---

shannon_rohane@yahoo.com

I really couldn't think of how to represent myself through a drawing; I'm primarily a writer, but couldn't imagine incorporating that, so I went with another thing I'm passionate about- music. I'm not much of a musician myself, but music is vitally important to my life, and serves as inspiration for my writing, and any other creative endeavors I undertake.

This drawing is of Kyo, the singer of my favorite band, Dir en grey (this crazy Japanese metal/rock/punk/pop/etc group). I guess I drew Kyo because he's very... weird, as I myself can be.

So far, this class has been very interesting. I feel I've learned a lot, especially about abstract art, something I couldn't have imagined actually trying my hand at before now.

As I said before, I've learned a lot about abstract art this semester, and I've learned to understand and appreciate it a lot more than I had before. Creating it can be very freeing; to focus on texture, color, creating so spontaneously. Yet, I still have mixed feelings about it.

One of the things I don't like about abstract art is that I feel it requires an education to understand; that in order to draw any meaning from a work by, say, Malevich, there has to be an understanding of where he came from, what his life was like, what he and others of his time thought about his work... etc. Whereas with realism (or any art that makes use of recognizable symbols, whether the work is realistic or stylistic), there is usually some meaning easily derived from the work, regardless of one's education level. A painting of a human form, twisted in agony; the expression of a face; these things we can all read, even if advanced education would add to the understanding of the piece (if, say, the artist uses elements of myth in the work). Abstract art can seem very elitist and pretentious, because of this.

Also, I feel that many of the artists credited for the abstract art movement didn't necessarily credit their influences- one of which was obviously what had once been dismissed as "primitive" "inferior" art from Africa. I feel the African artists had actually pioneered this style long before Western artists were using it- and yet it is the Western artists who used this style who tend to receive all the praise and acknowledgment. As it says on Wikepedia, under the article on African art- "At the start of the twentieth century, artists like Picasso, Matisse and Modigliani became aware of, and inspired by, African art. In a situation where the established avant garde was straining against the constraints imposed by serving the world of appearances, African Art demonstrated the power of supremely well organised forms; produced not only by responding to the faculty of sight, but also and often primarily, the faculty of imagination, emotion and mystical and religious experience. These artists saw in African Art a formal perfection and sophistication unified with phenomenal expressive power. The study of and response to African Art, by artists at the beginning of the twentieth century facilitated an explosion of interest in the abstraction, organisation and reorganisation of forms, and the exploration of emotional and psychological areas hitherto unseen in Western Art."

I've also enjoyed the exploration of light and shadow (value) in this class, and feel I've learned a great deal from our studies of shapes in the classroom, and from our use of India ink. I'm a little sad that we won't be having the online class anymore, because I enjoyed the material and liked having all the time I wanted or needed to work on that week's art assignment- and of course, found it convenient not to have to be there every week at a specific time :) However, I think it will be nice to be in class each week, to receive advice from our instructor as we work.

This last class (drawing still life) was very informative. I feel I wouldn't have thought to use the darker charcoal without instruction and this greatly improved my piece. I definitely feel like my artistic abilities are growing because of this class.

Shannon I agree. Your control of the shading is very good. Your drawing of the Statue is remarkable. -- One of the best from all the ones done in the past!

see on Flickr

Philippe

Shannon I would say the same for the overall drawing of your root, but You gave up your control of the light

on the root? The form looks a bit FLAT.

I wonder why! any ideas?

Philippe

I think the problem I had with the root drawing was mostly the paper. I'm not used to having the midtone provided for me and I think it shows; I didn't know how to blend the white in with the brown paper, and then have the black worked in as well. Plus the contrast between the white and black was so stark it was difficult for me to imagine the midtone being all that evident, because normally I think with such contrast you wouldn't have much of a midtone at all, and so that threw me off. Ideally I would have liked to either omit the white and use the brown paper as the highlight, omit the black and use the brown paper as a shadow, or blend the black and white together and cover the brown paper entirely- that would have looked more realistic, I think, and maybe less flat?

Also I think I was trying to preserve the texture of the root, and I think I lost something in terms of the lighting when I was working with the texture. I'm not sure.

I did enjoy drawing this however, the structure was very complex and interesting (and almost impossible to capture on paper!)

Well... this really didn't turn out all that bad in terms of shading, I think, but I'm disappointed in the guy on the right's lopsidedness. (His name's Die, and the other guy's Kyo again from Dir en grey). I really messed up the tilt of his face, everything's out of place! The eye, the nose, the face structure in general... arg. But, on the other hand, Kyo's face turned out well (if a little drawn-out-- his face is not that long) and I do like his hand. And Die's hair is actually not that badly done either, and the shading on his lopsided face isn't all that awful.

And a link to Dir en grey websites of interest if anyone cares while I'm at it-

http://www.direngrey.co.jp/top.html <- official site

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dir_en_grey <-- Dir en grey on wikipedia

http://chouvalsly.free.fr/Stephs%20tof%20blog/dir-en-grey.jpg <-- photo of them now and

http://www.crisscross.com/static/2/376/6067m.jpg <-- photo of the guys at an earlier era, their "visual kei" phase (clearly influenced by Japanese kabuki theatre as well as some more modern influences)

I chose to do "the human figure" as my self-expression piece since that subject is what I am primarily interested in, in terms of art (that and the animal figure, anything alive generally, but humans are easier for me to figure out how to get recognizable expression out of). So, with that broad idea in mind, I was flipping through some of my fiancee's art books (since she is an extroardinary artist as you can see here!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30575240@N00/303097310/

she did that while taking this class)

I came across a few different figures that struck me as particularly expressive in their body language and in the lighting, thus, I merged them into one drawing, voila.

I am particularly proud of the man on the left's body, the lighting on it and the form, at least from the neck down. I tried to improvise a bit with the head and it didn't really work- making him bald because I hated his hair and didn't want to draw it, plus that would be kind of an echo of the guy on the right who is bald in his picture. I also lost much of the detail with both faces as I was working with the charcoal; I was working too small and could only manage to scratch in basic ideas of features. I have definitely discovered that charcoal works best when working large!

Also, the guy on the right is not as well done in general; partly because I was working mostly in the dark by then (since the movie was on) and occasionally my light source was blocked. But, I won't blame that entirely, it's definitely partly my own fault! :)

****Final thoughts****

I've enjoyed this class so much; I feel I've grown as an artist and I hope to keep growing! This was such a worthwhile experience. And though the online classes didn't work out as well as everyone might have hoped, I think the online material and that whole side of this experience added a lot to the class, and will be useful for useful classes to reference, whether they're online classes or not.

Good luck in future artistic (and other!) endeavors everyone! See you all tomorrow for portfolio review!