FINAL PROJECT, Part 1

Digital Painting

FINAL PROJECT, Part 2
Digital Painting

Jasmen Vivar

Final Project Artist Statement

I am an artist that enjoys a multitude of media. I am easily a jack of all trades (master of none) when it comes to pursuing my personal art career. With that in mind, this semester I aimed to push myself using new ideas, methods, or tools that I wouldn’t have thought to use before. My final project went through two different phases. Initially, it was going to become a piece that flirted with the idea of a self destructing canvas. I wanted to paint our three figures on a bowl of fruit, which would decompose as I paint and become a horrific and gruesome figure painting. I hoped, by using this specific canvas, to create a piece that would challenge the idea of traditionally beautiful figure paintings and studies of bowls of fruit.

That didn’t happen. Instead, I created two digital pieces with Photoshop CS6 and a wacom bamboo tablet. Digital painting is not a medium I am new to, but I have always struggled with using it for life drawing. My final project, in its final form, turned into simple medium studies. I became so wrapped up in little details that I could zoom in on—details that would be lost had I made a small traditional painting. I was able to learn more about how to digitally paint from life, which is very different from traditional painting from life. 

FINAL PROJECT

multi-media (See below)

Detail 1

graphite and gouache on paper

    

 
Detail 2 & 3

oil on masonite

Zach Pedroncelli

Artist statement

My purpose is to grow. I want to observe, experiment, collaborate and enjoy painting and creating visual images. Frustrations will always exist but I’m feeling optimistic today so I’ll say they are minimal. I hope to find motivation consistently and continue learning to better myself. I think my personal growth during the course of this class has strengthened my technical ability and overall idea of what it is I strive to make. My goal is to continue to explore mediums, surfaces, and overall my fascination with the human figure. I want to be able to capture not only proportional accuracy well but I want to build personality into my paintings. I want to focus on my subjects and portray them in a light so that people who know them personally can say that is definitely them not just in image. I think this class opened up my mind to exploration and removed my fear of changing style and medium. I also think that the engagement of our peer body and instructor helped the class as a whole grow a lot. I think it was the most informative and one of the most enjoyable class so far in my college experience because of people’s openness and willingness to provide useful feedback. It gave me something I can carry afterwards and really help improve my work. This final piece was difficult because of our open variety with style and materials. I wasn’t sure which way to go and decided to do an experimental undertone one each one to see the effects on the overall weight and dimension  of the figure. I think I taught me a lot and overall doing two weeks of portraits improved my proportion skills and overall shape of faces of such differing variety. I think this project showed me that I am making slight progress technically which is always reassuring. 

FINAL PROJECT

acrylic on canvas

Rabia Friedman

When we were given the assignment to paint three individuals and incorporate them into one or multiple pieces, I was at a loss for what I was going to do. In my head I envisioned a piece that would have all three faces in one painting. It took me a while to figure out how I would further this idea. I began the assignment by simply sketching the model’s faces. At this point I kept thinking about how little I knew about each individual. They were exposed in the most venerable way and yet I have no idea what kind of person they are. In order to connect the three individuals I needed to connect their storylines somehow. Suddenly while sketching on the second day of class I realized that all humans are somehow connected. Regardless of the different lives we lead, we come from the same stuff and our lives intertwined in mysterious ways. It is a difficult task to try and map out our interconnectedness. One way to show this disjoint was to paint a nebula.

One quote that speaks to the idea that humans are part of an unexplainable universe comes from author Eckhart Tolle; “You are the universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.” Many people including myself love the idea that human life is more than surface appearances. Somehow life transcends from its human form. We are bodies and we are souls. Many philosophers have addressed this in what they call dualism and monism addressing the mind and the body as two separate things or as one thing. In my nebula painting I wanted show that the individual is part of the universe. My painting shows the faces of the individuals are representation of their whole self (mind and body) being transcended to space. By painting space I wanted to represent the vastness of the universe. Like the vastness of the universe our human experience is both unexplainable and awe provoking. 

FINAL PROJECT

watercolor and ink on paper

Nick Fleming

This is a figure study that attempts to show how the basic use of contrast can make for an effective composition. Not only that, this painting is also a literal representation of the visceral technique I appreciate in art. The multitude of teeth, gums, bumps, blood, and chaotic brush and pen strokes are all there to show what I mean when I say visceral technique. Monsters are a great way to show an animalistic quality in imagery (I think). Monsters are not the only topic that can show power because anything has the possibility to be rendered to show movement, strength, and subsistence.

The contrast between the angelic woman and grotesque monsters is not used only to create a composition in terms of technique. This collage of paintings/drawings shows a narrative of a blissful woman/spirit in a realm of nirvana, heaven etc about to be invaded by creatures from a realm that is the opposite. What if the notion of heaven, salvation, nirvana, or paradise is not what the religions of the world think it is? Is there a possibility that in heavenly existence there is still a need to confront our (and others) demons? This is simply an idea that I thought would prove to make an interesting image to show what I like my art to look like and to also show a tidbit of narrative (that I see in comic books) in the environment of fine art. 

FINAL PROJECT

watercolor and ink on paper

Detail 1

Detail 2

Lydia Gosling

“8766”

"Personal identity seems like it's just such an American archetype, from Holly Golightly re­inventing herself in 'Breakfast At Tiffany's' to Jay Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby.' It seems like the sort of archetypal American issue. If you're given the freedom to be anything, or be anyone, what do you do with it?" ~Chuck Palahniuk

Who are you? Why do we wear the faces of others, hiding behind clothes and false identities?Is it to hide our true natures or to become something that everyone else can easily accept? Are you broken down into sub­genres of race, music tastes, clothing brands, cars you drive, cigarette brandsyou smoke, the size of your televisions, and the flavor of water in your refrigerator? In today’s society we can’t seem to shake all of these comparisons of material qualities; constantly being degraded for personal choices such as tattoos, piercings, and the shoes on your feet. This piece shows the true­self, escaping from the workings of an outer­shell, seeming to identify the feeling of knowing that your true self is or has to be kept away from the public, making the viewer feel uneasiness, and reflect this subject onto themselves; being forced to identify that the true self has to live under the skin for all of the 8,766 hours spent in a year. I chose to represent my true self as one that can be commonly seen in today’s culture, showing tattoos that are relevant to nature, death, and spirituality, similar to my own tattoos that are hidden for myself. The left arm illustrates the Virgin Mary as painted with Dia De Los Muertos makeup, contrasting everlasting life with death. On the right hand I chose to use symbols that are very relevant to my life: the index finger shows the Japanese sign for water (significant in meditation, being able to take the shape of anything, and being the essence of life), the Zia symbol on the middle finger showing where I’ve come from, the last two fingers make up one symbol in Sanskrit which means “Namaste” (roughly meaning “I bow to the God within you”), and lastly the semi colon on the side of the hand which is for a collective called The Semicolon Project based on helping people who battle with depression, suicidal thoughts, self­inflicted wounds, or just need help. “Semicolons represent a sentence the author chose not to end. You're the author, the sentence is your life.” This is my true self. 

FINAL PROJECT

watercolor, ink, gouache on paper and board

Detail 1

Detail 2

Detail 3

Detail 4

Detail 5

Detail 6

Lucìa Flores

Artist Statement

My brother convinced me to start painting one year. He said it doesn’t matter if you do not know what you are doing, just start putting paint on the paper and see what happens. I did, and without knowing which paints to buy I painted blobs of color. It was my new fun hobby, which was short lived.

Just a few weeks after I started painting I experienced a loss I would struggle to cope with for several years. My curiosity for painting went from “just for fun” to necessary. Fortunately my husband realized that I needed to paint to cope with my loss, and he motivated me painting. Painting was the only way I kept from crying when I was alone. It became my meditation, my way of blocking out the emotional pain. I lost myself with every brush stroke, with every color, and with my swaying hand. I belonged in another dimension, safe from disappointment.

Mother Nature. She was the one my doctor blamed my miscarriage on. I started painting trees because that is how I imagine Mother Nature. I painted Mother Nature over and over. It was the only way I could face her. I started painting on small sheets of paper. But that wasn’t big enough. I painted a woman with tree branches for hair on a 6x9 foot sheet of plywood. It was as if painting bigger allowed me to show just how much I hurt.

I painted and drew Mother Nature for a year. Then I realized it was time to move forward with my art. I wanted to share my experience with the world, because there are many women and men out there that have experienced miscarriage. I wanted to paint figures, and scenes, but I needed to learn how. I entered the Art Studio program so I could learn technique and how to verbally explain my art.

For this project, I painted what started off as a statement on the ideal image of a woman or man and ended up with a figure study. I wanted to challenge myself by making as many drawings and paintings of our models and mannequins until I could create a painted figure with depth. I am far from mastering my challenge, but I gained a new level of patience for painting and drawing that will hopefully allow me to progress, so that one day I can create the exhibit I set out to have three years ago. My introduction to art was through painting. My curiosity for painting was encouraged by my brother. My need for painting was through my loss. I continue to paint and sculpt because it is all I can see myself doing. 

FINAL PROJECT

tempera, ink, gold & silver leaf on wood

Joe Millard

Where I am as an artist (and where I am going) is a difficult thought to try and capture succinctly. I know that the work that I create now will in a very short time be outdated in my timeline. If I could hindsight my own work as it is happening, would I still make it knowing where I am going? I have only found that my work is inconsistent; I am always trying new forms of art/painting/drawing without regards to my previous talents or skills. However, that being said, I find that my fundamentals are becoming more well rounded (line, composition, frame, color use) while my ability to think creatively continue to grow. The field I wish to work in has a very definite construction as to how art is created and so I am continuing with several projects that are in line with that as my goal. Goals change though, and because of this I cannot help myself when it comes to trying new styles of rendering, different materials, different influences. So, I know where I want to go, and that is in the field of art. This piece was an exploration of deconstruction and iconography. I wanted the materials to remain separate and have their strengths work independent of each other; the leafing being displayed in an as distinctly leafing and the tempera being distinctly tempera.