A feedback to painting class :)

I was in Grade 12 painting class last semester, and painting self portrait was our final painting.And I had no experience on drawing people, painting people. (Especially myself...) I have no idea what colour should I choose or how to start to draw the structure of my face!!! I thought I'm going to be a dead meat, but Ms. B made us do TONS of practices.

Through the process, I kept complaining to her why do we have to do this, she just gave me a smile and took my brush showed me where to fix. When I think back now, how immature I was. Even when I got nothing to do draw, I started to paint self portrait on my computer... it amazed me. I never thought my painting skill could reach that high level.

This may not my best drawing of myself, the eyes part is a bit off. But what I really want to say is... Practice really makes you perfect. And once again, "Ms. B thank you. You are one of my best art teacher. ;)" (But not the funniest, LOL)

This is How We See The World

This is an still-life acrylic painting assignment students from Visual Art - Painting class did last  November and December.

Taking a look at these paintings, isn't it amazing to see paintings on the same subjects done by artists from different perspectives and with various styles?

Yes, York Mills' got many art talents. ;)

Artist: ChaoYing

My friend said that I should name my painting "The Romance between Mannequins" or "Star-cross'd Dummies". The colours are very powerfully used in this painting. and it turned out very emotional and enthusiastic, as if there is somehow a story between the two mannequins. 

Red, Purple, Yellow are the basic colours I used, and they are like a great team that works amazingly together. But I explored a lot with colour theory in this assignment and I followed a consistent style for this painting with smooth, fresh brush strokes. 

Artist: Rasa

I was really drawn to the relationship between the male and female dummies -- I ultimately created a narrative using the aforementioned, as well as a dummy head. I used mostly expressive brushstrokes and colour so as to incorporate some movement and action into the still objects. My palette consisted of red, cadmium yellow, magenta, cobalt blue, and white.

Artist: Kayleigh

My painting is called Dinosaur King, I guess. I was inspired by the dominative look of the dinosaur within the still life- that something that was so comparitively small could have such a dramatic presence. I wanted to experiment with brighter colours, so I exclusively used primary blue, red and yellow, with some cadmium yellow and lots of white. Overall, I think the painting looks great- and is a more optimistic portrayal of dominating personas, but I digress.

Artist: Naomi

This painting was an entirely experimental piece, where i explored a method of painting outside of my comfort zone. Although i still don't know how i feel about it, i am proud of the colours involved and would like to pass on that even though you may be unhppy with the end result, or decide to go back to the artistic style you are comfortable with, take all that you can from your detours because sometimes there are valuable skills you may pick up.

Artist: Kelly

 It was my first time to paint still-life in such a huge canvas and it was fairly fun. I tried to create a casual and free style so that the brushstrokes were kind of short and broken. I focus on dealing with the entire colour and construction relationship rather than small details of each objects. I use rich colours in order to show the reflectional colours betweeen the objects.

Do you believe in sell outs?

If any of you have been keeping up on the indie music scene, or just watch MTV Canada on a regular basis, you have probably heard of Lana Del Ray.

Many people have criticized her for being a sell out, because of the facial and style reinvention she did, in order to create a more marketable image. Many people exclusively dislike her on that basis alone- even though her music has remained the same.

Its ironic, that we feel that we can criticize artists who are just trying to live off of their art- especially when their new image does succeed in bringing more attention to their music.

For those who want to check out her stuff, search up songs like "Videogames" or "Blue Jeans"- she has a nostalgiac style straight out of the idyllic, suburban Americana from the 60s, and her songs are admittably catchy.

However, to be fair, her wealthy upbringing certainly gave her access to great marketing resources- but does that matter if people actually like her stuff? Life isn't fair, and there are certainly better artists, no one denies that, so why should we judge her? And who decides the definition of artistic integrity, especially if it is performance art, like music, where public opinion plays a huge role? Justin Bieber, Micheal Jackson and countless others were heavily molded by forces other than their own artistic desires, so how is Lana Del Ray all that different?