Last week I wrote about having a consistent style or body of work and concluded that it seemed like a good idea~ even though I said I would keep making random art. Then seemingly through God’s work of divine intervention I was shown I shouldn’t be making just random stuff.
I coincidentally decided to go to art store downtown to pick up a thing. I had been meaning to go all week but didn’t make it ‘til this weekend. I got down-town and noticed there was the yearly art fair. I hadn’t kept track of when it was but I decided I would go because I was out and it was the weekend.
I walked through quickly and stopped only at one booth. A whimsical-ferris-wheel-thing caught my eye and I wanted to look at it closer up. As I looked at his other stuff, it was all the same type of work. (like I said last week) (so that didn’t surprise or enlighten me) What surprised and enlightened me was that I had noticed upon further inspection that some of the other works he had… they were all different mediums: some were copper plate etchings, some were lithographs, some were original drawings.
But they were all the same style!
It was a dull yet profound revelation. He was making a consistent body of work with all these different mediums!
It inspired me to give up most of the random stuff and finally focus on a recognizable standardized theme for my work. Part of the reason I wanted to keep making random stuff is I have copper plates, linoleum plates, acrylics, a watercolor set, a soft pastel set and more. I was trying to use the mediums for what they’re strong at. I can make a dreamy-wispy piece with soft pastels one day and sooner or later I paint a more detailed yet rough pet portrait with acrylics. Yet I am not moving forward with a body of work for myself!
“It is clothes. It is parts. Therefore you combine the parts differently to create your own unique expression.” Tadashi Yanai, the richest man in Japan.
I have all these different parts I enjoy looking at, creating, and imagining myself next to. I like landscapes, but I also like flowers, and there are other random things that inspire me. I can incorporate these into one unified painting; and I can paint it similarly again and again. Eventually my new art style will become what I want to say right now; how I wish to show someone a window into.
I’m figuring if I stick with one theme I can still work with my various printmaking and multitude of different art supplies. I can hand color a print or pen drawings with the watercolors or also, I can paint a similar scene with pastels or acrylics. Soon I will be building a recognizable style/theme of work.
Immanuel Kant states “All the interests of my reason, speculative and practical, combine in the three following questions: 1) What can I know? 2) What ought I to do? 3) What may I hope?” This is why reasoning thus anyone who’s taken a Western philosophy class has probably heard of Kant.
I think to answer these questions:
1) What can I know? I can learn the fundamentals and try to master what is essential for this new style/amalgamation of interests.
2) What ought I to do? Practice, practice, practice, refine, & practice some more!
3) What may I hope? I hope to achieve a recognizable style/theme that has a positive reaction from myself and others. Some scenes of serenity.
But this week I just kept making random stuff as this didn’t hit me til this weekend.
I’ve been working on a Lino cut print all week. I’m still in the sketching phase and have worked on the sketch for a few hours already, it’s a complicated one. I want to finish it by the end of October though! My last Lino cut print took 25 hours total… so far I’ve sat down and worked on this one 5 or 6 times and listened to an album all the way through each session. I’ll post a progress picture next week when I finish the initial sketch. Im working from a very blurry photo so I’m doing a lot of guess work and it’s turning out to be more difficult than I thought, and I knew it’d be slightly challenging.
Also
I made this Blue Pepsi,* not Peppi, in a Coke bottle and that was fun.
I’ve had a frame and nice mat (that I used for this) that I got at a garage sale and been sitting on for a while now. I finally got around to making something for it. I had the idea for this not too long ago. It didn’t turn out as glass bottle-y realistic as I’d like but it turned out okayy. I’m glad I added a second layer and didn’t get watercolor on the mat.
Here’s the first layer I almost stopped there.
I’m glad I kept going…
I also think a classic Coca Cola can, but blue, is a unique/strong concept for an art work but I’m not sure if that goes with my new theme…
Maybe I’ll draw it when I’m bored. I also want to draw Liberty Biberty soon… so I’m not sure if all the random art projects will come to a complete hault. I’ll be focusing more on my new cohesive body of work more soon though. I plan on doing studies, with a pen, of different parts that would go into a work. I also have the big painting, the lino cut print, and a commission to finish before I start another more-detailed/labour intensive piece of art.
Anyways I’m thirsty for coke, or a pepsi(?) which I am off to grab a glass of. (Not at 6 AM, I wrote this last night)
Bye
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