"Near"

In response to my work from last week, I have continued to discover for myself the differences between detail and subjectivity. 

Field

"Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical"

-Yogi Berra

It's that time of year! The World Series is underway, and the appropriate word "field" allowed me to capture a piece of America's greatest pastime. I do not at all claim to be a fanatic, but there is something about the sport I've come to like. The scenario I've depicted above reminds me of going to the park with my little brother and best friend to play ball. I've certainly blended my ideas of baseball and fictionalized the image with the full uniforms and the resemblance of fields in the background. Ultimately it has turned out to be a mix of my memories, professional baseball, and Field of Dreams. 

I just got myself watercolor paint materials (and nicer paper), and was excited to try it out. I had many study pieces before reaching this one, and still have lots of room for improvement. I hope to work more watercolor into next week's work. In class Tony noticed that there is almost a dichotomy between the form of the players and the background of the sky and grass. I think this touches on a very natural tendency of mine that spans many of my works. I spent a lot of time making sure that the players' forms were correct and made sense, but let myself go when making the background. I can see the parallel between this and in my first work of the hand sketch for Touch, contrasts the outline with the palm lines. Even the works for Gather (the mother and child) and Reach (the sailboat) seem to form the opposite ends of that spectrum. What's interesting is that those two works are my favorite of my works this semester! Does that mean I should do more detailed work, or more freely flowing art? Or should my work continue to be a combination of the two (as Yogi Berra suggests)? 

Round

I couldn't go to Big Sur and not come back with an inspiration to depict ocean crashing into rocks topped with sprawling cypress trees. 

In many ways, I am not pleased with how this piece turned out. I feel that it doesn't do justice to the experience of Big Sur. Perhaps I didn't choose the right scene to depict. This is entirely from the mind's eye, but inspired by Point Lobos. I take that back - the poppy is reproduced from a photo I took last year. Beyond the choice of scenery, I feel that it is lacking. I didn't feel this way until I put it on the wall and committed to its state of completion. I like that I added the hand holding the California poppy as an element of the foreground, but it doesn't fully satisfy me. I may have been a mistake to decide on the medium and technique before the image to create. I had the idea that colored pencil outline would look nice, but not I see that its effect leaves you wanting more. And there are no depicted features to the sky, but it was a cloudy, rainy day which was just incredible in reality. Someone else may enjoy the simplicity, but this will be something I work on in future weeks. 

Still, there are aspects of this work that I like, and will keep in mind as I go forward. I like the color of the poppy in contrast to the rest. I like the spatial orientation of the horizon and the hand, and even the crashing wave and cypress. Adding the hand and poppy as a new layer is a new practice to me, but was likely inspired by others' work (such as Lucy). And I'll admit that a goal I had in mind to make something that Rebecca would respond to, because this piece gets into her area of expertise and passion. Anyway, I'll figure out where to go from here...

October 18, 2016   

Reach

This week's work was an exploration into both imperfection and finesse with color. The paintings of Alfred Wallis certainly struck a chord with me, as should be obvious at the sight of my work. What I admire most about Wallis' works are his genuine imperfection and his passion in representing water with paint. I kept those ideas in mind as I approached this work. The horizon line is not straight because I had no concern for ensuring that it was in fact straight. I admit that I do not have the intimate understanding of ships that Wallis has, so I gave my best mental representation of a simple sailboat at the orientation I wanted to depict. I also went for an imperfect cutting of the edges as Wallis seemed to do so naturally. I spent most of my time exploring the dynamics of color, and color-over-color, and color combined with texture that pastel would allow for. Once I learned how to make the wispy scalloped waves, it was hard for me to stop at the risk of it becoming overworked! In the end, I am satisfied with the sense completeness that color provides to me as opposed to my pencil sketches. I do not yet know where I will go next week...

Treasure

There is no complete work this week, though this was not the initial intention. I felt prompted to sketch again for this week's word treasure. My initial inclinations were to work with the human figure. And as I looked around for further inspiration, I found it when I went for a run, swim, run to the Berkeley Marina with friends and acquaintances from the Cal Triathlon club. Swimming has been an important part of my life for many years now, so the experience of being in the open water of the San Francisco Bay for the first time was rather powerful. Being among waves and kindred folks while looking out at the Golden Gate Bridge is certainly a memory I will treasure. 

My initial idea for the complete work captures this and is represented in the very bottom right of the sketch page (top). This first page was my first practice at what I would draw or simply what I wanted to draw. Liz's work with ink pen has influenced me here: I liked the effect of adding ink lines over my stronger pencil lines, while leaving the pencil shading and detail. I began the next drawing (middle) with the intention of making the complete work described above. However, I liked the look of just having one subject in the water. I thought that adding the other swimmers would completely change the scene in a way that didn't seem natural. So I stopped and began other works, including the last (bottom). This was meant to be of larger scale, focusing on the form of the swimmer. I intended to draw the figure swimming backstroke, but now it looks like it may be a view of freestyle from the perspective of underwater. I appreciate Lucy's comment on the suggestion of a female figure almost embracing the man, this was not conscious. I feel that these drawings are my most "free" yet, since I made them without a care for perfection or even completeness. 

So rather than having a complete work, I present the collection of experiences captured in these sketches. I find this to be more enjoyable and perhaps more fitting for this week. My question to my audience is: which sketch (or part of a sketch) do you find yourself most attracted to or interested in? Feedback here could help me learn what works well for me for my future works. 

Also, I'd like to try my hand at paint. I'll look into getting a hold of some soon. Suggestions welcome.