Month: November 2020

Conclusion:

So since this is my last post, I think I’m going to take this time to reflect. 

So, my goal for this blog was to explore new styles and see if I could develop my own. And I will say, I definitely got to try more styles than I was expecting. 

The Swing, by Fragonard, a good example of Idealism in art

I first explored a kind of hazy landscape painting, which was really good at helping ease me into watercolor painting (something I really hadn’t done that much before all of this) and teaching me basic layering, glazing, and brush techniques. Although, in the end, I really didn’t end up liking the final product, I do think this taught me a lot about how to apply the paint. The style just wasn’t very inspiring to me. 

Next, I did some abstract shapes, which honestly was really fun. I find that I put a lot of pressure on myself to draw and produce pieces that I think would look good to other people, but with this week, I got to make what I wanted and it helped me get back into this project after the tragedy of my first piece. (I did end up inking the background a nice solid black so the colors really stand out now, and it’s great.)

“Lyrical” by Wassily Kandinsky

After that, I tried some undocumented expressionism just for fun. I bring this up because in one of my easier posts I said that I thought it would be really hard to do with watercolor, but honestly, once I figured out that I had to be more patient with this than acrylic, it kind of worked? I mean, I’m no Monet, but it does have the crazy up close and kind of an image from far away that I consider the most defining characteristic of expressionism.  

Inktober logo from Jake Parker

During October, we had Inktober that I also completed! 28/31! That might not seem super impressive, and it’s not, but it’s a lot farther than I’ve gotten in other years. And, even though they were all pretty small, I was excited to get them done. For this Inktober, I actually used ink and drew over my watercolor when it dried, which I had never mixed before. I really like the effect, and I think, although I didn’t find a district style, I did find this process that I really like. I’m definitely going to continue to explore this combination without this challenge, although it won’t be as often. 

So, I might not have accomplished everything I set out to, I did gain some skills and I’d consider this experiment a success. 

 

Exploring American Modernism

This week, I’m going to go in a totally different direction. 

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing landscapes and still lifes, both styles I already knew a lot about and already knew I liked. 

This week, I’m going to focus on a style that I don’t really know much about: modernism. Now, ironically, this style isn’t super new or used at all today. But! Back in the 1910s-1930s, this style was all the rage. Well kind of. The 1920s can really be characterized by the rise of Utopianism, the making of an ideal world. Now, we look back on this and see how that irresponsibility lead to some terrible things, but at the time, this whole ideal illusion was all-consuming. Now, some modernist artists really embraced this idea. 

The main theme throughout modernist work is the industrialization and the major changes occurring globally in the 20th century. 

A perfect illustration of the Art Deco style and 1920s modernism by Tamara de Lempicka

So, some modernist artists embraced the extravagancy and the innovation of the 1920s and made some uniquely American art that reflected the new mixing of cultures and the rejection of European Enlightenment thinking. Out of this came Art Deco (which is most commonly an architectural style, but can also be applied to art), another popular style in the 1920s which also captured the simplicity of modernism with the elegance and extravagance of the Roaring 20s. (Now I admit, Art Deco is probably my least favorite style ever, it’s so gaudy, but bear with me, the other half of the modernist movement is much nicer)

An example of early modernism by Bluemner called “Form and Light”

Other modernists, while still keeping with the theme of new technology and a shift in “ways of life,” rejected the fanfare and idealism and chose rather to look at the “common man” or the middle-class worker. A lot of this art is made up of strong settings and recognizable landscapes and figures.

 Modernist art tends to be abstract, relying on color and form to tell the story, rather than details and shading. One of the most influential modernist artists was actually a watercolor artist! Georgia O’Keeffe really was the modernist artist. She started her career in New York and Chicago, painting simplified buildings (She never did paint the Empire State Building like every other modernist, but she did do the Radiator Building and it’s kind of the same thing) and still lives. When she got married, she moved to New Mexico and there she painted some of her most recognizable works, her flowers and her desert landscapes.

Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Pineapple Bud”

This week, I’m taking inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe and the modernist movement to paint some close-up, simplified still lifes of items on my desk.