Color mixing, choosing medium, and what you want to say in a painting is just as important as the act of painting itself, and these assignments set the stage for development on skills like this.

5 Terms:

Scumbling: Dry brush technique

Claudianism: Romantic, pastel landscape style characterized by Arcadias of Claude Lorrain

Indexical: something that has a direct connection with its origin

Icon: Something that looks like something else

Symbol: Something that refers to something else

5 Skills

Acrylic painting on paper

Framing work (associated with still life)

Annotation/close reading of live lecture

Value and Proportion work (associated with still life)

Wednesday critique of week one’s work.

The combination of acrylic medium and value scales was a difficult technique to apply onto still life work for me. Because of my perfectionist tendencies, acrylics seem to be an especially hard medium for me to engage in due to their drying time and texture. In a way though, this helped me get more involved in the process, as frustrating as it was. I excited to continue our investigation of still life into an oil medium with more flexibility and varied technique next week!

 

Week 1 Landscape

October 4, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Weekly Reflection for Week 1:

(see previous post for photos)

In this week, we covered a lot of area, both literally and physically. Our class went to Fort Worden and covered concepts involving landscape, abstraction, and color theory.

Our readings were from the authors Thek, Bois, Anderson, Kandinsky, and Cocker. Many exercises that were given on the retreat were beginning warm ups to art. We did an array of blind contours including facial and spacial content, both individual and collaborative sound maps, as well as a few color blocking exercises.

Five terms:

Acousmatic listening: Listening to sound with your eyes closed.

Reduced listening: Listening to the traits of the sound itself.

Style: Intentional

Voice: Unintentional

Alchemy: similar to painting, the act of creating something completely new out of “nothing”

5 skills:

Wet on wet watercolor

Mixed media work on paper

Reduced and acousmatic listening

Painting en plein air

Blind contour

This week was a whirlwind of information and activity, and jumping right into it all was a effective way to retract any doubt or reluctance at trying new technique. I feel as though my attention to the subtle differences in color and detail has needed a refresher, and the color blocking exercises and blind contours were a great resource for this. I do wish I would’ve spent less time trying to work on being a perfectionist, and more time focusing on the process of the assignments. It takes time to break the habit though, and I can feel myself becoming conscious of the process a little more with every assignment. I’m hoping to continue the focus and devotion I have for the class in the future weeks to come, and hopefully move to more complex subject matter here soon.

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The Evergreen State College
Olympia, Washington

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