Glitter Gals

Glitter Gals, 40" by 40", oil on canvas, 2013

Shoes Off the Upholstery

Shoes Off the Upholstery, 40" by 40", oil on canvas, 2013

Your Name In Lights

Your Name In Lights, 40" by 40", oil on canvas, 2013

Better images!

Bought a new flash card for the digi camera I'm using so now I can post a half-decent image of And That's The Tooth.

And That's The Tooth, 36" by 60", acrylic latex and acrylic on canvas, 2013

Detail = successful drips!

Assignment 04 results

And That's the Tooth, 36" by 60", Acrylic latex and acrylic on canvas, 2013

A lot of good responses from my class critique today for my final painting in Art 212. My favourite comment was that this painting tests the viewer's assumption of what a (figure) painting is. The viewer assumes at first glance that it's a figure painting, but as the viewer is lead through it, they begin to question whether it is a figure or abstraction and the space shifts from right up to the picture plane and back. A viewer can empathize with the pose but the mask-like face, ghosty leg, thin torso, monstrous hands and feet, and missing foot stop the viewer from "understanding" the figure. It jars expectations and creates a type of mystery. :) I'm very pleased!

Assignment 04: Proposal

Self-directed Project Proposal

During the course of this class, I’ve become increasingly interested in the middle ground of painting between high representation and pure abstraction. I find the idea of freeing colour, pattern, or texture from the form very liberating, but I still enjoy recognizable (if ambiguous) forms in a painting. I’d like to try to create a figurative painting using an additive and subtractive approach (visual weight) in the same lines of Philip Guston. I would also like to explore the use of gestural, active, expressive marks to shape a figure and space that plays with the nature of the 2-D vs. 3-D battle in a painting. The imagery will be based on a remembered pose and environment (waiting in the reception area at my dental office for a check-up). I have done a series of timed (10 drawings at 5 minutes each) from a few source photographs to ingrain the form in my memory, but I will not paint from a direct reference.

The three artists I wish to use as reference are:

Dana Schutz

Philip Guston

Willem DeKooning (1940s)

What I hope will result is a painting that features a figure that encourages an ambiguous or fragmented narrative and an obvious visceral, material response. In a way, this project will be a summation of what I’ve learned in Art 211 and 212 and will point the way for me as I continue on in my own work. 

Assignment 03 results: Elation

Elation, 64" by 40", acrylic latex mixed with acrylic on cardboard, 2013

Process images.

Session 1: intuitive marks, trying to find a rythme, ended up white washing overtop

Session 2: finding some of the major shapes, playing with other imagery, destroyed this one aswell (pretty much) 

Session 3: main shapes in place, more or less, checker and binary marks idea introduced

Session 4: Now just a matter of orchestrating the elements, finding balance, meaning of the painting presented itself

Session 5: Floral pattern introduced, subverting the idea of "decoration"

Session 6: orchestrating the green hues (that was so fun!!!)

Session 7: painting was almost there . . . just needed one more push

I found this assignment both liberating and exhausting but I'm very pleased with it. I think what I'm going to take with me the most is the idea of visual weight: trying different things in the painting and making choices on what to keep after seeing how it looks, being conscious about making the choices, and satisfied in the knowledge that in a sense, this is a way of checking your work (like redoing a math problem backwards to verify it). 

I love the acrylic latex house paint! You can cover large areas in very little time and the process of changing the hue with added acrylic paint is a wonderful exercise in colour mixing. I would like to continue using these materials! (maybe I'll try on one canvas next time :)

Assignment 03: Action

For this assignment, we will not have "subject matter" but instead will start by making a set of intuitive actions with paint on the surface. These marks become the subject matter of the work and will be built upon in subsequent passes. The idea is to get the painting to a level where we think it looks good, then push a little more until it looks awful, and then stop the end of the session. We are then supposed to take a break and then come back to it so that we come to it as a viewer and not as a painter. Then we start the next session . . . for a total of eight (ish) sessions.
With this in mind, I decided to do a little research into the work of Robert Motherwell, one of the leading and articulate abstract expressionist. He uses the surrealist method of automatic drawing, which is the act of using an intuitive and free-association technique to build an image (letting the brush go and do what it wants to) and builds a painting from that. I found this image interesting.

I'm intrigued by these images because these gestures are meant to be read as gestures, but also evoke a certain amount of representation (solar flares in particular) and also a light, airy state of being. I don't think my assignment will be as light and airy . . . but perhaps it would be a good spin on the project? I'd also like to explore the use of cobalt and cool blue in the painting.
I've decided to go with a cardboard support again and acrylic latex house paint. Little did the person in my building who purchased the new patio table and chair set realize that their garbage would be recycled into my assignment lol. I feel like the joke might be on me though as it looks like my cardboard panels are warping a bit. (I applied a PVA (lePage) glue and water mixture to seal up the "raw" side of the cardboard. I'm hoping some gesso on the back will counteract the warpitude!)

Assignment 02 results

Stitched, 40" by 60", acrylic latex paint on cardboard and packing tape, 2013

Kline cliche

To avoid my assignment becoming a cliche on Franz Kline, I decided to use a vibrant yellow and a cool grey. Also, I added some stitch lines to evoke the idea (and fact) that these gestures are stitched together. The brush strokes aren't showing up here (crap camera) but the cardboard is interrupting the surface of the image just enough to make you unsure of what is happening.
It's funny to note how much a slight adjustment to the angle of a stroke can put the whole thing off balance!