FInal Blogpost

my piece

I first came across Pierce Voltaire's pieces in the NC Museum of Art. The french painter travelled around France, and used his keen sense of observation to paint ports, volcanic eruptions, etc. Looking at his painting The Eruption of Mt.Vesuvius, I liked how he captured the naturally bright light illuminating the sky and the citizens who were interrupted from their day-to-day activities. His painting inspired me to create a realistic, detailed painting, that would also use the effects of moonlight to illuminate the scene. My painting also answered the essential question of "What is small?" I wanted to depict a natural scene and let the viewers come to a conclusion on their own, just like Voltaire painted with honest depiction and open-mindedness.  The scene in my painting shows a small ship lost at sea, in the midst of harsh powerful waves. The dark night-time sky is illuminated by the moonlight, and the white clouds and thick fog cover the ship's mast. Voltaire's work helped me grow as an artist. He showed me how realism in painting can successfully capture a powerful scene, evoke emotion, and cause the viewer to think. The meaning we often try to convey through our paintings, doesn't have to be forced or painfully obvious, simplicity and honesty can achieve the same results in a better manner.

what a beauty!

(http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/867/pierre-jacques-volaire-french-1729-1799/)

Kellie's masterpiece

The other artist I was influenced by was Worth Kellie, who painted The Blue Parallelogram displayed at the NC Museum of Art. The piece was just a geometric shape, painted in a simple blue. To be honest I didn't really like the piece, it was exceedingly plain and boring, and I felt like the artist could have given the project more depth. However, I like how he chose to explore geometry in conjunction with art, and I wanted to explore this through the Teen Inspire project. I drew a triangle, and within that I drew 4 more triangles, and within those ones I drew three more triangle each. This new shape was complex, and I cut out all the negative space with an exacto knife. I painted these empty space

taking the idea further

triangles with a variety of bright colors, like yellow, red, orange, blue, purple and green. The piece came together really well, and I have Mr. Kellie to thank for that. He showed me that while you might not like the content of a piece of art, sometimes the idea behind it is what's more important. When the idea appealed to me, I explored it and let my unique ideas shine through.

Communication Project

The original painting

Being a perfectionist, I've always tried to tell myself that the amount of effort I've put in is enough, and that I should stop trying so hard. Yet, as my frustration grows with the task at hand, I only try harder. I hate this, and wish I could tell myself to stop being a perfectionist. For this project, I wanted to communicate this idea through my art work. My initial idea was to quickly paint a couple of paintings, instead of spending all the time for this project painting one meticulously (remember the ship?) I imagined that the paintings would turn out to be amazing, and that they would be done in a fraction of the time (what a perfectionist thought, right?)

With this mindset, I started on my first painting, one of pears. I had found a similar painting done on Pinterest and o wanted to recreate it. But I was tied to idea of creating the pears exactly like the reference picture. My frustration grew as I couldn't capture all those highlights of yellow and white and the dark values with brown and blue. I finally realized that I had to let go of my ideals and just paint in my own style. I got rid of the yellow on the surface where the pears sit, and blended the blue shadow under the pears with the red background. I also invluede D more green on the pears than the original painting had.

My version

This painting took the entire duration of the project to complete. I had hoped to complete this painting quickly yet perfectly, and it was disappointing when that wasn't the result. I felt like I succumbed to the perfectionism streak all over again. But I now realize that you can't plan everything out like I had initially hoped too. You end up fighting your flaws in the place you least expect to, and for me that was deciding to toss the picture of the original painting in the trash, and paint with the color scheme  and style I wanted, even if it didn't look perfect.

NC Museum Of Art

At the NC Museum of Art, the piece I liked the best was The Eruption of Mt.Vesuvius by Pierre Volaire. The painting beautifully captures the eruption if the volcano, and by including Italian civilians clustered around the bridge and ships in the background, you can perfectly visualize how this event interrupted the lives of those around it. I also like he portrays this event at night. The dark sky is illuminated in a bright yellow and orange, and makes it awe-inspiring to look at it. The realistic effect, and European style painting techniques come together nicely!

Orange Outline by Franz Kline kind of fell in the middle for me. I'm not a huge fan of abstract art, so I had to look closer and let it slowly appeal to me. I like how he used brown, yellow and orange, to take a simple black-and-white painting further, while still maintaining the overall minimalistic effect. I like how his strong brush strokes are evident in the painting, because the texture is interesting to look at.









One of the pieces that I didn't like was titled Winter 1946. The artist uses a dull green color that dominates the painting. I would have liked it better if he used more colors for a fuller overall
effect. I also don't like how this scene is captured from a bird's eye view at an uncommon angle, because it makes it awkward to look at. However, I must admit the shadow in painting falls in a way that I would have found hard to capture through paint, so good job there.

non traditional art

For the non traditional art project, I had wanted to do embroidery. I learnt it back in 8th grade during a visit to India. I had done it only a couple of times since then, as it's not that popular of an option in America. The first few attempts at my embroidery project werent that good...I didn't have a solid idea to work with and it was tough embroidering on denim. It wasn't until Ms.Lorenzo did the print making stations that I had an idea!

Print making was a quick and easy way to get a picture down on paper. One of the block prints I printed appealed to me. It left a little negative space on the paper, and it gave me the idea of embroidering in that space. In this way I was able to combine non traditional Japanese art (printmaking) with non traditional Indian art (embroidery)....what a double whammy!!

In my piece of art, the filled in floral pattern was printed with red ink. Embroidery floss of different colors surround it

Post modern Principles Project

Okay, so I gotta admit: the essential question project took a long time to complete...Maybe, it was huge canvas or the ship that took forever to paint. So, when the post modern principles project was introduced and everybody else started working on it, I was still figuring out which colors to use on the waves. When I (finally!)  finished, our class was starting on the nontraditional art project. Not sure of what to do or how to explore these post modern principles, I gladly skipped over to the newest project. It was only when I started embroidering a zonkey, that I realized that my project was less of non traditional art and more of appropriation - one of the post modern principles. Apparently, it's not so easy to "skip" over a project... -_-

The zonkey is an "artist steal" from Mr.Sands. He has so many zonkeys up on the wall by his computer, and they have all been done in different mediums. It could be prisma colors, paint, spray paint, or even wood (for a 3D effect)...you name it, the zonkey has been done in that medium . In the midst of all this variety, I had to ask myself how to "steal" the zonkey idea and make it my own. Since I love doing embroidery and it hadn't been done before, appropriation became the aspect of my post modern principles project.

What I like about this project, is the bright colors and how they contrast beautifully. It was nice to return to needlework after last having done it during frshman year, and see how it enhanced the zonkey's look.
However, what I didn't like was that the cloth I used (jean materials) was hard to embroider on. This made me frustrated very quickly, and led to some hasty work. It was also difficult to shade on the zonkey. I've heard that you can cross stitch or use a gradient of thread colors, but it was hard to apply for me. I tried to shade on the left side of the zonkey's head, but the mix of white and blue thread didn't turn out well.

Comments-Zonkey

I love the subject and colorful theme.-Liah

The stitching is so well done and very neat, i can see that it's a zonkey. -Shelby

Embroidery looks awesome!-Brooke

I like the idea of doing a zonkey -Kris

I don't know proper embroidery technique, but it looks really good! -Skylar

Your zonkey is so cute.  I just want to cuddle with it.  Way to go, love Claire

love the colors and wish i could embroider....are you ready for our physics test today? -Olivia

OH MY GOSH this is so cool. I love this so much!! the use of colors looks so great!! -Hannah

The best art supply store doesn't sell

Since my younger brother goes to the newly made elementary school in Apex, his art teacher recently sent home a list of "art supplies" that the school would like to have. Looking at it, I saw most of the traditional redundant supplies that we've all used in the past: acrylic paint, poster paper, color pencils, oil pastels and such. Even now, as a high school student, I mostly use the same materials. At the beginning of most art classes and summer art camps, most of the art teachers will let us know what supplies we should get on our next trip to the art store. So between now and then, when do we get to exposure with non-traditional materials, and come with creative and equally artistic work?

If we step outside the box, and look away from the popular art materials that have been used over and over again, we'll find that art can be made with many of the common everyday objects as well. For example, instead of teaching kids how to paint objects, why not let them use the ones they have to create a painting? In the picture above, the artist reused the toy cars she had played with as a child to create an abstract piece of art. She was still able to focus on the different values of the colors, contrast, and design. By using a non-traditional medium, she was able to gain an appreciation of the materials she had and their characteristics, while using her creativity to bring them together in a cohesive manner.

Taking a different approach in choosing your medium, also lets you convey a stronger message. Take the example to left. It was found on a website that supports endangered animals. For the artists, the main question was how to make a strong impression on their audience that would elicit care and action. Instead of painting the animals locked up in cages, or taking sad photographs of them, they took it a step further. they painted the endangered animals on large pebbles that they could hand out as paper weights. the animals appear crouched in a little space. That was the only way they could fit, and it conveys the message that endangered animals are being forced to uncomfortable lives in smaller habitats.

Using unique art materials and objects, allows you to pursue the true focus of art ; creativity. It takes  away the refined artistic lens, and lets you look at objects anew and wonder how you could use it to make art. Maybe you'll look at pensive person sitting, and instead of snapping their photo, you'll use them as your subject and paint over them for a 3-D effect. Or instead of teaching little kids how to draw pictures of their toys, you let them explore their options. Maybe they'll apply different colors of paint on their teddy bear and press it down on paper like a stamp! Or you can use old objects lying around the house, like rotary phones to create a sheep sculpture. What used to be the curly wire, now forms the fluffy body of the sheep, and the phone handle is the curved feet. In addition to creating unique art with new materials, you get to explore their form and structure and determine how it could enhance the 3-D effects of your artwork. Could you get all that at a typical art-store?