Level two art: term three update.

As of today, which is the second of September, my first art board is completed. Yay.

Ok, so the theme of my board is unattainable perfection and how we tear ourselves apart in the effort of achieving something impossible. This could be anything, from grades to our appearances. Especially in this day and age, it is so easy to get caught up trying to be perfect. From the social media influencers with 'perfect bodies' via Photoshop to some of our peers, who somehow manage to get 100% on everything; its becoming increasingly hard to be happy with ourselves. This unhappiness can lead us to become obsessed with our flaws and try to change them. We try to change what makes us human.

Fair to say, its a viscous cycle.

So, I've planned out all my series, to scale on this page. Little bit nerdy but that's ok. 

Art series one:

Art series one featured roses painted using the principals of positive and negative space. These roses were bordered by vintage mirror/ frames.

The original plan was to have charcoal sketches of mirrors as my series, reminiscent of the style of Kath Kolwitz. After doing the positive/negative space exercise in class, I decided that a rose in that style would be very beautiful and a little bit Gothic, which are both features I wanted to include in my board.

The series ended up looking like this. The roses symbolises beauty, which is one of the many unattainable things we strive for. The wilted rose, while still beautiful, is dying. I thought the dying rose would be an ideal representation of when we take the obsession of beauty too far.

Art series two:

To go with my already depressing theme, we have a lovely series of some woman getting consumed by vines. As ya do. The woman is supposed to be Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. Beauty is one of those things that we are pressured to have and can quickly grow out of control (like untamed vines, see what I did there?). I used the purple flowers to represent the beauty in this obsession (not how it hurts people, but how it starts off as an improvement then backfires). This obsession gradually grows and over takes the image, represented by the vines having more space in the second painting.

Art series three:

Art series three is an emulation of the African American painter/ quilter Faith Ringold. Faith uses quilting and painting to convey various stories and people. Quilting is one of the major ways stories were passed down from generations in some African cultures are used by Ringgold to create her politically charged artworks. I used geometric shadows/ shapes and stitching to represent her art style.

Art series four:

Ignore the title on the planning page, I swapped some series around. Art series 4 acts as a summary of the first board. The images are of two women in different phases of being consumed by flowers. Thats not gruesome at all. 

they are framed with gold boarders, which links back to my first paintings. Wow, its almost like motifs are useful for ncea art, who knew.

Please excuse the blurry-ness, my phone is a bit odd. The contrast between the dark background and the drastic highlights of the figures represents Artemisia Gentilschi's style, who is one of my artist models. Overall, I am pretty happy with board one.

                   :)

Level one art: term 3 update

 As expected, more progress has been made towards my art board. Art series 3 has been completed, art series 4 is nearly done and both 5 & 6 are planned out. I am happy with my progress so far, and am really enjoying planning and creating artwork. 

Art series 3:

This series' artist model was Shane Cotton. I used his signature dark colours, geometric shapes and grungy textures. The geometric shapes and borders (along with the colour scheme) also link these pieces into the rest of my board. The ideas behind this series were the treaty of Waitangi and the musket wars. The key parts are the rid of painted muskets, the treaty of Waitnangi (text) and the moko pattern of Ngai Tahu (which is my tribe). This series was done in acrylic paint, water colour paint and lino print.

Art series 4:

Art series 4 sits directly under #2. These pieces all flow together with the colour scheme and the invading Tudor rose element. At this current moment (while im blogging) the roses and borders are not painted yet. These paintings are done in water colour and acrylic, and have Sofia Minson as it's artist model. I used her flat colours and various textures in my pieces. They link into the rest of my board with the borders and color scheme. There isn't a whole lot of geometric shapes in this series, because I was focusing on more natural shapes and nature being consumed by the tudor roses (a visual representation of colonisation).

Art series 5:

This will be the last piece of art board one. It still focuses on colonisation, and will keep the goemetry and contrast. This will be slightly more gruesome (blood, ect). The artist model for this peice is Shepard Fairey. I am using bright colours, various textures and geometric shapes which link back to the artist model and the rest of my boards.

Art series 6:

Art board two will focus on the 1900's -2000's. This particular series will be around the suffragette movement in New Zealand. The artist model is Sofia Minson, and I will be using a realistic image contrasted with a flat-patterned background.I plan to use the same lino print as a part of the pattern.