Advanced Painting

Advanced Painting
Advanced Painting explores the various techniques used in preparing for and creating oil and encaustic paintings. Color theory is reviewed and emphasized in all aspects of this course so that students continue to reflect upon how various colors are made and how they relate to one another in a visual composition. Techniques such as alla prima, glazing, impasto and scumbling will be discussed and implemented into their paintings. Subjects of the paintings will vary from landscapes to portraits, abstractions to still lifes and also social commentaries.  By using their knowledge of color theory, compositional development and their desire to develop a personal style, student’s works will vary on a personal level from abstraction to realistic works. Historical and contemporary painters work will be explored to examine individual development, style, technique and problem solving approaches. Students will further develop all of the skills necessary to construct and stretch canvas for oil painting and construct masonite supports for their encaustic work

• Syllabus
• Sketchbook (Coming up SOON – I promise)

OILS – Abstraction and ALL of the various techniques of applying paint

We will be creating an abstract painting based on REAL LIFE observation of what is around us. We will be simplifying our drawings MANY times and then resolving it into a final composition for our final painting. WE will be creating many drawings and preliminary works in our sketchbooks, so be prepared.

• review color theory
• non-objective artists
• different styles of abstract art
• simplify your color palette
• make marks deliberately, not just happenstance

OILS – Still Life and Alla Prima

• Bring in objects we can arrange and leave up for a while as a still life. Everyday objects: glasses, bowls, plates, silverware… simple, nothing pretentious or filled with too much symbolism (or anything of great value). I am REALLY looking for household kitchen and eating items (not food, but things used to prepare food)
• We will be looking at Janet Fish, Giorgio Morandi, Paul Cezanne, and others/

OILS – Portraits and Scumbling

• self-portrait
• loved one
• stranger
• DO NOT work from photos made by other people (magazines, newspapers, CD jackets) Photos need to be from your own hands and eyes. If you have an ancient photograph of a loved one, that is acceptable, but I do not want to see famous people unless YOU make the initial image.
• full figure portrait (figurative work) – the body takes up the entire canvas (optional)

OILS – Landscape and Impasto

• We may be leaving the building to assemble images for this assignment
• work from your own images made with a camera, preliminary sketches, or watercolors
• collage multiple images of landscapes from images in magazines or images you have created
• DO NOT simply copy someone else’s work – that is UNACCEPTABLE and will be graded as an F (or lower)

OILS – Social Commentary and Glazing

• What is going on in the news today that interests you?

• What is going on that affects you?
• How are you going to make a message that people are going to be able to relate to and read into?
• Will you include text? Collage? Objects and other bits of debris and detrius?

• How can you incorporate a/many 3D objects into your work?
  • Jasper Johns
  • Robert Rauschenberg
  • Others

ENCAUSTIC – Pop Art

• Choose a series of letters or numbers – Johns
• Choose an everyday object – Warhol or Dine
• Choose a cartoon that YOU can manipulate into a single panel and deliver a striking political message with – Lichtenstein
• Pop art takes a look at EVERYDAY items and EVERYDAY culture, things that are so a part of our existence, we may easily overlook them or take them for granted.
• Pop Art raises those objects and ideas to new levels so the audience stops and recognizes them as important and worth conversation.