A day of sculpting...

Here's Helen's sculpture before smashing it.

Helen didn't seem to like her sculpture, as genius as it was, so she squashed it and, by doing so, created an interesting alternative. The squashed version is barely recognizable to it's 3-demensional counterpart (the photo above it).

Here's me helping Karen see form as a painter would.

A successful sculpture bust by Emily

This is a painting class. Yes, you got it, we're sculpting during painting class. This was a valuable exercise in seeing form, structure and mass from a new perspective, as a painter. I'm sure the new perspective on seeing three-dimensionally will be invaluable when returning to paint.

Nick bust

Painting with Clay

I sculpted a clay head using only my painting as a reference. I wanted to explore how painting related to sculpting and how my painting could benefit from a different perspective. I was relieved from the tediousness of mixing subtle values. Instead, I was able to concentrate strictly on the planes of head, mass, proportions and shape relationships–through adding and subtracting the clay. I appreciated being able to touch and feel the thing I was creating. I was able to see the head from all sides while creating it (unlike painting), giving me a dynamic perspective. I could apply the clay or remove it much like I would with paint strokes. The two are similar in this respect. A clear, deliberate and honest stroke must be made. If it is not preserved, much like painting, the life of the sculpture will lose a sense of energy and freshness. A stroke is made with conviction.

Learning to Unlearn what you have Learned

Art done by Bea Victoria Cameron, in class, charcoal on paper

Art done by Bea Victoria Cameron, in class, charcoal on paper

Today's class rendered magnificent results. I am profoundly inspired by my students who have tapped into their untampered artist voice and, in the process, making us students of one another. Today's summation gives me hope that any conditioning done on one's psyche can be undone or re-corrected, and that, together we may continue to aid each other in our pursuit of those realizations.

The goal today was to eliminate any preconceptions one may have had of oneself, to rid oneself of any ideals of how art should be made or how art has been made, and to not be conscious of one's byproduct during the act of doing. The idea that any past-conditioning done on one's psyche, whether it be factors of environment or impositions of an institution or society or culture, can now be undone by-way-of simply becoming aware.

Having said, we must now continue and find the inlet (or gateway) where art can be experienced and made from a more revelatory place.

"Do not take stock in public opinion–for these waters, yet traveled, are void of such." 
-The Speaker  

Take a moment to consider that one must first rid oneself of anxiety and expectations entirely. Do away with filters, with critic and with any acknowledgment of a prior foundation. These things were never yours to begin with and they are no longer of any service to you. They were conditions and definitions imposed on you without your realizing, through schools and societal learning–such a convincing argument they've made, at that. Be prepared to lose any stock of which you no longer have use.
Furthermore, expel the idea of right and wrong, good or bad or any other sects, for that matter. Become aware of any constructs that may have been imposed on us through conditions of environment and upbringing. Know them. Become fully aware of them. Question them. Expunge them. Because, one cannot rid oneself of superficial means if one has not honestly identified and become fully aware of those means which are superficial.

This superficial state was never your own. You are not superficial, you never were. You were taught such a thing. And, you'd better believe that an influence such as this has its own intentions. It was subtly implanted in you at a time when you were most impressionable and you were not sufficiently equipped with the knowledge, experience and tools necessary to effectively reason. So now, use your own line of questioning, become your own speaker and use your own critical thinking to rebuild all that you had previously thought was true about art (or life in general). Create from scratch a foundation that is all your own. Because, this is what reality truly is. Reality is "your reality" based on your own reasoning and based on your own constructs, no one else's.

Become aware of any conditioning done and how it may have impacted one's self-expression. By becoming aware of one's own conditioning one then begins to develop a philosophical foundation built (or is building) on internal self-examination and self-questioning. This foundation is evolves from a natural law and not laws or norms that are man-made. You'll see that in this realm there is no right or wrong. There is only you. There are only your answers to your own questions. There is only your way of doing, in the same sense, it can only be done by you. But to get there, one must dispel the paradigms of right and wrong and good or bad.

The funny thing about becoming proficient in art, is that what is needed to do it has always been there to begin with.  It is up to you to find it again. No one can teach you your art and no one can teach you about doing your hard work of realizing self. All the speaker can do is help you become more aware, to help you undo what has been done and to help show you the state of mind used in achieving it.

Still life study, THE JUICER

Structural planes

As a painter, it's important to see objects as being constructed with flat planes, or structural planes. Often, as a student, its a common bad habit to thoughtlessly blend your strokes over and over again. This exercise will help you see the overall structural mass of an object and help you to not over-blend when building an object. It will dictate the direction of your brushstrokes, help you simplify values without blending, realize the source/direction of the light source and help you understand the object as it appears in perspective. In this exercise, I observed an apple and imagined how it would look being constructed entirely of flat planes. To help me do this, I envisioned what it would be like to sculpt this apple out of a block of clay using a knife. By being forced to make edgy deliberate strokes with a flat brush and not allowing myself to blend (especially a round object such as this apple), I could better make thoughtful shapes that had purpose. Now, imagine what it would be like to apply these principles to a face or head.

Understanding how tone affects color

This is a valuable exercise that uses only gray with a given color. It is interesting to see how gray (Titanium white and Ivory black) affects color. A variety of tones are created depending on how much black vs. how much white is in the gray mixture. I recommend doing these tone charts with all colors on your palette (primary and secondary colors).  I also recommend doing these charts again with using brown instead of black. Also, note how cadmium yellow is light in nature and appears higher up on the value scale. By the same token, Cadmium red is intrinsically a darker color and appears lower on the value scale. Be sensitive to the innate lightness or darkness of a color that comes directly out of the tube. Because of this, cadmium yellow can sometimes be used to lighten a color–just as, Ultramarine can be used to darken a color. Helpful Tip: try printing-out (in black and white) any color, stripping it of its color information to see where exactly it would fall on the value chart.