Painting 212: Assignment 01

Woot! Start of a new term in painting! Our first assignment is called Translation. Part one of the assignment is to keep a visual journal for one week. We will translate things that we are thinking about, feelings, events, things that we would write in a journal, into drawings. (14 drawings minimum ie. 2 per day). We will bring these drawings into the next class and switch them with another student. We will then translate their drawings into a painting by deciphering the meanings, events, and compositions.
The key for this first part is to make drawings about loaded subjects and keep the meanings ambiguous.
We talked a lot about Basquiat's work. His paintings lend themselves well to the idea of a translating imagery and ideas from various sources and combining them to make something new. Old ideas through a new mind. All ready I'm a little nervous about this one. I'm considering moving away from the pristine, smooth, white canvas and using found wood panels that have texture or some kind of imagery on it with house paints. First of all, I need to find something, and then secondly, how do I do this without being a hack? I'm not interested in making a "Basquiat" but I want to do something that will really take me out of my comfort zone. So the idea to use a unconventional support has something to do with being a foreign object to the class/studio situation. Bricks, bins, doors, windows, suitcase . . . I have to watch it though. I'm not making a sculpture. I'm making a painting. I guess we'll see . . . I don't want to force the issue if it doesn't suit the material I get next week ;)

Poison Oasis, Jean-Michel Basquiat