looking back

Final Reflection.

1. i have never had trouble using color, or at least no trouble covering my canvas with it.... however at the start i may not have been using it in the most effiecient or fitting manner. I knew that i saw the colors in my subjects... bt just needed practice getting comfortable conveying my view and transmitting this isnto a piece. I believe that as my paintings progressed i exibit comfort in my color use and that i currently use it more effectivly.

2. my compositions ten to be very centered... or balanced. my fist painting did have the focal points off centered, however the "negitive space" was by no means left empty or even close to untouched. I believe that my compositions have been strong, and in being centered easily direct the viewer to my focus and create something full and balanced with an even flow.

3. in the still-life painting i worked hard to create the illusion of the many textures and different surfaces of my subjects, however otherwise my painting's fucus have not been so realist and detailed that i have sepend as much time focusing on this aspect of the piece.

4. a big part of my painitngs is the effisis on light and the effect is takes on the onbjects and space. Light brings depth and value to a painting and i work hard to portray the light of setting as best i can so that these paintings are spacious and well-rounded.

overall i think that i have progressed in developing a sense of style in my work and have made efforts to learn certain tequniques for my paintings... in the end i have picked and choosed from these and combined the disired styles into my own.

Observations of OIl Painting in History

Use your research from this term and concepts and terms we’ve discussed in class to make some general observations about the history of oil painting.

Use these questions to guide your writing:

Who have been the major players throughout the history of oil painting? Why is this so?

Who seems to be missing from the history of oil painting? Why is this so?

Where in the world did most oil painting taking place?

Where did all these oil paintings go? Why? How does where these paintings “live” affect who learns about them and why?

How has subject matter changed over time? Why?

 

Be sure to use specific examples to back up your opinions (some of these examples can be from your own personal experiences).

white objects painting

window painting

the bright light of fall fills the window of the dim room

my interior and atmospheric painting

       

setup, the window when the leaves were still red
     

working and progress

     

neighbor (Sam K.) and i's paintings

Doll

my still-life

my set-up

      

me in my space 

some progress

finished product

Critique Feedback

Positive Feedback:

-i use color well...

a lot of it and in an interesting way

-shadows on the doll painting add great depth

-good values in my work, showing different tones, preventing the spaces from looking flat

-view lines are well composed, eyes are easily lead to the focal point

-compositions have good flow

-good use of negative space, the lack of objects, focusing on the simple folds of the cloth... interesting choice

-good use of the paint, lots of layering

-good mood 

Critical Feedback:

-in the white objects and then trying to work on this in the later still-life painting...

making things feel solid.

the table that objects are sitting on, that the objects themselves are masses and exert force on the table. Ground the objects

-on the white objects, feels a bit one tone.  Work on value.  There were a lot of different colors but all brought down to the same range... takes away some of the beauty in the diversity of colors... they have all been muted.

they blend too much

-use the highlights and deep shadows... and use them to your advantage.

they will help create depth, solidify the objects and give the painting richer value

Progress:

-i had a distinct style and opinion to start with

-with the practice and time, seems more comfortable.  I have figured out my style and learned how to use it more successfully

-George referenced Monet in the weight of my brushstrokes 

why oil paint?

"Glossary Term: Oil Paint Oil paints were invented in the 15th century by a Flemish painter, Jan van Eyck. Before oil paint, most painters used tempera paint, which dried very quickly and didn't allow the artist to make changes or corrections. The invention of oil paints allowed artists to paint much more realistically and experiment with different brushstrokes and styles.
Oil paint is a mix of ground pigments and linseed, poppy or walnut oil. Since oil dries slowly, artists could take more time to work on details and capture the textures of skin and fabrics. Oil paints could also be built up in thin layers which better reflect light.

...able to achieve products that resemblesd photos... so close to reality

In the 19th century, a new range of artificial colors in airtight tubes made oils even easier to use. Oil paints remained the most popular kind of paint for 500 years until the invention of acrylic paints in the 1950s. "
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vs.
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"Glossary Term: Acrylic Paint In the 1930's, Mexican outdoor mural painters needed to find a new durable paint to stand up to wind, rain, and high humidity. They began to experiment with chemical or synthetic resins as paint binding agents (binding agents, such as egg or oil, are mixed with dry pigments to make paints). By the mid-1950's, researchers in Mexico and the United States had developed a way to mix resins with water, which created a paint that was almost identical to oils, yet was more durable and dried quickly. Acrylic paint also made it possible for artists to work on any unprimed surface such as cement or concrete. Acrylic paint will not crack over time and can be mixed and cleaned up with water.

diego rivera famous mexican muralist... fridas husband..."
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about the paints.. makeup
"This earliest and still most commonly used vehicle is linseed oil, pressed from the seed of the flax plant. Modern processes use heat or steam in order to produce refined varieties of oil, which contain fewer impurities, but cold-pressed oils are still the favorite of many artists.[3] Other vegetable oils such as Hemp, poppy seed, walnut, sunflower, safflower, and soybean oils may be used as alternatives to linseed oil for a variety of reasons. For example, safflower and poppy oils are paler than linseed oil and allow for more vibrant whites.
Once the oil is extracted additives are sometimes used to improve its chemical properties. In this way the paint can be made to dry more quickly if that is desired, or to have varying levels of gloss. Modern oils paints can, therefore, have complex chemical structures; for example, affecting resistance to UV or giving a suede like appearance."
...
"Pigment
The color of oil paint derives from the small particles mixed with the carrier. Common pigment types include mineral salts such as white oxides: lead, now most often replaced by less toxic zinc and titanium, and the red to yellow cadmium pigments. Another class consists of earth types, e.g. sienna or umber. Synthetic pigments are also now available. Natural pigments have the advantage of being well understood through centuries of use but synthetics have greatly increased the spectrum available, and many are tested well for their lightfastness."
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***why i use oils and likely why others do too... they layer beautifully i personaly love building up my paintings, assentially combining hundreds of pieces to make one final. Oil paint allows you to shift you object, add light and darknes and with all of this create depth and a great sense of deveopment in your painting.
why not go back to the orginal way... maybe they did it right the first time. putting this amazing diverse or versitile medium.

acrilic paints are very opaque... once you lay down a layer the on underneath often disapearns never to be seen again under this plastic cover. With oils you can choose weather to put them down thick and opaque or add additional mediums to thin them out or even give them more mass.

water colors are surprisingly similar to oils however a layer of you painting can come back to life if it comes in cantact with water again, so building up the painting is more difficult.

portraits

Kiki Smith

Frida Kahlo
Frida

These are very literal portraits, and i enoy that aspect of these paintings. They convey stong, straight forward messeges. Frida creates a serealist scene by literally placing the different people, events, locations and materials of her life on her body. Taking these things out of context of a landscape or a crowd and placing them along side her body or her face. She paints her husband Diego on her forhead, a literal statment of his precenece in her thoughts and her constant mental awakness of her love for him. This statements, are simple and beautiful, she paints collages of the influences of her life... creating masterpieces.

Kiki Smith has also portrayed herself in a very literal. Smith puts herself directly on the canvas, stripping her natural skin from her body and stretching it across the stretchers. Ths is a beautiful and natural portrait.

I enjoyed these artists styles, for their simplicity and strong opinions. Not questioning their ideas and being direct in conveying their thoughts.

a sense of place

     

These are both paintings by Edward Hopper, a master of setting a mood and creating a sense of place where you can not only see the figures but even the air that the room holds is given a value... a texture... a feeling.  These paintings both hold one figure in a room, but although they are made with very similar styles the feeling conveyed is completely different.

The woman on the bed sits looking out the window, breathing in the fresh morning air as the sun streams into her room and warms the surface of her bed and her cheeks on her epraiser face.

The girl at the table seems chilled sitting in a room with a miniscule raidiator that does not seem to be warming the room at all, she grasps her tea cup for warmth and looks down at it pondering the heat that it holds.  She is bundled up in her heavy jacket and although she seems to have found comfort in her seat as she huddled up around warm things the chilly, dim room overpowers the small offset of warmth that she presents.  

-body language of the woman... one open to the presumably warm air around her 

and the other a bit more closed off and small, her white skin given goose bumps by the cold air of the room

-color... the light of the painting on the left is yellow and warms the room

while in the painting of the cafe the light is artificial (it is night and lamps light the room) but is does not shine yellow or orange it is white light like that of a winter day when the air is cold.

-the imagination could carry... the woman on her bed hears the sounds of morning, the streets awakening and the occasional chirp of birds. A much brighter atmosphere than that of the that of the cafe that would be somewhat quite, cold with quiet chatter of other customers and the clinking of tea and coffee cups.

where i am now

I have learned alot from Oil Painting, with the freedom, independence i have been able to work and explore while doing so. Oil Painting as a medium has added to this expirience because i have been able to layer my work and go through many trials to reach a final piece. The most challenging bit of all of my work has been reaching a state of completion, i am always looking at my painting and seeeing more possible improvements and differences form the subject. There are many possible directions to go in and i am having trouble wrapping up the project and making the piece feel cohessive.

I think that i have progressed most in my ability to put colors down how i see them. In the past i have not had as much of an opinion as an artist and i feel that as i continue producing work and practicing in the medium i have gained more freedom. I feel more confident as a painting and enjoy producing work very much.

i think that obsserving art history is useful and effects artist today because in looking back at any history we are able to learn from those who came before us. We can pick an choose from the styles and inspiring ideas as we please. Looking back to the succesess of the past is a great way to fuel yourself in producing well rounded work with depth.

a famous painting

Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp

Duchamp has captured movement. The figure crosses the painting, this mmovement allows the eye to travel with ease across the canvas. It is an abstract depiction of a nude subject decending a staircase and a beautiful and unique one at that. With any abstract piece come an opinion, a vision and value in the artists ideas and thoughts. It is stylized therefor no one can copy it, no one can perfectly replicate a personal style or opinion, because every opinion is unique (i believe that this adds value). Artists with opinions and different visions from the rest show another side to the world and this is valuable and interesting for the viewer.

movement captured

Duchamps style is geometric, cubic and done in dense developed layers. One wonders how he has created sush shapes, the canvas hops soft movements accompanied by bold geometric shapes. It is a balanced composition throughout the canvas, with a mixture of swift stokes and sharpe complete shapes. It is an interesting piece full of quuestion in his process which layers came first, such a fluid compostion to create this moving beauty. A piece that provides a visual you can explore and wonder about... mind bogling.

This piece holds futurist styles of it's time (1912). The major style of this time was cubo-expressionism. most deffinitally influenced by his fellow arts of his time, picasso and georges Braque the style was depicted in both mediums of painting and sculpture. it depicted movement in music and literature. This style lead to the surrealist movement. Artists were recording their opions in a modern manner, full of opinion creating new-age, untraditional and unconventional images. Radical artists.

Ambiguous space and shapes that one was left to interpret. This piece holds vast opinion therefore holding unmeasurable value in society.

creating the illusion of surface and texture

still life with peaches and a silver goblet, Jean Simeon Chardin

Vincent Van Gogh

Banquet with mince pie (plus detail), Willem Claesz Heda

Each artist miniputlates the paint in a different way to obtain a different texture. Heda's painting presents the use of highlights (whites) to add shine to the subjects. the silk and metal on the table turns white where the light would hit strongest. This mixed with the shadodws of the creases and of the sides of vases that are no longer touched by the light creates rich value. Heda's piece is full of value and leading theses colors into one another smoothly creates the illusion of smooth shinny materials.

Chardin also has shine on the goblet by showing the strong highlights, he successfully conveys the goblet's luster and metalic quality while contrasting creating a fuzzy contrasting quality on the peaches. By dabbign the paint on delicatly with the tips of the brushes bristles, he has created the detailed and miniscule feel of peach fuzz.

Different from the rest is Van Gogh who exibits a chunky rough style, the tyles seem hard and cold as he scratches into the thickly laid on paint. And each piece of the woven chair looks sturdy, solid and bold. Van Gogh's piece too holds value and shine on the curves of the chair, but his textures are created by stronger thickers movements with his brushes.

color mixing chart

refletions on the small studies

What i found difficult during these studies was to keep the concept of studies, to make them quick and act on impulses. I had to try and keep my momentum up so i could make these paintings simple and basic.
What i found to be successful was when i was working based on my impulses, putting colors down as i had mixed them and seen them, not constantly blending. I like it when i start putting colors down as strong individual hughs, that cna stand alone but end up working with the others to create a complete composition.

white objects thumbnail sketches

i chose the thumbnail on the right, i liked the unbalance and white space that i plan to utilize. The simplicity of the composition and the objects will allow me to focus on the many tones and temperatures found in the white, making the variaty of colors my main focus or subject.

(what i see)

all the layers, progressively moving from the strong colors into more white,

but still acknowledging the richness of the white

My Small Studies

My Small Study Set-ups

composition

Still Life With Three Puppies, by Paul Gaughin, 1888

I enjoy this composition. The subjects are evenly dispersed across the piece and it allows the views eye to move throughout it with ease. The flow of the piece is simple and gives equal value to every aspect of the painting. No object is valued over the other and beauty and balance is found in this simplicity.

Morandi vs. VanGogh

Irises, 1890, Vincent Van Gogh

Sunflowers, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh

Still Life, 1955, Giorgio Morandi

These two artists most definitely contrast one another, Morandi a man of simplicity and Van Gogh one who picks up a great deal on the small beauties in details. Morandi conveys beauty in simplicity, the objects are shown as solid pure objects. The pots appear dense, the thick smooth colors are give the objects great weight. His composition is simple and modest and the colors are aswell, it sets a tranquil cool mood.

Van Gogh on the other hand has wispy paint brushes of many vibrant colors. The petals see delicate, thin and light. There are many colors and textures that make up each piece of the painting. Van Gogh depicts every aspect of the flowers down to the seeds on the sunflowers, and the small line detail on the Irises. The vibrant colors and lively subjects are full energy and freshness. I like both of these pieces very much but i love Van Gogh's great eye for unexpected detail (finding light turquoise in the whites of eyes, and the many textures that make up each flower). His colors are also very fresh and clean. While his subjects are quite tranquil his pieces set an enjoyable tranquil atmosphere.

what I know now...

-primary colors: red, yellow & blue
-secondary colors: orange, green & purple
-you create secondary colors by mixing two of the primary colors
-complimentary colors are the colors that sit across from the another color on the color wheel.
-you can emphasize someting in a painting, by using composition to lead the viewers eye to the object. You cn use contrast in color (complimentary colors) or tone. You can use shadows and detail to make the object stand out from the rest.
-You can add complimentary color to the current color of the object creating a darker hue of it.
-to show light you can use the lighter colors, with more white creating a shine on the object.
-use darker colors in contrast to the lighter colors of the objects closer up to set the object farther back in the layout. Or you can make the object smaller than the objects closer or in the foreground.
-I would sketch or lightly layout the painting, create the disired composision. Then paint what i see giving equal value to the objects as i give to the space that lays between them, resulting in a complete and rich piece.

a painting I remember

The Guernica by picasso
this past summer i traveled through spain and visited the Sophia Reina. It ws a notable expirience to be so close to sucha master piece. Being able to see the brush stroke of a genius, someone with a unique opinion and profound thoughts.

my skills as an artist

My strength as an artist is that i value the process just as much as the final product. I love watching my piece grow and enjoy working and seeing the many layers of paintings that combine into one final piece. The many major and minor adjustments and the time and thought spent creating the art is what brings alot of the value to a piece. I think it is important to acknowledge all of the hard work that makes up what we see in the end.

why I'm taking oil painting

I took this corse because of my strong interest in the arts. I would love to continue producing new pieces and learning from my time spent working. Time spent concentrating on my passion is time that i value.