Pop Goes the Artist!

I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions, because I never keep them anyway, but this year I’m going to make a few and see whether I can stick with them.  They’re simple, but I think they could make a big difference if I hold to them.

1. Fill up my current sketchbook and begin a new one.
2. Complete at least one major artwork per month (painting, drawing, etc.).  It doesn’t have to be large or complex, but it needs to be more than sketchbook quality.
3. Post here 2-3 times per week.

I think by making my goals as concrete and straightforward as possible, they will be easier to achieve and harder for me to weasel my way out of.

Happy New Year to everyone!

I actually found most of these sites weeks ago, but was too busy with the end of the semester to sit down and make a post about them.

First is one of Worth1000’s Photoshop contests, this one requiring contestants to alter a famous(ish) work of art into an advertisement. Ok, so maybe it’s the sort of thing that makes purists cry, but it made me laugh. Some of my favorites are the Shout advertisement using Artemisia Gentischeli’s painting of Judith Beheading Holofernes, Michelangelo’s David as Ronald McDonald (so wrong!), and a painting of Henry VIII’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, as a Mastercard ad (”Keeping your head: priceless”). Some of the entries are fantastic, some are uninspired, but it’s worth checking out if you’d like to waste a few minutes.

I don’t remember how I stumbled across this second link (probably the mixed media forum at WetCanvas, but who knows?), but it’s an art blog post about a really interesting idea: 1″ square collages. Granted, it would probably be a dangerous undertaking for me, given my historic inability to fill an entire sheet of paper with a drawing, but what can I say? I really like working small.

On a mostly unrelated note, I’m adding two more pages to James’ altered book, one for the dance we went to at school at the beginning of the month and one for the spectacular concert we went to see a couple weeks ago (Damien Rice and Swell Season–amazing!). Unfortunately, I left all my paints and brushes at school, so I think I’ll be doing both pages entirely in cut paper. Should be a challege, but I’ll post them here when I’m done with them.

A list of things I’ve learned (or am in the process of learning), in no particular order and for no particular reason:

1) Don’t buy palettes with square wells. Palettes seem to be a very personal thing, with people preferring everything from styrofoam plates (cheap and disposable) to sheets of plexiglass (scrapes clean). A lot of acrylic painters really like the Sta-Wet palette, which I’ve never tried. Nevertheless, there is one generalization about palettes that I can make with confidence: square wells are bad. If you are like me, and are very lazy about cleaning your palettes, they will be ruined immediately because the dry paint will NEVER come out of the little corners. Even if you are not like me and clean out your palette promptly, you will still spend the best years of your life bent over a sink trying to get the paint out of the little corners. (My personal preference, for what it’s worth, is a combination of a porcelain flower-shaped palette and a bunch of small air-tight plastic cups, which can keep paint moist for literally six months or more.)

2) Don’t be afraid to get messy–because it will happen. And what I really mean by that is “Don’t wear your very favorite and almost brand-new t-shirt that you fell in love with on the Internet and then actually bought.” And if you are stupid enough to wear your very favorite t-shirt, don’t do it while mixing up a couple of nice earth tones, which by their very nature stain things (paper, canvas, cotton, etc), and whatever you do, don’t accidently flip your palette knife–covered in paint–off your palette and onto your brand-new very favorite t-shirt. Because even if you run without hesitation to the laundry room and submerge the shirt in cold water and every stain remover you own including bleach, it will not come out. (I’m serious; my mom soaked the shirt in a bleach solution and while the t-shirt came out completely unscathed, the stain remained.) So, uh, yeah. Be careful. And wear crappy clothes because if you don’t, your paint will know and it will conspire against you.

3) Don’t stress about color theory. A lot of people will probably disagree with me about this, but a lot of people might agree with me, too. My theory about color theory is that mostly what it does is explain and justify things that we already know and can pretty much figure out through eyeballing and a little experimentation. I mean, it’s good to know some basic concepts and vocabulary like complementary colors; primary, secondary, and tertiary colors; warm and cool colors; and the like. But other than that? If it looks good on your canvas, it’s probably good color theory. A little bit of experimenting while you mix colors will teach you a lot, as will spending a lot of time looking at other people’s art. But I think a lot of it is instinctual, or at least picked up unconsciously the longer you paint and look at art. Personally, I’m a fan of limiting the number of different colors I use in any given painting (my wallet is also a fan of this policy) and making sure the one or two main colors have a good degree of contrast. Learn by doing–it’s a lot more fun. And if it looks crappy, just paint over it.

While I was at the National Gallery of Art the other day to see the “Prayers and Portraits” exhibit, I also had to stop by the galleries containing pieces from the museum’s late medieval collection. I prefer earlier medieval art to later, but what I love most of all is medieval sculpture. Something about the rounded, simple, and slightly stylized forms captivates me. The NGA doesn’t have a huge collection of medieval sculpture (probably about ten pieces on display), but by far my favorite piece is the one pictured here, a fifteenth century English rendition of St. George slaying the dragon, carved in alabaster and painted. I love the way the curves of the dragon’s tail fit beneath the belly of the horse and the way the curve of the horse’s neck matches the curve of the dragon’s. It’s a compact and elegant piece, despite the broken pieces. Even though it represents a scene of action, there’s a certain stillness about it that I find very attractive.

The statue on the right is from a medieval museum in Paris. I don’t remember which museum, however, or even what it’s a statue of (monk? mourner?) because I lost the small notebook in which I wrote down all the info about titles and artists and museums. (And no, I still have not renamed and sorted and Internet photo album-ed all the photos I took. Whoops.) Anyway, I do remember that this particular statue was pretty small–maybe six inches high. I was struck again by that gorgeous stillness, which in the case of this piece is due largely to its symmetry. I’d love to know the context for this piece, because I doubt it was meant to be seen all by itself.

And finally, my favorite piece of medieval art ever: Ye Olde Medieval Towel Bar. I am not making this up: the lovely lady pictured on the left is, in fact, a towel bar. From the Middle Ages. I saw this gem in the same museum as the monk above and was captivated. I mean, of all the things you expect to be preserved for six centuries, a towel bar would be near the bottom of the list. It’s an interesting glimpse into everyday life. And it makes me giggle. A lot.

(All photographs are my own.  You can click the thumbnails to open them larger and in a new window.)

I’m pretty sure everyone on the planet uses Google at some point in their day (and I’m similarly sure that Google is using that fact in their bid to wrest World Domination from the twin powers of Microsoft and Disney), but if you haven’t seen Google today, then be sure to check out their little tribute to Edvard Munch, who would be 143 years old today, if he weren’t dead.  The image also links to search results for Munch, so if you’re interested in finding out more about his life and work, that’s a good place to start.