Artist Statement

I love to paint. I have been making art for almost my whole life. A few years ago I started to really enjoy painting. It's relaxing, meditative, and really fun for me. When I am mixing colors, it feels great once I get to that one perfect color that I have been trying to create. Putting the paint on the canvas and creating something that wasn't there before, something that comes from inside of me, is exciting. I like to experiment with applying the paint in different ways so there are different textures. I also like painting with lots of color. In the past, I have painted the beach, the sunset, houses, the skyline, fruit, and many other things. I am still learning how to paint, but practice makes almost perfect. I am excited about painting in my future.

Process Reflection #2

I finished my sketch on the canvas. I have painted everything under the window. Next week I will paint the window and the trees. Also, I got this idea of editing the photo of the window it many different ways, so there are many pictures of the window that look different. I will make a frame from all the different pictures with effects, around my painting.

ART 21 REFLECTION #3

Mary Heilmann

- She is a painter who uses lots of bright colors to communicate and make an emotional connection with the viewer. She also uses words in her titles to further the communication. She often uses photos for inspiration and as part of her work. Through abstract painting she communicates ideas and feelings that were simple yet strong.
 - I really like her paintings because I felt like I connected with her/them. I especially liked the painting she did called Capistrano (the blue painting below). It looks exactly like something I would paint. I love painting with lots of color like she did. I am also hoping to use photographs in my final project painting.

 

Elizabeth Murray

- Her work is big and bold and very colorful. It is made up of cut up shapes that are fit together and then painted with very bright colors. There is a kind of tension in her work and it is very playful. She describes her paintings as a sort of game. She questions herself and her work a lot, but in the end, seems pleased with the final painting.

- I liked her work because I also like painting with bright bold colors. I also liked how she smudged some of what she painted to make it look kind of softer. It almost seemed careless, but in a very careful way.

Progress reflection

So far I haven't done much. I have made a sketch on some printer paper as you can see below. I also made the frame of the canvas and painted the canvas white so it will easier the paint on later on. This coming week, I will make a sketch on the canvas and probably start painting.

ART 21 REFLECTION #2

Jessica Stockholder

- She is a sculpture and instillation artist, creating sculptures to fill a particular space. She paints with very bright colors and uses many different kinds of materials such as toys, plastic, light bulbs, automobiles, etc. She thinks that her art gives pleasure and is fun. She seems to make a statement on modern life and consumer culture. Her work seems disorganized and organized at the same time.
- I really liked the bright colors that she used. I thought her use of objects and paint and composition were pretty interesting. However, I probably wouldn't want to buy her work because it's too big and while it's fun to look at, it's a little to loud for my taste.

Ellen Gallagher

  She uses a variety of materials to make what she considers to be very "whimsical" art.  She showed 3 pieces and a video. Her first piece was Penmanship Paper Paintings where she took pages from old Ebony Magazines and made a grid from them and then painted on it. She also did a piece having to do with water and one called Marking Isaac Hayes where she took a photo of Isaac Hayes and put tattoos on him and colored in his eyes white.  Her videos were very strange, where she does alot with light and each frame "disappears with the next frame".  I liked her work, as it was extremely unusual and fascinating to look at.  Her work is not easy for me to understand but it appeals to me because some of it is funny, like the face in the video that keeps transforming itself.

 

Final Project Planning

     I really enjoy painting so for my final project I'm going to make a painting. One Idea I have is to paint the the photo below. Or at least drawing the window with the trees and sky. I might change some of the colors like the sky. I would want to make it a bluer color. I want to do it on some kind of thickish canvas.

Sketchbook reflection

      I loved working in my sketchbook. I got to experiment with so many different techniques and materials. I got to practice drawing, painting, making collages, etc. I was also able to use it for brainstorming Ideas for projects throughout the year.


Materials/techniques I used multiple times
- I painted many times.
- I made a similar painting 4 times, but they were a different each time. The paintings kind of looked like the ocean.
- I did many drawings.
- I had some collages.
- A couple times I did this doodle thing which is a page filled with shapes, overlapping each other.

Year reflection

      I had a lot of fun in Art class this year, and learned many different things. At the beginning of the school year I really didn't like drawing. Throughout the past 2 terms, I began to enjoy drawing a lot more. Because we drew once a week, almost every week, at least in the first term, I feel I have gotten so much better at it. I especially like the drawing I did of the pile of sticks. Another thing that I feel I'm good at is painting. Something else I realized this year is that I love using so many different colors in my paintings, collages,  and sculptures. In the future I will keep drawing and painting, not necessarily as a job, but for fun during my free time.

ART 21 REFLECTION #1

Susan Rothenberg
- She always dirtied her colors before painting. Sometimes she had a theme, or a series (like horses) and other times she did not feel inspired to do a series. She loved to use the colors red, green, and white. She doesn't like to get to "literal" about things and she wants the people looking at it to have to think about it. She wants to tell a "truth", and found much beauty in nature, such as a dragonfly and a snake. She often painted from the perspective of looking down. Sometimes it took her a long time to finish a painting, and sometimes it took 2 days.
- I liked her series on horses and found them to be cool looking. I wasn't a huge fan of her "dirtying up the colors," as I like bright and pure colors.

Kara Walker
- Her art is often about past events and times in history. She also deals with race in America and power.  A lot of her art has been about the "unexpected." She makes silhouette's cut out of black paper so you can't really look directly the subject and many of them have to do with taking away power. She also uses overhead projectors to light her work. This creates shadows so that the viewers shadow in in the picture. The viewer is important to her work. Her work is based on fact but is also very dramatic.
- I thought her work was interesting and clever but didn't feel a real connection to it.

Symbolic Clay Sculpture Portrait

     I am going to make a clay animal about my dad. I chose to do him because I am really close to him and I thought it would be fun to figure out an animal like him. He is nice, smart, and when he was younger he ran in races. In theses races, instead of sprinting for parts of it, he would run at a slow and steady pace. This reminded me of the tortoise in the book the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race.
    I will put the turtle on a soccer field with a soccer ball under one leg. I chose a soccer field because my dad likes playing soccer, coaching sometimes, and managing my teams.

  

Sybolic Portrait

I'm doing the portrait on my brother Murray

- I chose him because I am really close to him and I know so much about him.

Things about him:
   - reese's
   - soccer
   - music
   - Mexico
   - Pimpsticks
   

Materials:
- paint
- drawing
- collage

Visiting artist: Hamlett Dobbins

      The painting I liked best is an untitled painting from "First Draft (a collaboration with Tad Lauritzen-Wright). I like it because it contains so many different colors. I can recognize things in the painting, such as faces and the words. It's also complicated and seems to be about a couple communicating with words and facial expressions after some problem.
      His work seems to have a lot of color kind of like this painting. It fits in the paintings in "First Draft". They are all very colorful, many have faces, and they all seem to have to parts which are connected.

Q: Since it says that "First Draft" is a collaboration, what part(s) did Tad do, and what did you do?
A: Tad did the outline of it. It took maybe like 30 seconds. The picture on the left was originally holding a gun, and the picture on the right had his hand up. Hamlett got rid of the guns and the the hands. Hamlett also put in the color.