Can you tell the difference? I finished my final drawing last night and really liked how it turned out! I think I really started to understand Salvator Rosa's mark and I think I did a pretty good job of replicating it in my copy of his sketch. Every part of my drawing isn'y completely perfect, but I really feel like I learned a lot, and have improved so much over the course of this project. Doing pen and ink was a scary thought, but I am so proud my hard work and careful process paid off! I'm excited to get started on my self portrait now, I feel like I really have a deep understanding of the mark and will hopefully be able to portray it in my self portrait!
I am proud to say I was finally brave enough to start marking my paper! Now that I have a nice clean outline of my figure, I am so excited to continue working on replicating Rosa's mark. So far, I have worked with a couple different marks, more straight, linear lines as are seen on the draping of the fabric to the left, short, hatching lines to create different values in the legs, and finally, simple black outlines. I am doing my best to try and create a similar look to that of Rosa, even if every single line isn't exactly perfect! I'm actually really happy with how it has come out so far, it was TERRIFYING putting my first mark on the paper but I'm so glad I did! I still have a lot of work to do, but now that I'm getting the hang of this I think it will really start coming along!
Athenaeum, a half painted portrait portraying George Washington from the shoulders up. Stuart began painting this portrait in 1796, but never finished it, for reasons unknown. However, years later, Stuart retained the picture and used it to make over 130 copies in which he sold for $100 each. These many portraits came in to conflict with Stuart later in his life, when Stuart disowned the portrait. The direct reasons for the disowning of the portrait are unknown, but many believe it could be due to the unfinished state of the portrait, Stuart's embarrassment of the technique in the portrait, or even that it was a ploy to gain more wealth and recognition on Stuart's part. Even though it cannot be 100% confirmed that Stuart is the artist of this portrait, he is now recognized as the artist since he appears to be the most likely suspect.
This issues raises some very controversial questions in the art world. Disowning a work is not a thing of the past, many artists still choose to disown their work today. This topic brings people to question, "if an artist disowns a work, do we have an obligation to honor that disavowal?" This week has been somewhat successful, although I really need to work hard this coming week to get ahead in this project. I successfully put a wash on my paper, BLUE not yellow! I love how it turned out, I feel like the shade works so well with my drawing and blue gives the drawing the right feel. Unfortunately, during my wash, all of the original drawing I had done of the figure disappeared, so in a desperate attempt to gain some of it back, I projected my image and took down some of the key points. I'm actually really happy I did this, projecting my image helped me to really draw my figure more accurately and avoid large, awkward features. It also helped me to really enhance the detail on the draping around my figure's waist, and I absolutely LOVE how this turned out. I have been practicing my mark on a scrap sheet on paper nearby, and have found the perfect pen to use, so I am excited to get to work on my mark tomorrow! I'm a little nervous, but I know I can do it!
For Storage and Bins and Years of Practice Rachel Sawan White Oil on canvas Fun fact about this artist: she was the art teacher at my middle school! I know this might seem like a kind of cheating way to get out of this assignment, but hear me out. For the four years I spent at Orchard House School, I enjoyed art class with Ms. White, but never took the time to truly appreciate the work she did outside of the classroom. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even know what her style was, as she taught us about so many different artists and techniques that I thought she probably did everything! I finally looked at her website only a couple weeks ago, 6 YEARS after meeting her, and was blown away by her work. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before; the use of colors together, the fact that the shapes are all amorphous yet seem to work in harmony, and the unique names she came up with for all her paintings, examples being "The Perfectly Stationary Bridge" and "Don't Argue With Stable Furniture" all come together so incredibly perfectly, I'm in love. What's so fascinating about Rachel White is that she has never felt unsatisfied by the opportunities to show her art in Richmond, and has lived here almost her whole life working and creating art to present at private shows and small galleries. She is content with using her art to simply give back to this community where she comes from, and does not care about status or wealth in the art world. She happily teaches art to middle school girls every day, helping them to find their passions and develop important skills, but also creates her beautiful art on the side. I was amazed by the sheer amount of paintings Rachel White had displayed on her website, as well as the many she chooses to only show at private galleries. Her work ethic and passion is apparent in her work, as well as her happiness to help others learn about art as well. I have been truly lucky to know this amazing artist, and hope you love seeing her art too! PLEASE check out her website, it's incredible! _ "A study in what I have hidden from you""No backgrounds are white in this life""Over and over the difference between drowning and rising"D. Westry may just be one of the most amazing artists I have ever seen in my life.
I began watching this video with low expectations, it appeared that D. was simply painting random blobs on a canvas and trying to pass it off as art. However, the last 10 seconds of this video amazed me. D suddenly flipped the painting around, revealing an amazingly realistic yet modern portrait. I loved it! I decided to research D's work further. From my reading, I discovered that D has been working and perfecting his speed painting skills since the 1970's; his average painting time is 4-6 minutes. D is very influenced by popular culture and patriotic images, and often paints larger than life images of familiar patriotic symbols and celebrities. These painting remind me a lot of the work of artists like Jeff Koons and James Rosenquist, with large, brightly colored images and symbols. It was so interesting to see how these themes could be carried over into such a unique and different style of art like D's! This video is just one example of D's amazing talent at work. D combines both his love of visual art and performance art in his career, often working with entertainment companies and appearing on television shows to promote and share his art. This combination of his skills had led D to be one of the most well-recognized faces in speed painting, and has made the concept of speed painting more well known throughout America. I love that D takes such a unique and different approach to art, I've never seen anything like this before, and I hope to discover more artists that do this style of work! I loved learning about the Neopop artists like Rosenquist and Koons last year, and finding an artist that shows such similarities to their work in such an exciting way is so fun! I love Ed Trask. It's odd, because I'd actually met him before, but hadn't realized he was the one who did all the amazing murals around Richmond that I love so much. I remember last year when I visited his studio as an art two student, I was fascinated by his passion and his crazy, AWESOME ideas, but it was incredible to learn more about him at the recent art lecture. His attitude about life is so inspiring, he always loved art and music and knew that was what he wanted to do, and he never let anyone with other ideas stop him. His go-for-it attitude makes me feel like I can accomplish something similar with my life, and I would really like to be able to talk to him more about how much he inspired me. Going back to Trask's artwork, his murals and other works of art are so beautiful. Something I've always loved about Richmond are the ways it finds little ways to incorporate art into the community, everything from small roadside concerts to traveling art exhibits to my favorite of all, the murals! One of my favorite murals in Richmond (seen above) was done by Trask, and I never realized he'd done it until his lecture! It felt almost surreal; it's odd because those murals are always there, always prevalent, but many people simply pass over them during their day to day lives. Meeting the man who put the time, effort, and heart into creating this beautiful work of art makes it seem all the more real, and I've started to gain a new appreciation for all the murals I see now in Richmond, whether I know the artist or not. I hope one day I can accomplish some of the things Trask has, he seems to have so much fun! I hope I get to create art on a large scale someday like Trask has, painting murals would be such an amazing experience and I would absolutely love to leave my mark on my community in a way that makes others happy. I hope Ed Trask continues to make murals all around Richmond and elsewhere, his love of art inspires others to discover their passions as well, and creates connections all over the world. Doing the same thing over and over, is the definition of crazy |