Art board update (wow, look at me go)

 So, panel two is nearly done, which is pretty snazzy. Quick recap: my theme is unattainable perfection and the obsession over being perfect. A truely heartwarming idea. My artist models include Artemisia Gentilschi, Frida Kahlo and Faith ringold. 

The last series (because order isn't relevent in my blog posts):

Art series 8 is supposed to sum up all of board two. Board two focuses on the grotesque side of perfectionism, while still being aesthetically pleasing. The women's faces are painted in watercolour (a delicate and 'feminine' medium) whilst there are flowers bursting out of their skulls. Blood is dripping down their faces.

I couldn't get them to rotate. So the overall visual feel of these paintings is "if a water colour palette could throw up on a piece of paper", which is exactly what I wanted. There is a grungy feel which represents the messiness of perfectionism (how it can make your life a mess). There is also gold leaf to link with the gold boarders of the first board. My artist model for this series was Frida Kahlo. Her paintings are often close up portraits. They also seem to use flowers as a motif a fair bid, along with gruesome imagery (like the one where her heart is cut out). I Incorporated these motifs whilst not translating the media (I used water colour, she used oil paint). 

Art series something (the top one of the second board, I have lost count):

I didn't really have a plan for this series (I know, shocking, considering that everything is planned out to scale) as I started the first one at 2.30 am on a fateful Sunday morning. The next thought was obviously "great, now lets make it look kinda scary". The gold boarder and stitching are both elements which I used in the first board. These paintings now have gold leaf on the white swirls, I just don't have a photo.

This series is in the same style as art series 8 (because I started it in lock down and only had watercolours at the time). Same style features as well. We have some figures in the middle of the painting, dark purple backgrounds, flowers and stitching (with white embroidery thread). Once again, I have used the juxtaposition of beauty (flowers, colours ect) and gruesomeness (because having eyeballs is for suckers).

Its fair to say that I am pretty darn happy with this series. I am really proud of how they turned out and for experimenting with watercolour (I used to find it really annoying because its so easy to mess up).

Art series 'the other one':

I know, creative naming. This series is inspired by botanical charts. Other than the flower motif within my boards, the only real reason why I decided on a botanical chart style is because I think they are really cool. Of course, I needed to make this series depressing, so I added some lovely labels which represent the cycle of perfectionism. I also used the same dripping effect as the other two series, because I CAN. 

Purple flowers, because this is one of my board's main colours. They also have white stitching to tie in with the Faith Ringold emulation series (first board) and the 'girls without eyeballs' series. 

That brings us to the grand finale... The finished board:

I don't know how to get them to be side by side. I guess this year I wont be spending all of study leave in the art room (because that ended REAAAAALLY well last year). Chances are I will do a few touch ups before the end of the year, but I am really happy with myself.

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.

                   :)

Should I steal the bike?

 Another English lesson, another existential crisis. Today I have been learning about Immanuel Kant and his concept of categorical imperatives. Kant is interested in morals and in his opinion, morals aren't connected to religion, they are connected to us as people.

This ties in with our exploration of the concept of self because morals make up the unique reasoning why we do the things we do.

There are two categorical imperatives which Kant uses to summarise how we as humans have morals.

1. “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”. A maxim is the action that you are thinking about taking. For example, I could be thinking about stealing somebody's bike. By this moral logic, I can only steal this bike if I think everyone should always be allowed to steal. Obviously thats a dumb idea, because that would just cycle around and around, so by Kants logic, I should not steal that bike. 

2. “So act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in another, always as an end and never as only a means.” This means it is wrong to use other humans for the sole purpose of your own benefit. Obviously we use things as a mean all the time, such as the computer your are reading this on, or the bike I definitely didn't steal in order to get around, but it is morally wrong to use a person and only treat them as a way to get what you want. We use people all the time too, such as teachers to pass on knowledge, or chefs to make food for restaurants, but we still acknowledge their humanity and know there is more to them than that singular purpose. 

These two ideas come together to form the idea that we treat others as human and don't do to them what we wouldn't want them doing to us. 

Ps. No bikes were stolen in the making of this blog post.