meeting with advisor

it was so great meeting with carrie! she is so awesome and she gave me some really good deadlines. this will really help me organize when i need to get things done :D

class critique

The class critique was really great. I got to see what people were doing and to hear some opinions of my work. I was really flattered because a lot of people liked my underpaintings (which I didn't think were that great at first lol) but it lets me know that I'm on the right track :)
As much as i admire the expressionist painting style I am really a die hard naturalistic painter. Maybe one day i will pull away from this obsession but as mark put it " you just have to get it out of your system."
Hopefully I can pull together a body of work that will do this :)
Mark suggested that I paint a ton of portraits. My only challenge now is to figure out how to make them interesting and how to put my mark on this art form that has been done numerous times.
So, with luck, i go forward!

angelo asti makes beautiful portraits. but doesn't this lady look a little like Sargents lady agnew??? omg

alicia and mark

It was really nice meeting with alicia and mark the other day. I got some really good advice and they were super excited for what i was working on. I showed mark some of my work from my old blog (freshman to junior year) and he really thought that I should work on what I love. I always loved portraiture (inspired by Caravaggio and renaissance painters). Something about the classical style mixed with any contemporary is really interesting for me. this artist ; eugene blaas is really awesome .

the classics

Right now i'm at the point where I'm trying to figure out what i should commit to. I've been really looking at the classical arts. I found this great website http://www.artrenewal.org/pages/search.php that has the work of all the artists I really admire. i'll be looking at these and trying to draw some inspiration. I really want to get started on a painting but I need a spark of inspiration...

p.s this is like a combination of rococo and renaissance lol (lawrence alma-tadema)

canvas

I'm really trying to get back an understanding of fabric/drapery and how it falls/folds. this was an exercise that i used to help me figure out this process. below are a series of records showing my progress. 

The Beginning of the end. dun dun dunnnn

OMG! i can't believe that my time here is almost over. It seems like just yesterday that i was handing in my acceptance card. man..
but the show must end with a bang! However, I'm still trying to figure out what that is. I don't have a set structure as of yet but I do know that I want to draw and paint. I admire Caravaggio, leonardo, Sargent, and many more artists and I think i will drawing inspiration from them.  For this evenings class I'm going to do an exercise that has never failed to inspire me.  I have some canvas paper that I had in storage all this time. I  plan to lay it out in very nice folds and get some good lighting with strong contrast on it. I will then study the drapery in drawing.

I'm pretty sure i want to work on portraits. I like the idea of strong darks and lights that can be found in caravaggios works.

Also I admire Leonardos sfumato technique seen here in his madonna of the rocks. I also really like the gentle twists of the body and how he portrayed the hands and feet.
So all though i'm not one hundred percent sure what I will be working on I will work on my study of folds (hopefully creating something I find beautiful from this) and then take it from there :D

"where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." - Leonardo da Vinci

gallery show

so the show was awesome! i was really excited to do this and happy to be a part of it. there was a huge audience and room was packed the entire time i was there. i got some really good feedback and people commented on the fact that daron was there in person and that made the work more accessible. i'm glad alicia suggested i continue with traditional art and for next semester i will be following this path. Im already coming up with ideas and i look forward to it!