I have posted some pictures of some of the art work I’ve done over the past school year, but I thought that now that I am done for the year, I could now do a series of posts of all of the artwork I did this year. I’d do just one big post, but that would be a ton of photos, so I’ll break it up by class, starting with Painting I.
I liked Painting I quite a bit, but didn’t like that painting didn’t come as easily to me as drawing and printmaking had. I’m pretty happy with most of my finished paintings, so in the end I enjoyed it, but it was a bit of a struggle to stay motivated throughout the class.
Our first assignment was to choose a Manet flower painting and copy it, changing or adding one thing. I chose to change the background color, which was much more difficult than I had originally thought it would be.
Our next assignment was to take three objects, create an interesting arrangement, take a photograph, and then use that photograph as the basis of our painting. I chose to use my violin, my sketchbook, and a spool of thread, to symbolize the things that are often forgotten when I am productive in other areas of my life. Those things that I no longer “have time for”. It is titled “The Casualties of Productiveness”.
Our third assignment was to choose a historic nude painting, crop it to our liking, then reproduce it, adding a tattoo of our choice. I chose Bouguereau’s Biblis and added a feather tattoo, primarily because it seemed to fit the space I wanted to place the tattoo in the best. I think this was my best painting all year.
For our final assignment, we could paint anything we wished, but were encouraged to push the limits in terms of originality/content. After much thought, I decided to do a political piece about eminent domain and the reservoirs in my area (which provide clean drinking water to millions of people living in New York City but have negatively affected my area and town on a very large scale). I had written a 10-page research paper on the reservoirs and eminent domain my freshman year of college and it is something I care a lot about. The image is of an abandoned house underwater, symbolizing the homes’, and thus the lives of the people who lived there, destruction. There is a tattered American flag, which symbolizes the freedom taken away from the thousands of people forced to move and give up their livelihoods for “the greater good”, despite other options (if you’d like to learn more about New York City’s reservoirs, I encourage you to read Liquid Assets by Diane Galusha).
And that’s it! Next up: Sculpture I.
The Oke Den 