Final Project II: "Man-Made Disasters"

This triptych was not critiqued by the class, but I can speak on what my ideas were behind it. I took the ideas from my emulation project to create interesting trees and a soft landscape that was also rather washed out. In black pen I drew "man-made disasters" that have occurred over time. The first depicts "London's Killer Fog" of 1952 caused by the citizens of the city burning coal at an alarming rate to heat their homes in the rapidly changing weather. Many died from the resulting smog. The second depicts the forest fires that raged through California in 2009, some of which were natural and a part of the survival of the ecosystem, however some were also deliberately caused by human hands and destroyed much of California's wildlife and forced millions out of there homes and killed 12 people. The third depicts the most recent man-made disaster, the oil drill explosion in the gulf is currently reeking havoc on the ecosystem and attempts to clean up the spill have not been successful. The black pen is dirty and unsightly in these soft and beautiful watercolor landscapes, just as the man-made disasters have done nothing for the landscapes that they have ruined and ecosystems they have affected.

Final Project 1: "If Nature Had A Say"

I honestly was not expecting the class to choose this drawing to put in the show, but since they did I had to really think about why I made the decisions I did when I was drawing this. I used the model and an image that I took of my barn and was truthfully trying to do something original and interesting just to see if I could do it. I love drawing from my imagination and do not get the opportunity to as much as I would like. So for the show I concluded that I was attempting to depict a struggle between human-kind, nature and possessions and how each can be monsters towards each other or on their own.

However, the class and professors invited to critique did not get my ideas from my drawing, they actually got ideas of religion, virginity and sexuality. They thought the title of the piece should be changed to "Like A Virgin." This was amusing to me, because I was not thinking of any of these ideas when I was drawing, although that does not mean I necessarily disagree with their interpretations. I think this was mainly due to the fact that the barn looked more like a church structure to the class and professors. So although the drawing was executed well and was interesting and original, the ideas behind it were not as well formulated per-say.

Emulation Project

I was not altogether certain on what everyone thought about my attempt at Emulating Eyvind Earle, the print graphic artist who specializes in landscapes. Earle has a stylized method of translating a landscape so I figured that emulating him would not be too difficult because he uses a lot of solid color and shapes, with intricate detail in the spots of color that are the leaves of his ornate trees. However, I discovered that mimicking a print with paint is very difficult to do; you just cannot get the same fine mark making and solid color with paint as you can with print, or perhaps I was just not with the talent.

One thing the class unanimously agreed on was that the landscape was being mostly covered and perhaps hindered by the large tree branch in the foreground. I chose to put the branch in the foreground because it is a common theme in Earle's prints, however my branch looked awkward and did not recede into space as Earle's do so well. Also it was rather thick and covered a lot of the top half of the landscape, hiding it. I think the class was also confused on my color choices, but I chose this palette from Earle's own prints and the black trees are common in his compositions. If I could re-do the project I would try for better mark making and strive for a better color palette and make the tree branch a bit smaller and have it recede into space more.