One Absolutely Crazy Post

So, here's the cool post I promised to make up for my lack of posting:

First we have a great video about building value structure QUICKLY in your drawing. Granted, this guy is using a pencil (which he is holding the wrong way in my opinion), but what he talks about here applies very directly to what we're doing in class with conte instead of graphite.

Click to play

Next, we have two videos that have nothing to do with this class, but are just for pure shits and giggles:

1st up, a video by a guy who calls himself "Linkara". Linkara does internet reviews of really bad comic books. This is a video of his I particularly enjoy:



2nd, we have a video by "The Nostalgia Critic". The nostalgia critic complains about bad movies from his childhood and teenage years mostly. This is his review of "Free Willy":

The Artists We Looked At In The "Unity" Discussion

Richard Diebenkorn

Richard Hamilton

Fernando Bryce

Piet Mondrian

Forgive The Lack Of Posts

As Christa so kindly pointed out, I haven't been as diligent at posting new stuff on the blog lately. I blame not having a car. I can't believe just how many things in one's life are affected by not having transportation, even things I would never have thought would be. It seems like when a huge chunk of your time is spent trying to arrange a ride or borrow a vehicle and calling the mechanic to get updates, you reach task saturation easily. Below, I have posted some examples of the technique we worked on in class last week. Late, yes. My apologies. I'll have something really nice for the blog soon to make up for my sluggishness...

Tree Drawings

I know you have already done the assignment (at least you should have by now), so forgive me for being so late about posting these:

Black & White Conte On Toned Paper

Forgive me for being so late with posting these:

Homework Due Tuesday, September 21

Outside Assignment:

o Portrait from Life
o Working from a life sitter, draw a portrait employing the same techniques used in class.
o Pay attention to planes
o Give yourself a strong light source
o Materials
• Vine charcoal/black conte, chamois, hard eraser, good-quality white paper (22”x30”)

A Really Good Documentary On Caravaggio

Get Ready To Cringe: Ida Applebroog

Some Of The Greatest Use Of Value: Film Noir

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was a movement in movies that was termed "Film Noir". Essentially, these were films were made in Hollywood, but outside the Hollywood studio system. They were heavily influenced by the German filmmakers who had fled World War II Europe, and focussed on the darker side of human behavior (crime, dirty-dealing, psychological motivations, insanity, etc.). Since they dealt with such shocking (for the time) material, they often didn't get full Hollywood funding. Operating on shoestring budgets meant that often times these films were shot with a limited number of lights and cameras. So, images often had extremely directional lighting and an entire scene would often take place within one shot. As a result, the filmmakers were forced to look for the most interesting angle from which to shoot and found extremely creative ways of lighting their subjects, resulting in some of the most beautiful back and white images on film. Check out some of the film-still examples below and see what you can glean from both their use of dynamic contrast and the sense of compositional organization.

Art Happenings This Weekend

The River Beneath Us

Hamlett Dobbins

Opening Reception: September 10, 6:00-8:00PM

This show will feature twenty new works by local Memphis artist Hamlett Dobbins.

David Lusk Gallery
4540 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, TN

Midnight Robbers: The Artists of Notting Hill Carnival

Opening Reception: September 10, 5:00-7:30PM

Come see the exhibition, as well as a live performance--students from the Dance Program have choreographed a short performance with the Africa costume, designed by Ali Pretty, which will be accompanied by steel drums played by faculty and students from the Percussion Program.
The "Midnight Robbers" exhibition features photographs, a wire sculpture and costume, video and interactive information. Together these elements capture the sights and sounds of London’s Notting Hill Carnival. Through highlighting the work of four specific carnival artists artists, "Midnight Robbers" provides insight to the deeply rooted political meanings and cultural history of Caribbean carnival.

Also on display:
"Sogo Bo: The Animals Come Forth"
"Africa: Visual Arts of a Continent - Art in the Land of Sundiata",
and the IEAA collection of Egyptian Antiquities

In Caseworks: Kevin Mitchell, "Man. Enough"

The exhibits "Midnight Robbers", and "Sogo Bo: The Animals Come Forth" have been extended, and will now be on view until September 25th, 2010.

Art Museum University of Memphis
3750 Norriswood Ave -- CFA Building 142

Horn Island 26

Exhibition open to the public now through the end of September.

Opening Reception: September 11, 6:00-9:30 PM.

Come see all the great work from this year's MCA Horn Island trip. The show has a great selection of work from both students, teachers and and long-term Horn Islanders. Much of the work is for sale, and its all great!

The exhibition will also premier Eric Huber's Horn Island documentary.
There will be H.I. themed snacks. Drinks will be served.

Memphis College of Art

1930 Poplar Ave.

Memphis, TN

Duality

Helen Phillips & Pam Hassler

September 1-28

Opening Reception: September 10, 6:00-8:00PM

L Ross Gallery
5040 Sanderlin Ave
Memphis, TN

Two Artists Working With Charcoal Erasure To Consider

Sidney Goodman

Ginette Callaway

Homework Due September 14

Outside Assignment:

o Interior of a Room
o Use same technique as in class
o Look for a strong composition
o Pay attention to light source
o Line only
o Materials
• Vine charcoal, black, white, and sienna conte, chamois, hard eraser, good-quality white paper (22”x30”)

o BLOG: Search the Internet for animations and/or videos that employ dynamic positive/negative space relationships and high-contrast value. Find at least 3 examples and post these media to your blog or create links to them in your post. Give a brief analysis of why you believe each is a good example.

Click HERE for instructions on how to embed a video you find on Youtube or some other video website into your blog.

Erasure From Charcoal Ground w/Sienna Conte

Below are the two examples that we looked at in class of erasure from a charcoal ground with the addition of sienna conte. Here you can take a closer look at them:

You can also click HERE for a gallery of charcoal & conte drawings done by past students of a friend of mine. Her students are working in a different method that you--in most cases they are using an additive rather than subtractive method--but you can still see how the addition of sienna into an otherwise cool-tone picture creates emphasis, and--in the cases where the student used too much sienna conte--how it can become overpowering and deaden the effect.

Grabbing Images From The Web And Uploading Them To Your Blog

If you don't know how to download an image, here are some steps: (I'm assuming everyone is a Mac user) Place the pointer on the image you want to download and right-click (or press "control" on the keyboard and click if the right-click doesn't work). Scroll down to "Save Image to Downloads" and click. The image is now in your "downloads" folder.

Click HERE for directions on how to upload images to your blog. When you click on the "browse" button to locate your images, remember that they are in the "downloads" folder.

E-mail me or submit a comment to this post if you have any difficulties.

Some Of My Own Charcoal Work

Please don't think that I'm posting these as a means of bragging or trying to impress you. I hardly see these drawings as brilliant masterpieces by any means. It just happened to occur to me, as I was looking at charcoal covered hands, faces, arms, clothing, and even feet, that back in grad school, while I was still working on my series of drawings based on Myspace photos, I experimented for a short while with doing some of them in charcoal. As a result, I came out of my studio on a daily basis with every inch of exposed skin covered in a coating of black dust. Consider that each of these drawings was on a sheet of 38"x50" paper. I had a long pile of charcoal powder along the baseboard of the wall where these drawings were pinned. AND, yes, the black boogers wouldn't quit. I just thought I'd share a few of them to show that I can (and do) sympathize. Maybe you can get a chuckle out of these crappy drawings, as well.

Some Charcoal-Erasure Animation Goodness From William Kentridge

William Kentridge creates these animations by covering a piece of paper in charcoal, just as you're doing in class, and then erasing into it to create a drawing. For each new frame of animation, he erases part of his original image and then draws in the new change. Imagine the sheer amount of work that it took to do something like THIS...