Final Self-Evaluation

This class was an interesting journey. I was able to try a few new mediums and re-familiarize myself with oil painting, so in the end I'm glad I was able to complete my basic goals. Though I don't think my assignments resulted in any masterpieces for my portfolio, I do think I started a few ideas that I would like to explore some more (the Kindle ads for example endeared me to the jellyfish backpack idea and also the "human" side of technology use). More importantly it was a good preview of what advertising illustration might entail; I can't say it's something I'd jump at the chance to do again, though that's mostly because I don't feel illustration has a sensible place in corporate advertising any more. The struggle to find good ideas that couldn't be replicated by photography meant I had to go the cheesy route most of the time (and while I can happily be a cheesy person, feeling exclusively limited to being that way discouraged proper creativity). It might be fun once in a while, but not to this extent!

As for technical growth, it was good to hear others voice my issue with creating contrasting values; I definitely need to correct that in my digital work as well. Besides that I found some rewarding aspects in my color explorations, which didn't feel far from what I would do with a computer. I learned better combinations of liquin, gesso and paint and ran into little trouble finding the colors I wanted. With my struggles creating detail on small surfaces, though I wasn't super successful in being clean and clear on them, I found it more efficient to move on to different concepts quickly without having to get a giant canvas covered in paint (especially important for someone like me who likes to focus on one piece at a time until it becomes boring).

Ultimately while I think I could have worked harder, made better work, and explored ideas closer to my heart, that would have required a different starting point for this semester. An experience like this is also conducive to learning, and I can't say it wasn't worth going through!

Dear Jinae,

It sounds like you are stuck in some weird twilight zone between feeling ambitious and playing it safe. Fear of failure should not modify the standards you set for your work. Aim as high as you can and THEN fail; don't compromise and choose more familiar tasks so you can avoid bigger failures.

I have plenty of my own failures, but it's the colossally weird stuff that often ends up succeeding; ideas that sound unjustifiably stupid in writing can become really amazing paintings. Allow yourself to explore those weird ideas more, because you never know what great things they may become!

Having said that, while I think that your concerns about balancing specialization and versatility are valid, you are too quick to make value judgments of your work based on how familiar your subject matter is to you. It's ok to use what you're good at as an anchor for exploring new territories.

As for your worries about audience, you shouldn't overly concern yourself with what they want. We can't get into every person's head and analyze what they want to see, and they themselves don't usually know the answer until they're staring it in the face. If all you can make is an educated guess, you're likely to stifle your own creativity and end up with something cliched. And neither you nor they want that! If you make something you really love, it will attract people who will love it as well. This discomfort you feel about having to make something you don't believe in, just because you think it may appeal to someone else, isn't helping you stay motivated and it sounds like it's affecting your art for the worse. Emotional distress is common enough among artists without the additional frustration of forcing oneself to make boring work. You say that you'll happily slave all day and night on art so long as it's a personal project. So let your "work" be personal as well! Choose to do projects that you'll love to do, and stop compromising.

Sincerely,
Dana

Clare Woods is a British painter who began her career as a sculptor. She primarily paints abstracted landscapes, but humans also feature in her more recent works.

I am not a fan of these current works, (that brand of abstraction is a bit boring and I feel they lack interesting compositions or cohesion), but her landscapes from a few years ago are stunning amalgamations of shape and color with an inspiring economical abstraction of light and form.

Bleeding Cross, 2008

From the whimsy of some of her works, one would hardly guess that Woods works from photographic imagery. She photographed these scenes of undergrowth at night, where the flash of her camera would create harsh lighting effects. This means that her shapes are simultaneously quite specific yet hard to interpret due to their low key. It's an interesting type of abstraction mostly because of Woods' imaginative additions; her bright selective colors and the mixture of flat shapes with rendered ones creates a beautifully complex image.

Black Vomit, 2008.

Woods also creates wonderfully deep and immersive spaces in her painting by pushing back into the negative space with ribbon-like lines. The twisting silhouettes of vines, branches, and leaves speak to the inherent chaotic nature of her subject. And while the images are reportedly supposed to reflect anxiety, I find additions like these more beautiful and fantasy-like.

Cold Garden, 2008