Pop Goes the Artist!

These are nine of the ten (10!) paintings I had to do for my last art project, in which we learned more than we ever wanted to know about color theory. Actually that’s not entirely true–I didn’t learn anything about color theory that I didn’t already know, just some things about mixing that I hadn’t figured out yet. Anyway, we had to paint the same image ten times in then different (assigned) colors schemes. The schemes are (from left to right, starting at the top): Monochromatic, Contrasting colors (not complements), split complement, cool colors with warm accents, color triad, monochromatic b/w with one hue,color tetrad, analogous colors, color complements.
This is a close up of one of the paintings (monochromatic black and white with one other color–I chose red-violet). Sorry about the weird lines on it; they’re actually a shadow from the venetian blinds in my room. I started out trying to do modeling on the arm and hand, as well as giving the guitar strings, but quickly gave that up as too time-consuming. I might go back later and give the guitars strings with a permanent marker or something, but I like the hands as they are now. More of the pop-art look I like so much.

This project was, in my mind, sort of a warm-up for the portrait of James I’m giving him for Christmas, of him playing his guitar. In fact I drew the sketch for these from one of the reference photos I took of him. (His guitar is white and maroon, though.) So now at least I can paint the guitar in my sleep, even if the rest of him will be a little harder.

Update: Surprise, surprise: after finishing this project, I never wanted to look at these paintings ever again. So now they are hanging on James’ wall in the arrangement you see in the photo. So yes, I still have to see them sometimes, but it looks pretty cool.

I finally brought the past few class projects to my dorm and got batteries from my camera (oh how I miss my scanner!), so here are the first few things I did for art class.

Project One: Harmony and Contrast

I’m not actually going to post my “harmony” piece, since it’s boring, uninspired, and I don’t feel like uploading it. The one I am posting is my “contrast” piece, hence all the circles and squares. I like this one much better, even though it took me probably four times as long to paint. It is also acrylic on canvas board (all of these will be), except this time it’s 9×12″.

Project Two: Perspective (Decorative/Plastic Space)

I’m also not going to post my “plastic space” painting, for the same reasons as above. All my two-part projects seem to involve an interesting idea and stupid one. Again, I like my other one much better–probably my favorite thing I’ve done so far this year. In fact, it’s the only one that actually has a title: “Point Me.” (Which I think might be a spell from Harry Potter, but it just kept popping into my mind every time I looked at it, so it stays.) All of our work, by the way, has been in black and white–we’re not allowed to introduce color yet, since we are starting from the most basic of basics.

Our latest completed project is a comic strip (which actually involves one (1!) color), but he’s still grading those so I don’t have it back to photograph yet.
Et Cetera

Hmmm, what else is new, art-wise? Not much, since all I have with me are pencils and a few prismacolor markers I just bought. I’m going absolutely insane; I have a project to-do list a mile and a half long: a 24×36″ portrait of James playing guitar for Christmas (and he already knows about it, so I can mention it), a watercolor portrait of my brother, several more pages in James’ altered book, continued work on the altered book I started right before I left, another dog portrait like Lucy’s except of a basset hound puppy on a green background, plus I want to start block printing again (4 seasons series?) AND I want to try to varnish a couple paintings, particularly Mrs. C’s for added protection, but it means I have to get it down perfectly before I touch hers. Thank goodness for all these little projects I’m doing in art class–lots of material to practice on. I’m not kidding when I say that I’m going absolutely nuts. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I didn’t have any art class at all.

Also took a trip to the Corcoran Gallery today to see the Andy Warhol exhibit. I took some pictures both in the permanent collection and in the Warhol exhibit before one of the security guards told me that “picture not allowed.” I guess there are still copyrights on those images, so no one print my crappy photos out and make postcards to sell, ok? lol. Anyway, I’m going to post them all on my webshots album, so you can see them here.

Finally, a few blind contour drawings I did in my sketchbook with marker yesterday while I was waiting for the rain to stop so I could go to Target. (You know I’m desperate when I resort to blind contour drawings.)

Just for the heck of it, and because I miss it, the “studio” I left behind when I came to school. That’s my current work in progress, a pop art picture of my brother. Also in view, a weird thing I’m making Gina for her dorm room. Her color scheme is black, white, and pink, hence my color scheme. Only problem is, it sorta looks like Michael Jackson and that is NEVER a good thing. I never realized how lucky I was to have even that space until I came to school, where all I have is a very small desk that my computer takes up a lot of. Plus, I just can’t break out the paints here, because they’re too much of a mess. I took a lot of things for granted, art-wise. That being said, I need to look into a serious increase in storage space and organization of supplies, because that one little tower of drawers is not going to cut it for much longer. *sigh*

This is the companion piece to the other small landscape I painted. This one is also from a photo I took in Ireland, from an upper window of Cragganowen Castle, in Co. Clare. I’m not as fond of this one, which also took a lot longer than the first one. But whatever. I rarely (wait…never) paint landscapes and I almost never paint in this style, so we’ll chalk it up to a fun experiment and leave it at that. (acrylic, 5×7″)

Several projects, in more or less the order I completed them:

This became my invitation to the senior art show. In the background, with the words colored to be a landscape, is a poem (Song of Myself) that I wrote last year in Creative Writing, repeated five or six times to fill the space. In the foreground, on foamcore to give some height, are pictures of me at various ages. I’m semi-happy with how it turned out. I was going for a gradual increase in the values of the black and white, leading up to the color photo, but that didn’t come across as strongly as I had hoped. Also, my edges are a little ragged, because foamcore is a bear to cut. I’d like to add that this looked horrible as a black and white, postcard-sized invitation, which may be part of that reason I didn’t send any out. (That, and laziness.) (Paper and foamcore, 8.5×11″)

For this assignment, we had to paint a facial feature using only two colors of paint. I took the easy way out and used white and another color, which made for much easier blending. Not that I can blend with a paintbrush anyway–and it shows. That inability may be partially due to the fact that A) I used acrylics, which dry very fast, making blending difficult, B) I’ve never really sat down to learn how, nor has anyone tried to teach me. Also, I don’t bother building up paint in thin, semi-transparent glazes. I’m not that patient, and if I wanted to do that, I’d be using watercolor, wouldn’t I? Anyway, it is what it is, and it was only a quickie exercise anyway. I do think the iris turned out nicely, though–nice variety of colors. And the eyebrow has some decent texture, although you can’t see much of it with the cropping and all. (acrylic, 6×6″)

I finally finished a pop art portrait of my brother, to go with the one I did of myself junior year. This is the third of these that I’ve done and I think it’s the best so far. And it looks like him. He chose the text, although we purposely worded it to be similar to mine, since they’re intended to hang next to each other. They also have nearly identical color schemes (primary, obviously), although I didn’t use the same colors in the same places, since that would look silly and dull. I’m also noticing now that the mouth is crooked (mouths are hard to get right in this sort of style, especially when people are smiling) and the eyes are slightly different sizes and shapes. Granted, so are my brother’s real eyes, but it still looks weird. Unfortunately I had to do this painting on paper, because my mom wanted his to be pretty much exactly like mine. Luckily, I was able to do it on much heavier paper than I did mine, so there was a lot less buckling. Perhaps this is just because I was using paper with a smooth finish, but I just don’t like the way the paints handle on it. (acrylic on paper)

Last, but not least (although smallest), a quickie painting I did from a photo I took in Ireland. I honestly painted this in about twenty minutes, with five colors and two brushes, right after I finished the pop art picture above. I just had to do something to loosen up my mind and hand after all those #&%$@ dots. Nevertheless, I’m reasonably happy with how it turned out. I did another, but haven’t scanned that one yet. (acrylic, 4×6″)

This is a painting of my dog Lucy that I did in acrylics, based on a photo my dad took not long after we got her. This is rapidly becoming my favorite style in which to paint.

I had a lot of fun with this one, although it took slightly longer than I expected and I had some frustration with the highlights on the ears. I’m also getting fed up with the transparency problems the acrylics pose, since I had to do three coats of those reds, and two of everything else (except the black, of course). It took almost an entire brand-new tube of red paint, grr. Luckily I buy student-grade paint (which may be part of my problem, but I can’t afford much better). While I’m still mastering the fine art of photographing artwork, this one is a significant improvement over my past attempts. No flash reflections, although it’s still blurry (should maybe invest in a tripod, or at least a monopod). However, the colors are fairly true, which is one of the hardest parts. (acrylics on canvas, 24×20)