Oops, no. Frida Kahlo(WIP)

Sudden-change-of-heart-mode ENABLED!

So, I chose something completely different after thinking for a while; Frida Kahlo!


Why? Mainly because this painting has a lot more to work with. It's also more similar to the one I'm painting. Whereas the Monet painting basically had almost no symbols, this one is chock-full of them.
So without further ado, let's get going!

The first similarity to note between our paintings is the use of animals; I use a raven and the skull of a wolf, while she uses a panther, a monkey and a hummingbird. All of these are black, just as I intend to paint mine black, or near enough.

Black an easily be seen as an ominous colour, as well as the colour for death. However, I think that, in this painting, Kahlo instead gave it a different meaning. Black cats, for instance, are seen as symbols of good luck instead of bad by some, for instance. In Hindu religion, the name of the deity Krishna means "The black one", whilst in Masai tribes, the colour is associated with rain clouds - a symbol of life and prosperity. Also, in Japanese culture, black is associated with honour, while white takes over the role of the "death colour".

Let's start off with the monkey, now.
Like the  other two, it is not completely black - its fingers, belly, and important facial bits. However, this is probably only to make it easier to see it properly. A monkey can be a symbol of mischief and/or aggression, depending on the type and size, and it is here very small. It is also a part of the Chinese Zodiac, though Kahlo was born a year before the Monkey.

The second animal one sees is the Panther, which can be viewed both as a creature of danger and death - and one of beauty and protection. In Native American culture, it was namely regarded as the protector of the universe. As with most big cats, it is also seen as a symbol of ferocity and valor, as well as being loners.

The last of the black animals is the hummingbird on the thorns. Now, the hummingbird, due to its speed, can be seen as a symbol of time - both having little time, or stopping time. It can also be a messenger: It is fast, and precise. Its ability to fly backwards can be a symbol of looking back, at our past - but without being consumed by it.

Self portrait study

I hope I won't return to this bad habit

Self-Portrait study

Claude Monet or Vincent van Gogh?

Now here's a little problem; We were supposed to choose one artist whose self-portrait we would research, but I can't decide whether to go for that of Monet or van Gogh....

Monet

Monet's painting is very realistic, and his strokes seem very precise- he has a certain attention to detail, and his paintings seem far more peaceful than those of van Gogh. However, his painting also seems like it is "fraying" somewhat on the bottom, where he has not filled out the painting completely.

van Gogh

As opposed to Monet, van Gogh's paintings are very energetic; his strokes seem to move as you look at them, and he uses a contrast in his portrait - the orange of his face and beard against the large amounts of turquoise and teal. Due to all the movement in his painting, he seems to have less detail, and he can more easily get away with minor errors.

In the end, I think I'll go for Monet. Though van Gogh's painting looks good in its own way, I find that I prefer Monet's style.

Writeup - masks

Holy cow, I'm bad at regularity
Investigation
We were shown some examples of masks in the first lesson, and I decided to go for an Aztec mask, mainly because I absolutely love Aztec culture. It also gives me a certain challenge, as Aztec masks were often carven from wood, before having mosaic stuck on top of the wood.

Creation:
I started out with some chickenwire, pressing it onto my face to create a basic shape for it. With the shape done, it was covered in paper mache, creating a surface to work on (Even if it was a bit mangled.)

I also created a nose by covering bigger chunks of paper with paper mache and fastening them onto the face, similar to what I'd done with the Bulbasaur model. I also cut off pieces of the nose to give it some more definition.
After having done that, I prepared a plate of clay to fasten on the mask, and left it to dry for a week.

The pieces were glued on with a glue gun to create a surface similar to mosaic.

However, there were too few pieces, so another plate of clay was prepared.

Having done that, I stayed behind the Wednesday before it was due, as I would be absent THursday and Friday due to hospitering.
I painted the mask with a somewhat bluish-green paint mix, and filled in what slits I had time to fill in with black paint.

The finished product. Fairly nice, if somewhat mangled in the mouth-area.

Evaluation
Overall, it ended up okay. I could have worked a bit more on the side of the face, to straighten it up a bit. It probably should have been thicker as well. The eyes fall out easily, and should have been made earlier, and the cracks need to be filled in. Except for all that it was good.

Writeup on Pop art

Gee, I really need to get better at this.
Investigation
In the first lesson we were shown examples of pop art, and Mr. Roman explained what it was. I had quite a few ideas for what I should make, such as a warning about drinking and driving, or a pikachu, the very figure for pokémon, as it is, in a way, being consumed by the mass media and it's fans, until it is nothing but a pretty face for Nintendo to advertise with.
Mind you, I chose Bulbasaur instead.

Creation:
I wanted it to give a certain sense of abandonment, as if it had been thrown away by it's owner, perhaps in favor of a newer pokémon. I chose Bulbasaur partly because it is #1 in the national pokédex, and partly because it is easy to use to make a feeling of having been thrown away. Originally, there wasn't really much more than that: a bulbasaur, weeping over the fact that it had been abandoned, forgotten because of the newer pokémon. However, after some tips from Mr. Roman, I decided it could have a background, such as an empty street, to increase and/or clarify the abandonment.
I started out making it from clay, but it proved difficult to make, as the clay would dry upso that it was nigh-on impossible to add new bits to it. A new tip from Mr. Roman, and I decided to finish it off using paper mache. Two things remained clay, though, namely the face and the bulb. I had to spend some extra time after school the Wednesday before it was due, but it was worth it.
I fastened the face onto the body by first creating a small triangle of sorts on the back of its head using the paper mache, before fastening it to the body using several layers of paper mache whilst supporting it on a box of paperclips to make sure it wouldn't fall off.
I ran out of time for the background, though, so Instead I just had it be a simple box advertising that the bulbasaur was up for adoption, with the box saying "Did you forget about us?" in red paint at the bottom.

Evaluation:
I think it could have been better, as the bulb was much too small, and the face flatter than it ought to be. The colour of the body was also too green.  However, I am fairly happy with it despite those problems.

Update

Gee, long time no see, eh?
You know how I am (Hopefully); memory like a goldfish and concentration span shorter than the term itself.

Eniwei. I'm currently working on some pop art. A bulbasaur made out of clay, to be precise.

Last lesson I fastened the front legs to the body by using wet clay, as well as getting the stomach near completion. As you can see in the picture, it's supported bu a little modelling tool, so it'll be easier to make it look like it's sitting, which in turn is to make the weight a little easier on the legs. It's also almost hollow (It's filled with paper), again to make it easier on the legs. By the end, it'll (hopefully) have relatively bright colours (Green and blue, and a tiny bit of red), with the words "Did you forget all about us?" on the cardboard behind it.

Hopefully I'll remember to do this again later today.....

Writeup unit 2 (Cubism)

Investigation:
In the first and part of the second lesson we sketched still life in various ways, dividing the sketching paper into pieces using a ruler and pencil. We then sketched the still life - A guitar, two flowers, a small vase, a box, and a spray bottle, all set up in front of a cork board. The first times we practiced without dividing the paper, including trying without looking at the paper, before we divided it.
We also watched a slideshow about cubism, as well as part of a movie/video about Pablo Picasso, which explained cubism further.

Creation:
I started out by sketching how many pieces there should be, trying to make it look like broken glass or glass shards. I then started drawing inside one of the shards, moving about each time I started on a new shard, thus making the picture very fractured, as if something or someone had broken it.
After that I started coloring and shading it, making most of the items within the shards start out black on the edges, lightening towards the center. An exception to this was the flower on the guitar, the flower being colored completely white against the much darker guitar, to show its "purity".
On the second pie, which I lost halfway through, meaning I had to start afresh, I tried to show contrast. The piece wasn't a pure cubist painting, and the current result was far narrower than I would have liked. It showed six different weapons of three different types (Daggers, arrows, and axes), all of it being depicted on a piece of armor.
I tried to make them "clash" in a way. The top plate shows the very angular, very controlled, golden Dwemer dagger to the right, as compared to the more "fluid" and avian style silvery Elf dagger to the left. In the middle plate there are the very basic, crude, cruel, and rough Falmer arrow, with its tousled flight feathers and spiky, choppy head on the right side, next to the very fine glass arrow, with its smooth feathers and design, and the head being made of glass and gold, instead of the black chitin from the Chaurus, a creature held by the Falmer. On the bottom plate there is the black, spiky war axe of the Daedra, with the red veins spreading out on the handle and blade, as well as being a single piece instead of two, the way the steel war axe to the left is, made very obviously human, from the simple wooden handle to the fine, engraved side of the blade, to the sharp, fine edge, slightly differently colored from the rest of the blade, all of it, in the end, standing against the very tribal, green armor of the orcs.

Evaluation:
I think the second piece could have ended up much better than it did if I had a) Not lost the first version or b) made the plates broader, as well as having a reference somewhere I could see it.
Overall, the pieces ended up fairly well, especially the first one, which I managed to make look pretty much how I wanted it to.

I think this was a very fun unit, and I found the art form both very limiting and very freeing at the same time. It was limiting because I need to keep within the "shards", but very freeing because I need to worry less about perspective than in other art forms, which allows me to focus on other aspects of the drawing.

Cubism

Firstly, I'm sorry that I haven't posted more. The recent time I've had other stuff on my mind, and have pushed this into the back of my mind, forgetting completely about it until yesterday evening.

So, cubism. In our current unit that is what we're working with, and I have come fairly far in the work. I tried to make the "frames" look like shards of broken glass, or like a window that someone had punched, making it break and shatter into smaller shards.

The picture I chose to compare with is "Guitar and violin" by Pablo Picasso. His piece as far more colours than mine, which is based upon a grayscale and pieces of newspapers (Mainly of grass and trees). Picasso also seems to have chosen to split it up less linearly than me, as I have made straight lines towards the center instead of the "Squares" that he has based his painting on. While he has more colors, however, his painting seems more "All over the place" than the more concentrated look of mine, which is in various shades of gray, mainly starting dark at the edges of objects and becoming lighter towards the center (Shading).
Picasso also has a lot more contours than I. In his painting, there a re contours almost everywhere, as opposed to in my drawing, in which there are only a few, necessary contours.
In addition to all of this, I have colored certain things (Such as one of the flowers) completely in one color (White in the case of the flower, making it stand out against the guitar behind it, which has been colored more with coal instead of chalk.), to symbolize some things. (In the case of the flower (Again), this is to symbolize the "Purity" of it, compared to the guitar, which is darker.) I also put cut-outs of grass in certain spots, mainly to give them a look closer to "Nature".