Too tired for clever titles.

My first show (group show) of the year just opened tonight. The install went smoothly and pictures will be up soon. Here is the progress of my current pieces. Finished the slaughterhouse and almost there with the painting!

Halfway there, living on a prayer?

I don't really listen to Bon Jovi, so don't judge me by my title choice. Some days I feel like I should be more religious so I can pray to be able to get all these tasks done by their deadlines. Anyways, I got half of my large pinup girl painting done and and half of my slaughterhouse piece chalked out. The painting has proven to be a tedious, time consuming project and the slaughterhouse one allows me to unwind and release a little. I'm happy to be working with two different extremes that compliment each other so well. Here's the updates:


I worked on the slaughterhouse a bit more, this photo was taking prior to the introduction of water and charcoal everywhere approach. I also have some mockups of my website in the works, so hopefully that shall be taken care of soon as well.

Website Examples

AH! So I need to throw together a website...fast for a general mockup. Trying to pull together some things I like about other artist's websites. Two I were looking at were James Jean (http://www.jamesjean.com/) and Henrik Tamm (http://www.henriktamm.com/home.htm). I like the splash pages each provide, Jean has a random work that pops up each time while Henrik has a multi-image spliced into one. The menu bars are both clean and have a 'back' access while you are viewing work or a next/previous option as you scan through the galleries.

Another website I found is merely for lightbox purposes. Feerik (http://www.feerik-art.com/) uses the lightbox program to show his work and I love the separate screen that appears over the site and dims the surrounding.

Processing and Assessing

Group A from my seminar class launched their first show of the semester with incredible success, especially given to the tight time constraints. Great job pulling it together before 5:30 hit, Katie McFarland! I hope our show goes equally well. I need to apply some finishing touches to the presentations of my work as well as a hanging solution for my canvas.

In the meantime, I did mention tackling my 6ft painting for thesis! Below is an update of how much I have now. I've been experimenting with acrylic paint effects in some of my works recently, which you can see in my group show next week. However, I wanted to reminisce the wonders of traditional oil painting. This pinup girl is aimed to emulate a more 1960s painting style of Gil Elvgren, with loose ties to Norman Rockwell, so I tried the keep the skin tones warm and inviting with rosy red cheeks. I haven't painted in oil in over 4 years, so I think I'm doing okay for myself so far. Stay tuned next week to see if I mess up!

For seminar, I decided on my slaughterhouse scene. It's not brutally violent and bloody, don't worry. Below is the line drawing over a retail poster that's been thinnly gessoed over. I forgot to post progress, but will do soon, I promise. The subject matter is anchored to the top and cuts off on the sides. I really liked the awkward space it creates on the bottom and hope it works to my advantage when I tackle it with plenty of charcoal and water to create a sweet texture.

Where To Begin

With news about my thesis show coming sooner than expected, I took the very little free time I had in jumping into my 6ft painting! I built the canvas with some basic wood from home depot and stretched it with a canvas dropcloth rather than a professional grade canvas. What I liked about the dropcloth was the imperfect texture and the obvious seam from where two layers were sewed together.



I'm painting a pinup girl inspired from Gil Elvgren's work. I enjoyed the absurdity of the situations his girls would get into in the images and wanted to play off that content in favor of discussing consequences of the American dream. I'm also freaking out because I need to stay in track in order to accomplish all the work I need to do by my show in November!


(Gil Elvgren's work)

In news pertaining to my Seminar class, I think I have a concept for my internal modernism assignment. I saw a documentary a while ago, depicting French slaughterhouses in the 1940s. I enjoy working with charcoal and would like to explore the context slaughterhouses play in a capitalist society and how we feed into a commercialized system. Progress is due Thursday, so I'll see what I come up with!


(Le Sang des betes)

The Undergraduate Final Chapter

It's been a while since I've blogged, but my grade is now depending on my responsibility to keep this thing alive and breathing. Hopefully I'll be so used to updating nonstop for the next 4 months, that I shall maintain the good habit.

I wanted my first entry of the last semester to feature a current day artist that is extremely inspiring to my aesthetic for my upcoming thesis show. My painting teacher introduced me to Richard Prince, who became notable for his joke paintings and nurse paintings (shown below). What drew me to his work was his use of figures and text, two things I have enjoyed incorporating in my work. His work is very involved with layering and transforming materials while still maintaining traditional practices. A majority of his works also comment on his surrounding society.

With the joke paintings, he pulls one-liners multiple comedians have been caught using, to the point where no one knows the creator of the original joke. He turns the common statement into an immortal tale on his canvas, lavishly adding on layers upon layers of acrylic paint.

His nurse paintings really inspired me to pursue an idea in my head about working with 1960's pinup girl paintings. I like how he uses the actual nurse from old book covers and blows the image up larger and you can see the original cover behind it, but only just so.

I also loved the idea of painting over something already in existence. It has completely changed the way I approach using base materials for work. I now have shopping bags, retail promotional posters, and magazine covers littered all over. The base materials not only provide a cheap solution to creating art, but it fuels the ideas and concepts I have in my head as well.