Still Life

Taking an online class through The Academy of Art in San Francisco in composition in painting, which so far has been fantastic. Very traditional, learning tons of information that I'm going to be able to bring to my students. Quite wild to take a class online...have to be self motivated to put in the work, there's no actual class so you have to figure out the time to do it...it's really up to you to make it successful, get as much or as little out of it as you can.

This was from the first assignment, to do a "pattern painting" from ambient light. It's not about contour lines, but more about the shapes that the colors make...more complicated then that, but that's the short explanation. Since I don't paint all that often, I have to "relearn" it as I do it, and it really is a pleasure seeing how it takes shape. That's whats so amazing about painting- one day a piece you make can be a masterpiece, another day a piece can be crap, you never really know what to expect. Plus it takes TIME, not like photography which is instant gratification- it takes TIME to draw, to paint, to get the proportions correctly and angles right and shading not too much or too little...but at the same time it's so gratifying when you get it right!

Self Portrait

I'm going to be working with my drawing & painting students on self portraits, so figured I'd do one myself on the paper they're going to work on, to see how it works out, whether it's too big, the paper weight is okay, etc. I was happy with the line drawing (although the left eye is a bit low) and so figured I'd scan it in photoshop and see what I could come up with.

This piece was done with the sharpen edges, then find edges filter, and beefing up the contrast/ color etc to get a sepia tone. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out- unusual.

Inaugural Day

Today was a historic day, one which I had been waiting the past eight years for. Our school canceled the fifth period classes so that we could watch the inauguration, such a historic event. I watched the inauguration on the gym floor with two hundred ninth and tenth graders, past and present students. I can't think of a better way to have seen it- watching it through the eyes of our future. I feel very hokey saying that, but I loved seeing their optimism and joy.

Obama!

In just one day, we will have a new president, one that I feel very proud and hopeful for. As my new father-in-law wrote to me, "Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk, so Barack Obama could run, so that children could fly."

I did this image in photoshop using a CNN image as reference.

Great Quote

"Sometimes it's not what you work on, it's that you're working"
Kiki Smith

Minature Photograph

This was so fun! I loved making my photograph look like it's a minature model! I found the tutorial here http://www.tiltshiftphotography.net/photoshop-tutorial.php

Music and Art

My students never cease to amaze me! One of my favorite classes to teach is Multi Media Art, because the kids are so excited to learn the new technology of photoshop, excited about photography, and I'm constantly learning from them too! Yesterday, during our art critiques on their work inspired by the work of Warhol, one girl did a self portrait with the image of Taylor Swift on one part of the artwork, and images of hearts on the other. When we got to her work, she asked that we play a song on the ipod speakers of Taylor Swifts during her critique, and I was so amazed that the artwork was about the song and the song was about the artwork! WOW! Talk about getting more of the senses involved, I was so impressed!

Finished Painting

Here it is-
Integrated the photo transfer more into the painting, so it's not so "here it is, a photo transfer, stuck on the painting!"
Added pencil marks into the photo transfer, covered part of the other photo transfer with paint, added darker values onto the drawing as well as deep blue colored pencil. I'm pretty happy with it and excited to do more pieces with the same theme.

Skeleton Painting/ transfer

I saw this illustration of a skeleton in an old National Geographic, and knew I had to use it in an artwork. I used matt medium on the image side of the magazine and a piece of watercolor paper, used a brayer to evenly distribute the matt medium and waited for it to dry. I then used a damp paper towel to get the back of the magazine page peeled off and show the reversed image.

The skeleton drawing section is from life from the one in class- by the way, I'm so glad I got one for the art room! It's one of my favorite art supplies I purchased for my art classes! I used HB, 2B and 4B pencils and a tortillion to get the values.

The background is in acrylic, using burnt umber, titanium white, burnt sienna, yellow ochre and hooker's green. I first did a layer of flat paint to match the magazine background color. I then, while still wet, added darker accents of burnt sienna and burnt umber and mixed it. To add some visual interest, I added some hints of cadmium red. I also had experimented with painting on top of masking tape and removing it, to add some three dimensional quality to the artwork.

I think I may continue to work on this, integrating more of the drawing with the magazine.

Photographic Transfer using Matt Medium

Finally! A successful photo transfer onto watercolor paper.

Over the weekend, I experimented with several layers of matt medium onto the magazine photograph itself and peeling off the back over the weekend, but it was ripping the photograph. I finally stopped peeling and got a not-so- cool thin layer of the photograph, and it would have been just as easy to put modge podge on top of the image and putting it into a collage.

SO with this, I put four layers of matt medium, waited for it to dry, then put a layer of matt medium on the watercolor paper and a layer of matt medium on the magazine image. Brayered it, then waited it for dry. I then peeled off the back with a wet paper towel and my fingers, and voila!

Figure Drawing

Did figure drawing last night at The Hopper House in Nyack, where I have a painting studio. I'm lucky, I know! This is my favorite of the bunch- done in gouache on 140# arches cold press paper with a calligraphy pen. The drawing is of a series of two minute poses, and the ground was already done in watercolor. I'm thinking of continuing with the idea of preset ground and letting the drawing sort of evolve within it.

I love experimenting with several different techniques whenever I go to the open studio...most of all, I love learning what works/what doesn't. I'm definately enjoying teaching AP art and seeing my students experiment and what they come up with! We had a critique today of work in progress and one student just blew me away with her use of materials. WOW. She did a self portrait in colored pencil, graphite pencil, and sharpie, and her sense of perspective, mark making, and drawing skill was outstanding. Well, more then outstanding.

Weekly portrait challenge

Myself and several other photo alum have gotten together to do weekly photo challenges. For the month of January, the topic is self portraits. I thought of this while driving home from work and looking in the rear view window. Done in digital photography and manipulated in photoshop, mainly using the Transform and Erase tool. I thought it came out nicely, albeit a bit disturbing! I call it, "The Scream."

Photo Image Transfers

Experimenting with photo image transfers using matt medium, not something I've ever been successful at, but I've also never experimented thoroughly enough with it. I found a great tutorial on you tube and wanted to share it-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyHCQo36u4c

Gotta love youtube for art tutorials, what a great find!

This is a photo transfer I made from using matt medium on a inkjet photograph and a canvas board. I used a layer of matt medium on both the photograph and the canvas board, then put them together and burnished the back of the photograph with a hard surface- actually, a piece of plexiglass, which was what I had on hand. I first tried to peel it off when the matt medium was still wet- didn't work at all. So I let it dry overnight and was happily able to peel it back where most of the image transferred to the board and some ripped off altogether- probably because I didn't put a thick enough layer on it. I've shown a part of the image transfer so you can see what it looks like with the realism versus the raw board- kind of cool actually!

Monoprinting

Today I did monoprinting with my students, trying out something new for both of us. I've done it before with oil based monoprint paint and a press, so I was curious to try out the water based monoprint paint I had ordered. Happily after a few trials I got a very cool result, to which I added pastels for more detail. Since I don't have thick printmaking paper, I used watercolor paper which worked nicely but did show a lot of the texture from the paper= which can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

I first did a thin layer of monoprint base on a piece of plexiglass, and waited for it to dry.
I then did a painting, using thick layers with not too much water, on the plexiglass and also waited for it to dry. (the drying part is time consuming).
I kept a piece of paper in a shallow bucket of water and pulled it out and patted it dry with a paper towel.
I then took the damp piece of paper and positioned it on the piece of plexiglass and used a baron to evenly rub the paper over the painting, and slowly took it off.

Happily, there was still a ghost image on the piece of plexiglass, so I was able to reuse the painting and change it for the better- more blue there, more paint here, etc.

Since it was plexiglass, I was also able to use a drawing for reference underneath the glass as a jumping off point, a good way for the kids to try something in a non- threatening way.