BA post 1

9/7/18



I went through an ordeal trying to get to the point of the small painting that I made. My first idea was large scale. It was going to be a portrait with an embroidered mask. I ended up not being happy with the face. It reminded me of a Byzantine Jesus, and I wasn't trying to go down that road.

I promptly scrubbed over it and decided to go down the still life route. I went to Publix and bought a chocolate mouse cake and some strawberries. I sat the still life up in my extremely warm studio space and got to work. The chocolate mouse melted an hour later after I had everything placed on my canvas.

(I might use this image later)

After this ordeal, I switched to a smaller canvas and a small cake bite with a strawberry and blueberry. I really want to keep an embroidered element in my work so I'm currently working on finishing embroidering the strawberry and blue berry. 

At another point in the night I thought I might want to see if I could bring back the mask idea. It was successful in a way that I figured out a 3D stitch that lets leaf like threads hang off the image. I also decided I really like the way the back of the embroidery looks as well and I may incorporate that at a later point. 

(front)

(back)

An artist that is inspiring me right now is an embroidery artist who makes life like animals in nature scenes. Nicole Lupton's work shows an amount of control with thread and needle that I would like to learn from. I feel she has a balance between her paint and embroidery. 

The reading didn't have much of an impact on my work this go around. It just made me aware of different critiquing situations and how to be polite and listen but still remember that it's my work and I am allowed to defend it. I did enjoy how the writer talked about Cliche and Originality. Its a great argument that an artist needs to be aware of art history and all of the masters but they can't make similar work. The writer goes on to talk about how us as people are constantly being shown watered down art; getting out of the influence of other artists is nearly impossible. It's important to create art based off of what I think art is and what I want my art to be. I'm going to take back my first sentence. Because of this section of the reading, I believe it's why I went through such a long arduous process to get to the point of embroidering berries and painting cake.