11.03.13 MIAD Field Trip

On our field trip to the Third Ward and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, I was able to see so many inspiring objects and pieces of art. It was so nice to be able to walk around and admire all the things that I find so intriguing to my eye and things I think could help my artwork grow.

One of the images I captured from MIAD really interested
me was this one, with the yellow and blue paint. The colors
really contrast and I like the way the artists used an expressionistic approach to painting the face with blotches to create the facial shapes. You can tell it's a face, but you can't make out the exact features and I think it creates somewhat of a mystery for the viewers.

 This image of the cow I thought was actually quite cute. I liked how the cow had a stick figure body, yet the head was rendered and and the background was rendered to appear realistic as well. I think that the artist was trying to say something about our perception of cows or maybe how things can still be simple, yet complex. Overall it was one of my favorite pieces at MIAD.

 This painting was actually one of the first ones I saw at MIAD. It was a huge canvas with really realistic rendering. The animal cookies looked so real, they made us all hungry when we walked by! I liked the way the artist put so much paint on the canvas to render. The paint was really thick and helped contribute to the texture of the cookies and I think the gold, metallic background really brought out the colors and detail put into the cookies.

 This sculpture was in the Kate Gingrass Gallery and I found it really humorous because it was a cat lady -- literally, a woman made out of cats. And the detail put into the cats and the woman were just impressive and so realistic.

This picture of the street in the Third Ward was just really cool. I thought it'd be interesting to get the destruction of the road surrounded by the beauty of the buildings of the third ward. I actually think I might use this scene for my cityscape in our next project.

This was from the store, Anthropology. It's a sculpture of books used as almost a headboard for the bedding on display. I think it was really intriguing with the colors of the books and the way they were staggered. I found it really inspiring because of the way the sculpture filled the space and caught my eye. 

09.23.13

This week we are working on our "Pick Three" project, which is exactly what it means. We picked three cards: one principle of design, one media, and one type of art. I got collage as my media, variety as my principle (perfect pair I know), and expressionism as my art type. I'm actually starting to get excited after looking through Mrs. Bjork's pin boards on Pinterest. I was also inspired by the expressionism a lot -- which is just expressing your feelings through the art work like Pullock and Picasso (his blue period is some of my favorite work).  For this project I really want to focus on expressing my feelings through this piece while still having variety and hopefully a good collage piece. I want to also use paint for my helper media and possible a little colored pencil. Here is my brainstorming on my Pinterest and a list of places I did my research:

• http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/Expressionism.html
• http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_information/220229.html#sample1
• http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/expressionism.htm
• http://www.pinterest.com/bellafiore3/

09.03.13

Here is my feedback for the websites Mrs. Bjork asked us to visit for class.

1. http://artsboard.wisconsin.gov/ - I found this website really interesting. I didn't realize all the different kind of grants that are given out for art students. It makes me jealous of the opportunities art students have to receive money for their hard work and dedication. I was really intrigued by the artist fellowship award which gives out $8,000 in scholarships per student, but it is only open every two years. I also liked how the website has access to art news throughout the state, and the directory of art shows and craft shows is a helpful tool that would be nice to use to see other people's work.

2. http://artsboard.wisconsin.gov/ - This site really awed me. The work on here is amazing. One artist, Amy Arntson, does watercolor paintings, and I couldn't even believe they were watercolor. They look like photographs! It really inspired me because I would like to learn how to paint with watercolor and learn how to render and be so detailed with watercolor like that. I also always wanted to try oil painting and Jeffery Hargreaves's work really caught my eye. His rendering style and detailed work is amazing. His still life paintings look almost real. I want to be able to master the concept of thick over thin when dealing with oil paint. Here is some of their work:

Grandfather's Time - Jeffery Hargreaves 

Vanilla Bottle - Jeffery Hargreaves

Echo - Amy Arntson

Evening Sun - Amy Arntson

3. http://www.artandwriting.org/ - The artwork on here is even more amazing because it is made my students my age. I was really impressed with the details and amazing rendering on some of the drawings -- the work looked so realistic, it makes me want to become so much better. I think it's amazing to know there are people out there my age with so much talent already and maybe I'll have to work a little harder, but if I put the work in I will succeed and become better. Here is some of the work that really stood out to me:

Mr. Neal - Stephen Barnes

Senior - Lauren Bruton

09.02.13

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I have eight finished works for the summer! Yay! for being a little ahead in at least one AP class! I think this summer I have really learned a lot, using a different rendering style that I think is really successful. I also learned a lot about proportion when dealing with facial features. Here are some of my finished works so far:

08.12.13

Today I tried something different, it was a new style of rendering with colored pencils for me. I usually like to use lots of layers and make everything very bold and vivid, but today I was lightly rendering with colored pencils, for a more soft look and I really liked how it turned out!

08.09.13

So I have totally sucked at posting on the blog -- please don't kill me Mrs.Bjork! -- but I'll get you up to date with what I've been working on. I took a trip down to Utrecht art supplies in Milwaukee and purchased some oil pants, canvases, brushes, and colored pencils so I could start working on those summer projects. I'm really excited to start those actual pieces of work compared to the sketchbook work. I find it so hard to be creative in my sketchbook and I have no idea why. So far I've chosen to do for my projects the friend of family member in full color trying to capture their mood and personality, the fully rendered plant, and the shiny objects where you have to capture the reflections. So as soon as I finished those I'll post them and start doing some more! I also have to start posting the online work with the websites, so I'll get on that soon!

I also went on vacation up north so here are some inspiration pictures I took -- which are also on my flickr -- and some pictures from the beautiful Third Ward from my trip to Utrecht. I just love the buildings and the feel of the city.

07.05.13

So this week I visited Design Xchange -- a home decor store -- and found some inspiration for my sketchbook. I took pictures which can be found on my flickr of things that I found inspiring, such us textures, other pieces of art, and glass pieces. I decided to play around with one picture and did a sketch in my sketchbook. The original picture was of a saddle, so I used the design of the saddle and incorporated some of my own design into the sketch, and then I added color. It's pretty abstract looking, but I like how it turned out, especially with all the contrasting colors and bold lines.