Scattered

I am going to admit that I have been avoiding my final project. Maybe it is the fear of messing up but also I have no idea what I want to do in the background. I have my community that I turn to when I get stuck but recently I just haven't been going to many people for inspiration or I just haven't found inspiration for my project. The most recent person I have turned to for advice would be Emily and I don't really talk to her much but I do respect her point of view because she seems to be a person full of ideas. Also because I trust her to say what she thinks. What she viewed from my painting was a sense of transcending and Danny got a sense of melting away.  Something that really caught my attention was how Emily talked about the sense of transcending. I have been seeing this painting not as something that mean more but just forcing something in the back to finish it. The message that I wanted my painting to have was the sense of being free and Emily had the exact word to sum up everything I wanted my painting to be. The definition of transcending is to go beyond the limits or range and that is exactly what I want to achieve but it seems to be impossible since I still have no clue to what I might want the back to be. How do I present a feeling of washing away the past in a painting? Is is possible to even show leaving the past or maybe there is something else. I notice that I keep on talking about what "I was" going to do throughout my posts but the real question to myself would probably be what am I doing now. What I going to be doing In the background? What I'm going to be doing tomorrow? How am I going to finish this when I don't feel any motivation to actually accomplish this painting? How can I paint something that I have a meaning for but no image to match it? Everything recently has been in such a haze that this doesn't apply to just the painting but how I am seeing everything else. I don't know what I want to do in the next couple of years, I don't know what my goal is, I don't even know what I am working for anymore. I guess you can say that I am all over the place and because of this I found my side salad, well if it even counts as a side salad. Which i figured I'll talk about in my next post after I get it approved.

Project for Hope

It has been really hard to settle on a final project and I am not sure of what is keeping me from just making something work. When I bought this 24 x 36 canvas I was excited to get something on it but trying to fill up a huge white canvas does have its pressures. So to avoid painting on the canvas I look through a photography book and found this image of a boy. He was wrapped in rags standing in front of  the water and buildings that had a certain quality about it that I couldn't stop looking at. It was difficult to try to draw this image with charcoal on a index card but it came out to be an okay sketch. but what I like that most was when it had faded out on another paper that I lay on top to prevent it from smudging.  Somehow I like the way that the image had faded and the reflection of this piece. I had wanted to incorporate it into the large canvas painting I had on top but what would be the message? Would it be PHOT?
My original plan for that canvas was to have overlaying faces that were washed out. Each overlaying face on top of another would show different layers of personalities that people have. It shows how sometimes people are confused about how they are or who they want to be. Also it would be a opportunity to just practice painting faces. I don't think I can explain how many times I have gotten frustrated and just pored a whole cup of water on the painting to wash it away.Then I came across a picture of a woman with her head thrown back and it seemed as if she was free. Without any limitations and with every flaw having a beauty to it, even the curve of her neck seemed beautiful according to the photographer. So that was how I developed a meaning to start with. I wanted to paint anything on the canvas that may seem free or without limitations. anything that may bring joy but also just show hope. It seemed throughout this whole process I had been so hopeless in trying to find a project but that sense of hopelessness and frustration had turn into my project itself.

Cross-Hatcheting

Since I haven't bought a canvas and extra paint yet, today I decided to try to learn how to cross hatchet. I remember hearing the term when I was younger but never knew how to do the technique of cross hatching. Mr. Ganes was working on a piece one day that was a self-portrait he drew using cross hatcheting (I think that is how you refer to it). In his work the cross hatcheting was neat lines and never seemed out of place. It seemed to be a sort of print with how straight the lines were, unless he used a ruler and I didn't know. So today I tried to experiment with cross hatcheting. I started drawing windows that were outside the dance studio and trying to get shadows is harder then it looks. With pen lines don't always turn out clear and with cross hatcheting the shades may look to similar. When I had tried getting a shadow it would merge with the object itself and every line that was put in would just have the shadow remain the same shade. Cross hatcheting is a skill I most definitely need some work on.