Initial Artist Emulation Blog Post

Joan Miro expresses surrealism to his audience by using abstract lines and cartoon-like figures and relating them to one another through color.  He uses a lot of bright colors and tends to stray more towards blues, reds, and yellows with hints of other colors in there as well.  These ideas are translated in my work because I focus on his color schemes and primarily involve primary colors with hints of other ones to convey his message.  I also use a lot of dots and abstract designs, as well as simplistic shapes to portray Miro's intentions and relate them closely to his other works.  Although Miro was also a sculptor and ceramicist, he mainly focused on painting in his final works.  To prepare, Miro would do sketches using pencil and then further translate his ideas into larger paintings.  He aimed to make his paintings "child-like" by using simplistic forms instead of focusing all his energy on capturing the realistic qualities of his works.  Miro tended to jumble up a lot of miscellaneous images and connect them to one another through his colors in both his sketches and his final paintings.  He tried to include a simple message in his works by using simple shapes and colors but connecting them all together in his final piece.

Color to Life

My work reflects the same color palette as the original.  I incorporated similar shades of colors to their corresponding place on the painting in trying to resemble the original as close as possible.  I changed up the mark making slightly in my version of the painting because I used shorter brush strokes and included more variation of color within those strokes.  The original painting had longer brush strokes of all the same color, but I was interested in playing with the depth of each color and section/layer of my painting.  In terms of style, I tried to keep it as similar as possible to the original painting by using simplistic shapes to portray the landscape.  In this project, I learned that painting is a long, tedious process that involves a lot of painting over and redoing.  I ended up painting over so many shapes and colors trying to find that perfect balance that I was looking for.  I think my overall canvas is pretty unified because I applied similar brush strokes to every section of the painting except for the clouds: I used a different strategy to paint them but I like the way they contrast against the rest of the painting.  I think I spent an equal amount of time trying to perfect each section of my painting to give it a uniform, flowing look.  I feel a lot more comfortable as a painter after this project than I did before.  I feel a lot more comfortable working with paint and the various brushes, and I like the way they let you express the same picture in a myriad of ways.  I want to explore painting more by painting different things rather than landscapes and just getting more experience with it under my belt.  I think the more I use the medium, the easier it will become to express what you want.  A limitation that paint has for me is the detail, especially concerning small lines.  For example, it is difficult for me to not blend color and keep different colored sections to themselves: a lot of my paint ends up getting mixed together on the lines.  I want to work on keeping those areas tidy and be able to express small details using paint and a brush.

Original: by Ernest Ludwig Kirchner

Learning to See Reflection

Towards the end of the project, I was able to explore my expressive line qualities a lot more through the use of texture and line while using pencil.  Specifically, when I was drawing the building, I used pencil and line to represent abstractity in the patterns through line thickness, shape and form.  In my tree drawing, I represented positive and negative spaces by having the tree be a positive space, but filling the background and the hole in the trunk of the tree in with black ink.  This created a negative space surrounding and within the positive tree, which provided a cool contrast that I liked.  I mastered craft in this project because I learned how to successfully represent abstract shapes and lines and turn them into a real thing.  For example, in the drawing of the tree, I used abstract lines to represent the pattern and texture of the bark.  In the drawing of the old cafeteria, I used abstract lines to represent the bushes outside of the building.  I liked working with the pencil the most because it provides so many different ways to portray a certain shape, object, or landscape.  I like the ink too, but I prefer the pencil because it can be controlled more easily.  I included my own expression in my lines because I used abstract shape and lines, with varying pencil hardness to create a unique line, design, and texture.  I really enjoy using abstract lines because it allows me to use my own self expression and self reflection in my work, and it allows me to interpret different shapes, objects, and landscapes in ways that others may not have thought of.

Final Silhouette

I am interested in working on texture and displaying texture in different images.  I enjoy looking at architecture and looking at the textures on buildings, bushes, etc.  I also like drawing scenes and sets rather than focusing on one individual thing.  I like having multiple things tie together and connect to each other than just one object by itself.

In the next couple classes I want to focus more on works like this one above.  I did this in class over the last 2 class periods and I am satisfied with the outcome, however I am not done yet.

Beginning of Drawing and Painting

During this project, I was able to explore the expressive qualities of line in my contour drawing by using different amounts of pressure and different sides of the brush/pen to convey the differences throughout the object.  I didn't represent the positive and negative spaces very well because I only really focused on the positive space.  My goal for next time is to also look at negative space, and figure out ways to express that.  I found the ink most comfortable because it glided over the paper very well and developed clean, smooth lines.  Also, it was really easy to vary the line thickness, color, and shape using the ink, whereas I found it was harder to do so with the pencil.  I was able to master and focus on shape for both of my drawings.  I focused on line quality and line size in my second drawing of the pepper more than I did in the first one, but my main goal was to get a good shape down before I added anything special.