ALTERED MASTERPIECE:
This week's assignment is to make a pastel drawing that uses color to change the meaning or psychological mood of a famous painting. Begin by selecting a well-known painting that holds some personal interest for you. Be sure to make a nice digital print of your selected piece (preferably from a high-quality reproduction) so that you're not working from a computer screen.
Next, study the image for a while and imagine how your "read" of the painting might differ if the color were different. For example, if your selected piece is Van Gogh's Starry Night, imagine how you might feel about the piece if the sky were bright orange instead of blue, if the stars were blue instead of yellow, if the trees in the foreground were red and green, etc.
Using your chalk pastels and whatever kind of mark-making approach (including, if you're feeling ambitious, Seurat's "Pointillism"), make a drawing that re-interprets the painting by changing its color scheme significantly. You may want to consider "inverting" the colors -- i.e., changing each color into its complement. Or, if you prefer, alter the palette to emphasize a dominant hue not seen in the original. However you choose to approach the assignment, concentrate on "re-creating" the painting in such a way that you give it a new dimension of meaning that feels uniquely your own.
You may use however many or few colors you want to for this assignment, but complex (i.e., blended) colors tend to be more successful than simple ones.
Be sure to bring your print of the original painting to class so we can look at it during our critique.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Color photograph for Monday's class
Dear class,
Please bring with you on Monday a color photograph (or print) with an interesting composition and a range of hues. The subject can be anything whatsoever, but it should be something that holds some personal significance to you. We will be using this in our class drawing session.
Please bring with you on Monday a color photograph (or print) with an interesting composition and a range of hues. The subject can be anything whatsoever, but it should be something that holds some personal significance to you. We will be using this in our class drawing session.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Homework Assignment #6, due Monday 2/20, and notebook reminder
First phase: Writing on the Body:
Your assignment for this week is to select a text for your mid-term project and to create a graphic arrangement that will be “camera-ready” so that I can convert it into slide form. Before doing anything, be sure to read over the entire project description (see post below).
Your text:
Once you select a text for the project, you’ll need to arrange it graphically (with or without additional “purely graphic” elements) on a regular sheet of paper (i.e., 8.5” x 11”). You can do this either on the computer or by hand. If necessary, you may bring in several alternatives; I will convert into slides up to three texts per person.
Please note that even if you will not be using the projection approach for this project, you still need to show me a sketch of what you will be doing. The main thing is to begin thinking and planning now so that you'll be ready to get to work immediately after spring break. You can do this in your notebook, as I will be checking those next week.
Your assignment for this week is to select a text for your mid-term project and to create a graphic arrangement that will be “camera-ready” so that I can convert it into slide form. Before doing anything, be sure to read over the entire project description (see post below).
Your text:
Once you select a text for the project, you’ll need to arrange it graphically (with or without additional “purely graphic” elements) on a regular sheet of paper (i.e., 8.5” x 11”). You can do this either on the computer or by hand. If necessary, you may bring in several alternatives; I will convert into slides up to three texts per person.
Please note that even if you will not be using the projection approach for this project, you still need to show me a sketch of what you will be doing. The main thing is to begin thinking and planning now so that you'll be ready to get to work immediately after spring break. You can do this in your notebook, as I will be checking those next week.
Midterm project
Below are the guidelines I gave you in class this week for your midterm project. Please take some time to read them over thoroughly.
NOTE: The exact deadline is yet to be determined. Projects will be due some time after spring break.
WRITING ON THE BODY:
This assignment is about exploring the formal possibilities and conceptual implications of a mode of self-expression that can be considered the most primal form of mark-making: writing on the body. While there are many different ways to approach this project, a good place to begin is a consideration of today’s tattoo culture, in which people have highly personalized words and images inked indelibly onto their skin—with results that can be both astonishingly beautiful and thoroughly grotesque. A less familiar but equally fascinating phenomenon is the practice of scarification that occurs in many African and Pacific cultures, in which deep scars are “etched” onto the face to form symbolic marks. These marks can indicate anything from status in the community to ancestral connections to personal achievements such as having undergone a certain rite of passage.
While we won’t be doing any real tattooing or scarifying for this assignment, the idea is to make a large-scale drawing that depicts some kind of personal text “written” on either your body or that of a surrogate (both male and female models will be available). We will be working with projected images, and in the past many students have incorporated aspects of the projections into their drawings, with very intriguing results.
The project breaks down into roughly seven steps, but obviously you should be considering all of them simultaneously as you go along.
1. Choosing a text: The first step is to select a piece of writing that holds some personal significance for you. It can be anything from a poem by Emily Dickinson to a passage from the Koran to the lyrics of a Pink Floyd song to something you wrote yourself. The length, style, and content of the text are entirely up to you.
2. Converting your text into an image: After selecting your text, you will need to convert the letters and words into an “image” from which you’ll make your drawing. This can be as simple as typing your text in a Word document and making a print of it. If this is what you do, be sure to give great consideration to your font, as it will clearly affect the meaning of your final image. You should experiment with a variety of different fonts, font sizes, and text configurations in the initial stages of your project. When you arrive at a final text composition, print it out on a regular 11” x 8.5” piece of paper to turn in to me. I will convert these images into slides for projection.
3. Choosing a body part: After selecting a text and considering various formats for it, the next step will be to choose a site on your body (or the model’s) to bear the text. This decision should be made with the utmost care, since both the formal particularities of the site (i.e., the texture of the skin, the angles and contours of the bones and muscles, etc.) and its psychological associations will contribute greatly to the meaning of your piece. In making your decision about body site, you might want to take some photographs of various body parts (e.g., the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet, a kneecap, your face, your back, etc.) to work with in your preparations. Remember: the idea is not to entertain the prospect of a real tattoo but rather to make a really interesting work of art. The most intriguing image might result from placing your text in the least likely place!
4. Considering your composition: Once you’ve decided on both text and body site, begin to make some preliminary sketches that explore various alternatives for a basic composition. Feel free to abstract as much as you need to (for example, zooming in on body parts can create very beautiful and ambiguous compositions).
5. Approaching your final drawing: There are several ways of approaching the construction of your final image, but in any case you should have numerous sketches, photos, etc. to work from. One of the key drawing challenges in this project will be in depicting your text as it “wraps around” the contours of your body. To help you visualize this, we will be working with a slide projector and two models (male and female) during our designated studio day (we will discuss this in class).
6. Choosing a paper: As with last semester’s final project, you should give great consideration to your choice of paper. The dimensions of your paper should be approximately 30” x 40”, but other than that, the choice is yours. New York Central Art Supply has a wonderful selection of papers. The store is located at 62 3rd Ave. (just south of 11th St.); the paper department is upstairs.
7. Choosing your drawing materials: For this project you may use whatever drawing materials you feel are appropriate. Restraint is advised, however. (Please keep the “less is more” mantra in mind, and add colors and extraneous materials only when necessary! A simple Ebony pencil can produce wondrous results.)
NOTE: The exact deadline is yet to be determined. Projects will be due some time after spring break.
WRITING ON THE BODY:
This assignment is about exploring the formal possibilities and conceptual implications of a mode of self-expression that can be considered the most primal form of mark-making: writing on the body. While there are many different ways to approach this project, a good place to begin is a consideration of today’s tattoo culture, in which people have highly personalized words and images inked indelibly onto their skin—with results that can be both astonishingly beautiful and thoroughly grotesque. A less familiar but equally fascinating phenomenon is the practice of scarification that occurs in many African and Pacific cultures, in which deep scars are “etched” onto the face to form symbolic marks. These marks can indicate anything from status in the community to ancestral connections to personal achievements such as having undergone a certain rite of passage.
While we won’t be doing any real tattooing or scarifying for this assignment, the idea is to make a large-scale drawing that depicts some kind of personal text “written” on either your body or that of a surrogate (both male and female models will be available). We will be working with projected images, and in the past many students have incorporated aspects of the projections into their drawings, with very intriguing results.
The project breaks down into roughly seven steps, but obviously you should be considering all of them simultaneously as you go along.
1. Choosing a text: The first step is to select a piece of writing that holds some personal significance for you. It can be anything from a poem by Emily Dickinson to a passage from the Koran to the lyrics of a Pink Floyd song to something you wrote yourself. The length, style, and content of the text are entirely up to you.
2. Converting your text into an image: After selecting your text, you will need to convert the letters and words into an “image” from which you’ll make your drawing. This can be as simple as typing your text in a Word document and making a print of it. If this is what you do, be sure to give great consideration to your font, as it will clearly affect the meaning of your final image. You should experiment with a variety of different fonts, font sizes, and text configurations in the initial stages of your project. When you arrive at a final text composition, print it out on a regular 11” x 8.5” piece of paper to turn in to me. I will convert these images into slides for projection.
3. Choosing a body part: After selecting a text and considering various formats for it, the next step will be to choose a site on your body (or the model’s) to bear the text. This decision should be made with the utmost care, since both the formal particularities of the site (i.e., the texture of the skin, the angles and contours of the bones and muscles, etc.) and its psychological associations will contribute greatly to the meaning of your piece. In making your decision about body site, you might want to take some photographs of various body parts (e.g., the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet, a kneecap, your face, your back, etc.) to work with in your preparations. Remember: the idea is not to entertain the prospect of a real tattoo but rather to make a really interesting work of art. The most intriguing image might result from placing your text in the least likely place!
4. Considering your composition: Once you’ve decided on both text and body site, begin to make some preliminary sketches that explore various alternatives for a basic composition. Feel free to abstract as much as you need to (for example, zooming in on body parts can create very beautiful and ambiguous compositions).
5. Approaching your final drawing: There are several ways of approaching the construction of your final image, but in any case you should have numerous sketches, photos, etc. to work from. One of the key drawing challenges in this project will be in depicting your text as it “wraps around” the contours of your body. To help you visualize this, we will be working with a slide projector and two models (male and female) during our designated studio day (we will discuss this in class).
6. Choosing a paper: As with last semester’s final project, you should give great consideration to your choice of paper. The dimensions of your paper should be approximately 30” x 40”, but other than that, the choice is yours. New York Central Art Supply has a wonderful selection of papers. The store is located at 62 3rd Ave. (just south of 11th St.); the paper department is upstairs.
7. Choosing your drawing materials: For this project you may use whatever drawing materials you feel are appropriate. Restraint is advised, however. (Please keep the “less is more” mantra in mind, and add colors and extraneous materials only when necessary! A simple Ebony pencil can produce wondrous results.)
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Notebook reminder
(PLEASE NOTE: Not one but TWO relevant posts below!)
Dear class,
I will be checking notebooks for the first time this semester in two weeks. Since it's been a while, I expect to see a good amount of work in them. I'll issue a second reminder next week.
Dear class,
I will be checking notebooks for the first time this semester in two weeks. Since it's been a while, I expect to see a good amount of work in them. I'll issue a second reminder next week.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Show to see at Chelsea gallery
Dear class,
As I mentioned on Monday, I'd like you to take a look at Shirin Neshat's current show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery some time this week, if you can. This is the artist whose work inspired my ideas for the midterm project. When you see it, think about the relationships (both visual and conceptual) between the text and the subjects (i.e., the people in the photographs). What is the text doing to them? What kind of associations does the combination of text and figure evoke? Keep in mind, of course, that your own project can differ substantially from Neshat's work; this is simply to get you thinking along these lines.
The address of the gallery is: 515 W. 24th St., and the show closes February 11th.
As I mentioned on Monday, I'd like you to take a look at Shirin Neshat's current show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery some time this week, if you can. This is the artist whose work inspired my ideas for the midterm project. When you see it, think about the relationships (both visual and conceptual) between the text and the subjects (i.e., the people in the photographs). What is the text doing to them? What kind of associations does the combination of text and figure evoke? Keep in mind, of course, that your own project can differ substantially from Neshat's work; this is simply to get you thinking along these lines.
The address of the gallery is: 515 W. 24th St., and the show closes February 11th.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Homework Assignment #4, due Monday 2/13
EXPLORING THE MONOCHROME:
The purpose of this week’s assignment is two-fold: first, to explore one of the ways in which color can impart meaning to images, and second, to explore the rich possibilities of the monochrome. You will be working from a black and white photograph (see below) and making a drawing in which color is used to imbue the image with a psychological mood or atmosphere.
Choosing an image: From a magazine, newspaper or book (no working from the computer screen!), select a black and white photograph with a wide range of tonal values. Using either a photocopier or digital equipment, enlarge the photograph so that the image is roughly the size of a standard 8.5” x 11” piece of paper. Be sure to bring this image to class next week to display along with your drawing.
Making your drawing: For your drawing, which will be based on this image, use pastels and either your white sketch vellum or a piece of pastel paper comparable in size to your vellum. Since this will be a monochromatic drawing, choose a single hue that you feel represents the psychological mood or atmosphere you want to endow the image with. To achieve a range of tonal values and intensities, mix a variety of colors into your main hue. (For example: If your drawing is to be blue, mix your blue with black, white, brown, red, yellow, etc., to achieve bright intense blues, pale light blues, warm green-blues, smoky grayish blues, dark blackish blues, etc.).
Important note: The point here is not merely to create a colorized copy of the original but to interpret it through the medium of color. Make the drawing something that is wholly your own by selecting, omitting, exaggerating, distorting, simplifying, etc. Above all else, use your color to create a dimension of meaning that is not evident in the original image.
The purpose of this week’s assignment is two-fold: first, to explore one of the ways in which color can impart meaning to images, and second, to explore the rich possibilities of the monochrome. You will be working from a black and white photograph (see below) and making a drawing in which color is used to imbue the image with a psychological mood or atmosphere.
Choosing an image: From a magazine, newspaper or book (no working from the computer screen!), select a black and white photograph with a wide range of tonal values. Using either a photocopier or digital equipment, enlarge the photograph so that the image is roughly the size of a standard 8.5” x 11” piece of paper. Be sure to bring this image to class next week to display along with your drawing.
Making your drawing: For your drawing, which will be based on this image, use pastels and either your white sketch vellum or a piece of pastel paper comparable in size to your vellum. Since this will be a monochromatic drawing, choose a single hue that you feel represents the psychological mood or atmosphere you want to endow the image with. To achieve a range of tonal values and intensities, mix a variety of colors into your main hue. (For example: If your drawing is to be blue, mix your blue with black, white, brown, red, yellow, etc., to achieve bright intense blues, pale light blues, warm green-blues, smoky grayish blues, dark blackish blues, etc.).
Important note: The point here is not merely to create a colorized copy of the original but to interpret it through the medium of color. Make the drawing something that is wholly your own by selecting, omitting, exaggerating, distorting, simplifying, etc. Above all else, use your color to create a dimension of meaning that is not evident in the original image.
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