Week 6 Reading - In the Making: Implicit Meanings - Metaphor and Symbol - Michal Rovner (pp. 44-51)

Similarly to Rovner, I think I'm somewhat interested in different media of display in association with the same subject matter.  For example, so far, my textile work and portraits have evolved into more and more material forms; the very first work was digital, then drawings, then paintings, and next I plan on these sort of quilted fabric collage objects, and ideally, I would like for them to all be seen together. Rovner, however, does this in order to communicate chaos, and to relay onto her viewers a sense of disorientation, confusion, and dizziness that she herself may have experienced earlier in her life.  Had I had something happen in my life that had been that devastating, fearful, or chaotic, I might be interested in sharing this experience, but generally I am personally uncomfortable with intentionally causing my viewers to feel this way.  I am more interested in mystery.
However, while communicating a given feeling, Rovner still likes to be loose-ended enough that viewers could take away several different interpretations of her work, and although my work right now is not so abstract that it could mean so many things, I acknowledge that these characters I've created can be dynamic, and that the idea I have of who each of these characters is might be very different to each person who sees them.  In that, the currently limited identities of these mysterious women will expand into many different identities through the viewer.  Maybe.  I would like to somehow encourage my viewers to treat each piece as a story, to interpret and to become writers of fiction temporarily while viewing my work, beyond just showing the pieces.

In the first instance, the viewer's response is automatic and reactive.  In the second instance, the viewer's response involves the application of imagination and intelligence.  Yet neither response is sufficient to account for the representational complexity of this work of art.  Rovner explains, "I am trying to shift the thing away from its identity, away from its locality, to watch it in many ways, to look for some kind of essence."  This essence is located in the human collective unconscious, a remove territory that may be difficult for people to access.

This hierarchy of reactions may be true, to an extent, of any art piece.  A gut reaction or an initial unexplained attraction or aversion to one piece over another, then a pause to contemplate more deeply what the piece communicates, and then perhaps rumination over what the message of the piece says about life or humanity on a general scale.  I think, then, that these reactions may apply as well to the portraits, at least if they are displayed together.

"I am concerned with the blurring of human and animal, of existing and not existing, of being alive and not," Rovner says.  "We all share a struggle for existence.  It doesn't matter if one is human or an animal, a plumber or an electrician.  We all experience the fragility of being.  My work exists between being and not being.  People cover themselves with information and an identity.  These are the costumes of their presentation. Animals carry a different energy..."

Rovner is concerned with animals as symbols because they relate more closely to nature and therefore to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.  I, on the other hand, am more concerned with the beginning of the above statement, the identities we carve out for ourselves and put on like costumes during our own fragile time of being.

Week 6 Work

This week I finished working on one of the character panels I started last week, as well as working on a second one (the second one is pretty much done as well, but I noticed just a few tiny little finishing touches to add to it).  I've enjoyed working on these so far, and I actually went to shop for more patterns and more canvas boards, and now have enough supplies to make a series of 10.

The first one doesn't really have a name, I've just been calling her either the young Noblewoman or the young Court Woman.  The second one I did this week is called the Queen. These started off being based on the historical time periods and cultures from which I imagined the pattern to have originate.  I didn't do any research other than internal stores of knowledge about these time periods based on what I've seen in period movies or tv or on what I've read.  Even though these portraits had a historical base, I wanted the characters I created to be purely my interpretation, with as little outside reference as possible (although, as I mentioned in this week's inspiration post, outside references began to sneak in somewhat subconsciously anyway).  Now, however, this Queen character may be an anonymous historical figure from the thirteenth century, or she may be an entirely fictional character from a story about a fantastical other land altogether.  The otherworldly extravagance of the Queen character has prompted me to reach even more obviously out of the box with further portraits.
It was important to me to create a character with a visual identity, as if these are women who existed whose stories were never told.  With a single pattern as a jumping off-point, I am essentially creating a story in my mind and visually communicating one mysterious little hint of it.  This makes a lot of sense to me, because when I originally started college, I was a creative writing major (and now I am a minor).  The thing I enjoy most about writing is building a world in my head and then describing it through rich sensory detail (and at this point I'm a bit less interested in visually portraying the world itself and a bit more interested in the people in the story).  I'm interested in the vast amount of information you can glean from one visual representation, as from how someone is posed, what he or she appears to be doing, what he or she is wearing, etc, and I'm really enjoying creating these visual cues. 
I have plans to move on to a similar type of portrait using actual fabric next week, while still continuing this series of character panels as well as continuing work on the larger painting.
I'm not sure of the significance of my pull towards drawing women (I may have addressed this already).  It may be because it seems natural to draw the female figure over the male figure, given that it's so much more prevalent throughout the history of art.  It may be because it's just easier for me to identify with a female character, and this creating a character exercise is something I've always done in my head whenever I've drawn an anonymous female portrait. I also think I'm just better at drawing women.  So yes, I plan on making them ALL women.  This also seems appropriate given that my starting point is textile designs, since it's very domestic and feminine.
The significance of the textiles themselves seems to be diminishing, although I still favour it as a good launch pad because it seems to be working, and because I think the patterns I'm most drawn toward are ones that are traditionally used in textiles (even though I'm working with paper, the papers I'm choosing all look like they could be fabrics moreso than anything else).  If I were to change the launch pad as it were, and try to create a character based on another source of input, I don't know what it would be.

Week 6 Inspiration & Research

I read this book over the summer and I think the cover illustration had a major influence on my illustration of the Queen for the gold foil paper panel--not only the appearance of the character herself, but also my interpretation of  who this queen might be and when she might be from.  The story is about the Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine (France) and takes place in the 1100's.  Eventually she marries the future king of France, becomes Queen of France, and then gets divorced and later marries the heir to England.  Super powerful woman, described as very beautiful, sometimes foolish but usually dignified, a little selfish, but rightfully so.  The way she was written in this book, I really identified with her throughout most of the story, so I think my Queen character is really similar to Eleanor.  She also sort of looks like Queen Mary from Reign (which is a show that I really like, which probably isn't that surprising)... This is mostly because I gave her dark hair, which was a purely aesthetic choice.  I thought it would stand out best against the gold.

There's a Ralph Lauren commercial that plays during PBS Masterpiece (Downton Abbey), at least online, but that I can't find on youtube, where he says:

Designing for me is a creative journey.  It starts with a feeling, a mood or a certain place. The style of a heroine.  Her journey, her dreams.  I create a world around her.  A world beyond fashion.  The world of Ralph Lauren.

This struck me as basically what I've been doing with these sheets of scrapbook paper, although sort of in reverse.  It got me thinking about how important a story can be in the design process.  Even in commercial graphic design, we sometimes create a character, with a name, an age, a job, hobbies, and needs, to represent the larger group of people for whom we're designing. It's so easy to get pulled just into the art or the design itself, thinking about it more and more as a technical challenge or making decisions solely for the sake of aesthetics, but sometimes it's helpful to remember that we're people, and that often the inspiration for or purpose of any one of these pieces is other human beings, not just art or design for its own sake.
I should also mention that I've been watching a lot of Downton Abbey this week, and although I don't think it's directly affected any of my work (most of their clothing is solid colours and since the show is set in the 1920's, their wardrobes are very different from anything I've been working on so far), I think it's got me thinking about characters anyway.  There are a lot of very elegant female characters on the show, and I may be picking up the mannerisms in the portraits, at least. Also, can you tell why I like all these shows?

Week 5 Reading - In the Making: Internal Sources of Inspiration - Soul-Genus Fusion - Jan Harrison (pp. 126-132)

I'm glad I chose this one, and I think the timing was good too.  I appreciate Jan Harrison's deep philosophical beliefs as motivation and drive for her art.  I agree with her underlying belief that we have completely separated ourselves culturally from the animal world and tried to draw lines between qualities that are not really opposites, but spectrums, and that embracing our primordial origins and identifying with the animal world makes us less fragmented.  It's true, humans think too much.  I got a little bit overwhelmed by her commitment to this belief about half way down page 129, when Harrison demonstrates speaking in 'animal tongues' to the parts of her that grew out of her childhood imaginary friends.

I was unable to identify with her as much at that point not only because this seems like slightly abnormal behavior which would probably be a bit unsettling to experience, but also because although I have some driving beliefs or elements of my background and upbringing that noticeably affect my work, I don't think that any of my motivations or that anything I'm trying to say is as strong or even as important to me as communicating her philosophical ideology is to Harrison.  Either that, or I haven't figured out what I'm really trying to express yet, or what my ideology is.
Until that point, I did identify with her quite strongly, mostly through her processes or what she's drawn to.  When I started reading this article I wrote down a quote from page 126; it's a little bit long but it seemed important to me:

Hers is an active quest for a source of vitality and wisdom that has been usurped by the authority of bureaucracies, institutions, laboratories, classrooms, and other such constructions of civilization.  Despite the fact that it "can be fearsome," Harrison relishes the arcane region of the mind that escaped these confining influences of society.

I wrote a paper for a philosophy class that talked about that kind of thing once, how the moments when one experiences true beauty, the moments in life that seem the most genuine, are the ones that take place outside the constraints of  civilization, the ones that we don't make but that are a direct result of our biological humanity and not anything that we've decided on as a society.  I genuinely think this is true.  I'm very interested in the impulses we experience that are remnants from our early days as a species, or the chemical explanations for why we experience attraction to a person or a colour or a pattern or why we like shiny things.  I don't think we're attracted to certain things because we've made them valuable, I think we've made them valuable because we're attracted to them (although when we're talking about the human body, we get into a whole other complicated issue that mostly doesn't make sense anymore).

Even though my work isn't taking place or isn't meant to portray a time, place, or mentality that comes from outside the world of civilization (at least not entirely), I think something that I identify with about Harrison's work is the desire to understand the underlying drive for the things we value. For me, it's usually a story of a person.  Even if it's just the smallest hint of a story, there is a history behind everyone I draw or paint, and that's important to me.

I also wrote down a quote from Harrison cited in the essay on page 129. "I am purposefully not knowledgeable about ancient myth.  Instead, myth comes out of my body.  Myth is physical and also psychological.  Original mythology comes from these sources."  This is obviously very important in Harrison's work, that all of the images and inspiration and stories come from that very primal part of her mind and not from culture, and it reminded me of something I said in my statement with this week's work.  I had mentioned that I wasn't sure if I should research the patterns I'm working with when I come up with an embodiment of that time period and particular pattern for the portrait on each one.  Harrison's mentality is difficult to apply when working with an element that is derived directly from culture and history.  I can't all come from me and still make sense, because I am making a sort of historical reference, and am obviously influenced in this respect by examples I've already seen of the use of these kinds of patterns and period dress.  But this statement made me think about it again and makes me more confident that the stories of these women probably should come from me and that it's okay if what I come up with isn't quite historically plausible. 

I looked up some of Harrison's work right after reading the essay, since there were only a couple of examples in the book.  I found it interesting that on page 131 in the essay, there's a statement about how Harrison's work kind of proceeds in the opposite direction that religion does, accepting death rather than defying it, and heading downward instead of directing everything upward like religion does, because some of the marks on the paintings I looked at, which were in the Corridor series, reminded me of religious iconography.  In these paintings, whiskers are highlighted with bright yellow or gold paint, which stands out against the darker backgrounds.  It's interesting, too, how Harrison almost rejects culture, because in some of her paintings, floral elements migrate across the canvas and are sometimes even arranged in symmetrical patterns more reminiscent of textiles than of nature. This is perhaps an indication that no matter how aware we are of our origins and of the things that we've subsequently created in our somewhat artificial cultural environment, these things still influence us, even subconsciously, and it's very difficult to do what Harrison is trying to do, to revert to a more natural, animalistic state.

Oh and that 20 room mansion she bought and then theme-decorated, I would so love to do that.  Her world, she called it.  Mine might not be quite so universal but I could see myself wallpapering the walls with different textile patterns and displaying paintings of women wearing those textiles in all the rooms.  That'd be a great show.  Hmm, miniature version for this class?  Guess I need to find some wallpaper!

Week 5 Inspiration & Research

I showed this artist last week, but it really came into play with this week's work.  This particular image is the main inspiration for my way of approaching portraits on patterned backgrounds.

Like I said in my work statement, I think one of the things that got me thinking about the relationship and interaction between textiles and people, both from a design standpoint and a consumer standpoint, is actually seeing the process in action from a (sort of) behind the scenes perspective.

This is a screenshot I pulled from the Lily Pulitzer catalogue.  The print is called 'Bungle in the Jungle,' and it was designed by someone I was acquainted with in high school who went on to study textiles at SCAD.  She recently graduated and it seemed like only a few months later, she had a print go into production.  I'm a little jealous and even though I didn't know her that well, really proud of her and also just blown away by how awesome this is.  I think I was also just a little bit surprised by the print itself because although I suppose it's somewhat in line with the design sensibilities of previous work I've seen from her, it's also totally different than most things she's done.  It was really interesting for me to take a close look at this print already knowing a little bit about the person who designed it. (I also want this dress, but it's like $200...)

I'm not sure where this artist, Louise Crowell, is based, because apparently she was born in Tennessee, but she did this painting which I feel explemplifies Vancouver perfectly.  I was looking for images of rainy Vancouver as colour references and inspiration for the window scene in the painting, but most of them were photos taken in winter in the downtown areas, when all the deciduous trees are bare and the only surroundings are all concrete buildings, and I didn't feel that that really portrayed the personality of the city.  This painting however, shows the upside to living in a place where it rains all the time: everything is always green.  Whether or not it's a real place, I felt it was appropriate to the mood I was going for, and explains my almost compulsion to include green in that outside scene, which at the time seemed to me like a really bold choice.

In my painting, the place outside the window isn't necessarily Vancouver specifically (I think I decided a while ago that it was actually Scotland, but Vancouver's honestly probably the closest thing weather wise to Scotland anyway, and it's something I can relate to better), but it was important to me to have that same kind of cozy, and to me, homey mood.  This is probably because, although my figure is anonymous (partially done intentionally so that she doesn't seem like she's supposed to be me, partially for other reasons explained in this week's work post), she's meant to almost embody this patterned textile that for me is very, very personal, and therefore it makes sense to me that other elements of the painting, for example, the background, should say something else about me or be as familiar to me as that textile.

Week 5 Work

Earlier this week I continued to work on my painting, finally moving to some of the other areas of the composition.

I didn't spend as much time on it this week as I have been in past weeks, although ironically it's seen one of the most drastic changes this week since I started colour-blocking.  

(Begin long explanation of this week's process and rationalisation, but there are more images at the bottom so be sure to keep scrolling)

I felt though, that although I want to continue to work on this and eventually finish it, I needed to start on something else, as well.  I started out not being sure what I wanted to do, but I figured canvas boards would be a good ground for something.  I rather arbitrarily chose the 12x12 size and while I was standing in line to pay for them, I thought, wait a minute, let's see if they have any scrapbook paper that looks like fabric.  Conveniently, scrapbook paper is also 12x12.  I suppose I was thinking back slightly to Charming Baker's patterned paintings when I thought about painting or drawing on top of patterned scrapbook paper.  I figured I might do portraits, but I still wasn't quite sure why or how.  Then I started to think about why I might have chosen the subject matter that I did for my painting.  Once I decided that my figure's whole dress would be my tartan, I realised that the figure herself says something about the fabric, gives it an added layer of personality, and vice versa.  

I figured out (and this should have been more obvious to me than it was, perhaps) that the idea of patterns and textiles is interesting to me because it says something about the time period during which it was designed, the person who designed it, the person who is attracted to it, and the person who wears it.  The tartan was really important to me not only because I am attracted to it aesthetically, but obviously because it's very personal and has a great deal of historical significance. 

I am attracted to other textiles mostly only on an aesthetic basis (although I do tend to like a lot of antiquated patterns, perhaps because of the romanticism of the time periods during which they were designed), but I also have an interest in people.  I think this whole interest in textiles in general was mainly brought on by finally becoming aware (towards the end of last semester and subsequently over the summer) of the textile design process and the people who design them.  Prior to that point, they were sort of another one of those things out in your world that just exists--one of those things that you don't think about, like it doesn't even occur to you that someone had to design and fabricate this object that you interact with on, probably, a semi-regular basis.  So I think I not only became visually interested in the textiles, but also more interested in the kinds of people who might interact with them.  Call it an archaeological instinct, at least that's where I assume this drive is coming from for me. 

So here's what I'm doing now.  I've made one this week, because it's more time consuming than I thought it would be.  Well actually I'm still not done with the first one, I think, because I'm still interested in painting.  But anyway, I'm basically drawing portraits onto these sheets of scrapbook paper (which I then intend to selectively fill with paint), and affixing the scrapbook paper to the canvas boards so that they become more of a tangible object.  The portraits themselves are responsive to the actual patterns--my guess at the time period, the dress of that time period, the social class that might wear garments made from these prints, their demeanor and their clothing. I thought about researching this a little more, but I think I might like the romantic element of supposition rather than visual fact supported by researched evidence.  The only references I'm really using at this point are for poses (so no Frankensteins this time, because I actually found the posing reference I was looking for last time!).

I have two more planned right now and two more panels after that.  I think they're all going to be women.  I prefer to paint and draw women, I think, partially because the female figure is more understandable and more practised for me personally, and partially because I identify better emotionally as a viewer with a female figure.  

I actually drew the first one straight on, but I've noticed that I typically prefer poses in which the woman's face is not entirely visible, usually because it is turned away from the viewer.  This is because I enjoy the romanticism of anonymity.  The figure in my painting, for example.  You can't see her face very well, so you can't tell exactly what she looks like or who she is.  There is no chance of recognising her.  She's anonymous.  But by her setting, her clothing, her poise and demeanor, and by what she's doing, and even the vantage point from which she is painted, you can still tell a lot about her.  Again, sort of an archaeological point of view. Even though I drew the first patterned panel with her face visible, I feel that she's still anonymous enough that for me, it works.  I might try to continue this with the rest of them, since this time it's more about the pattern itself than it is in the painting. 

I originally drew this figure on a plain sheet of paper because I'm very sketchy when I draw, and I thought I would want clean lines.  I outlined my drawing in pen and then started to erase the right hand and instantly regretted it, and even went back and drew some of the lines back in with pencil.  I ended up tracing the original drawing onto the patterned paper, intentionally drawing just as sketchy lines before outlining in pen again.  To emphasise the pattern of the paper within the confines of her dress, I outlined the shapes with silver leaf, although I'm not sure whether or not I regret that decision.  The next step for this, I think, is to paint her skin, hair, and the other fabric in the bodice of her dress.  I want to leave the pattern the way it is in the main part of her dress. I might thicken up the outer lines of her outline just to help her stand out a little bit better, although I think some solid areas of colour will make a big difference. 

Week 4 Reading - In the Making: Inventing Biography - Fictionalized Fact and Factualized Fiction - Kim Jones (pp. 208-213)

So this chapter wasn't quite about what I thought it would be about based on the title (which of course is the basis for my choice of each reading, related to my own mood), but I think I ultimately reflected on the same things anyway as I would have if it had been what I expected.
At first I found it odd that Jones hadn't come up with a narrative for who Mudman is or how or where he was created, because whether it is conscious or not, I think I find it necessary to have or know or invent a narrative for an image I create.  The painting I'm working on now is of a character and an environment that I feel a need to identify and maybe relay information about other than visually through the painting (I suppose this might come into play later while choosing a title).  For example, someone asked me if the woman in my painting had a name.  I don't yet, but it's because I can't settle on one yet because I think her name is important (and maybe because she's not done, not fully existent yet).  She must also have an origin and a motive and be in a place that I recognise or at least understand.
Mudman, although he has a name, has no further origin than Jones himself and the city he is performing in.  Although Jones' biographical history and his other works, the war drawings, might inform some kind of narrative or message embedded in Mudman's appearance, or his similarity to certain recognisable forms or images, Jones rejects the notion of an intentional representation of this history other than his statement, "I tell them I like to think about being a tree," (210).  For instance, he insists on no relationship being drawn between Mudman and the idea of being a shaman or a 'primitive' being, and does not push the association of Mudman with a soldier or a tree, although the latter comparisons may be more on point with who Mudman is.  For Jones, Mudman seems to be about the materials, the environment, and the audience, and aside from his battle scene with the replica of the David, his 'performances' are rarely at all staged or even really premeditated.
In this sense, Jones is also very interested in relaying truth.  "Through his war drawings and his Mudman performance he simply represents the truth that he has observed," (p. 213).  Comparatively, I think I have little interest in truth, at least in the sense of the truth as commentary about the way things are.  I am interested, almost obsessively, in representing objects and materials from the real world in a way that is observably realistic and believable.  I feel pain in omitting detail, most of the time.  But I think that impulse is related to my desire to prove, mainly to myself, that I can show skill through paint, and to my love of sensory input and rich, detailed description, which shows not only visually, but through my writing, as well.  But my images themselves are idyllic, more of an expression of how I wish the world looked, or how I wish I existed and were perceived as a person.  The scenes I choose to paint are utopias.  When I paint images from life or from photographs, the reference has to appear clean or natural or simple or uncomplicated by competing images or entirely harmonious, or else I omit any information that does not fit these parameters. When I invent a scene, this is easier to do.  I don't like messes.  I don't like cropped things, unnecessary props, tangled vegetation, smudges, or anything of the sort, usually.  I abhor visual cues that indicate specificity in time or era, with few exceptions.  My figures are well but simply dressed in clothes with no special cuts or features (like zippers, I'm not likely to show off a zipper), that are usually either solid colours or generic-looking patterns.  This type of image does not appear often in the real modern world, but I think that's precisely why I want to paint them.  Paintings to me should be romantic, not truthful.
How my tartans fit in to this idealist aesthetic, I'm still guessing, but I think it relates to what I said about generic patterns.  Tartans are highly individualised by nature, but even someone who is familiar and can identify, by name, several clan tartans, doesn't know them all.  It's not like a print textile of repeating ducks, which you can look at and say, "those are ducks."  Tartan, too, when it is unidentified, becomes a generic pattern that often will not look out of place in one of these idyllic compositions, as long as the other elements fit the parameters.

Week 4 Inspiration & Research

This week's inspiration/research/references... as dull as it sounds, was mostly brick walls.  I've noticed a lot about brick walls now that I hadn't noticed before, and I find myself paying more attention to them in the real world, too. 

This was a good reference for how the light hits the bricks inside the window frame, and will continue to be a good reference until I can get the darn window frame straight.

This was my main reference for the brick wall. I had to look at bricks very closely.  I still have a lot of texture to add, I just haven't figured out to communicate that through paint yet.

Through the process of this entire painting, I keep thinking of Brianna's work and how incredibly detailed it is.  I imagined that all of the different materials in her paintings would appear very textured, like what I wanted to do in this painting (that's kind of why I want to do this, to prove to myself that with enough patience and enough hours in the studio, I can paint something that is as realistic and stunning and textural as any of the pieces I've seen from her).  I looked through some of the stuff in her gallery, and I was actually surprised that a lot of the textures (other than hair or reflective objects in the foreground) are much more implied than I thought.  But here is an image that I still remember marveling at when it was still in the studio, thinking the detail on the wood and the whicker was incredible.  It's also perfect for this week because there's some brick in the bottom left corner.  I guess it's pushing me to include even more detail than I see in her work (the challenge will be the fabrics--she loves fabrics, and drapery is almost my least favourite thing to paint).

Brick is not crazy detailed.  Them floors though.

As my bricks came out crooked, I started thinking up a narrative to justify why they were that way (I'll probably still fix them though, it bugs me to no end).  But it seemed okay while I was working them, because I figured, she's not in a coffee shop in new york or chicago, or some trendy American city.  She might be somewhere more quaint, like a small town in the northwest, but she's probably not.  She's probably in Europe, in an old city.  So the cafe is probably old, and maybe the building has shifted a little bit, and maybe that's why the bricks are crooked.  And because of her dress (by the way the whole dress is going to be the tartan) and her connection to me, a city in Scotland makes the most sense.  A lot of the brick in towns around Scotland is not really brick but hewn stone, but some buildings are made from brick, so it's close enough.  Anyway, this seemed to be where she should be (this isn't my photograph--I couldn't get this amazing of a view while I was there, but you may see some of my photos of foggy Edinburgh later on when I get to working on the exterior view through the window).

Week 4 Work

This week I continued painting.  This consisted almost entirely of painting a brick wall.  It still appears annoyingly crooked every time I look at it after attempting to fix it.

 

I also continued refining the sett for the tartan, which I thought was important to do simultaneously with the painting because I can't paint her shoes or dress until the tartan is finalised.  Luckily I think I've finally, after 12 versions, reached a point at which I'm happy with the pattern (I do, however, still need to work out the pattern for the curtains [and possibly chairs]).

Version 12 (11 and 12 are very similar so I didn't feel the need to show you 11)

Week 3 Work

This week I focused on the painting I had a vision of at the end of last week.

I began by sketching:

I did this immediately after coming up with the idea so that it wouldn't run away on me before I could remember what it looked like, as is what frequently happens.

Then I went to work on building a colour image I could actually reference while painting:

I built a Frankenstein figure out of multiple stock photos to achieve the pose I had envisioned, which strangely enough I could not find anywhere on the internet.  I had thought it was a common enough pose, but it turns out it isn't.  It also posed some incredible proportion and angular problems for me, who has enough trouble drawing the figure elegantly.  

I traced that image onto my canvas, attempting to fix a few of the perceptible problems just by drawing from memory right away.  I also moved the image when I traced this to get her head out of that weird angle, but it somehow happened anyway.  I wanted her left hand lying across her lap so I had to draw that in myself as well.  

Then I started laying down colour:

This involved making a few colour choices that were not dictated by my colour composite, but I was mostly trying to establish shape and get my bearings for light an shadow.  It also made it much easier to see what issues were happening with the figure. There is obviously something really weird going on with her neck and shoulders.  Her right forearm is made up of some weird angles and the proportions there seem to be a little off.  Her left knee is probably a bit pointy. I was having trouble trying to resolve these issues strictly by drawing, so I enlisted the help of a friend to sit for me.  Couldn't really find an adequate table, but I think we still got the right angle.

I got a model to help:

And I made these corrections:

And this is where I'm at now.

 

However, I did get some time to work on the tartan a bit, too. 

Version 7

Version 8

Version 9

Version 10

I'm still not 100% happy with it.  I think the white sections need to be wider, but I need to figure out how to do that without the original check becoming too uneven.  I also switched from the green check in the centre in version 7 to the red check in the centre in the last three versions, but I kind of like how the green looked better.  In this last version, I definitely worked out colour combinations for individual stripes, bringing in an even darker shade of blue than I had been using that really adds some depth.  I think I want to try this combination reversed for next week. 

Week 3 Inspiration & Research

So this week I am painting.  My main inspiration was totally random. I was reading Art & Fear for class during week 2 and a fully formed picture popped into my head, that was so beautiful and compelling that I decided it was something I wanted to paint.  Thomas Sailot, and mentioning that he was also a source of inspiration while responding to the questions about the book, may have also had something to do with it, because the colours in this composition I see in my head are colours he uses frequently (one of the main reasons I am drawn to his work, so this makes perfect sense).
Most of what's here are now references, little pieces that I am putting together into this image.

MOOD REFERENCES

POSING / COMPOSITION REFERENCES

(most of these are stock that I took pieces from to make a frankenstein figure as a reference in the pose I actually wanted, since I could not find the pose anywhere online -__-  Some of these are references for elements other than the figure [like the table, chairs, and lights])

I used her upper body and side of face (flipped the other way) though I had to actually move her over and trace her head separately so she wasn't leaning awkwardly, because my figure is sitting up straight.

I used her mid-body and shoulder, because she's sitting nice and straight and is turned slightly away from the viewer like my figure.

I used her legs.  I think it's instinct, or maybe more comfortable, for most women to cross the other leg? Most examples I could find were backwards.  Interestingly, I still had a major proportion problem with the legs though.

I used this image for the table.

I even got a reference for lights, and this image also prompted me to consider having the walls in the painting made of brick. 

Week 3 Reading - In the Making: Epitomizing Biography-Single White Female - Vanessa Beecroft (pp. 224-229)

I chose this chapter by its title because I identified with it.  When I got into the subject matter, I felt that I identified with it further--I don't think there are many women who wouldn't.  Beecroft creates an interesting paradox of both perpetuating and yet emphasising in a critical way the pressure on women to attempt to sculpt themselves to fit the ideals of beauty.
I can understand why there are so many contradictions between who Beecroft is and what the work she makes is saying, and why there are so many contradictions within her work itself.  The same explanation may go for why, although she is tall, slender, stylish, and beautiful, she chooses not to model for her own works.  We can never achieve the standards set out for us because they are the results of unnatural and sometimes unattainable processes, and we get frustrated with these standards because we are aware that we can never achieve them, that they will always be unrealistic and set way too high.  But that doesn't mean we don't make any effort to try to resemble them.  Even though she may be a picture of beauty by many other peoples' standards, maybe Beecroft has this same struggle (this is hinted at by the mention in the chapter of her bout of anorexia).

These are things that I think are constantly on any young woman's mind, and I admit they have been on my mind too- that maybe I should always put make-up on in the mornings, that I should wash and brush my hair every day, that I should work out to lose inches and appear slimmer, that I should spend more money on clothes, that I should always have my fingernails nicely painted, that I should sit like a lady, that I should smile to appear beautiful, that I attempt to do all these things and still don't seem to get recognised for any of them because I still don't reach the set standard.

I thought about this briefly when sketching out my painting for this week, too.  Having had some proportional issues with my original image composite also gave me an opportunity to rethink the figure's conformity to standards.  If body image, perfection, and media standards is an issue I struggle with, shouldn't that be part of the painting, even though the painting isn't about that? I have difficulty drawing the figure proportionately without a reference, and so I searched for stock models in the pose I wanted.  I couldn't find the exact pose, so I took parts of it from other images and tried to create a frankenstein reference, but proportion isn't always preserved when trying to draw this way.  Even if I had gotten the composite right though, it's made from models who are all very slender.  So, the figure is slender.  A friend brought to my attention how skinny the figure actually is when I asked if she wouldn't mind modelling for me quickly so that I could resolve the proportional issues.  "I'm not as skinny as the lady in your painting," she told me.  And I said, "nobody's as skinny as the lady in my painting.  I kind of want to change that."  She's right.  I want my figure to appear elegant, as I would like to appear, and I often think that in order to be most elegant, the figure has to be slender.  In many cases, very slender women are very elegant.  This says nothing about slender women, but shouldn't a less slender woman be able to be elegant too?