This is not going to be like last year’s Field project. I think this is going to not only take actual work. But work me to the bone to keep up with this.
I’m a bit late with this journal. And I still don’t have all the work I need to do done. Well. I’ll try to finish it all today.
I found moving back into the fine art block and hearing about paintings like slipping back into a familiar bed. Warm and comforting. I’ve missed the smells of a real art room.
Our first lecture tried to get us excited about art with collages and surrealism. Again, after being stuck reading about postmodern, conceptual nonsense, it felt good to be hearing about real art again. But I had no interest in making a collage or an experimental piece. I had come to Painting 101 to make something traditional. Something that could test my ability to convey weight, volume and character in a human form.
Our first task was to go to the Cardiff museum and make drawings and take photographs of works that we could take elements from that could be but together into single paint later. I explained to out tutor that I had my own vision in mind. That I wanted to paint a female nude (Something I have never done before) but that I would look around for exhibits that tied into my interest and draw and photograph them. James seemed okay with this. At his suggestion I would capture 2 paintings, 2 sculptures and something other.
This was very, very hard for me as I had lost my glasses and couldn’t see a damn thing. Plus I hadn’t done any life drawing in ages and I’d forgotten how it uses different parts of brain from drawing from imagination Leaving me unbelievably rusty.
Still below are photographs of the things I chose and my pathetic attempts to draw them.
I was using a borrowed Canon EOS 4000D camera. I’d forgotten real camera don’t auto focus.
But if you get them on the right setting it looks great
I feel embarrassed putting my doodles next to these works
And this one was just worthless.
On Thursday I got down to trying make my female. I first drew a thumbnail. Then a pose. and to add in some humour I threw in a Simpsons quote
For reasons I will explain later, I decided to give her green skin. I tried out different shades of green and differnt poses at the same time. I eventually settled on a slightly understated pose and a rich mid green and a muscular build.
I think it looks cool.
And now to turn it into a painting
On Friday tried to come in for life drawing. But I was zonked out and not able to do much. But I did at least put the drawing down on my canvas. I think it looks okay
Now to try to make a real painting out of this
John's Learning Journal 