WOW Peru was amazing! It was really neat to get to see another culture and learn a TON about the country. We visited Lima and toured the city, traveled to Cusco where we, of course, went to Machu Picchu, as well as visit a ceramics studio called Seminario Ceramics. The place was absolutely gorgeous and seemed almost like an animal sanctuary with injured parrots perched on a tree and dogs running around within the gated walls of the seemingly magical building. We took a tour of the place and one of the workers showed us how they make their ceramics. Something that I found fascinating was that they use polished stones to polish their ceramics to give them a smoother and shinier finish. It's a technique that the Incas used for their works and they are carrying out the technique today in modern works. Finally, at the end of the tour the lady asked us if we were ready to meet Pablo Seminario, the artist who began the workshop and has work in the Smithsonian, and at first, I thought she was kidding because there was a parrot outside the window and it seemed like she was leading us to it but instead, she lead us to another room where Mr. Seminario was working. I was literally shell-shocked because we had watched a video earlier with an interview of he and his wife who is also an artist and it kind of raised him up to a high platform and ahhh to actually walk into the room and see him there, it was very surprising to say the least. He talked for a while about what he does and how he got his inspiration from traditional Peruvian patterns and symbols. It was really neat and then afterwards, we got to create our own tiles using the clay and glazes that they use and many workers assisted us to create our designs. I really enjoyed the experience and it stood out as a highlight of the trip for me. Here's a video of Pablo Seminario from many years ago but this an interview of he and his work.
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So today I learned a very important lesson about the importance of lighting! On the left is what I had begun painting without turning off the lights in the room, as we had done during the other painting periods, and on the left, is what I ended up painting after I turned off the lights. Before, I was just kinda guessing what the values were, with little to no success, and only after I had done the entire part like that did I realize that I really, REALLY needed to turn off the lights. So after I was actually able to see the differences in value, I was able to paint a much more realistic version of the spherical part. Throughout this process, I have surprised myself with how much I'm actually enjoying oil painting. Going into it, I was not very excited because I just thought it was going to be tedious and boring, but it turns out that I actually like finding the subtle nuances in the values in the still life and then applying them to my painting. I also mentally have learned that taking it slower is better and I have learned to pay a LOT of attention to what I see and what I paint, almost like playing a "Spot the Difference" game but just in the values of the objects.
So this class period was a little shorter and so I mainly focused on the base/very bottom of the sculpture and getting more detailed with the values. I think it turned out ok? The roundness of the base seems a little off- I think it's because of the darker values that go more in a straight line than mimicking the curve so I'll try and fix that next class. Based on our time constraints I'm going to try and get as much of the grisaille done as possible so that way I can just say I chose to paint in black and white but we'll see how much I am actually able to accomplish...
Today I finished the brunsaille part of my sketch and began the grisaille portion, creating values using shades of gray, of the vase object. I didn't really see the significance to doing the brunsaille process because we had already done the charcoal for our sketch and it's too abstract to really assist with the grisaille part. But other than that, I like how it's turning out so far, I might need to do a few touch ups and blend out some of the value shifts.
Here is a slide show of my final sculpture, Stressed, and other views that I couldn't show in my gallery. I think I am done! After fiddling around with my sculpture for a bit, I have finally decided that I like the, as Coach phrased it, "angsty little balls" without any other embellishments because I found that they distracted from the spheres and I wasn't a huge fan of how the pieces that I worked on and were fairly proud of, sunk into the background to other, machine-made, elements. I don't think my original content fits my design and so I've shifted it a little. While it still deals with people, it focuses more on the pressure students face to do well in school and grow up to become successful individuals in society. I think that this stress really does have a lasting effect on younger minds, leading to mental health issues as they grow up and generally less appreciation for the joy in life. In my piece, which I'm thinking of calling Turbulence or something along those lines, it can either represent one individual as they grow up and yet still live with the effects and pressures that they experienced as a teen or young adult, or to represent members in society who all are under a lot of pressure to do well, either in school or in their jobs. While it is up to each viewer to interpret my piece to their liking, I think that I am going to generally convey the message that this is about one person who is living with the lasting effects of our educational system and industrial society as they grow up because I feel that it has a stronger effect to convey the extent of how much a person can be affected from these factors.
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AuthorNatalie Kim is a senior at MLWGS who likes to do art, take pics, and pet puppers. Archives
May 2020
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