rosepaintingpeople

[rosepaintingpeople]

Critiques

I think I actually had a very good critique which was a relief. 

The main feedback I received was that my deconstruction wasn’t that successful. But Paul talked about my art being positioned between a childlike execution and adult subject matter. While Sally talked about my paintings being a real reflection on my connection with the internet.

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Week 12: Assessment

OVERVIEW

 Bring all in-class and homework tasks and be prepared to discuss. Hanging kit is available in class however you may wish to borrow a drill and screws from the storeroom.

 No blue-tac for anything but paper.

 SESSION STRUCTURE

 Critique

 MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Bring: 

Charcoal drawings of our classmate from week 1

A completed 2-layer self-portrait from week 2 and 3

Single Gesture painting (completed) from week 4

Min 1 x Deconstructed figure painting week 5

1 x Naked and 1 x Nude Painting from week 6

3-4 x intersubjective monochrome paintings and accompanying sketches from week 7

1 major painting or a series of paintings from the performing subject project in weeks 9-11.

1 painting or series of paintings pertaining to the deconstructed.

Your journal that INCLUDES analysis of TWO figurative works from the QAGOMA collection. Analysis pro forma can be found under Course Content.

Bring all support material and demonstrate development of works through drawings etc.

DISCUSSION

All class members are expected to participate in assessment and offer constructive comments

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Mini Critiques

In class we had mini critiques. I seemed to be a very helpful exercise. I just wish that I had gone earlier because I think everyone was tired by the time they got to mine and I didn’t really get any helpful feedback.

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Performance Paintings

I finished the performance paintings I started a couple of weeks ago and also started some more to create a variety of sizes to create interest. 

I have learnt that I generally paint better when I paint portraits fairly quickly, so this is something I am going to take with me.

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Week 11: The Performing Subject

SESSION STRUCTURE

Mini crits in groups of 3-4 (MUST ATTEND). Bring all relevant ‘Performing Subject’ work or other work you would like critiqued by your peers.

Studio Work: Painting from your experience of the stage.   This is the longest most self-directed project of the course. Make it your own while drawing from the ideas and skills you have encountered.

 MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Any support/supports you choose. (You may wish to bring more than 1 to ensure you can work on multiple surfaces if necessary).

STUDIO WORK

Finish Performing subject work.

 HOMEWORK

Prepare for assessment.

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Missed this week due to illness

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Week 10: The Performing Subject

SESSION STRUCTURE

 In group discussion present your 2 minute presentation on a figurative painter you have been researching.

 Studio Work: Painting from your experience of the stage.   This is the longest most self-directed project of the course. Make it your own while drawing from the ideas and skills you have encountered.

 MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Any support/supports you choose. (You may wish to bring more than 1 to ensure you can work on multiple surfaces if necessary).

 STUDIO WORK

 Respond as you wish. Minimum of 1 major painting.

 HOMEWORK

Extend self-directed research. Identify a second key painter whose work will constitute a second key artist for you.

Prepare for assessment.

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Performing Paintings

I chose photos to paint that were specifically about the background of the images. By blocking these backgrounds with paint I am removing the context of these images and leaving only the performing subjects behind.

I had a really productive paint session in class today and managed to start three paintings for my final project. I think I will have to work in layers for these pieces because i haven't quite got the detail i was after and the colour blocked background isn’t as opaque as I wanted.

[rosepaintingpeople]

Week 9: The Performing Subject

 OVERVIEW

This session draws from your experience of the live performing subject in the previous week/days. The aim of this session is to learn from and consider the performing human subject who occupies a “stage”; which would also be considered in terms of a “frame”.  Numerous painters have famously referred to the stage—Edward Hopper, Edgar Degas, Toulouse Lautrec, Eric Fischl, Yves Klein, to name a few.

The theatre ‘stage’ is arguably the most conscious and intense presentation of human subjects to viewer in all of the arts. Like the frame of a painting the stage says “look here, at this human subject, now”. However unlike painting—that we can move past or ignore as we wish —the stage experience is one of conscious commitment and engagement. We buy our ticket, sit in a particular seat at a particular time (some seats relate differently to the stage and are priced accordingly) and we agree (for the most part) not to leave until the play is finished. In such a charged engagement the compositional choices on behalf of the director and actors are brought to the fore. Such consciousness of composition and relationship to viewer, frame and other subjects can be minimized when we are making paintings of people. Certainly successful paintings bear good composition in their DNA whether or not we notice in a casual engagement with a work. But as makers of paintings it is important that we are more thoughtful than that. As painters, we can learn in incredible amount from the stage, the directors of which ‘stage’ their actors for engagements that shape and hold extended narratives. This experience asks us to slow down, to notice how and why the human figure changes its relationship with the spectator and to see how these ideas might be applied to painting.

SESSION STRUCTURE

Studio Work: Painting from your experience of the stage.   This is the longest most self-directed project of the course. Make it your own while drawing from the ideas and skills you have encountered.

MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Any support/supports you choose. (You may wish to bring more than 1 to ensure you can work on multiple surfaces if necessary).

DISCUSSION

From your notes and experience on the performance, report to the class what your learned. Consider what formal devices interested you, what relationships were established in the performance between subjects and with the viewer.

STUDIO WORK

Respond as you wish. Minimum of 1 major painting.

HOMEWORK

Extend self-directed research. Identify a second key painter whose work will constitute a second key artist for you.

Prepare a 2 minute casual presentation (bring pictures no powerpoints) on a figurative painter whose work you have been researching.  

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Analysis for painting people

(Notes to be turned into text)

Vasan Sitthiket ‘Fate of the Conservationist Monk’ (1994)

1m x 1m

Synthetic Polymer paint

Monk tied up and being kicked by 2 soldiers legs and about to be hit from behind with a gun. Thai flag is in the top right hand corner. Thai text across the picture.

Recycled wood for the support. Very gritty, lightly primed. Broad stylised brushstrokes, skraping on the tree/blanket.

Knot of wood in the eye

Painted in layers.

Chatchi Puipia ‘Siamese smile: Siamese Intellenctual’ (from Siamese smile series) (1995)

2.5m x 2m

Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas

Large head with ladders propped up against it in a lillypad pond.

Based on the dragonflies and lillypads, the head is normal sized, this is just a large painting.

Central composition.

Large washes of paint topped with oil stick (I think) to create detail.

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Week 8: Analysis

OVERVIEW

It is important to learn the lessons of other—perhaps more experienced— painters in order to develop your own work. In this session we visit the Queensland Art Gallery to identify 2 paintings for 40-minute analysis. That is, 40 minutes per picture. This method of looking at painting, makes significant demands on our patience, however, the benefits can be significant.

SESSION STRUCTURE

Meet at the entrance to Queensland Art Gallery (the one nearest to the State Library) at 10am.

Briefed by your lecturer about the rules of the session:

You must sit with each artwork for the full 40 minutes.

You must not engage in any discussion during analysis.

You must stay for the duration of the class and report on your findings.

Find one figurative painting in the gallery that captures your attention (for whatever reason). Analyse for 40 minutes.

Take a break for ten minutes

Repeat 40 min analysis on another painting.

Meet your lecturer and the group and discuss your findings.

 HOMEWORK

Write up the analyses for the assessment in your journal (typed).

Spend 2 hours developing your ideas and necessary materials for the performing subject project inspired, however obliquely by the Dracula excursion. Be prepared to present your plan to the class next week.

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Intersubjectivity paintings

I missed this weeks lesson, so instead wrangled a couple of my friends to model for me. I was glad I was able to work from life. But also unprofessional models don’t want to pose for a long time so these were very fast sketches. I think over the three sketches I improved a lot.

The first one was just awkward because I was trying too hard. The second one was me loosening up and it was sooo much better. Then the third one is by far my favourite. I think I captured the interaction well without over working it.

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Week 7: Intersubjectivity: Figures and the Field.

 OVERVIEW

This session investigates the relationship between subjects and between subjects and the viewer (the viewer’s vantage point). Referring to the many different poses from the models consider how dynamics change depending on their relationship with each other, with the frame of the painting and with you, the painter.  

SESSION STRUCTURE

Studio Work only.

MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

3-4 x Primed Support of any size.

Cartidge paper

Compressed charcoal

 STUDIO WORK

The models will begin with a series of short poses in which they change their relationship with each other and with you. Use compressed charcoal and cartridge paper to make quick sketches inside frames drawn on your paper. (10 x 2 minute poses).

The models will then perform 3-4 x 30 minute poses. You should complete four monochromatic paintings that explore variations in vantage point, the intersubjective relationships between the models and their relationship to the frame.

HOMEWORK

Read Thomas McEvilley, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Make a summary in your journal.

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RESEARCH: Alex Garant

Most of her work consists of paintings of women, giving the illusion that they’re out of focus. It’s like looking at someone’s face through crossed eyes. It’s a little unnerving but it’s also difficult to look away. I found myself staring at them wondering “how is it possible for someone to paint something that would give me such a headache?”

She’s known as the “Queen of Double Eyes.” She does some other less headache-inducing work. They’re simply paintings of women with extra sets of eyes. But their noses and mouths remain in their rightful places.

She draws inspiration from early ink printing, vintage pop surrealism, baroque tapestries, and retro kitsch. There’s something retro about these paintings but also a bit of modern.

http://theawesomedaily.com/alex-garant-paintings-will-make-your-eyes-hurt-in-the-most-beautiful-way/

[rosepaintingpeople]

Dracula Performance

We went to go see Dracula at QPAC and are going to base a painting off the performance. 

I really loved the performance because I am a massive dracula fan and I think it really did the story justice.

Some key notes I took were:

Revolving stage 

Blank backgrounds

Figures staged at different heights 

Lighting

Windows and doorways

[rosepaintingpeople]

Naked Paintings

I had lots of fun in the session this week. I immediately understood the difference between a nude and a naked. I think that this is because I don’t like nude paintings, I think that they are outdated and irrelevant. However I do really love naked paintings. 

In our session we had Gene who was actually really great and experienced. What I understood from the session is that we were painting naked paintings. The first pose the model made was very easy to paint as a naked because she posed while listening to music and she kept her socks on which brought her into a more contemporary context. I kept this painting fairly light and bright. 

The second pose was harder because she poses in a classic nude pose. So I decided to paint her in her entire reality. She is a model in a life modelling class. 

Also my dog.

[rosepaintingpeople]

Week 6: The Naked Subject: Differentiating the Naked form the Nude

 OVERVIEW

John Berger in his famous Ways of Seeing (chapter 3 is reading for the week), draws a sharp distinction between a ‘nude’ subject (as understood in the traditional of Western Painting) and the ‘naked’ subject. This session aims to achieve a ‘naked’ painting from the models, challenging the highly problematic politics of the female body as aesthetic object. It is intended that this process brings to the fore an often mindless process of referring to the naked body in painting without consideration of the political and other implications for meaning.

SESSION STRUCTURE

Discussion Berger

Studio Work: Painting from the model.  

MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS

Any support/supports you choose. (You may wish to bring more than 1     to ensure you can work on multiple surfaces if necessary).

5-10 sheets of large inexpensive paper (butchers or cartridge).

Compressed charcoal.

DISCUSSION

Discussion of John Berger’s Ways of Seeing Chapter 3 only.

STUDIO WORK

You need to produce 1 painting that convincingly embodies a ‘naked’ as opposed to ‘nude’ subject.

Method:

Start with a series of 10 x 2 minute drawings as we get a sense of which poses feel more naked than others.

The model will then pose for 2 x 50 min poses (each different). Interpret however you choose but remember that the way the model is interpreted will be influenced by the how of the work. No photographs.  

HOMEWORK

- Attend the DRACULA performance at QPAC. Start reflecting in you journal on ideas for your painted response to the performance.