One of my studies that received positive feedback from classmates.
My goal with the 30 studies was to find a way of working that would communicate various social issues that I want to paint. At first I was getting a little ahead of myself by thinking of the process before I zeroed in on a specific idea. Once I decided on a specific idea, the studies became easier to do.
My low points came with deciding an idea. I knew that the semester is not long enough to do many different kinds of subject matter. Especially since I want to do social issues, which may require me to do a series of paintings to cover the complexity of those issues. Once I settled on the idea of schools, in general, training students to only care about making money and not training democratically minded people, I knew that coming up with ideas for the studies would flow more freely.
One of my studies that received positive feedback from classmates.
However, even with going with a specific idea, coming up with the methodology for creating the work was still a challenge. I come from an illustrative background where artists have to communicate an idea quickly and directly. Since this is a fine art assignment, I had to be more subtle with my message and make sure I’m not too blunt and obvious.
I decided to split up the 30 studies by roughly half, compositions and textures. The first half would have me work on the idea where I would create thumbnails and play with compositions, colors, and the overall look of the paintings. I basically treated these first studies as an illustrator uses thumbnail sketches to work out an idea. The next group of studies had me concentrate on just the process of communicating my ideas. I used many different watercolor mediums such as permanent masking fluid, ox gall, lifting preparation, and others to explore how I can manipulate the watercolor to achieve more methods of communicating ideas. Finally, while making these studies, I would do research into the subject matter I wanted to do by reading news articles and developing a greater level of understanding of the subject. I felt that the research helped me most of all in generating ideas for my paintings, and answering vital questions such as how I was going to represent the subject in paint, the “actors” in my piece, and how to set an overall tone for the paintings.
My second sample of textures.
Sample of textures.
I have some contemporary artists I’m looking at that have processes that I have found interesting and may use as inspiration as I proceed with my paintings this semester. I found most inspiring the art of Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans. Both of their works feature social commentary with figure work, especially Marlene Dumas with her commentary with the figure. Their work can help me come up with ideas with how to paint photograph like compositions. My only criticism, and I think this criticism is a result of me being more familiar with the illustration world of art and not the fine art side, but I feel that I want their messages to be a bit more transparent. The illustrative part of me wants my viewer to not feel lost to the meaning of a piece, especially if the subject involves social commentary, where misunderstandings can easily happen the deeper into the subject an artist dives into. I plan on my project being a series. With future pieces, I want to integrate the use of backgrounds into the images, to break up the purely figurative work. Kelly McLane is an artist whose landscapes I find to be beautifully rendered. The works shows her great drawing ability. She carefully selects where to put color and which colors. She isn’t afraid to leave parts of the painting without paint. I’m inspired to try this selected use of color in my compositions, while leaving places I also want to maintain parts of the piece where my drawing would show through since I’ve been told I have a good ability to draw. The last artist I was looking at for inspiration was Aaron Morse, who has an illustrative quality to his work that I immediately admired. The use of color reminds me a lot of japanese prints, which I am a fan of. The use of color still feels alien to me. I hope studying Aaron Morse’s work can give me some inspiration for my pieces.
Work of Luc Tuymans.
The work of Marlene Dumas.
The work of Kelly McLane.
The work of Aaron Morse.
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