Category: Art

Random Notes and Sketches

5/1/2011

Sketch of Mimi

After reading the art 2: blog, Teaching with Rochelle Feinstein by Joe Fusaro, http://blog.art21.org/2011/04/20/teaching-with-rochelle-feinstein, I searched through some of my very old sketchbooks and came across from notes, and sketches. While I don't think I will use the abandoned art as suggested in the art 2: blog – I found some notes and a few insignificant thumbnails sketches I thought I'd share.

Although I wrote these notes down, they are not my words but the words of various art professors who will remain nameless, because I cannot recall who said what during various art classes from years ago. Neither can I remember what I might have thought at the time that these words were being spoken, but I did indeed write them down perhaps because I thought them valid, or because I thought them odd. Who knows? What I do know is that as I looked through them today, I found some to be rather narrow-minded, but amusing nevertheless.

ART: It's passionate quality lies in the subject matter as well as the very dramatic use of light and dark.

REALISM: Historically, abstract and realism do not work together. All realism deals with random, an extension of random is everyday. Realists (most) must understand what they're drawing. They know their range and are not inventive. They accept the world that they live in, often homebodies. Realists give people something they can draw from, something tangible.

MARKS & COLOR: Consider consistency in your marks, i.e, soft marks, fluid marks, hard marks. White does not bridge, it separates. Consider using red – it stops. Or yellow, it slows down. Black does not represent "real".

DRAWING & SKETCHING: Don't throw away your sketches. Consider using elements of drawings that worked in other drawings. The faster you work, the more likely you are to capture expression. Perspective does not exist in reality – it was created to give illusion. One point perspective in less dynamic than two point perspective. When drawing a room, never use the edge of paper to divide a room. Renaissance – worm's eye, Impressionism – eye level, Contemporary – bird's eye.

ARTISTS:
Baldessari: conceptual artist - deals with everyday phenomena https://artsy.net/artist/john-baldessari
Caravaggio: realist painter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio
Claudio Bravo: hyper-realist painter http://www.claudiobravo.com/en_biography_1.html
Martin Puryear: sculptor http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/28
Diego Velázquez: painter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Vel%C3%A1zquez
John Singer Sargent: painter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Singer_Sargent
Joseph Cornell: sculptor http://www.josephcornellbox.com
Hieronymous Bosch: painter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch
Alice Neel: painter http://www.aliceneel.com/gallery
Hollis Sigler: Chicago http://www.hammergallery.com/artists/Sigler/sigler.htm
Lucien Freud: English http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/freud
Seymour Rosofsky: Chicago https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Rosofsky

Thumbnails from An Old Sketchbook.

0 Comments

Some Call It Morbid, I Call It Art

4/2/2011

0 Comments

Years ago while visiting family in Mexico City, I went to the Palacio de Bellas Artes where they had a fabulous exhibit of contemporary Mexican artists. I enjoyed the exhibit tremendously – it was great stuff, no doubt, but I cannot recall the names of any of the exhibiting artists. However, what I do remember vividly from that visit to the museum was the name of Juan de Dios Machain, a late 19th century Mexican photographer known for his post-mortem photographs of children.

His photographs were not on display; they were in an Artes de Mexico issue entitled El Arte Ritual de la Muerte Niña, Numero 15, Primavera 1992. I found the photographs so evocative that I bought, the now tattered, and partially unbound issue of Artes de Mexico (seen below are two from that edition). The photographs were initially disturbing, yet they compelled me to look at a subject matter, most often considered morbid, in a very different light – not as morbid, but as beautiful surrender. So moved by his photographs that I began a series that addressed death – the ultimate surrender, and the death of children, which later evolved into loss of childhood. The paintings were monochromatic and painted on canvas using thinned out oil paint – all inspired by Juan de Dios Machain's photographs.

These two small paintings are from my Angelita Series, Oil on Canvas (Private Collections)

0 Comments

Inspiration...

2/3/2011

0 Comments

I started working on an assemblage called Intangible Sweetness. The subject matter isn't pleasant but it is something I am compelled to express. I suppose one could call it inspiration. Last year while looking at illustrations in The Night Before Christmas, I came across one that I liked. You know, one of those old fashioned illustrations reminiscent of seemingly innocent times, which are long gone. The illustration depicted two little girls in bed, and as the story goes, "the children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugar plums danced through their heads". How sweet, I thought, and wouldn't it be grand if that were always true. As disconnected as this might seem now, at that particular moment, my thoughts went to a woman, who as a child, was sexually abused by her father. Because of that abuse, she was psychologically and emotionally broken, and she still is. She turned to crack, became an addict and as a result of that addiction, made a series of bad decisions which landed her in prison.

For all intents and purposes, the woman, is a child – the crack was what she used to not only escape, but to attain that sweetness denied her by her abuser – the sweetness of childhood. The assemblage speaks to this subject matter.

0 Comments

Random Notes and Sketches

Some Call It Morbid, I Call It Art

Inspiration...

Archives

Categories