In my second to last post I showed the gray scale piece with triangles.
Then I attempted to do the same piece in color. I realized very quickly that I would probably need to make a template of the original in order to get my pieces in the right place and size.
But not to be deterred, I dove right in on a piece with triangles and in color.
This was a very difficult composition to piece together. I believe I lost sight of some of my figures because of this. In my next piece I would like to incorporate more cool/dull colors to add richness and try to pay more attention to the figure and ground. This is a very energetic piece and I think that adding some calmer colors would be more pleasing to the eye. That said, this piece is growing on me!
Once again, I went back to Nancy Crow’s original strip-piecing and restructuring instructions and re-worked the assignments from the beginning. I have to laugh because when I re-read the assignments I found that my original strip sets weren’t even close to the assignment given!
Art Class Projects
When I realized that in my life I can count on one hand the number of art classes that I have taken, I set out to remedy this. So, this semester I am taking a Mastering Color class at Art Center, a Mastering Composition class also at Art Center and an oil painting class at Pasadena City College. I am learning how to paint with acrylics and oil paints along with other color and composition basics. Here are the six assignments from the color class. First, create a motif, then paint in a 6-step grayscale; then another 6-step grayscale. Third, paint the motif with all the 24 colors of the color wheel, then an analogous color scheme, a split complementary color scheme and finally paint the motif with many colors all the same value.
The oil painting class has been more difficult but its been good. There is so much to learn but what I like best is that I can blend (I call it smushing) the colors together. Here is the picture from that class. I am happy to report that the scene is recognizable as mountains and water. I’ve decided to repeat the class because I’m sure I have much more to learn.
Finally, last night I watched a documentary on Clifford Still, an abstract expressionist. It was very timely for me because they talked a lot about the artistic process and what abstract expressionism means. I learned a lot from the documentary.