This new project with the colored pieces of paper is very exciting. i get a chance to redeem myself. i picked nice, opaque colors, and i folded it just perfectly. (hollis said it was her favorite so that was a confidence boost) i started my outline of the underpainting and i felt good about it. A lot better than the last one. I zoomed in quite a bit, so maybe it will stand out from the rest

The critique on our first painting was difficult. Most of them looked amazing, everyone has their own style and everyone seems to be getting the hang of it. Its hard not to compare work but i couldn’t help but notice mine did not stand out like most of them. I decided painting the background whiter would help, and maybe adding darker and lighter colors to make it look more 3-dimensional. Its not realistic, more painterly. i hate my folded piece of paper.

Walking around the room made me feel worse about my painting today, but at least I’m getting a little better on blending. I hoped that today if i focused on putting in the details it would help, but it didn’t change anything. Im trying to paint in blocks, but the more i focus on one section the wetter it gets and then everything just blends together. Some light is cooler, some warm, and its difficult to differentiate where one ends and another begins.

Oil paint doesn’t dry. And it smells. The brushes are like trying to paint with a broom. The underpainting is done, i guess, i have no idea what it is supposed to look like. i can only hope it magically ends up looking relatively like paper.

Working on the first project, i don’t think I’ve ever been this frustrated. I have never been behind in a class, and i feel so inadequate around these amazing artists. This white piece of paper we have to paint HATES me. Its my fault, i shouldn’t have folded it in the weirdest way possible. Even looking at it in real life looks really awful. All these things we have to add to the paint are so new to me, i have never played with oil paint before. But at least i spent an hour on an underpainting only to start all over again.

This class was extremely helpful. Im very glad that i chose to stay in it because it actually helped me with real life questions, like what the heck am i going to do when i get out of here. This class helped with time management, creating my new schedule (which i would have been lost doing on my own), and it was a nice, refreshing class at the end of the week that helped fill me with ideas of the future. It doesn’t seem so terrifying anymore. The only thing i would change is the time. 😀

When Bill was explaining that whole pie chart method, i was again amazed at the possibilities that go into having an art, graphic design or photography major. I could take pictures for weddings or even of prize winning horses apparently. i never realized the countless opportunities and am no longer trying to find a passion, I’m waiting for it to come to me.

Louis Bourgeois is my favorite artist right now. Many of her quotes relax my nervousness about creating art.

– “I am not what i am, i am what i do with my hands.”

– “All we have to open the past are the five senses…and memory.”

and my favorite:

– “A work of art doesn’t have to be explained.”

She does so many things with the human hand, and i too have been fascinated with drawing them, but she molds them, which come out amazingly beautiful in my opinion.

– “There is nothing so fraught with significance’s as the human hand.”

I have never gone into the gallery until i saw the one that is in there most recently, with the skulls and tall red building. It always amazes me that i still can’t figure out how these artist come up with or are inspired to make such work that goes so well together. How did they even consider making them the size they are? How on earth did they even go about making them? My art major is overwhelming me every day, and i have no clue how i can find something that inspires me so much i create something from myself rather than imitating someone else.

Alex is my professor for design and i had never seen her work. She inspired me to create a pintrest account, because i always find pictures that are interesting or “weird”, and now i have a place to collect and look back at them. Her work with the bags was something i had never seen before, and how she talked about these mass bulks of glitter in bags was new and stuck with me for some reason.