Preparation for Assignment #2 Self-portrait

As I desire to create a self-portrait that portrays images directly and indirectly associated with me, I decided to explore the works of a cross-section of artists. My desire is to go beyond what I have normally come to associate with the idea of "self-portrait". The idea of having to develop a self-portrait from images scanned into the computer is rather daunting at this stage.

In commencing my internet search I started by researching works by Audrey Flack. This painter often used a wide variety of objects and possessions in order to convey the personality, interests and obsessions of the person she had based her painting on, e.g. Marilyn (Vanitas). Although her works are filled with so many images, she is able to achieve unity through her clever use of color balancing. In this case the gaudy red color is repeated in such a way that it forms almost an oval frame around the centre of the picture. Unity is also achieved by repeating items of similar shape, e.g. the cylindrical forms of the candle, lipstick, hour glass. The work of Christopher Nolasco RFK Towards Understanding is an intriguing piece. I thought that his use of an old photograph, a quotation and sketched images is something that is adaptable to the Digital media I am exploring.

At this stage I started scanning a variety of objects that hold specific connotations to me. I found that the more I scanned the more ideas came to mind. Eventually I decided to complete a brain storm to try to prioritise and organise my thinking. What was interesting about completing the brainstorm was to see how diverse my list was and to be able to focus on what were some of the main areas I wish to convey.

Website Images:

Audrey Flack. Marilyn (Vanitas), 1977. 15 January 1999. 31 July 2009 <http://www.audreyflack.com/AF/index.php?name=photorealism&directory=.&currentPic=6>

Christopher Nolasco. RFK Towards Understanding. 2008. 31 July 2009 <http://www.nolascoart.com/>

Ideas Please!

I spent sometime trying to get my bearings for this next Assignment #2. I revisited the profile of Yiannitsa for some ideas http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3145153813214070897&postID=3812886524642275852. I liked the way in which she used black and white to unify the composition. Her use of roses reminded me of the work of Audrey Flack. What did intrigue me was how she could have combined those images together in a single scan. My conclusion is that she printed out some of the images she had created, cut them out and combined them with real objects to create this image. I also studied the work of Claudine. The image found at URL site http://www.oca-uk.com/portfolio/claudinenf/folder-692/3493 is informative giving a diverse arrangement of items which cause you to question their significance and their associations. Both of these students made use of a limited color scheme which has served to unify the compositions. I have been contemplating what color scheme I would like to use to convey my personality. Today, when I cleared off my desk, I found a scarf that I used in some of my intial scans. The richness of the burgandies and oranges really sum up a color scheme which people associate with me. This scarf is not actually mine, but my colleague had assumed it was because these are the colors that she associates with me. So as a starting off point I am going to use this scarf to draw the colors together.

Simple Collage Project #7

It was really exciting getting a favorable assessment of my first assignment. This gives me the motivation to keep rolling forward. For days I kept looking at the interesting way in which the color seeps from a teabag after its been soaking. This inspired me to commence my collage exploration with a selection of tea bags and various package labels. The diversity of tea bag packaging available makes for a fun mix of designs. My final picture was certainly colorful and playful. The next idea I tried to follow was an image I saw in a magazine of this women with layers of flowing red lightweight fabric being blown by the wind. It had the appearance of delicate long flower petals. So I started to cut out the image along the lines of the drapery allowing the section to remain connected at selected points. I then played with combining this image with magazine picture of flowers. I did not feel totally happy with the depth of image achieved from the flat 2-dimensional images. I then started to add textures in the background. This still did not give the image the kind of impact that I thought it needed. Eventually I took a half-finished oil painting of mine and place a section of it in the background. The resulting images were very abstract but had an appeal that I was satisfied with. Somehow the image is still reminiscent of flowers but has a more intriguing abstract quality to it than previously. Still not totally satisfied with my results, I decided to collect items while ona walk with my husband. The papers that are often stuck around lampposts and on fences with tear off contact numbers attracted my attention. Like the tea bags they have rust weathered stains which help to animate an otherwise boring piece of advertising. The variety of grasses along the paths caught my attention through the dynamic patterns their seed heads create. The final item I collected was a totally squashed NEXTEA tin. So my next task was to combine these items in an interesting way with an ink wash drawing I had completed using a quote from a movie I had watched. I played for a considerable amount of time with these images, trying them in various combinations. I like the way that the ink washes of my drawing correlate with the washed out staining of the advertisements. The rugged ragged appearance of the shami cloth I used behind the grass provide an interesting difference in textures. In my final set of images I played with an orange plastic bag as the background. The color of the packet changes totally when subjected to minimal light and I really like its texture. The crisp white "Thank You" not adds a contrast and a slight quisical element to the collection of scrap items. As can be seen by these pictures I added frames by changing the size of the canvas settings. For the remainder of the time I read through the information on printers. Printers are truly amazing pieces of electrictronic equipment. I use them regularly in my professsion and rarely give their workings any thought.

Still-lives with a difference Project #6

I must admit that after being an art student for many years and now an art teacher, the idea of still life did not appeal to me particularly - especially seeing that it involved vegetables and kitchen towels. When at school my still lives always consisted of these items. However, I am please to say that I actually enjoyed this project. What was particularly good was the chance to put aside my own prescribed recipes for a "good composition" and just enjoy playing with different arrangements. I found the composition with the focal point in the centre a bit difficult to pull off. What I particularly enjoyed playing with was having a mathematical structure behind my composition which was almost grid-like, but broken by the organic shapes of some of the vegetables and fruit used. Often when painting or drawing I have used green peppers as a starting point for a composition. Interestingly enough in this Digital Medium, I found them hard to work with compositionally. Even when I sliced them into interesting looking slices, they just did not appear dynamic enough. Part of it was that the color saturation was lost in the scanning. Of course in a few lessons time I will be able to alter this, so there is probably a lot of potential for further use of the green peppers, but apart from the last image which I included in this blog, I was disappointed by how they interpreted into the scan. The images that I enjoyed playing with the most were the ones where I organised the vegetables into bands of repeating images. What I like about this arrangement was that it set up an appreciation for repetition as well as emphasized the slight deviations that each unique fruit brought to the composition. Although I thought that I would prefer a more asymmetrical compositional arrangement I was amazed to find that this was not the case. I actually preferred compositions which were more symmetrically balance with an underlying mathematical gridded arrangement.

Project #5 Experimentation with scanning movement

Today I worked through the instructions of Project #5. I found it hard to move my hand slow enough so that the scanned image did not develop streaks and yet smoothly enough that the image did truly distort. I tried to scan my hand so that the back of my hand was shown in the scan. It took me a number of tries before I was able to get a clear scan as it was harder to position my hand this way than palm side down. Eventually I was able to get a range of differing effects. Where I had the most success was in scanning kitchen implements by holding them with the fabric background and then sliding them across the scanner plate as the image was being scanned. Out of interest I tried using my son's clown headdress as the background of a number of these shots. Interestingly enough the scanner inverted the clown's headdress color scheme. Instead of being red and orange it appears as yellow and green. This is strange seeing that none of the other colors were distorted in their rendition. It made for an interesting backdrop though!

The Development of Assignment #1

In order to help precipitate my creativity, I read through the magazine article mentioned previously on how to create a “Mood Board”. I decided to spend some time contemplating what emotions are often deeply embedded in my psyche and surface when I least expect it. As I have lived as an expatriate for the past 18 years of my life, away from my home country, and have come to consider three foreign countries on totally different continents as my “home”, nostalgia is often a deep seated emotion that I cannot evade. In preparation for selecting images, I spent the next few minutes doing a brainstorm around the theme of nostalgia concentrating on the physical images and colors I associate with those places/countries. The resulting ideas were ones which I explored when commencing Task #1 of the Assignment. After some experimentation, I decided that due to my predominantly South African and Zimbabwean background and heritage, I feel particularly nostalgic about the warm color scheme associated with an African sunset. For this reason I decided to base most of my images around these warm earthy colors. Initially my selection of images was too disparate allowing for a rather haptic combination. Through a gradual process of elimination, I decided within the Task #2 phase to stream-line my subject matter. I opted to pick two cultures that I wished to represent and to try to show them as being unique and rich in their diversity. For this purpose I chose to juxtapose images related to South Africa and Korea. Although I have never lived in Korea, I have had the privilege of teaching Korean children/students for the past 11 years. I have been invited into their community as a friend and have come to really value their different viewpoint on life and culture. Many of my favorite memories of special times with Koreans have been associated with their preparation of amazing meals in our honor. For this reason I chose to use Korean chopsticks as the focal point of my collage of scanned images. The soft pastel colors of the chopstick holders provide a slight contrast with the warm earthy tones of the collection of African items. I also see a contrast between the neat precision of the little butterfly badges of the chopstick holders (a reminder of their value for precision) and the organic random markings of the porcupine quills, cheetah spots and guinea fowl feathers. Something that was a pleasant surprise was the way in which the African print cloth in the background scanned. This fabric is not naturally shimmery, but with the lights of the scanner, it mimics the texture of snake skin. This provides a comical touch of nostalgia: one of my most vivid memories of my life in Venezuela was that of coming face to face with an anaconda in my classroom. The way this cloth scanned, brings back some of my most poignant memories, helping to complete this selection of images.