BFA Graduating Senior Exhibition

Rob Woolley and Sara Jones have been "immersed" in preparing for their BFA Thesis exhibition. It opens on Thursday in the Barr Gallery from 5:00 - 7:00. We will be meeting at the gallery instead of the studio for the first 45 minutes or so. Anyone else out there not in class at that time should also come check out this excellent exhibition. It continues until May 26.

The Alternative Self-Portrait

Below are some examples of the spring 2010 Basic Drawing class's Alternative Self-Portraits. A variety of interpretations exploring self identity.

In Stephanie's drawing, she uses black charcoal with some white added in for detail and textural differences. She place the objects that had "sentimental" value to her under a bed, crammed into a tight space and then shot a photo from which to work. Although she still has a few more details to add, the composition works well for a "worm's-eye" view of the situation.

Sadie also incorporated books into her drawing, and once the suggestion of the book's titles are added to the spines, the concept of identity will become even stronger, as they will relate to Sadie's connection to the earth, spirituality, and creativity.

Natahsa's drawing captures the more flamboyant side of her personality by including vintage clothing that she likes to wear on occasion. She used pastels and colored pencils, and the layering of the colors and marks make for a very energetic surface.

Jennifer's drawing shows a "woman on the go" as someone stated during our critique. A still-life of personal objects that relate to her life and family, all situated on the passenger seat of her automobile. She used graphite and a very creative approach to replicating textures by embossing into the paper and then drawing over those textures.

Adam's drawing evoked a sense of mystery as he peered into a 'junk-drawer' filled with things he didn't even remember having. Part of the mystery of the drawing is the absence of some detail and an abbreviation of observation relative to some forms, and acute focus on others.

We're going to finish up our critique tonight with a new batch of drawings that weren't able to make it through the haze of spring break. Stay tuned....

Alternative Self-Portrait

The below images are three more examples of past responses to the Alternative Self-Portrait project.

In this one a student opened her purse and shot a photo of the contents. It created a very engaging image that has a full range of value and a wide range of information about her as an individual. A excellent response to the project.

In this image, a student who confessed to having a strong attraction to shoes, took a photo of some of her shoes pouring out of her closet.

In this drawing another student also elaborated on some of the things in her purse by arranging the contents in relation to the purse. She also added some embellishments, such as the decorative border.
Similar to the food magnification, this project will also be demanding of time and focus. However, it should move a little quicker since your drawing skills have sharpened from that previous experience. Also, particular to the project concept, some of the evolving processes should imbue the project with a stronger sense of identity, a stronger sense of self-identity. Have fun with it and if anyone wants to have a pre-crit, give me a holler.

Happy spring break!

COLOR

We got into color last night that I think produced some pretty engaging drawings. We started by just reviewing some basic terms and color theory, exploring the three characteristics of color: hue, value, and intensity, discussing the ways one can alter a colors value and intensity by adding neutrals and complements. We looked at the primaries, secondaries, and intermediate colors and how they're produced, and we talked about how cool colors recede and warm colors advance. We looked at the form above, a box covered with a lot of colorful pieces of drapery, and made note of the ways the colors shared with one another, lending and borrowing from their neighbors. Then we drew.

Andrew's drawing, sitting on top of his drawing horse, opened up some strong potentials as far as form and color, and the textural mark-making added a lot of vitality to the image.

Stephanie and Evan displayed very different approaches. Stephanie was very much about blending with soft pastels while Evan explored more aggressive layers of mark-making with oil pastels. I found all of the different approaches pretty exciting, and even though this was our first foray into color, the individual approaches that have been developing this semester manifested a wide variety of styles and processes.

Sadie's drawing was looking like a focused magnification of the form we were drawing, an interesting segment that created an intriguing composition.

Spending some time with color, with the pastels, will encourage those of you who want to explore the Alterantive Self-portrait through this art element, to push that experience and knowledge to some pretty remarkable drawings. Have fun!

Project # 3 Alternative Self-Portrait

Tonight we'll discuss our next out of class project. This project will be unique in that no two drawings will be alike, such as the food or the perspective. We'll be exploring alternative self-portraits, not to be confused with a self-portrait that involves a likeness of your physical appearance. This will involve creating a drawing of the things in your life that address something about who you are, your likes, dislikes, passions, fetishes. It may involve memorabilia or things that you've collected over the years.

Tana Tidd is very much involved with horses, and is particularly passionate about riding. She did this drawing of the "tackle" hanging on the side of a barn.

Jessica Hagedorn was a student athlete in high school and created this drawing of some of the memorabilia from those experiences.

This response was by Gilbert Garcilazo, who was very much involved with on-line gaming. He brought into class the things that he used in that activity and we shot photos, such as the one below. I though he did a very good job with the project, and especially seeing the subtle refections in the computer screen.

So you see from the above examples, there are many ways to visually express something about who we are without saying what we look like (we'll be getting into that soon enough). Alternative self-portraits can be both fun and challenging at the same time, especially when you think about the parts of your life that can be expressed through images. Our critique will be 19 days from today, plenty of time to say, "this is me."

CROSS-HATCHING

Cross-hatching is a method of drawing that describes light and shadow. The representation of light utilizes the white of the paper, while the shadow is created by the density of crossed lines. As we experienced in class last evening, cross-hatching is also very much an attitude about drawing and understanding what you see. The lines and marks we made described the forms in the still life and in some cases followed some of those forms like a cross contour, such as in Stephanie's drawing, where the lines wrapped around the large blue vase. Cross-hatching also makes you become more sensitive to mark-making. Practice in your sketchbooks by direct observation, and look at some work on-line by searching cross-hatch drawings.

Hungry, anyone?

We had our midterm critique last week, which led to many engaging insights into the drawings and the artists who created them. The large group broke into four smaller groups and wrote critiques of another group's drawings. Then we regathered as a group and discussed each of the drawings, with each group starting the discussion by sharing their observations. I found them to be very honest and giving in their assessments and I hope everyone was able to find new ways of seeing their own work to make subsequent efforts even stronger.

Jennifer, Carlotta, Natasha, and Ashley were discussing some of the many points of consideration in developing their constructive critique of four drawings from another group.

Natasha and Ashley still reviewing their group's drawings, while Evan makes a point to Melissa, Sadie, and Stephanie. Kat was reviewing with another group.

Sadie's "trail mix" is a well composed and executed drawing, capturing the textures and local colors of the various forms.

Natasha's "skittles" has a very strong mark-making process that clearly defines each skittle and its relationship with all the other skittles.

Jennifer's "strawberries" has a very subtle mark-making process going on that adds an interesting texture of skin to the berries.

Jeffrey's "chip mix" creates a complex abstraction of textures and values,some with very aggressive mark-making.

Adam's 'cheezits" have many subtle variations in value and texture that convincingly suggest the surfaces of the crackers.