Mark Making Collection 10/27- 11/2

I want my painting to be focused on overhead perspectives of people doing ambiguous activities and on landscapes. Bellow are some of the paintings that inspired me to focus on this theme. I hope to replicate some of the colors and styles used in these paintings and apply them to mine.

This painting is interesting because it is mostly a mixture of greens and yellows. It is a beautiful view of a European looking city. In the forefront there is an intricate looking building--perhaps a chapel--and in the back we see a long flowing canal.

I like this painting for its banality and overhead perspective. Again I am trying to grasp a way to paint in different perspectives and I believe this painting to be a kind of tutorial. When painting something like this I believe one should focus on the different components of the landscape and how they interact from the bird's eye view perspective.

This painting, done by the same person who did the one with the guy in the hat with coffee and the two bikers. I am fascinated  that just by focusing on a person and the floor that they stand on that I could make a story out of it. This lady is wearing sandals and seems to be waling on a boardwalk. The shadows around her imply that other people are around her. 

I have included this painting to my mark making collection because I find the lack of shadowing on the road to be interesting. 

Last week I tried painting something similar to this. This rocky sea shore was only part of the painting, though, and I did a terrible job painting it. This week I want to focus one painting entirely on the sea shore. I need to be able to blend rocks and water as shown above.

This painting is very simple and obscure but the blend in colors say all that it needs to say. I can tell by the orange brush strokes on the side of the rode that its fall and leaves are falling of the trees. I think the artist does an excellent job with the shadows on the road. 

This style of painting interests me more than the painting itself. I think that showing a bird's eye view perspective of people walking relates to the mundane, fast-pace life of humans. In this painting the man is in motion and seems to be holding a coffee. The only character in the painting is doing something that most of us do, therefore giving the painting a degree of relatability. 

The colors of this painting are extremely bold. Although we can tell that this painting is an overview shot of a landscape the colors are fictitious. This makes the painting interesting. I want to incorporate these unrealistic colors in my paintings of landscapes. 

Contrary to the painting above it, this is a more realistic painting of a landscape. I really like the lines made in this painting. They connect in a fluid way that makes the landscape come to life. 

I am scared of this painting. The amount of paint that this artist uses to create the 3D effect of this scene jumping out at you is something that I dream of being able to do. I want Hagit to show me how to do this. 

Art from 10/20 to 10/27

Response to Chapter 12 and 13 in Ahmed thinking through skin 10/27- 11/2

In chapter Ahmed argues that "through the discursive construction of difference that emanates from the dominant culture, Black women and men continue to be placed as other: as Black others imprisoned by discourses of skin" (209) They are moreover seen as unequal and therefore received a lot of racism. I believe this chapter is powerful because it informs the dominant culture about the suffering an African American goes through because the color of their skin. In his next chapter, Ahmed attempts to find out whether robots have skin. He believes that "to ask whether robots have skin, then, is to ask about ‘our’ post-human nature and its embodiment as it is being re-imagined in technoscientific domains. The term ‘cyborg’, short for cybernetic" (223) The author goes on to talk about how AIs have sensors that have skin--like qualities and how a cyborg is half man half machine to elude to the fact that vision is a type of touch whose properties are found in non-natural humans. The second article on skin makes me interested in portraying what I believe resembles skin and its qualities in my paintings.

Response to Jonathan Jones' article 10/27-11/2

In the article "Tate Braitain's Painting Now exhibition: how can painting ever belong to 'now'?" Jonathan Jones disputes the idea that painting could ever belong to "now". In other words, Jones questions whether artist ever paint ideas and themes belonging exclusively to the present. He instead argues that artists strive to paint revolutionary paintings. This means that he believes painters are looking at previously the modern work and attempting to create something new. I don't think that Jones elaborates enough on his answer to the articles question. Although he gives us his perspective he doesn't really back himself up with solid facts or even paintings.

Some paintings that I  believe belong to now:

Night at the Museum: My visit to the Museum of Modern Art 10/20- 10/27

I went to the museum of modern art last week in Charlotte. The museum was having a fairly short expo on Sam Francis. Below are some of the works that I found inspiring.


 Entitled Port Du Nord this painting is an abstract, birds-eye view of a ship yard in the North--could be referring to the north of France or Canada. This painting inspired me to attempt to do similar work with ship yards and birds-eye view perspectives. The way that the various shapes interact is smooth, distinct and precise. I want to focus on such an interaction in my work.


This painting is completely different from the former. The shapes are simple but they overlap. The painting is also messy--the shapes in the foreground are warm and muddy whereas the background displays cold colors.









What attracts me to this painting is its blend of colors. It is a very simple setting but it is beautifully painted. In this weeks work I have repainted this painting from memory.














This final painting is interesting because it reminds me of graffiti. The red marks seem to create ambiguous insects. This relates to me as it enables the viewer to imagine several different scenarios.

Art between 9/22/15-10/6/15