Studio Journal #9

This week I want to focus on my thesis proposal and what I need to be doing. As it should be, I don't have a definite final product of what I am going to show in May, but I do have some ideas that I have been thinking about. Looking back at the past year, I had a difficult time finding something that I was passionate about. I aimlessly hopped from one topic to another. Even this semester when I finally found an interesting topic, I felt that I was still trying things around without a clear "to do list," which I should've been doing since the start. But then again, I don't think I would've known where I wanted to go anyway. Wanting to do a design project as well for the thesis show, I decided to work on an interactive book or books. It would be interesting if one could open a book and as he/she is flipping through the pages some images would appear. Because of my constant search for an interesting topic, I thought about making a book or rather a journal of my process. But it isn't just about a process of what I've done but more of a discovery process. The world knows that art is powerful; it has the strength to change and challenge ideas, promote inventions, and even keep history alive. I want to discover how a two or three dimensional object is able to make these extraordinary events happen. After all, artists are just putting parts together to make a single object. For example, how does a painting get reactions for the viewers? Through this process I know now that I need to read a lot of books on other people's experiences with art focusing not only on their intentions in making art but also their reactions from seeing art.

Part of the reason why I am leaning towards process is because I believe that it is important to include one's experience in the field that they're pursuing. What have you learned the past three years and even this year at Mason Gross? What new ideas did you develop that you never thought of before? What experiences did you gain from teachers, peers, and/or the environment? What is the meaning of becoming an artist? Is it to make change in our communities or about the process or both? I always thought that art schools focused on techniques and praised those that had extreme talent. But it wasn't until my teachers started asking me more open-ended and abstract questions about what artwork could mean or how can it be influential that I began to wonder why I was even in art school in the first place. What do I want to use my artwork for? Why do I paint or make designs? Why is art important? What is the value of art?

I plan to concentrate harder in reading more resources and applying them to my paintings. I realized that hopping around from one topic to another serves no purpose in developing and showing the real power of art.

To do List:

-write a coherent thesis proposal

-stretch canvases

-Read the book, "Complete Mondrian" by Marty Bax: It has a short written text on Mondrian's biography in the beginning of the book, but includes the influences and the intentions/explanation of some paintings that Mondrian portrayed. Also, the rest of the book contains pictures of most of Mondrian's works.

-Read the book, "A Decade of Thinking" by Mira Schor

Book Description from Amazon:

"A Decade of Negative Thinking brings together writings on contemporary art and culture by the painter and feminist art theorist Mira Schor. Mixing theory and practice, the personal and the political, she tackles questions about the place of feminism in art and political discourse, the aesthetics and values of contemporary painting, and the influence of the market on the creation of art. Schor writes across disciplines and is committed to the fluid interrelationship between a formalist aesthetic, a literary sensibility, and a strongly political viewpoint. Her critical views are expressed with poetry and humor in the accessible language that has been her hallmark, and her perspective is informed by her dual practice as a painter and writer and by her experience as a teacher of art."

-Start a painting that is similar to the print out sketches I've been making.

Studio Journal #8

Paper Towel and Mac (Color). Christine Huang. November 2011.

Last week I worked on another version of the "Paper Towel and Mac" but this time with color. I decided that I needed to overcome the challenge of dealing with infinite color possibilities and just paint. This is the beginning of the color version. The drip on the right side is interesting and I've been thinking about using that aspect to create lines. So far, the colors aren't really working for me, but I will work on it more.

Hook. Christine Huang. November 2011.

During my critique with Catherine Murphy, she pointed out the interesting part that was in "Dresser," which was the part on the right that is angled similar to a hook. The line comes from the left with a horizontal placement but then when it reaches the right edge, it comes around into a diagonal line ending at the left side again. I reproduced the "hook" again in "Hook," which is only 6"x6". In this painting, I thought it was interesting how the hook lines come and intercept the space. In addition, it creates another plane (as if a piece of paper) that would enter from the left side towards the middle. I experimented by shading in limited shapes to see if two planes can be depicted. When I shaded in the darker tone for the "paper" plane, it turned out flat rather than on an angle. So I decided to use my palette knife and paint in the direction the "paper" plane would go. I don't think it quite works yet. Perhaps I will need to fill in all the shapes, but I thought the cleanliness of just the lines was very strong.

Untitled. Christine Huang. November 2011.

It's been a while when I last worked on this painting. I added in some more mid tones, cool and warm tones, to see what kind of relationships they can create on the same canvas.

Studio Journal #7: The Journey and Infinite Lines ~ Questions

This week I began my exploration on circular edges. Over the weekend, I finished a small painting (6"x6") that focuses on circular shapes.

Paper Towel and Mac. 2011. Christine Huang.

The mid tones turned out pretty interesting. I wanted to fragment the canvas by "chunking" shapes together with similar tones. Here, I tried to split the canvas into three parts, with the diagonal sections running from top left to bottom right. I also intended to emphasize the section of the paper towel. This way, the two middle sections will run into and through each other, while sharing the same mid tones that lie in the middle of the intersection. I also experimented with the darker mid tones in the areas where they were surrounded by lighter mid tones. I wanted to see if those areas would read as a light area even though there are some darker tones in the area.

Yesterday I had a critique with artist Catherine Murphy. The critique went well and in my opinion, she gave constructive criticisms that were worth thinking about. At the end of the meeting, there were several questions that came to mind, which I thought about the whole day. Some topics I thought about were: relating the traditional school of thought to the time of the artist, having evidence of journey (with tension, intentions, discovery) and time in the painting, and finally, challenging oneself by putting something in the way. From what I got after hearing Catherine's thoughts on painting was that when she looks at paintings, she thinks about how she can change certain areas, making them better or different. I suppose this was something she was trying to question me with my infinite line paintings. How do they differ from Mondrian's paintings? Or what meaning/significance do they have. Because I was consumed by these questions, I decided to ask Professor Hanneline for her opinion in my meeting with her today. I asked her if artists today or in any time period have to follow the trend of artistic style during their particular time. For example, would I need to follow post modernism? Is it boring to paint realistic still lives? She told me that that wasn't so. I could follow Mondrian if I wanted to, but going further and beyond where he left off. I thought this was interesting. Perhaps right now I am at a point where he ended. What if there is more to basic lines and shapes? The second question was hard for me to grasp. How does one show time and discovery visually? (or at least, all in one painting?) After talking with Hanneline, I realized that discovery and experimentation in a painting isn't just about a painting that was finished in a one-time sitting; rather, showing experimentation perhaps would be to go back to that same painting numerous times, changing things (i.e. lines and colors) which will unfold new discoveries. This reminds me of all those times when I am afraid to make more marks on the canvas, afraid that the new marks will somehow make the paintings worse. Catherine told me that we will always have fear in our lives. We will never overcome those fears unless we take the initiative. The last question I had intrigued me. One thing that Catherine questioned was the placement of the lines in my paintings. At first, I blamed the positions of the lines on the object that I was looking at. But now, I realized that I can adjust it, just how one would crop the things they saw to make a more interesting composition. I feel as if I somehow went back to the basics of just looking at something plainly. Today when I talked with Hanneline, she posed some questions that could be brought up in my paintings: for example, if the paintings were fragmented among the shapes, how much of the shapes are still coherent? OR is it unreasonable at first glance at the rigorously painted shapes and tones, but when looked upon closely there is a different sort of experience? Perhaps there are contradictions in the paintings? At first, I felt that I didn't get the feedback I wanted to hear from yesterday's critique, but as of now, I believe those constructive criticisms were actually beneficial in enabling me to think further and deeper about what my paintings mean to me. Furthermore, getting a second opinion from Professor Hanneline was also beneficial in reassurance in some points and openings to new ideas. These two days have been a new revelation for me in terms of thinking about painting as a theoretical topic rather than a technical topic.

Studio Journal #6: The Journey and Infinite Lines

Doorway. Christine Huang. Finished 2011.

I finally finished this painting, which was frustrating since it wasn't what I originally thought it would turn out. My sketch had much fewer mid tones. But because the lack of mid tones didn't seem complete in this painting, which can be seen in earlier photos, I decided to fill in as many shapes as I could while making the painting look balance. In my critique last Wednesday, I was told to mix a much wider range of mid tones. After the critique, I mixed more mid tones and began to apply them to the painting. I think the results look more finished; although, I feel that it was not entirely successful.

Dresser. Christine Huang. Finished 2011.

This painting is also finished and submitted into the BFA Annual. Because I was unsure how thickness of the lines should play in my Infinite Lines Series and the shapes that are created, I decided for this painting, to make the lines more pronounced than the almost-non-existent-lines in "Doorway." To make the lines straighter, I used the edge of a palette knife to help with that problem. I also didn't care to clean up the places where more blotches of paint accidentally touched the canvas when creating the lines. I feel that they go with the idea of "chance."

Dresser #2. Christine Huang. Finished 2011.

Dresser #2 was interesting because during the critique, the idea of illusions was mentioned. The "illusion" of circles that are located in the intersections of the thick lines begin to appear when your eyes look around the lines. I thought that was an interesting idea; playing around with illusions. I suppose my original idea was sort of an illusion in that the lines depict an actual representation; however, the blocks of colors flatten out the surface plane and only in some areas where the lines of the representational object are traced out can the three dimensional space pop out. I think one can see more of the tension in this painting. When only looking at the lines, the diagonal lines seem to draw out two planes that seem to intersect with each other. However, when only looking at the mid tones, the whole canvas surface seems to be flattened out.

Rectangle. Christine Huang. Finished 2011.

I felt that this painting is really successful. My initial motivation to this piece was that I wanted to just paint a canvas black. At first, I thought that painting the surface of a canvas the same way as one would paint a wall, but then realized how boring that would be. Then, as I added globs of black paint onto the canvas, I began to move the paint around and try to depict a waterfall scene. But, it wasn't going to well in the sense of space and texture of the water plus rocks. Taking the idea of texture and representation, I decided to depict water waves in the ocean. I was able to apply even more globs of paint while using the surfaces and points of the palette knife to create various textures. My thoughts after painting this were: what if I were to paint a series of mid toned canvases with various textures. Although, I'm not quite sure what that would mean except that it would look "cool" and be fun to do. My other thought was what if I had various sized one mid tone for each squares and rectangles, and put them together and created a representational infinite lines collaboration artwork out of these shapes. Rather than drawing the lines, the lines would be defined by the edges of the canvases and rather than creating the shapes, the shapes would be already created. So I suppose this process/idea would be considered as an opposite of what I am doing now.

Studio Journal #5: The Journey and Infinite Lines

Friday, October 14, 2011

On Friday, my thesis critique group B had another critique session. I showed all the sketches and paintings, except "Bag", that are in my last blog entry. I explained that I came up with this idea of extending corners and lines infinitely. There are some sketches that include circles. I was trying to see if there was any way to make circles infinite; it seems impossible since they're closed shapes. While sketching, I could see some kind of relation with Piet Mondrian's Neo-classicism paintings with the lines and shapes. However, rather than simplifying the canvas down into the basics of just lines and the primary colors, I'm more interested in the infinite lines coming together to make new shapes and the balance of the mid tones. Although the addition of lines and blocks of mid tones may flatten out the image perhaps to the point of abstraction, but I see them as representational artworks.

Sunday's Work

I went to the studio on Sunday to transfer my sketches onto canvas. Perhaps because the canvas sizes are different than the size of the frames I drew in my sketchbook that made the paintings look unbalanced. While I was painting, I had some issues of whether to make the lines thin or thick.

Doorway. Christine Huang. October 2011.

If the lines are too thin, like in this one, I feel that the blocks of grays seem lost in this painting. Unlike the sketch, this painting so far seems far from finished and lacks filled in shapes.

Dresser #2. Christine Huang. October 2011.

I painted these lines quickly without bothering if they were straight or not. Then I painted in the mid tones. You can see that two triangles were painted in. I was trying to also show repetition among similar shapes created by the lines and more defined by the mid tones.

Dresser. Christine Huang. October 2011.

In this painting, I tried a little bit of using thin black lines. I'm not quite sure if I want to leave the pencil markings or continue the darker lines.

Untitled. Christine Huang. October 2011.

I touched up on this painting a little bit. It'll still need some more work.

Tuesday's Work

Today, I went in to work on my infinite lines series, especially since I want to submit them to the BFA Annual. I'm curious at the shapes that are being created when the lines are extended infinitely. While painting, I decided to scrap my sketches and continue painting based on the paintings themselves. In an image with so many lines, so many shapes can be created. I wanted the filled in shapes to "talk" with one another not only in tone, but also in placement and the shapes they create together. In the shapes, such as the long vertical rectangles or even the horizontal line at the bottom, I also wanted to create a sort of movement. I'm also leaving in all the error lines I've made while I was working out the lines. I feel that everything I do should stay on the canvas and leave it up to chance to make something.

Doorway. Christine Huang. October 2011.

Dresser #2. Christine Huang. 2011.

Dresser. Christine Huang. 2011.

Untitled Broken Up. Christine Huang. October 2011.

I added the darker shade of gray in the middle area, which is working with the bottom half of the painting. However, the top still needs to be resolved.

Studio Journal #4: The Journey on Its Way Part 2

Sketches. Christine Huang. 2011.10.12.

Untitled. Christine Huang. 2011

I worked more on this painting because I felt that more layers of paint was needed. Also, I had premixed the mid-tones and wanted to smooth out the edges using the mid-tones. I will continue to work on this painting.

Untitled. Christine Huang. 2011.10.12

In this painting, I continued with my study of windows in correspondence with the canvas shape. This one isn't finished yet and will need additional layers of paint. But I like the idea of a rectangle within a rectangle.

Untitled Broken Up. Christine Huang. 2011.10.12.

For this painting, I wondered what if the edges of things could go on forever. What will happen? I decided to take the doorway painting and extend all the lines. Another aspect I wanted to portray was using geometric shapes. While the window and doorway are all in the painting, they are hidden within in the lines. When color is added, the representation of both objects are lost even further. In a sense, I wanted to somehow divide the canvas into three sections and have the middle section be pushed back into space. However, this painting didn't really turn out the way I wanted, like the one in my sketches. The colors didn't seem to be in a balanced position on the canvas. I will try another painting like this one this coming week.

Bag. Christine Huang. 2011.10.12.

I feel that like with the lack of color, the lack of painting a still life, and only constantly painting architecture, will drive me a little crazy. For this unfinished painting, I decided to start off with painting a still life using the mid-tone colors I already mixed. Like the other paintings from this week, I will continue to work on this one as well.

Studio Journal #3: The Journey on Its Way

This past weekend I went to work in my studio. I realized that working with just black and white tones the second half of last Spring semester and continuing to do so now hinders my continuing experience painting with colors. So I decided that I should, on the side of my black and white paintings, continue to paint with colors.

Untitled. Christine Huang. 2011.

As can be seen in this first painting the lacking usage in the mixture and variety of colors. I noticed that there were times I had difficulties choosing the specific colors for the canvas. There are unless possibilities of mixtures that I hesitated when painting the colors, which should not be the case. I believe it is up most important to continue with other, on the side, colored paintings.

Untitled. Christine Huang. 2011.

This is just an experimental piece still in its beginnings. I wanted to see if I could use lines to make some sort of grid, but not so apparent, and have the lines be positioned in a certain way that they create a sense of balance even if they are not all symmetrical. The colors added were a way to experiment with representation without really being obvious as well. I will need to work more on this idea.

Untitled. Christine Huang. 2011.

This is my latest black and white painting concerning with windows and doorways. It is still not complete; I would like to add thicker layers of the mid-tones. I found the drastic contrast between the lightest gray and black to be very appealing. After looking at this painting, even though its still not done, I'm thinking about whether to paint with a texture-feeling or smooth out the colors. In this painting, I used both the palette knife and brush and found the juxtaposition of both tool application makes the painting interesting to look at.

Sketches. Christine Huang. 2011.

Sketches. Christine Huang. 2011.

The two pictures above are two pages from my sketchbooks. I began to look into how the geometric shapes of windows, buildings, doorways, etc. relate in comparison with the shape of the canvas itself. In the second left sketch of the first picture and the first sketch of the second picture I played around with the idea of framing the canvas with the various identities of the building, which in this case is mostly the window. The other sketches, in particular, the second sketch of the second picture, I began to think about the idea of how fast I want to reveal what I'm depicting to the viewer. While sketching, I've been thinking about using the light, dark and mid-tones to help slowly reveal what is being depicted, which sounds like an interactive puzzle needing a lot of attention in order to get the answer.