We can work on paintings in a number of different methods as well as speeds. At certain times, it may be advantageous to plan and work slowly to develop an idea and then execute it. At other times, we may need to break out of that structure and work quickly and intuitively. Creating paintings at a faster pace will activate different artistic skills as well as provide us with an opportunity to test many ideas.
For this project, you have been supplied with 7 small masonite panels to create one painting each day for a week. Technically, it’s not necessary to start and finish one painting every day- and some people may prefer to start several at once. There are no stylistic, thematic, or subject restrictions and it is not necessary to be consistent in any of these ways, so you may shift from style to style. It may be useful to plan if you have many ideas, but the goal of this project is to uncover what you may be attracted to artistically in a less conscious way. Bear in mind that we will use these experiments as a springboard for your independent projects immediately afterwards. While these paintings are more experimental, they should still represent a high-quality product at the conclusion of the week.
Consider
What artistic skills do we use when creating paintings quickly?
How can we use the painting medium in order to create work at a faster rate?
Afterward, what consistencies do you see in the 7 paintings either stylistically or content-wise?
How can these paintings help us to test ideas and decide on longer projects?
Materials
All.
Look at
Karl Baden
Artist photographed himself every day for 20 years.
*****
Painting Without Paint
Project due Friday March 13
Blog posting
Due Tuesday March 17, 1 pm
Create a written response, and create it as a comment under the project post in response to the following question. Your response should be a thoughtful and well-written description. 200 words.
• What did you define as the essential qualities of Painting? Why?
• How did these qualities influence the way that you devised your project?
• What did you notice about the process for creating it? Reflections upon completion?
• What did you observe in your peers’ work?
If a painting can be created without paint, paint is not an essential part of painting. It all depends on what one considers "painting". It is all about personal opinion. I believe there is some flexibility as to what is painting and, at a certain point, it becomes sculpture. Essentially, a painting must be a 2-Dimensional image with some sort of medium on a surface.
ReplyDeleteMy wax project on masonite would be considered a painting, taking into consideration that a painting is what I have defined it as above.
The way you arrive at the piece does not really matter, only the finished project. For example, I can use just the melting candle, or melted wax and a brush to create and still get similar results.
I think my peers had a different sense of what the essence of painting was. I'm not saying that any interpretation is wrong, in that it is an interpretation, but what I would call sculpture, others could call painting. That is something interesting to look at when thinking about the project.
I had a tough time deciding what exactly I wanted to do with this project. I am interested in mixed media. When looking at art in museums, I tend to be drawn to pieces that have something more than just paint. I came up with many ideas, more than what I actually wrote down. However, most of them did not get at the essence a painting. Reexamining my ideas, I decided that melting crayons would be the closest to what a painting really is for me. I was also excited about redesigning a craft that I use to love in preschool.
ReplyDeletePainting is about colors and strokes. It’s about shapes and shadows. Most importantly, a painting should make the viewer feel an emotion. A painting should create an experience, although this experience can be different for each person. Without the color and strokes or the shapes and shadows, a painting would not be able to create an experience. And why would people enjoy art if it did not create an experience for them?
I knew with the crayons I could get all of these things. I had a multitude of colors, which I could use to make shapes and shadows. Before when I was toying with the idea of a collage, I was missing the freedom of using different colors to create a mood. This is one of the reasons why I decided to go with the crayon idea than the collage.
I had a lot of funny creating these pieces by melting crayons into shapes of produce. It was difficult at first because it is working in a totally new medium. I had to work with the crayons, figure out what worked and what didn’t. I found out that I needed to heat the surface up before instead of melting the crayon drying that was already on the masonite. I found out that it works better if you rip the wax paper off quickly rather than slowly pulling it off. My favorite part about working in crayons was the fact that it forced my to paint loosely and quickly. I didn’t have much time to think about what I was doing because the masonite would cool and the crayons would not melt. Coming from painting Frida (twice), it took me awhile to get use to this style, but by the end I loved it. I hope to try to incorporate the loose stroke into my future paintings.
I liked how fun this project was. I felt like no one took a serious take on it, creating playful images. I like the experience I get when looking at other people’s work.
-I think that painting is a very broad term, and I realized in class just what a large amount of mediums a “painting” can be done in. A painting has light and shadow, colors or just shades of one color, and shapes and forms. Personally, I prefer paintings that have an imagine in them rather than something abstract, and something that provokes an emotion in people, but just as a definition, a painting is a relatively flat work of art on something similar to a canvas. There are so many other ways to define a painting, though.
ReplyDelete-I wanted to work with something that I’d never worked with before, so I thought crushing up pastels and sprinkling them onto a canvas would be fun. I then changed my mind to spices because I thought it would be more unique. The qualities I defined for a painting were reflected in my work because it uses colors and shapes on a flat surface and hopefully provokes an emotion.
-My painting ended up being a lot different from what I expected, I originally wanted a lot of the white background showing and the marks the spices made to be a lot lighter, almost like splashes of ink or something. But my canvas ended up being completely covered with spices and I think it looks really good! The only think I might change about it would be changing the composition so you could see one of the cat’s ears. Other than that, I’m very happy with how it turned out.
-I thought everyone else had really interesting ideas! I especially liked Christine’s idea of ironing wax paper with crayon on it for a really nice melting/blending effect. I’m looking forward to see everyone’s finished products in class!
I would define the essential elements that make painting what it is as the use of colors. During this project I focused intently on the use of colors and which color work well together. I chose to use fabric to paint a picture inspired by Georgia O'Keefe's work. I wanted to try to imitate the incredible intensity of the colors that O'Keefe uses in her work. The fabric allowed me to use blocks of solid color and really focus on which colors should be side by side.
ReplyDeleteThe process for creating this piece was interesting. Because I was working with fabric and not paint there was no intricate blending or shading that I could do. I really had to divorce the elements of color and composition from all other aspects of painting such as light and shading and blending. I enjoy working with fabric and embroidery thread. It is insanely time consuming but the product is very satisfying.
The difficulties that I had were in choosing the composition of the piece. I had studied some of Georgia O'Keefe's work and picked out elements that I am attracted to such as her very flat Mid Western landscapes and the floating object in the foreground of some pieces. I was very aware of complementary colors and chose a very simple juxtaposition of orange/brown against a light blue sky. The Flower is where the detail and complexity is worked into the piece. I enjoy the simplicity of the background with certain areas built up more. The texture of the fabric is not representative of paint but I enjoy the tactileness of the piece and would like to try and incorporate more texture into my paintings.
The ideas of everyone else's work was incredible and so varied. I just love the Sock sheep and painting with crayons is so much fun. I think that everyone was really very unique in their choices and can't wait to see the final products!!!