Painting Process

 I feel that making studies are important to the process of creating a painting because it allows me to formulate and go through ideas fast and I don't have to have an attachment to the pieces. This unattachment allows me to be looser and freer with the work letting me to take more chances. The studies help me to focus on an idea and find out what I like and what I don't like. When I make the studies I am trying to work out possible compositions and questions I have for the painting using a collection of stock images that I have collected from the Internet. I would collage the images together and I would also paint different images that I was interested and wanted to go into more detail. I also tried to create a couple different technique that I might be interesting in trying in my painting. I like working in studies because it allows original ideas to grow and become something completely different. Once I have figured out some of the questions I was asking myself about the composition and work it is time to start thinking about what size do I want this painting to be to best convey the message that I'm trying express. When I figure out the size of the painting it is time to get started on the real thing.
1st Painting Session

The size canvas I decided use for the painting is 30"x40". The first thing I did on the painting was to draw out the Image on the canvas. I first started to draw it freehand but decided it was taking to long so I projected it onto the canvas and copied it from there. Once I had the drawing done I began to fill in the snow background with different colors of the hue blue. I wanted to fill the shapes with solid color to cover the main part of the snow which will make it easier to complete the snow when I move on to the next step of the painting technique that I have chosen to depict the snow. I have chosen to carefully outline the silhouettes of the other objects in the painting so I don't lose the drawings that are there on the canvas. This will make it easier when it comes time to paint them into the painting.
2nd Painting Session

  During this session of painting the first thing I did was to sand paper the background snow area so that it would slightly break down the paint surface letting the white gesso canvas show through. This will help with the painting effect that I plan to use for the snow during a later step. I started to worry that if I continued to work on the background of the painting I would lose the under drawings of the objects in the foreground. So my next step was to do under paintings and outlines of those objects in a Burnt Sienna color before I continued with the background painting techniques.
Painting Session 3

  For this session of painting I wanted to start working on the sky in the background of the painting. For my inspiration for the painting technique was an abstract painting by Gerhard Richter. The first thing I did was tape off the horizon line between the ground and sky. Then I mixed four different shades of red and black together and painted it in blended horizontal bands. The next step I mixed three tints of yellow and blue that I applied in little random dabs with the tip of a palette knife to the painting. The last step of this first process of the sky area of the painting was to drag the paint in a vertical direction with a rubber squeegee. Unfortunately I don't own one so I had to make do with what I had at the time which was cardboard. It worked well giving the paint an interesting texture, but I would like to get a rubber squeegee to see the the difference in painting effect.
Painting Session 4

 When I began this session of painting I wanted to finish the snow ground by doing an contemporary technique of spattering paint that reminds me of a Post-Impressionism pointillism style. I achieved this by mixing different tints of blue and flicking the paint with my thumb from a brush onto the canvas. After I finished that I began to fill in the sunken cars shapes with paint.I wanted the cars to look like a style that comes from a computer program for mapping images where the shape and contour of items are broken down into solid colors flattening out the objects and making seem like a cartoon style.
Painting Session 5

 This session of painting I began by finishing the cars buried in the snow. The next step I moved onto finishing the sky in the background by mixing some different values of blue. I applied the lighter in value blue first and than the darker in value second making sure to leave places exposed of the first under painting. The last step in this session was to drag the paint in the sky with cardboard like last time only this time in a horizontal stroke.

 Final Session                                                                                            

 For the final session of painting I added the figures in the foreground. I wanted to render the details of these figures more than the other parts of the painting to give them more of a classical painting style. I rendered the figure in the gas mask larger than the other figures to show his importance as the god figure in the painting. Next I moved to rendering the lamb which I did in the colors of red and white. I chose these colors for the foreground of the painting to add balance with the red in the sky, giving the painting a more overall balance of color throughout the painting. I also chose red and white for the lamb because white often symbolizes purity and red to symbolize the blood of the sacrificial lamb. I decided to give the lamb a shadow to represent it as a memory. The last thing that I rendered in the painting was the man. I decided to make him more contemporary looking by painting him in color, giving him a tan line and a current hair cut to symbolize him as modern man (Adam).The last thing I have to do to finish this painting is give a title. I believe I will title it "In the Know"

Blog 2: Two Simular Artist

     The first artist that I'm going to discuss whose work I feel that I have something in common with is Neo Rauch. Neo Rauch was born April 18,1960, in Leipzig, East Germany and works as the principal artist of the New Leipzig School. His paintings are a mix of painting styles ranging from state-sponsored Socialist Realism to Surrealism to the art of comic books and commercial graphics.

Neo Rauch, "Vater [Father]" (2007)

 

 

"Die Fuge [The Fugue]" (2007)

     I feel that we are similar in that we both use different techniques of painting to create a space and language with the medium. For example in the painting "Vader", Rauch uses different pictorial style to portray the figure holding the man child by giving what seems to be a colonial style painted body and head with cartoon style hands to the figure. I also believe that we both have a process of collage multiple images together in a painting to create a narrative. An example of this can be seen in Rauch's painting called the "Die Fugue".  What I feel I could learn from Rauch's work is his process of using multiple images to create interesting composition. I also feel that I could learn from his work is how to create my own style that is recognizable even though I'm using multiple techniques of painting.

    The second artist that I'm going to discuss whose work I believe that I have something in common with is Echo Eggebrecht. She was born 1977 in Bangor, Maine and received her BFA in 2000 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA at Hunter College in 2006. Eggebrecht currently is a New York painter. Her paintings create surreal scenarios by combining thoroughly worked surfaces. 

Year One

2010
Oil on panel
24x30"

 

11 p.m.

2010
Oil on panel
25x29"

I believe that we are similar in that we both use the process of painting techniques to achieve imagery. A example can be seen in her painting called "Year One" were she has thoroughly worked the surfaces of her paintings by scraping, overpainting, and taping to create surfaces and space. I also feel that we collage multiple images together in a painting to create a narrative. The painting by Echo that gives an example of this is "11p.m." by the way she has combined the women on there knees with walls surrounding them that look like space. I feel that we both are concerned with the surface of the painting and that can be seen in both examples of her paintings. What I think I can learn from Eggobrecht's work process by the way she continually builds up her painting's surfaces by working and layering the paint through mistake and control. I also feel that I could learn from her concept of  letting the painting tell me what surfaces need as well as to using models and other resources to help me decide how to paint the surfaces of objects in my paintings.
 

New Direction 30 Studies

     There was both highs and low for me while making these thirty studies. The lows of this project was the overwhelming feeling of having to do thirty studies and what was the subject matter going to be or the idea of the project going to be. Another low of this was looking over thousands of images on the computer and try to filter through them until I found what I wanted to work with, it kinda felt of like a waste of time. One of the highs during this project was when I finally found all the images and was able to start physically putting things together and to see the idea's take form. Another high during the project was when the idea for the project starting to became more focused by working through editing what worked and what didn't work physically from pictures in my head. It was a little struggle to get through the thirty studies. I got pass this by staying  focused and budgeting my time. I also got pass this by learning to let go and be a little looser with the work. The strategy for keeping the project interesting and useful was that I had three different settings for the same idea that I was working with and a stock of multiple images to use. This allowed me to work fast through different combinations of compositions until I found something I liked.
     The questions about my project that has arisen as a result of making the thirty studies for me are how to use the different techniques in the historical language of painting and how to combine them into a way that is interesting and doesn’t look like a jumbled mess. Another questions about my project that has arisen as a result of making the thirty studies for me are how to paint the techniques that I plan to use in my paintings that I have never done before. I will have to learn them. I also believe I will be have many questions during this project because this is an all new subject matter for me, that’s all on me, and I have questions of composition, size, and does what I’m doing even work as a painting. I plan to work through these questions by experimentation, talks with the teacher and T.A., and  also taking notes from feedback during critiques.
     The first contemporary artist that I am influenced by for this project is Dexter Dalwood

I believe that his work is comparable to mine because we are both using the history of oil painting language and technique to attempt to create a narrative. I think a difference is that I don't think he is trying to create an uneasy feeling into the viewer like I am.
     The Second contemporary artist that is an influence for me during this project is Martin Mull

I believe that his work is comparable to mine because we are both try to instill in the viewer psychological uneasiness by confronting audiences with the juxtaposition of images. I feel in that we differ in that he isn't using multiple painting techniques in his work.
    Another contemporary artist that is an influence for this project is Angela Defresne

I believe that her work is comparable to mine because she is using painting technique to express a feeling to the viewer. I believe we differ in that I plan to use realism in my paintings, but would love to learn to be so loose and expressive with the paint the way she is.
     The final contemporary artist that is an influence for this work is David Salle

I believe that his work is comparable to mine because we are both making paintings that are a collage of different images that look like a collage which creates a narrative for the viewer. I believe that we are different in that his work takes the collage look to the limit and I don't know if I do that yet.