30 Studies

Here are some of the examples from my 30 studies assignment.



I felt that my most successful moments in the project was the conveyance of my own ideas as a painter. Previously, all I would ever do was sketch ideas in my sketch book, or quickly jot them down, but never did i actually take the time and the effort to create a study. I found that practice to be very rewarding, as I was able to visualize what type of paintings I could make out of them and it also helped me experiment with a range of mediums and techniques.



Challenges also arose in creating the creating of the studies, I would run out of ideas and then I would have to start from ground zero and think of something completely different. Another challenge was presenting everything to the class and an audience. These were purely the ideas behind the paintings, there was really no time to formally dress it up, to become detached through the act of continuous labor and boredom. They were still fresh and new and to me, very vulnerable ideas.



This above study is one of my most experimental study, because I was working in watercolor, a medium that I enjoy, but at the same time I really do not know how to use it well. The beauty of this study is that I learned that you cannot really control the medium, and I was able to allow the colors to bleed into each other and create a life with the subject. This study was particularly experimental because I painted a portrait in watercolor, something that I wasn't really sure if I would like or even know how to pull off successfully.



As for themes for within my work, I have noticed that I tend to be drawn to more violent images, usually they are images from the past and are politically charged or I am drawn to incorporate animals and nature into my work. I have a love of nature and I want to be able to paint that, but I do not want it to be your average nature/animal paintings. I want to be able to convey a political message with my work, something that will make the viewer think, and step back, but I also want to be able to make people smile, through humor, or just plain intelligence.



All of these paintings do incorporate from my list of terms. I had a lot of terms that were associated with the political and violence, and many of the subject matter that I explored were in my studies. Not because I had to go to the list from an early time, but I am interested in those subjects, so I was naturally drawn to them, and was inclined to paint them. It was merely the list was just reiterating what I wanted to paint.