A slight diversion :)

Last night's work with tiny brushes is in special honour of the special honour I'll receive later on today - I'm a new British citizen :)

It's also Australia Day, and to my new cousins, I salute you!

Ouch.

"I used to have a lot of fights. It wasn't because I liked fighting, it was really just that people said things to me to which I felt the only reply was to hit them" (Lucien Freud)

Some days I feel JUST like that, but I don't hit people anymore.

Self-portrait with a Black Eye - Lucien Freud, 1978. This painting is expected to sell for about £3million at auction this week...

The image kind of creeps me out because the eyes look all rheumy and I'm not sure what his mouth is doing. It could be smiling, lying or eating cake for all I know... and what I don't know is what the whole face means.

I'm not sure if I like this painting. At any rate, I wouldn't like it in my house staring at me all awkwardly and half-hidden. So I'll save my £3million for something else :)

Some you win, Some DeLeuze

Tom and I went to our first private view showing for the opening of a new exhibit put on by MA students from Central St. Martin's (London).

I'm really glad I went - it was good to see what fellow students are up to. One of my art friends, Ben, had a piece in the show (a video installation), something about comparing/contrasting various cultural sources to "uncover...the instigation of a binary gender system in society" (a sort of "how did it get to THIS point" question and trying to dig out the answer).

I felt his piece (two projections - one a white man, the other a black woman looking out, looking at each other, looking away, etc.), as just one step in Ben's study, was quite effective in giving the viewer an opening into the idea that the distinctions between man/woman, black/white, gay/straight, are not quite so distinct as many of us think they are or would like to believe.

I myself tend to being a very black/white thinker (eek! no shades of gray!), yet Ben's piece put a little smudge on THAT kind of thinking... his work offers the suggestion that labels, especially where humans tend to label other humans, these are not so clearly defined.

bits of paper

Today's projects involved the themes of Tranquility and Anxiety.

As I worked on these two collages, to illustrate further the themes, I tried to also incorporate the idea of "opposition", i.e., taking that "tranquility" is the opposite of "anxiety". At the same time, I tried to make it clear that the two pieces, in fact, work together, by using similar compositional elements. For example, the shapes of the grave stones on the left closely resemble the shapes of the buildings on the left. Similarly, the dark/black "trees" in the cemetary piece are similar to the dark/black buildings in the city piece. These elements clarify the two pieces as a distinct pair.

Taking one piece at a time:

1. "cemetary, early morning" - I chose soft/pale, cool colours (purples, greens, blues, beige) to complement the theme of tranquility. These colours typically have a calming effect. Also, I can think of no place more peaceful than a beautiful old cemetary at dawn, with the early sun giving the sky a periwinkle glow, and not even the tree branches stir. Perhaps this scene is one of rearly springtime, where there is new grass or a bit of snow left on the ground.
   
2. "city, late evening" - For this piece, dark and harsh colours were chosen, as well as obvious contrasting hues of blues and oranges. Contrasting colours seem to create a certain energy, and these garish colours give a negative nuance to the piece. The orangey-gray-black clouds lend to the negative atmosphere and seems to reflect a kind of orange light on some of the buildings, which definitely suggests some kind of foreboding. Also, the lines of light (as car headlamps and tail lights) show the cars are moving, perhaps too quickly.

I tried to use combinations of elements (colours, shapes, and lines) to contrast and compare the themse of anxiety and tranquility: harsh/soft, dark/light, strong/pale, angular/curved, evening/morning, future/past, etc. On the whole, I feel these compositions were successful.

One other note on these pieces: I used a pile of greeting cards, post cards, and wedding invitations to make these works (every one of them was a card I have received). I have not only recycled paper (yay! save the earth!), I have also hidden forever the sentiments and memories contained inside the cards, but these are not lost - they have only changed form, and I have made a new memory.

The next project will be to paint these compositions... stay tuned!

-- kelise72

Colour wheeee e e e e e e e e e e e e e!

In not-so-many words, it seems that I have slightly failed at colour wheel 101. (I'd give myself a B-, LOL). I mean, my tutor didn't SAY anything; he just sent me an additional "colour info sheet" (with another exercise). So I took the hint and I've done another wheel, which I think is more successful. I guess this means I'm not allowed to just use the paint from the tube then? :)

Mixing colour is SO HARD. And I could spend all day and all night doing it.

Turner, JMW

A couple of us girls went to see the "Turner vs. The Masters" exhibit at the Tate today [insert hero's anthem of choice here, playing faintly in the distance]. Though I'm no art expert and I can appreciate the guy had skills, seems to me like he was a bit of an arrogant chappy and always trying to one-up Rembrandt and Titian and those Dutch fellas who painted lots of boats.

Where was his originality? Or even, his FEELING (the ones other than the"Anything you can do, I can do better" feelings, I mean). I don't get why he was always copying other people's work... sure, all artists borrow from the past or their contemporaries at some point or another but why the dead obvious duplication? Just to prove he was just as good? (The fact that he was from a modest upbringing may have something to do with it?) On second thought, props to JMWT for his success in self-promotion, something many artists fail to do... and no one knows or cares about their work until they've been dead 50 years. But I digress...

My favorite paintings of Turner's are his later ones, like this one "The Snow Storm". You may not even see the boat in the picture, may not even guess without looking at the title that this is a picture of a storm at sea, but the chaos and sense of foreboding is very clear. I love the mash-up of colours and shadows, all competing and over-riding each other in a big noise that I imagine what the sound of fear must sound like. A lot of his later work (e.g. the one above painted in Venice) is like this, less troubled by trying to be better than some other dead master... and instead just going for purer expression.

http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/

-- kelise72

I've graduated to colour!

My tutor finally let me do a colour wheel... I'm pretty pleased with myself, not least of all because I got to dust off some memories of high school trig to come up with the solution to the age-old question: How DOES one draw an equilateral triangle in the middle of a circle? Ah...without a protractor or a compass?

Answer: First of all, EVERYBODY knows an equilateral triangle is formed of 3 60* angles, and sides of equal length. Length is easy (use a ruler). Then use folded paper to figured out the angles. Here's a tip: The edges of any piece of printing paper form a 90* angle. And who says that artists don't need math!

Anyhoo, here is my nifty colour wheel -- the primary colours in the middle, the secondary colours along the edges of the primary triangle, with the tertiary colours on the outer circle. Notice how OPPOSITE each colour is its complementary colour. :) And now you know why certain colours seem to go so well together, it's because "opposite" colours placed next to each other seem to jive. Something like the "opposites attract" theory ;)

These were great exercises to get me thinking about palettes, say, for a particular painting – do I want to use warm or cool colours to convey not only a subject but a certain mood or emotional state? What colours do I want to blend or use along with other colours in order to give the painting a certain energy or even, calmness. What colours shall I use in order to convey lighting (or shadow)? How shall I use colour to illustrate depth or distance?

All of this is to be considered when developing a painting, not just composition of the objects on the canvas, or perspective, or size. In my opinion, the composition gives a painting strength, and colour gives a painting life.

Live life in colour, I say!

-- kelise72

White stuff

I couldn't resist two posts in one day... but I thought this one turned out pretty cool. The brief was to draw "white objects" using a technique the Italians called "chiaroscuro" (light-and-dark)... and what's whiter than a pith helmet and afternoon tea? ;)

Here's how it's done:

- draw the objects using a single contour line (mind negative spaces!)

- draw the shadows, again using single contour line to describe the edge of the shadow

- fill in the shadows with dark charcoal (it will kind of negate some edges of the object at this point)

- smudge/muddle the entire page so, except for the darkest shadow, the page is now a dim gray (this really "flattens" the image)

- finally, pick/rub out the lightest parts of the objects (the highlights) with your eraser. If necessary, you may want to darken some of the shadows again with charcoal to accentuate the contrast.

In short order, the objects now seem to "pop out" in 3-D.

Fun times!

-- kelise

Que sera, sera

Woke up this morning with the sinking feeling that I woulda-coulda-shoulda have written my Personal Statement differently. It's the thing that will get me an interview before the admissions officer even looks at my portfolio. Garrrr! I definitely worry too much, and I can't stand the suspense.

Anyway, at the moment, I'm studying facial expressions (the final project hasn't really crystallised yet so I don't know what I'm aiming for... but it will come to me eventually). For starters though, I have my trusty anatomy book in hand so I can see what muscles of the face are involved in the making of facial expressions. And let me tell you, after several hours studying muscles and bones, I am really put off eating chicken for a while. Seriously.

So here's what I came up with yesterday in a coffee shop... the facial expression on this figure was unintentional but ended up describing my mood these days: trying REALLY hard to be patient and positive, and feeling really vulnerable at the same time. Or it looks like a meditating Zen Buddhist monk...

Until next time,

Kelise

Intro

With a big fat assumption that I will be accepted to art school, I was going to wait until I'd actually started school to start this blog. But I thought, what the hey, no time like the present! This journey started today when I handed over my envelopes containing applications, to the nice lady behind the counter.

<---- This is what I looked like today in the queue at the post office. (a.k.a. bag of nerves). Those of you who have not seen this one on FB don't know I drew this self-portrait with my right foot.

Anyway, my mission for this blog is to:

- share my journey with anybody who wants to read in

- gain feedback and hopefully start dialogue on my work from a wider audience

- practice writing about my work, my thought processes and motivation

- have a bit of fun

I may entertain once in a while and when I'm not faffing about, I may even challenge someone to consider another point of view.

Ok, it's really mostly about the having fun on at least a monthly, hopefully more often, basis (if I have something to say that is).

'Til next time!

Kelise