Kaitlyn Baker Artist Statement (6/16)
Painting has long been something I enjoyed, but only recently did I come to truly appreciate and explore the medium. I have found through my recent trials using different types of paints (acrylic, encaustic, oil, etc.) that they are a challenging yet rewarding medium. I have grown to appreciate the flexibility paints give you and the room for correction of errors that it allows. Throughout my time using paints, I have grown from a theme of landscape, to surrealism, and most recently the exploration of portraiture and tenebrism. These recent pieces have allowed me to become a better painter in terms of realism, which has long been something I've wanted to improve at, but also possess a level of maturity that my past works have not. I’ve found that by using non-traditional colors and tuning into an emotional aspect of the picture I can create much more impactful products. This direction, although still in the beginning phase, is positive because it allows me to create better work than before and also has a lot of room for me to grow and infuse my own style. As I continue to explore painting, I hope to grow my skill cut as well as continue to challenge myself and my abilities. In future projects, I hope to push the scale and push my recent theme of tenebrism. I want my art to continue to reflect who I am and what makes me happy.
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I feel like I really grew as an artist this year. If you compare my work from September with my latest pieces the difference is very impressive. Especially within my last couple of pieces, I feel like all the practice of painting so many canvases finally translated into a visible advancement in technique. I think that this summer I am going to try and explore portraiture a little more so I can decide if I want to go in that direction next year in Art V. At the very least I think I would benefit from just painting at all so that I can expand my library of knowledge.
I really enjoyed art this year because amoungst the chaos of Covid and the never ending uncertainty, Art really acted as an outlet in a way I hadn't experienced before. I'm really grateful for the mindfulness and creativity that art forced me to embrace this year even when I didn't want to. I feel like I connected with the brush more and more as the year went on and I ended up making a few pieces that I'm really proud of. I experimented using an underpainting, which I had never done before. I think that it added a nice glow and helped make the piece come together more seamlessly. I projected the image on instead of trying to draw it.
for my experience post I virtually viewed the Art Institute of Chicago's portrait gallery. I decided to view these because I wanted inspiration as I move towards painting people. What I found is that there are a lot more styles of portraiture than I thought and that the realism varies, yet they all have distinct qualities that give them life. Proportion is extremely important to taking a portrait and giving it humanity. A lot of the paintings also have a very clear light source which allows the artist to give the person pictured form and to give the background depth. As I attempt my first portrait, I'm hoping that by embracing an extreme light source it will help me.
I want to really push the harsh lighting in this project. I also have been working out a want recently and want to show a strong looking female athlete. I posed for serious looking pictures with a sunvisor to try and push the "athlete" theme. It won't let me upload the files because they are too large but they can be found int he schoology dropbox. this week i dove in and started painting my girl and the computer. I need to add more darks and lights to the form to make it look more realistic.
Chuck Black is a landscape painter from Montana who paints hyper-realistic nature scenes of landscapes and animals, namely horses and ducks. Black says that his art is merely a reflection of his deep love of nature which was cultivated in his youth, growing up in the Wisconsin and North Dakotan countryside and working as a national park ranger before earning his master's in Wildlife Biology. Black is also an active wildlife conservationist and works with local school districts to spread awareness about wildlife issues. He uses funds from his art to fund youth education in wildlife conservation.
His painting are done in oil paints. He has had a successful career and has had his work on stamps and has won numerous national awards. I love his work because they look like photographs and remind me of what I remember Utah looking like. For my experience post I used one of our asynchronous class periods this week to go to the VMFA. I went with my friend and we looked at the fancy eggs and the landscape paintings. The Fancy eggs were more just for fun because they are cool to look at but the landscape paintings were quite inspiring. My favorite one was a picture of a volcano where the sky is all red smokey. It has a great composition. One thing I noticed about that painting in particular is that it is on a very long and skinny canvas. I may try something like that if the right kind of composition comes to me.
I finished my project this week. There were some good ideas coming but the execution ended up not being quite what I wanted. After my critique with Coach Hall, we've decided to keep running with my surrealist elements but try to put it in a smaller space so I can paint it better.
I worked on trying to figure out a solid plan for my project. I'm kind of going thru a dry spot and lacking ideas right now. I kept testing out different ones but couldn't find one I really liked. I'm just going to have to put paint on the canvas and go with something so that I don't run out of time.
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