Art, my art and critiques.

I graduated with an AA in Studio Art in December of 2017.  And this page shows some of the paintings and mixed media art that I did in my classes and has some explanations of what the assignments were.

The assignment for this painting was to have two focal points that brought together convey a iconic message.  My message is that we should care for our planet.  And the A-cemetery of our planet is suppose to say that at this time we are not as good of stewards of our planet as we should be.  The two focal points are of course our planet Earth and the human hands that spell out the word love.  Some of you may notice that the first three hands are in fact the actual sign language signs, but the fourth, the E is not.  This is because not everyone knows sign language, but anyone whether or not they know sign language can clearly see that this is an E.  Plus the realism of the hands I feel shows that we humans are vulnerable to climate change, meteorites, etc.  And together sends a strong message.  I thought about painting each hand a different color, a person of a different race.  But after painting the first hand and began to paint the second hand I thought that the message alone LOVE conquered all racism trying in my own way to show that race really doesn't matter and that we are all inhabitants of this Planet no matter what our race, and it is all of our responsibility to care for it.

 

For this painting I was suppose to paint something that had personal meaning to me.  This was painted from an old painting of my Mom & Dad when they were younger.  Not only does this painting have meaning to me, but this is the way I want to remember my parents, happy, young, and healthy.

 

 

This next piece is mixed media.  And our assignment was to create something symbolic but ethically pleasing to the eye as well.  We were limited to certain materials, and this is what I came up with.  I did this piece of lungs because my sister had just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  I was very concerned about her, and right away thought to do this piece.  I covered it with butterflies, flowers, and plants I made by twisting some colorful wire to show that I was hoping for a speedy, and total recovery for her.  Since then my sister has completely cured of all cancer.  

 

 

For this next cardboard structure, we were to make like a sculpture of polygons as tall as we were.

 

 

For this mixed media one we were to use wood and natural things we found outside to create something, so this is what I came up with.

 

 

This painting was inspired by Claude Monet's water lily pond.

 



 

 

We learned that there are different kinds of abstract art for example some are representational or iconic, but some are not suppose to look like anything at all.  Here are a couple of my attempts at abstract art that are not suppose to look like anything at all.

 

 

 

This painting is just taking something and blowing it up to bring a large focus to something small.  Sorry, I couldn't get a good picture because of the type of paint used kept reflecting the light too much.

 

 

For these next two, we were to drive around our area (Northern California) and take photos of places that we thought would make interesting painting.  I found this old barn, and this recently burned down business.

 

 

 

 

My teacher was very impressed with this painting, and made a big scene in class during our critique.  He said something like it has such depth that it looks like you could reach right in and pick up the wooden box.  And he pointed out that there were shadows in the right places in accordance with the angle of the light on everything.  My highlights, color palate, and the realism of the wood grain.  It was embarrassing.

 

 

 

These are just apples that are off center, but some people have told that they like this painting.