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Rough sketch of a new idea, with a most uncertainty one what to do with it, add to it, or medium to use in it. The body language and position is very appealing to me and don't want to ruin it without thinking things through.

Will update with any developments on it physically or decision wise.

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Medium(s): Pastels, Charcoal
April 28, 2009




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USD Drawing II Final Porfolio composition using pastel. This was a perceptual and observational piece that was combined with a creative composition. I observed a sculpture on the second floor of the Fine Arts building of an African woman (main subject in the piece) and did a rough charcoal sketch at first, then created her clay flesh tones, which then resulted in the overall color pallete for the rest of the piece.

Basically I saw fear and sorrow in the eyes of the sculpture, and related it to most of my knowledge of Africa and what really happens there. Mostly also how because its a "world apart" and that we know it so much that we no longer really care about it or wish to hear about it. As much as dislike to admit it, in general not just Africa, as a human race could the heavenly being ever really forgive us for what we've done to each other, based on race, sex, religion, politics. In most cases, its the innocent, which I portrayed in this piece, that become the most affected, the most hurt, and the most lost. I created the disturbing, almost ghost-like visual of child soldiers in Africa. Children are usually stolen from their tribal families and brought up in rebellious revolutions and groups that are usually driven most likely by money, natural resource profits, and political affiliations. There is nothing more innocent in this entire world than children. Minds that have no yet discovered or been taught judements, racial discriminations, and hatred overall. We poison the minds of our own children when he automatically affiliate them with our beliefs and use them as tools and billboards for what we fight for.

The same goes for women and mothers. I discovered the treatment of women when they are attacked in their tribal villages. If not shot, are mutilated severely. Used as sexual objects but also are attacked severely by having their breasts cut off and their unborn children cut out of their wombs. Its something that we cringe at and become discusted and possibly nautious. But this is planet earth, and we need to accept and know these things happen.

I tried to be mindful of my color blending as well as color choices. I wanted a contrast between warm and cool temperatures as well as melding and markmaking. We associate colors like purple, blue, and white as "cold" colors, colors that are usually associated with a visual feeling of cold, low temperatures. We also associate cold as something lifeless, which I attempted to show in my piece. A cold area of the body, being where the woman was hit by bullets, also represents death and decompsition of flesh and body tissue. So much interpretation can go into this piece, and I feel that I'll allow it to be so. People percieve many different things from death and visual pain representations. Overall it was a piece I spent the longest on, using it to improve my color attempts, blending, temperature shifts, and markmaking.



--Artist's Critique--
Probably one of my personal favorite, and best technique wise especially relating to a brand new medium I've never fondly used or try to master. I studied mark makers and color users like Degas and Franz Marc who used color and mark making moreso as expressive tools of movements and symbolic meaning rather than attempting to always achieve the local color of objects. How markmaking can create such visual movement and power in artwork, I've always loved how it was achieved but never thought personally it could be something I could get into that much. I'm hoping this piece was a breakthrough.
Otherwise, my professor was not too crazy about my composition as a whole, which I could agree. Sometimes I get confused in basic art classes as to whether I have the freedom to create my own compositions from what I have to draw from observation and how things are realistically. I started drawing the sculpture perceptually but then discovered it was a creative composition assignment. I probably would have made some better decisions in the early stages, but regardless I enjoyed how it came out regardless.
My color blending even impressed me, especially for a person whos emphasis is printmaking. There were some if not a lot of errors in decision making when it came to the location fo certain colors and temperatures, but overall towards the end I felt I had a good grasp and control of what I wanted and where. I tried to combine some realism of the woman's body with a more expressive body of the child, and I enjoy the combination.

"She's Miss United States"

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Medium(s): Pastels
April 28th, 2009



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USD Drawing II Final Portfolio composition done in about 2 hours time in an assortment of colored pastels. I've been making an artistic topic "move" to gas masks, and all that they can really symbolize and mean, especially in our time.
The gas mask to me personally represents things from a loss of individuality and identity (culturally, socially, and mentally). It can represent, with the loss of mental and cultural individuality and identity, we begin seeking, naturally, the pleasing and acceptance of others. Emmulating what other people want, when we ourselves are unsure of what he want or feel is right, has become almost a base and foundation for social development for people of all ages in this modern world. I relate some art to it because of how much I see it in my everyday life the second someone shows a certain appareance or usually opens their mouth, and how much I'm discusted with it.
I entitled it "She's Miss United States" relating to the event in which the "ideal" women of all over are to compete basically who has the best smile, the best breasts, the best body in a bathing suit, and the most fake mentality a person could have. How many girls are modeling themselves to these people as idols, and the "this is what I have to be in order to be seen as attractive".

The teardrop coming from the gasmask eye symbolizes how behind the curtains and show people put on for us, the more lost they are, the more inside they are dying for a place to feel accepted, regardless of how much it hurts them personally. They hide their true feelings and pain behind their fake identities.
The grusome belly button piercing sort fo symbolizes the body modifications we put our sacred bodies through to "achieve beauty" and attraction, from plastic surgery and breast inplants to pierced penis's and clitoris's. The things people do to themselves because they feel they just can or feel they will be more attractive in someones or society's eyes.
The blood and semen stains between her legs can represent a lot of things, kind of open for interpretation once the viewer understands a basic grasp of the meaning, but I'll explain some things I had in mind. The obvious semen and blood can represent anything between rape to selling their bodies. From prostitution to simply having sex for just pleasure, women have really lost the sacredness and meaning to what makes them special compared to men, and how sacred their wombs really are. How women throw themselves around and at any guy who will have them, or have been talking to him for 2 weeks, or met them at a party drunk, I couldn't be more discusted with when it comes to women in this society and the mentality we seem to have to feel wanted and accepted. Everyone seems to be out on their own and a "every man (or woman) for themself" world, where competition is waiting for us outside our doors in countless ways. Are you going to sell yourself to simply fit in a society in a point in time of the earths history?


--Artist's Critique--
This was one of the first pastel pieces I had taken seriously, and used what i had been learning relating to color and its visual effects relating to chroma and value. Discovering techniques of the pastel itself, color blending, and temperature. With pastel, especially in my Drawing II and Design II classes, I've been learning there are more colors than just an objects local color. Something that may appear black off the bat, may just be, in reality, a mixture of purples, blues, and dark reds. The green of the grass could be a mixture of orange, yellow, some green, purple, etc. I've been trying to use these in my own drawings to create more visually interesting compositions relating to the visual effects of color and color blending and mark making.
Compositionally, I enjoy that her body is not fully shown, some disappears and gives the body a very left-sided radical light source.
Things I would change would be the chroma intensity of her skin. Her skin, for this topic anyway, is too bright, pure, and healthy looking. Also her torso/stomach area to me feels too empty. Something I feel needs to visually be there and not just a plain body.