Final Reflection

I think that Ive made a lot of progress this term. I came into the class having a little painting experience behind me, but not too much, and I'm leaving the class with a new sense of capability and knowledge in oil painting that I definitely didn't come in with. I feel much more confident in my painting skills, and i even think that I'm enjoying painting much more than I was was before the class started. I learned about color, how to make any color I needed out of the 6 that we started with, I learned about how to make shadow and highlight colors to give objects a 3d effect, I learned how to mix color right on the canvas, and I learned this all from the very first painting.

In the second painting, I learned about making my own set up and choosing my own composition, and about whats important for me to show through my compositions. I learned that brush strokes can determine whether or not an object has a certain texture on its surface, if its bumpy or smooth or fuzzy or rough. I learned that to make glass, you need to not think of it as making "glass", you just need to paint exactly the color you see, the different whites and grays.

The third painting taught me how to crate the illusion of depth and place. One method we used to do this was to put more focus on shadows and light than is actually there. In my Sense of Place painting I chose to paint the window and trees outside it. I think it was really good for me to get the practice in texture from painting the trees outside and the old craggely windowsill and heater. I was able to create my sense of depth by making the shadows of the window panes much darker than they actually were which gave my painting a very "sunny day" look.

Overall, I loved this class, it was great to get so much experience and paint 3 paintings with you, Ms. Roberts, I'm definitely going to continue painting, thank you so much for a great term : )

Class Critique

The small group class critique was extremely helpful to me to learn about the things that I was good at doing, and the tings that I needed to improve on.
People told me that they liked my use of shadow and color to show actual shape of objects, that, especially in my white objects painting, I was able to create shape lines and a smooth texture, people thought that i used very interesting composition in my paintings.
The things I needed to work on included, in my surface and texture painting, making my objects appear more textured, especially the tree bark which looked a little too fuzzy. People noticed that i was much more comfortable working with lighter color than with darker colors. They said that I should pay more attention to my brush strokes, especially when I'm trying to fill in an area, because the broad strokes I tend to use are "mechanical".

This was probably one of the most helpful exercises that we had because it told me exactly what were my strengths and exactly what I need to work on.

Observations on the History of Oil Painting

Historically, I think that the most important artists emerged in Renaissance times, people like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Titian, Raffaello Sanzio, and Botticelli. Later on, the worlds focus on oil painting spread to France and painters such as Claude Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, and Seurat. With these painters, new styles such as impressionism emerged. After thins point, oil painting focus spread more to across the globe, first to China, Japan and India, then to Africa and the Americas.
When I think about the history of oil painting, the cultures that are missing would be African paintings. This is probably because during the rest of the time when the world was painting, Africa was being colonized and taken over, I would think that the reason that African oil painting is so rare would be because people had more important things to do than paint.
I think that most of the oil painting in the world definitely took place all across Europe.
And most old and famous paintings that I know of are housed in museums across Europe like the Louvre. This is done probably to protect the paintings so that they don't get damaged or stolen because they are so rare and special. This also limits so many peoples access to them, today, to see any of these paintings, you need to go to France to the museum or have the Internet so see them over the computer. Its really sad hat this is so because not everyone can do these things or has access to these things.
Subject matter has also changed over time, back in the Renascence times, the subject was royalty and Gods, then it shifted into nature and landscape, then it shifted again to more modern and abstract ideas. This is most likely because of the worlds culture changes and changes in values among painters.

Why Oil Paint?

Mediterranean, Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilizations used painting mixtures that were made up of pigments and whole egg, animal glue or milk, but then in the 15th century Italian and Greek painters overtook those traditions with mixtures of pigments and olive oil. Over thousands of years, many different people and cultures made changes to the "oil paint" recipe. Until finally we have oil painting like we know it today. Today, oil paints are made with natural oils like linseed, walnut, or poppy, and color pigment. The reason that people started putting oil into paints was so that the artist had time to paint and blend the colors on the painting.

For me, why oil paint, is because I feel like its such a beautiful and important part of the art world. Oil paint is such a beautiful medium because of the richness of its colors, its ability to be blended and its texture which i always think to be very elegant because of its thickness and smoothness. I think that this is the opinion of other artists who still use oil paint, because in our day and age, there are much more exciting and wild ways to express yourself through art, but i think that oil paints beauty, legacy, and versatility/acceptability of styles keep people coming back to it.

What Is A Portrait?

I think that, in its rawest idea, a portrait is an expression, weather it be an expression of a person, or a place, or a time, it is a view into the artists world, it is probably one of the most honest ways that an artist can express themselves because they are opening themselves up to the world for everyone to view. And even if the portrait isn't of the artist himself, its all still the same, the artist is still doing the same thing as if the portrait was of himself.
1 2 3

4 5 6

1.Shiva at Whistle Creek 2.Self Portrait by Jacob Lawrence 3.Georgia O'Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz

4.Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh 5.Madame X by John Singer Sargent 6.Portrait of Gorg Gisz by Hans Holbein The Younger

I didn't know which 3 to pick because I like so many, so I picked 6 : )

1, 3, and 5 are all fairly similar in the composition, the person who the portrait is of takes up most of the picture, or, if there is other stuff, its just there to make the painting seam not totally empty(#5). In these three portraits, the main focus on on the subject herself, not on all the other random stuff around her. They are trying to show some type of emotion of the woman pictured, or maybe just her beauty as the main subject in all three. Numbers 2, 4, and 6, on the other hand, all have background objects and various things. These show the main subject in his life, or even in a single moment in his life. With there being other things to look at in the paintings, I dont think that it takes anything away from the main focus of the men in the paintings, it kind of adds a new level of being able to look at them and understand them.

The clothing that each subject is wearing also sends a different message. #1, the woman is probably naked, this is different from #5 is her elegant black dress, and that's still different from #6 in his elaborate dress.

Pretty much every artist has stuck to the idea that a portrait is some kind of view of the artist himself, or a view of another person. Some are more traditional looking, #6, and some are more modern looking, #1, 2, 3.

Surface And Texture

This is my setup for the surface and texture painting, I don't have the pictures yet, but they're coming : )

A Sence Of Place

These two paintings have very different moods. The mood in the first painting reminds me of a parent struggling to convince their child to do something, like play that cello on the floor, and the child is struggling to resist this lesson, both people in the painting seam a little frustrated with each other by their body language, his elbow on the table thing, and how she is angled towards the window with the cello aimlessly laid on the floor. This painting has an "ughh" mood. While the second painting is very different. The woman in the painting is leaning against the wall with her hand holding her head. She seams to be struggling with something, maybe something bad just happened and she is wondering what she has to do about it? And because the theater is empty, and it is probably after a show because all the lights and things are still on, is she thinking about her life? Does she want to be where she is, singing or acting or whatever shes doing there? This paintings mood is very gloomy and sort of sad.
The thing that the paintings have in common would be that the characters are all seemingly struggling with something.