10.6.10 0
Pinhole experiments
These are part of my photography class. I decided to make a pinhole as explained in here, rather than making a big one with photographic paper and so on. Have you ever played with this kind of techniques?
11.5.10 0
The Good, the Good and the Ugly: the good - Cori Mercade
So, good post number two: Cori Mercade.
Guess what, yes, I met her too.
Cori is an artist that paints conceptually. Now, that is not easy because as she says, "I cannot be labelled in galleries". I find that massively stupid of the gallerists because her work is gorgerous and sometimes dark, sometimes calming, but always passionate.
She explains that her labor as an artist is very much about education as well, and she set up an amazing conceptual art school for children with a friend in a coast village close to Barcelona. The work they do is about the process, not the results and there's no right or wrong. Parents quickly adapt. They teach adults, as well, and they even have a summer camp where children make movies. Isn't that just fantastic?
24.4.10 0
The bad conscience
It's been 10 days since my last post and my bad conscience is killing me. I don't even know how this has happened. I guess that I've had so many things going on that I haven't even known how to get back on blog track. So, here's the last few days:
-Basically, Mr. M. and I have learnt it's moving time again (most probably). This makes us happy for all the new possibilities, but we feel that Barcelona has been really awesome to us, and feel like our time here has been so short.
-This has also leads to having to act upon the future of my education. We'll see how that goes.
-I've also learnt to paint with liquid watercolours rather than acrylics and I'm in a very blissful Rothko fase. Pictures to come.
-My vegan heart does not take the zoo drawing lessons that well anymore. But I've developed a new personal style.
-Spring isn't quite happening yet.
-I've cut my hair so short I still don't recognize myself in the mirror.
-Fantastic Mr Fox only opened in cinemas now and we loved it.
-Alice in Wonderland did not meet expectatives.
I'm hopefully back now!
3.4.10 0
I'm back!
Dear everyone,
I'm now officially back (at least online, I'm not in Barcelona yet).
And you know what? It's actually been lovely.
I had this photography assignment for school where I needed to take pics of ghosts (yes, really) and well, Mr. M.'s family has a 120yr old house (sadly very run down) that has been perfect for it.
I need to thank Mr. M. and his dad for their enthusiastic help, they were the best ghosts a student could hope for.
I leave you with a few pics from the session, I still need to catch up with the world :)
I'm now officially back (at least online, I'm not in Barcelona yet).
And you know what? It's actually been lovely.
I had this photography assignment for school where I needed to take pics of ghosts (yes, really) and well, Mr. M.'s family has a 120yr old house (sadly very run down) that has been perfect for it.
I need to thank Mr. M. and his dad for their enthusiastic help, they were the best ghosts a student could hope for.
I leave you with a few pics from the session, I still need to catch up with the world :)
17.3.10 0
Herstories
This semester I'm taking Art Theory and we've started off with the sexuation of education. The professor made it very clear from the first day she was an active feminist (of the difference theory). She believes that since everything we know we learn and experience through our bodies, men and women feel, learn and live differently. I think that's a very interesting theory, maybe not so much because of the difference it declares, but because of the acknowledging of a physicality of wisdom.
Ever since I've been reading the engaging with this topic, I've felt ackward. I have felt angry at the blatant discriminations, but at the same time I've felt kind of torn when presented with "women only" activities. I've understood that females are 90 % of the student body of the faculty and that should be felt somehow. And I've wondered how often are we taught about female artists.
I don't know what I intend to say, really. I have figured out I tend to connect more deeply and more often with female creators (musicians, visual artists). It might just be that the way they put the stories is easier for me to comprehend. It might be that they say things I want to hear.
I have recently been thinking about the words we use to define all this mess. Do you know when kids are bought clothes that are a bit too big for them because they grow so fast they will eventually grow big enough for them? In Catalan and in Spanish they are called something like "growing clothes" or "growable clothes". I wonder if there's such a thing in English. Well, what if there are "growing words"? Words that are a bit too large for you right now, but that you know you will eventually get to fill up and understand completely. Words like feminism or patriarchate. I feel like an impostor using them at the moment, but that might change with time.
The one thing I'd like to put out there is, can the word feminist describe the women of my generation? Has it too much of a baggage? Too many connotations? Too worn out, maybe? Again, I might grow into the word, into its size; but then again it might be the wrong kind of cut for me altogether.
Any thoughts? Any reading recommendations?
PS: Picture via PaperTissue. Wonder where it is from...
1.3.10 1
At the zoo!
This is a hard one.
This semester half of my drawing lessons are going to be at the zoo.
Now, as a vegan, I feared that I'd find it hard to swallow.
But the truth is, I have not seen mistreated animals (admitedly the big felines didn't seem very lively); and it's been well, fun! and challenging, too.
You see, the last semester we had endless (a class is 3 hrs long) amounts of fun drawing toga-ed up statues and architectural elements and vegetables (which I liked the most). All, with no pictures or rulers or any other accessory than eyes and hands.
I look forward to understanding better how zoos work and how I feel about them, and, in the meanwhile, draw a lot.
(I befriended a goat which seemed to really like my coat; a great, wise turtle sniffed me out and decided to walk away; a vulture as tall as me kind of charged towards me, a dolphin pooed right on my face (there was glass in between us), flamingos wore fluorescent feathers; and hippos had really tiny legs)
24.2.10 2
The Offer
Another strange painting.
(First watercolour attempt, and I liked them very much, actually)
I promise this is a happy painting despite all the gore!
Teacher feedback: boring, too symetrical.
Failing harder, all the way :)
21.1.10 1
Busy, busy, busy!
I had to study a chair (Graphical Analysis and Geometrical Reproduction), I had to design, write and make a small book on design (Design I), and now I have to create a free-themed sculpture (Sculpture I). So what did I choose to do? Something easy? No! I have decided to cross-stitch a whole Barbie doll (it's meant to be a comment on what being a female is like, I was thinking of calling it " Man, I feel like a woman!", but we'll see). Bear with me, it's due on Tuesday (legs and arms to go, head about to be finished).
PS: Thanks to the fabulous "The Science of Design" for posting my work!
19.12.09 2
Beehive yourself!
New painting. The theacher's feedback was "try drawing the outline of the figure better, not more realistic, just better". Go figure.
9.11.09 1
2nd attempt!
Remember the first "go and paint" exercise I had to do?
Now it's time for a 2nd one.
Is it good? Not really, no.
Is it better than the first one? I really cannot say.
Is it different? HELL YES.
In between these two I've learnt about:
-color families
-color integration and contrast
-color tones (well, I say i've learnt this but I'm totally tone bling, apparently. I've repeated the tone exercise so many times I could cry)
Plus I've processed as much information about the impressionists and post impressionists (specially about Toulouse Lautrec) as I've been able to. (Is there a certain, very light Opie-ism about it too?)
And please let me say this: it is the first time, ever, that I paint without even sketching a line. This has all been done without photographs or drawing support. Mirror and brush that's all. That, I like.
28.9.09 2
A memory for the future
The first day in Painting class, the teacher said "you are to do a painting, anything, whatever can make you look best as artists". Oh dear, I thought. I hadn't really painted before. When I actually sketched the thing I started colouring in with some sort of flesh colored concotion of paint and well, it was NOT good. So I decided I wasn't gonna pretend I knew how to paint. i'd invent a way. And this is what happened in the end.
This is a note to my future graduate self: hope you are doing it better now!
PS: notice I never worked in paper as big as this and the perspective is not correct (it was from were I was sitting :D)
