Painting Workshop Pieces- With Galen Pittman

The last three days in STAC have been pretty much jammed packed with art. Today I have the joy to say that My “Native” painting is near completion! I must have gone through hell and back to get that painting to “work” again. I guess that last three days have been a matter of simply “doing” that contemplating. The paintings pictured below, including the Charcoal piece shown below are the pieces of which I created in the Painting workshop with Galen Pittman. This experience with Galen was a truly wonderful workshop. One main point that that Galen brought up was everything within a painting is intertwined. Everything in the figure leads to the next. The charcoal drawing was a preliminary drawing to test our skills. Although this was a preliminary drawing, gale assisted me in this piece as well. The idea of interconnected figures and light/dark contrasts that he spoke of aided in the process of creating the “see-through” effect on the bottle. The next day, I mostly applied the concept of contract between light and dark figures. I made sure to contrast lighter tones in colors by highlighting them with a white, while bordering it with a dark to contrast it and bring out the white’s natural tone. Gales Workshop was a wonderful experience for my technical aspect o painting. I hope to be part of workshops like this in the near future. 

Painting On the Way- Artistic Inquiry

One problem I have been finding myself in lately is that I cannot physically finish my work. it is probably incorrect to say that I cannot "physically" finish my work, but it would be incorrect to say that I cannot finish my pieces because I have ran out of ideas. Ideas come easy to me. It is easy to finish apiece when there is an easy flow of ideas throughout the piece's work process. when circumstance occur such that a good ideas is created to spark the beginning of a project and nothing more, I’m left with pieces such as the one shown above. This piece has caused much aggravation in that it seemed like a good idea a first, but as time went on during the process of creating, ideas seemed to stop flowing. Initially the idea of the piece was derived from my grandfather’s brother who works hand-to-had with natives of Latin America, working to preserve their cultural values of ancestral backgrounds. With this I decided to paint an interpretive and subjective figure of a native from the Americas. The flowers were to represent the soul and hospitality and the white above the figures chest was to represent vibrancy. I figured the fastest, easiest, and best way to interpret my idea would be to use quick-drying acrylic and palate knives. It all seemed to be such a wonderful idea, but when I finished the figure, I was left with open/ unfinished space. I am currently conducting research on South American natives. I am hoping that this will spark some creativity and create or be the basis of new ideas. 

African Art and Influence

-1-

-2-

            These two pieces work within the same realm of ideas and principles. the underlying concepts of the pieces was slavery and this came about after reading books and news articles on cultural masks showing tribal identities and inter brotherhood between tribal members of African tribal members. “These masks would describe peoples ways of life, ranging from the food they ate, to the wars they fought, to the gods they believed in “(The). “The masks are dramatic portraits of spirit beings, departed ancestors, and invisible powers of social control” (Art). As these people were slowly stolen from their land to be turned into slaves, the land changed and stayed the same. it stayed the same in that it still believed in its culture, but changed in that the peoples way of life changed. They were taken from their homes, oppressively, and virtually forced upon their new lives as slaves with the discontinuation of their previous life and rich culture. These principles can be summed up into the second piece. This piece describes the native oppression and their struggle as an identity. The repeated image represents the lasting impact it had on our modern world and how slavery destroyed cultures and lives of millions of Africans. The first piece is a mask and it was made to correspond with the second painting. This mask (the first painting) depicts a depressed face with dark square tears dripping from the eyes of the face pictured. This pace mainly includes red as red can symbolize blood for pain- so do the teardrops pictured within the piece, as well. 

Ray, Benjamin Caleb. "The Art of the African Mask." The Art of the African Mask. Bayly Art Museum, n.d. Web. 5 Aug. 1994. <http://cti.itc.virginia.edu/~bcr/African_Mask.html>.

Kraus and L'elisir d'amore

 - 1, Kraus.  -

- 2, L'elisir. -

As for these pieces, I completed them in the beginning of the first quarter. I haven’t had the chance to put them up, but now is the time I felt best to upload them. In the midst of their creation, I began to ponder about sound and its power of connecting all spaces- plane, flat, circular, or cubical. Its power also seemed to find a way to connect spaces in an aesthetic way where energy is not only flowing, but its connective, fluid and concentrated. In the first piece, Kraus, I decided to recreate the face of Alfredo Kraus but with a shown energy movement between spaces. this piece was the first out of the two and proved to be more problematic in that I could not portray my ideas exactly onto the paper...I fixated myself on the aesthetic portion of drawing, making every line perfect and the face similar to that of Alfredo Kraus. The second piece, L'elisir, proved to be the more fluid out of the two. Even though the first piece is not completed, L'elisir, surely proved my imagination true. In this piece, the energy reverberating off of the singer's body is self-contained; concentrating the energy in the tips of the fingers and behind the body as it moves- leaving energy. The energy given off is all around but self-contained within the character. Both pieces were modeled off of interpreted visions of the artists or operas from memory; no pictures were used or duplicated.

Inquiry- Quarter 2

As far as Quarter three goes, I am picturing myself in the realm of musical studies, whether its theory or composition- its music. The main ideas I want to follow are the studies of music enrichment. I other words my intentions are to strengthen my theory and music interpretative skills. I am interested in teaching myself cello, as well. I played the instrument as a younger student in the middle school though I dropped it as I came up to the high school. I feel as if the more musically well-rounded I become, the better a musician I become. this will help me in the long run because I certainly need to pick up my game I regard to my knowledge of music and its history/ theory if I were to major in classical music studies in college. That is my aim. My objective, from now until the end of the year, is to enrich myself with music and its history through time periods, advance my theory and music reading skills, and improve my interpretative music skills. I feel as if the best thing for me would be to turn STAC into a place where I can interpolate all of my skills, outside music skill, etc., and become a better musician. I still want to sing, but not to the point where it’s dangerous. If any problems should arise, I would certainly consult with my outside teachers and STAC teacher. As for improvement, I would need to certainly do major research. Pursuant to this, I could either write music papers, or write my own compositions imitating or in the style of such periods. These pieces of composed music can range from chamber orchestral pieces to solo pieces to recital pieces. There is no limit to the possibilities. 

Inspiration to Paper

Quarter one has certainly been a well thought out quarter, and it has given me a practical sense of my prospects and perspectives of what my interests are. The beginning of the quarter marked a new beginning- classical voice. it has changed my life, giving me a whole other perspective of art; I would have ever imagining myself so changed and motivated by one form of art. Classical  music has changed my life; As a child i listened to classical, but i was not as interested or "moved" by the music. I have decided that I will be focusing on classical music, extensively and thoroughly. I am also considering the idea of studying classical music in college. As for the work produced in first quarter, I have not much music- But I have produced an extensive amount of visual art. My mediums have included, but not limited to, acrylics, oils, Water based oils, and lots of thinners. one of the first pieces was the piece pictured below. I worked extensively on this piece- I believe a total of 2 weeks of work were performed on this piece. It showcases a figure of Jose Carreras (one of my favorite tenors) in a pose. I intentionally depicted him like this because I wanted the picture to be "multifaceted" - to a degree. in this sense, I wanted the image to be a figure that promotes thought process, one that could be subjective to different viewers. the piece did not have one specific portrayed emotion; it had many. To a degree, most of my work this quarter had reflected upon my love of music. All of my paintings have been products of my visual interpretations of the music ringing through my thoughts... thought to words, words to inspiration, ears for inspiration, and inspiration to paper has been my motif for quarter one.