The first was a painting I started last summer. I didn't do much at all to finish it - yesterday added in a layer of some stripey pyramid stone looking things, and today I painted the edges. It's interesting to reflect on my own painting "style" in context of some of the "research" I was doing this year in my independent study. One of the observations made by Dr. Rose was that Realism and Impressionism are connected philosophically by their preoccupation with the medium itself. Both seemingly contradictory movements are characterized by a primacy of material which evidences the belatedness of these styles. Anyway, the point is that I definitely embrace this primacy of materials. I am fascinated with the way that paint mixes, the texture of the acrylics, the three dimensional qualities that one can attain by heaping mounds of paint on a canvas. I wake up the next morning after I work on a painting, and the first thing I do is examine the previous day's work extremely closely with my nose inches away, touching all the interesting areas where the paint is textured. I love that particular tactile sensation. I'm interested in the way the canvas takes paint (there are even some brush strokes in this first painting that didn't fill in the entire canvas, but I find it very beautiful) and the way paint takes other paint. I like letting the materials do the work for me.
So here is my first painting, an abstract. It sort of makes me think of space and the Creation. I'm putting in pictures both of the entire canvas and of some interesting parts up close that I like. Too bad y'all can't really get the effect of the texture, it's my favorite element of acrylic painting.
Painting #1
Detail, cool blobs
Detail, nifty orb
Detail, demonstrating how I painted the edges of the canvases
Detail, more nifty brushstrokes
I think my dad is going to put this one in his office.
Below are some photographs of the second painting. I usually don't try to represent real things when I do arty stuff, but this scene is part of a really crazy dream that I had that resulted in a sort of compulsion to release the energy of it onto a canvas. The dream was so intensely vivid and with so many more details. I started wanting to put half of it in this one painting, but then I realized I could really only put about a twentieth of it in one painting, or it would be too much all at once. But the good news is, I have all this material in my head for several more paintings, if I so wish. Yay. But all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how they both turned out.
Painting #2
Detail, waves arriving at the shore
Detail, sky, the storm fading
Detail, horizon and a wave
Detail, the city in the distance
Anyway, mostly practiced Baroque oboe today. Read some of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Dr. Rose sent me a fantastic epistle in response to my response to Tom Jones. It's going to take a while to write a response...and of course every time he sends
me an email, he recommends about 10,000 pages worth of reading or 8 hours worth of listening...after JSMN (which he recommended earlier this year) (800 pages), I'll probably go for Clarissa (by Richardson) (one of the recommendations from the last email) (2,000 pages).
This post wasn't much about oboe playing I realize, but I hope y'all were interested anyway!
No comments:
Post a Comment