Wednesday, September 10, 2008

gosh guys I made a picture
it's not finished and sorry for the sloppy photograph (the color are more vibrant in person)
I will probably paint like a van gogh self portrait kind of background with all those flickering textures and add some more things (feathers, katydids) to spice it up and also get rid of that thing in the middle which is supposed to be an orange but looks like a big eyeball 
but this is how it looks now



the assignment was to paint an album cover, I chose Animal Collective's Sung Tongs
I'm still working on incorporating dimensionality into my work and I think I'm getting closer to making it successful
It feels a little disjointed or scattered and I want to figure out some way to mesh the elements better. I think what helps is when I just have many many small elements to help give the bigger pieces kind of a textural cushion, if that makes any sense. But oh my it just takes so much time. This assignment was to make an 18x24 painting that took about six or so hours. I made mine 9x12 and it took me 17 hours.

I would love your thoughts and would love to see what you two have been working on so far

I get the feeling that Parsons teachers don't take their students very seriously, the critique we had was a joke. The teacher kept interrupting crits of student's pieces to talk about other pieces on the wall that he liked better. The thing is that nobody else seems to notice or care so I wonder if it's just me. Oh well, I am just trying to do the best that I can and I think it's making me more self-directed if anything.

2 comments:

Jim said...

Travis, you know I love you and your work, and its because of this love that I have to be honest: It's just not doing it for me.

The paintings themselves are great, but all put together like that...it just seems kind of pointless. They don't fit together smoothly, so it kind of looks like the animals are maybe supposed to make the shape of something, but they don't. Also, everything is mostly of the same size and importance. If the storks or tigers were significantly larger, then that might fix some things. (I also want to see the rest of that tiger, which is way too straight and unnatural)

Does the piece have to be symmetrical? If it doesnt, I think you could re-arrange these animals into a cool composition, maybe with a neat unifying background. Either way, the individual paintings themselves are wonderful (as usual), its just a matter of arranging them properly (also, as usual), and I'm sure once you figure it out, it will be simply mind-blowing (again, as usual...)

Travis said...

Jim, thanks a lot for the honest critique. I've been getting sloppy with my concepts and compositions and everything you said helps a lot in terms of getting me back on track... I'm working on another piece right now and I think I was in danger of repeating many of the same mistakes. I think I'll end up taking this piece apart and using the individual elements to make something more focused and intentional. I'm glad I can always count on you to keep me from slacking off.