This is the Art of a Crazy Person

This quarter I am in the ridiculous situation of being an about-to-graduate senior taking not one, but two freshman-level classes. These are required for me to graduate; as a transfer student, I didn't realize I had to take them until last spring.
I don't hate these classes. I have been taking the lecture seminars all year and they have been relatively easy, fun, and even sometimes enlightening.
This quarter, I am also taking a foundations studio class, called Time Studio. (It's the final in the series, after Surface and Space Studios; I didn't have to take those.)

Our first assignment involved finding an iconic historical image (album cover, photograph, news image, painting, etc.) and recreate it by photographing ourselves in place of the original figures. We had to build any necessary costumes, props, and stage sets, and then combine our images within Photoshop to recreate the original image as closely as possible. The catch is that we have to be every character in the image, and we have to appear more than once.
We had about a week to do this. (Yikes. I am severely lacking in Photoshop skills.)

I chose, after much deliberation, Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, originally painted in 1882.
(If you want to listen to a fascinating theoretical analysis about this painting, check out this video from ArtRev.com.)

Manet's Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1882. I've never seen it in person; it's permanent home is in London. But I recently saw some lovely Manets in New York, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Awesome.

 I was torn for a while between doing a faithful, accurate recreation OR doing a personal/autobiographical modern interpretation. I ended up with a hybrid.

I painted this background with ink on vellum. I am determined to relate this foundational work to my thesis work, no matter how tenuous the connection. In this case, I decided to use the techniques I have been developing in my advanced studios to create this background. It is by far the largest painting I have made with ink on vellum; it is about eight feet long and three feet high.

Here it is. What should I call it? It may be too ridiculous to title. I do kind of love it- it's hanging on my fridge.

The only part that I stole from the original is the top hat on the anonymous "gentleman."
The only thing I stole from Google Images was Burt Reynold's mustache. Everything else was something I found around the house or created myself. I created the marble finish of the bar by smearing graphite powder onto a large sheet of vellum- it looked pretty dumb in person, but it looks good in the final image.
I had to use Twinkies in place of the Mandarin oranges (lovelovelove) and I used beer instead of champagne. The whiskey bottle has iced tea in it- whiskey doesn't usually last long in my house. Crown Royal is a sentimental favorite; there was another bottle, but it was cropped out.

Stuff that I learned from this project:
I am not used to these short term projects with specific parameters. I was sort of dreading it, but now I realize how much I've been missing these types of assignments; I forgot that they could be fun.
If I had more time, I would have found a way to use a picture of my great-grandmother's locket in place of the barmaid's cameo. I also would have liked to use fresh flowers from my own yard, instead of the fake ones I used; unfortunately, everything in my yard is about to bloom or did weeks ago. Lastly, I never addressed the feet of the trapeze artist, which are visible in the upper left hand corner of Manet's painting. I could have photographed my own feet in green socks. I also considered replacing the feet with an image of a tiny bird on a perch which I sculpted a couple of years ago. I liked the idea of comparing Manet's barmaid to a bird in a cage. Sigh- if my Photoshop skills were better, I would have had time to fix these little details.

Next we have to re-interpret a piece of found trash into a mixed-media sculpture, using digital media. I think it's supposed to be about absurdity. FUN!

The Oh-So-Boring Still Life

I don't know too many painters who get jazzed about painting still-lifes. They aren't very exciting to paint, and they aren't usually very fun to look at, either.

You can't hide poor drawing skills or shoddy compositions with a still-life. That's why so many students have to paint them; they are useful for building skill under the watchful eye of a professor.

Needless to say, I've done my fair share of them, and I thought it would be fun to share them, complain about them, and maybe even mention some ways to make them NOT so boring.

Vegetables, 2010, acrylic on paper, 16" x 20"

Group your items in threes. For some reason, the eye likes to see things in three; it's a satisfying number, easy to balance.  Make sure there's some diagonal lines in the composition to help the eye move through the scene and keep it from being too static. Another good tip: let some elements leave the edges of the composition, like the carrots in Vegetables.
These rules are very BASIC, and a skilled painter can and should break them. For example, maybe you WANT to create a sense of unbalance or a static, enclosed scene.

Fruit, 2010, acrylic on paper, 16" x 20"

 For Fruit, I focused on shading and highlighting the fruit to make it look as real as possible. I also tried to play up complementary colors, such as between the yellow of the apple and the reddish purple of the table, and the red apple and the green bowl. Points of contrasting color can create visual interest.
 Bonus tip: go grocery shopping! Find pretty stuff to paint, and have lunch the next day.

Stripes, 2010, acrylic on paper, 16" x 20"

Stripes is all about complementary colors. The professor's assignment was to prime the paper black, then do an under-painting in opposite colors. The tomatoes were first painted green, the bowl was originally red, the striped wall was orange... you get the idea. When the final colors are applied, the under-painting shows through in spots, which makes the colors appear more vibrant. This is NOT my favorite painting, but the technique was interesting, and fun.

Jessica's World, 2010, watercolor, 16" x 20"

This is where it gets much more interesting. This painting is actually a still-life. My artist friend, Jessica Sharpe, had made little ceramic sculptures that resembled mushrooms with horns sprouting from them. While cleaning house to prepare for a move to grad school, Jessica wanted to unload these little guys. I volunteered to adopt them; they were kinda cool. I arranged them on a table top, threw a sharp light on them, and drew them into a sort of surreal landscape. It's sort of an homage to my friend's twisted imagination.

Inheritance, 2010, acrylic on paper, 16" x 20"

The assignment for Inheritance was to create an autobiographical still-life. Most students chose to paint their i-pods and/or their favorite shoes- boring! I wanted to paint something that would still be significant to me when I'm old and gray, so I went with an ancestral theme. The painting in the background was painted by my paternal grandmother, and the frame was built by her father (his wedding portrait is in the red frame on the right); she gave it to me as a wedding gift. The dresser is part of a bedroom set which originally belonged to my maternal grandparents. The books are symbols of what I've learned from my family; some of them are antiques given to me by a great Aunt. The bottle of whiskey is Crown Royal, the favorite of my paternal grandfather, who had just passed away before I painted this. The leaves are from a plant I took home with me from his funeral. I painted it in warm colors, with softened shadows and highlights, to convey a sense of nostalgia.

I still don't really care much for still-lifes. I cope with the lack of excitement by choosing subjects that I like, and I focus on painting them with as much skill as I can. Some day I'm going to have to expect my own students to paint still-lifes, and I hope they see merit in it, like I do.