Homework!!

I missed some school last term and being the busy person that I am, managed to not really get any of my catch up school work done over the term break. So now that school is back in, I have homework to do!! So today I spent the morning cleaning up my studio - it had survived the ultimate test last night - being host to eleven 13 year old girls for a slumber party! Thankfully, none of them touched my stuff - probably due to me telling them several times in no uncertain terms, "Don't touch my stuff!!!!" The first thing to be tackled was my journal work. That involved some research on a Sidney Nolan painting - I chose his Gallipoli, 1950 to discuss.

 I love the effect he's created by scraping the paint across the canvas, and I love the colour. I also discussed some of Rene Magritte's work. In particular his Mermaid, 1935 and Intermission, 1928.

I had to talk about how Magritte makes the illogical seem to be the truth. For me, this comes from the toning within the human forms - we know they are human because of the shapes and the shadowing. The paintings are executed in such a manner that the disparate objects within the pictures seem so realistic that our brains simply accept what they are, and where they are. That's my take on it anyway. I do find his work very appealing.
I also included some research on digital art. I included some examples of artist John Sauerhoff's work. His work is printed onto ink embedded paper and the somewhat fantastical effect of the colours is very visually stimulating. 

You can find other examples of his work here: JVS Tree Illustrations

Lastly I had to find a few examples of Pop Art and draw some. I was fortunate enough almost two years ago to see an exhibition on Pop Art at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis. To see Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein works in person, among others, was truly an amazing experience! Pop Art is such an important part of our artistic history, no matter what anyone personally thinks of the work, it was so exciting to see some of them in reality as opposed to on a screen or in a book. I ended up drawing a Jasper Johns Flag, (an example of which I also saw in the flesh so to speak!), and an untitled Frank Stella work from 1964.

Now all that's left to do is finish up my Arts and Business mountain of paperwork, make a new sculpture and draw it multiple times for my drawing class, then take photos of it and play around with it in Photoshop. I also have to finish my transcription (remember my Theorbo Player?), finish the new painting I started last week (more on that in my next post!), finish etching my Shellac plate and make three prints from it, and begin on my copperplate etching this week! And then next week we start on ANOTHER painting, and I need to begin work on my history essay!! Good thing I like being busy!!