abstraction of a master

   Franz Hals, The Laughing Cavalier, 1624 oil on canvas

methods

i. Make use of Renaissance or Baroque painting as the beginning of this next exercise

ii. Color copy your selection to a minimum dimension of 5" x 7"

>> It's always helpful to have a few black and white copies as well

iii. Use a plastic sleeve, tracing paper, a transparent sheet to draw on with a permanent black marker creating a break down of the painting to its formal abstract shapes of the original work, as well as the formal dominant lines found within the painting.

iv. Break down your abstract shapes through common value areas.

v. Scale up your traced sketch to a 1:2 ration, thus for every one inch you will now become 2 inches.  Make use of grid to scale up, first grid is @ 1", second is at 2"

vi. Your scaled up work will illustrate 3 separate versions of the deconstructive analysis of the master work. The triptych will clearly show an evolutionary deconstruction moving from representation towards the abstraction.

make your choices count

You may make use of both lines and shapes

You may make use of ink, gouache, acrylic paint, paper

You may scale up larger than the 1:2 version.

Your scaled up versions can be completed on Bristol, illustration board, watercolor #140 paper and arranged in thoughtful manner of your choosing.

You will need to complete, at minimum, 3 thumbnails per version. Total will be a minimum of  9

student work

Johannes Vermeer ; Girl with a Pearl Earring 1665

Leonardo Da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, 1489 - 1490

imaget3xtualities

Color Translations + Scores

found images, collage > new visual narratives                             

          

Some people have called Pop artist James Rosenquist (US.b.1933) Haiku master of found images creating enormous visual narratives that are visually and emotionally charged.  

At first glance one wonders how a the front grill of a Ford has anything to do with a plate full of Chef-Boy-Ardee? 

Why did Rosenquist decide to bring these specific forms together out of the trillion objects out there to choose from? 
As viewers we are displaced and thrown way off course.

If we care to look for a while, his paintings reveal themselves slowly to us. Rosenquist’s discordant images of birthday cakes, JFK portraits, fingernails, lipsticks and fire arms come together and actually have quite a bit in common when one considers the formal elements of design. 

• Make use of found images that share the formal element of SHAPE to repeat throughout your collected image banks. Experiment with variety of scale and proportion. Experiment with the orientation of the image.
• Create 4 collages each being 8 x 10  inches in your sketchbooks.  This will be used as the 'sketch' for your next local colour assignment completed in gouache, acrylic or oil.
• Select one of your collages to scale up and create a painting from. 
• Grid off your collage into one inch squares and create a grid of that unit on a piece of 140# watercolor paper or stretched canvas. Float your image equally from the edge of the paper. Draw out unit to unit relationships on paper extremely lightly (you DO NOT want to see pencil marks in your final).
• Grid your 140# paper off into 2" squares allowing for a 2:1 ratio. With a pencil transpose the contour edges onto the watercolor paper
• Begin to create the painting – matching background local colors. Creating large areas of colour, working from GENERAL >> SPECIFIC, and working from lightest areas >> darkest.
  

  

Andy Goldsworthy > RIVERS AND TIDES . 2001

The unique sculptor, Andy Goldsworthy (b. 1956, Cheshire, UK) works with ephemera to create visually spectacular, and structurally stunning Earth works.  

Due to the inherent nature of the materials he explores -- from icicles to poppy petals, and more, Goldsworthy's works often only exist for a very brief period of time.  

Following their creation, they are documented photographically and exist in this form after the materials have broken down and/or transformed into another state.

assignment

Students of Design + Color Theory will put into practice what they have learned in our first six weeks together and will create a self directed assignment that puts found materials to the forefront. 

Using your notes from your sketch books, make a list of the concepts covered in class thus far. 

This work is to be designed by you, complete with thumbnail studies (8 minimum) of the project's evolution in your sketchbook. 

You may include a color palette.

The image size is your decision.

Reflect back to the visual information revealed in the film Waste Land by Vic Muniz, 2010

concepts covered

line

shape

space

figure / ground relationships

visual weight 

visual speed + movement

scale and proportion

gestalt

balance and unity

diagonal vs horizontal / vertical speed

figure / ground reversal

pattern + rhythm

sequential works (narratives with more than one panel)

color schema > primaries, secondaries, tertiaries, complimentary, analogous, vibrating color schemas, simultaneous contrast, transparency, intensity + saturation