Placement & less Turpentine

I learned a lot from my last post. It wasn't until last week did I realize that I'm getting more comfortable with painting. I used to use a lot of turpentine & less paint but was told by a classmate that the paint already has oil in it that there's no need for too much turpentine. In fact, she doesn't use turpentine at all but to clean her brushes! Crazy! I noticed my paintings looked like watercolor bc of the turpentine :/

The painting on the left is an example of bad placement lol. I didn't mean for the whole subject to be so far right. Anyway, my professor taught me to choose the very center of the whole subject I want to show in my painting & base measurements around that. But it was too late, I started from right to left already....

** Notice I am still using raw umber & have not mixed colors yet. I tried in one of my paintings but I hated it lol.

This is my first painting of a model.... its alright I think. I'd love my portraits to look more human & less cartoonish though.

:: see- vee

Ahhhh Painting.....how we have a love/ hate relationship.....

So for my first painting class we had to paint bottles arranged on a table with a spotlight from the right. I had to get used to many things being that paint is different from my usual tools. Here I learned after that its best to apply a light amount of oil color (one color- raw umber) with more turpentine because it is easier to erase any mistakes, etc. Plus with oil, its a lot easier going from light to dark than dark light. I also learned to use my brush as a measuring device to tell the height, width, & distance of objects in relation to each other. In the end I ran out of turpentine which explains the heavy brushmarks.



                                          

This is a huuuuge step being that my first attempt came out really bad I had to flip the canvas to start over. It was a good thing my professor did a 10 min demo because I learned a whole lot. You can still see my structural marks especially on the lying bottle & the tall rectangular bottle. I had to stop myself from erasing them because the area will be discolored. It's funny because for painting you have to be picky; you have to control how much pressure, how much oil paint to use, how much turpentine, etc. WITHOUT USING A PENCIL in the beginning. Every mark counts.

Blurry bc my cell's camera is broken :( Underlying structure of bottles I was practicing in my apartment. BTW, I again had to flip the canvas to start over.

COMPLETE!!! Came out better than I expected. L to R is a ketchup bottle, mustard container, Jelly bottle, & glass container of mango anchar yuummmm.... If you haven't noticed, that's supposed to be the view of a section of my refridgerator door.

This is really how I worked on that painting... gruelling! LOL

Drawing of Hands

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Got a TWITTER!!!! COME TWEET ME :) & Indonesian Child Smoker

>My Twitter name is seeveearts... add me :)
I tweet about knowledge, nonsense, observations, feelings, current events, lyrics to songs, etc. etc.
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> I'm sure you've heard of the Indonesian kid who smokes 40 cigarettes a day. It's crazy & if you haven't seen the video clips here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4c_wI6kQyE&feature=popular
Anyway, I was doodling in my sketchbook & drew him smoking & singing "Oh Baby I'm a Rockstar" from Rihanna. Debating if I should enlarge & paint it sort of like an anti- smoking poster....

Toodles.

:: see- vee

Newlyweds' Present

4th time painting. Acrylic on Bristol & framed for newlyweds.

I MUST see the Tutankhamen Exhibition in NYC!!!!

I have always loved history & learning about different cultures but one thing I've always been a fan of since 2nd grade was Egyptian history. From the age of 8 I knew I wanted to be an archaelogist even tricking my teacher when I put a chicken bone in a tic- tac container & calling it a dinosaur's bone I found on my backyard lol! Though my dinosaur interest died off, I still admire Egypt to this day.
So when I found out that Tutankhamen was coming to NYC for the second time since the 70's, I just knew that I HAD TO GO. It will run until Jan 2, 2011 & will go towards the construction of The Great Egyptian Museum to be built near the pyramids at Giza. Click the link for more information.

* The picture above is a drawing of Tutankhamen & his wife I made in '03 or '04 based on Tutankhamen's golden throne.

::see- vee

Two of my Best Works from Drawing Fundamentals Class

This is a charcoal drawing done on toned paper I made in Drawing Fundamentals class of two Greek pots? & a cup. It is my first charcoal drawing & I tried really hard not to make an outline, & instead used short, varying strokes which I had some experience from practicing by myself. I squinted really hard- just like what my professor said lol.



This is the result after I fixed it. I erased a lot of outlining- which was more than I expected =(, fixed the shadowing & made the pots look more round:



This is a curtain pinned on the wall with a dramatic lighting on the left side.



I love making charcoal drawings & my sole complain is inhaling all the charcoal dust. I love to get my hands dirty when using this media (I'm the only person in the class who refuse to wear gloves! Even the guys wore gloves! -_-) but my eyes start getting really dry & I become really dizzy & extremely thirsty! & when I blow my nose...... well, you know! So I try to use charcoal whenever I'm outside.

::see- vee

Portrait of a friend

This is a painted picture of a friend of mine done with acrylic paint. This is my third attempt painting and it looks like Snoop Dogg lol. Although I'll say this was a sucess, I really need to take a painting class because I feel I can benefit so much from it. I can't wait for next semester...hopefully I can register in time but first I need money to pay my classes off =( Damn American economy epic failure!!!!

Self Portrait Before and After

BEFORE



AFTER

This is my first time painting (please excuse me!!) and it happens to be a self portrait. The left is what it looked like before & then after I fixed it. I felt the need to fix it because my left eye was floating making my whole face look deformed. Also, my professor said that by keeping the white area around the face gives an unfinished look. I wanted to see if she was right so I filled in the white space and I balanced both sides of the face so that it really looks like I'm looking at the viewer face first even though the photo I based this painting on was turned to the right side a little.

Personally, I think the drawing after is better but the color is less vibrant. I'm starting to regret changing this =(

Visages of the Sun with an Ode to Dali, Kentridge, Van Gogh, and Monet

The picture above is a drawing/painting of the sun I call "Visages of the Sun with an Ode to Dali, Kentridge, Van Gogh, & Monet". The sun is divided into four parts each to represent the four seasons & clockwise starting from the top left is winter, spring, summer, and fall. I thought about the colors that are associated with each season & concluded that summer is all about bright yellows & clear blue skies, spring is basically all deep reds & purples, fall is depressing with its greys & blacks, & winter are shades of blues. Doing so forced me to think which artist use which color a lot and in the end I decided that Winter's blues make me think of Van Gogh's "Starry Night", Spring's reds make me think of a Monet painting, Summer's yellow reminds me of a Salvadore Dali painting most specifically I thought about "The Colossus of Rhodes" because the statue is looking up and shielding his eyes probably because of the blinding sun, & Fall's greys any of William Kentridge's charcoal paintings. I've been asked why fall is Kentridge when greys & blacks make them think of winter but I tell them because I'm thinking more in a deeper sense that Kentridge draws politically, about corruption, about falling.

I handed this 30 x 35" (roughly estimating) "Visages of the Sun with an Ode to Dali, Kentridge, Van Gogh, & Monet" as my 2D design final.

Btw, yes I know an ode is defined as a poem but for me an ode is also a dedication. It was by first instinct to name this piece this way & I always trust my first instinct ;]

Feeling Poetic.... Art, Life, Death ;]

I am a lover of art. For most, what is considered art is the beautiful but for me everything is beautiful & therefore everything must be art. I take my time & use all five senses to fully indulge myself in this Earth in order to attain the complete experience. With every lift of my leg I ponder what goes on within my body & how everything correlates on the outside as well. Its funny to think that the world shifted just because of one measly action of lifting a leg & how that very second of my doing will never come back to change course. The event will soon be history & can either lead to something fortunate, catastrophic, but a definite guarantee to a domino effect of who knows what.


So take your time & bask in all the goodness around you. Nobody knows where they'll be 10 years or five years from now. If this is debatable let me ask you...does a plant know when it will be taken away from the ground? Does it know that parts of its structure, its fibers, would later be laying on a highway a discarded Starbucks coffee cup? Does it know another part would be inside a septic tank, its pulp consumed and now "waste"? Does it know? What is known for sure is that throughout its lifetime there are bits of itself spread to where it has been/ gone through. Whether it be one surviving seedling that escaped a shortened destiny or if it be that a bee carried on a part of the plant to pollinate another, let it be known that we are not supposed to know in our life as well. We are not here to plan out every detail & what age we want to get married. While we are still alive & well, lets focus on accomplishing not just for self- benefiting but also contributing. So that when our time is up, we are comforted knowing we spent our time well :]

see- vee

P.S. The inserted picture is a drawing my house plant called a Money Tree done with graphite pencil.