Why Oil Paint?

Oil paint was officially invented in the 15th century in Italy/Greece. Usually paint was a mixture of pigment and egg. Jan Van Eyck was one of the first in Europe to add oil paint to pigment. When his paintings were first seen everyone thought it was an incredable invention. It trapped the light and increased the colors intensity. He invented it because he wanted to make his paintings as realistic as possible, with every little detail. Temera paint, which had been used before, dried much to quickly and didnt allow him to make the detail that he wanted. Oil paint dried much slower and allowed him to make better and smoother changes between colors and light making his painting more realistic. Later Leonardo cooked the paint and added 5-10% beewax, which made the color lighter.
Oil paint has been continued to be used by artists and painters because it allows them to rework their paintings to perfection, you can completely erase or paint over things and made extremely smooth gradients of color.

What Is A Portrait?

Sally Mann: Shiva At Whistle Creek
Composition is extremely important in this photograph. She does a great job depicting the young womans personality. The photograph catches her in the moment right before she jumps. The way the photo is slightly out of focus and how she casually peers over the slide of the water fall makes it seem like she is uncertain and vulnerable. Her eyes are closed and shes looking away from where she's going to jump. The artist also creates a dark tone with the colors, which adds to the personality of the girl and the moment.

James McNeil Whistler: Portrait of artists mother
I chose this photo because i really liked the set up. The subject of the painting is an old traditional looking woman, shes looking straight ahead and wears dark colors with her feet planted on the ground. Out the window you can see a big city with bright lights. I love how the two contrast, it shows change over different generations are well as contrasting two different cultures. The fact that the woman is not interacting with anything else in the set makes it feel like she is fighting her suroundings and doesnt accept the big cities and different ways of life. She sits firmly and upright, her stiff figure shows alot about her stubborn nature.

Annie Liebowitz: Whoopi Goldberg
I also really enjoyed the composition of this picture. When i first saw it I barely even noticed there was a person there, which i think is a major part of the reason the artist set it up like that. Not only is the person alone but the tree behind him is also completely seperated from its suroundings. The composition shows alot about the withdrawn personality of the subject. He also seems to have a shy or secretive side to him. At the same time the tree he is standing under is also the highest tree among all the others and has a very strong and important feel about it.

Where am i at?

The most challenging aspect for me so far was learning how to layer the paint in a way that was oil painterly but also in a way to make it so that the painting is built from multiple layers. This was really hard for me in the white objects painting because i wanted to be able to make each color separately right away, but couldnt make the exact color i wanted. I've gotten better at layering but I would not at all say i was good at it yet. 

I have become a lot more used to the media. How to mix colors, how to start a painting by using a medium tone or a overall color and working light and dark from that color instead of light to dark only. 

In the past I've always used other peoples art, and art from history, as a way to improve my art work, doing studies, learning from their styles and their uses of light or composition of media, big general areas or even there use of detail. In this class we've used historical art and famous artist work to explore an art principle like composition or texture and using what we learn and incorporating it into our art.

A sense of place

The top image is by Edward Hopper. He creates a sad, dark mood. The second image, by Pierre Bonnard has a very light and happy mood. The two main components of the difference in moods is their use of color and composition. Hopper uses cool colors with emphasis on the subject who is sitting alone. Bonnard uses very warm colors, the composition includes bright mountains and a blue sky and even a child in the bottom right.

Famous Painting

I chose American Gothic by Grant Wood as the most interesting of the famous because i love the personality that the painting has and the the portraits that are displayed. The composition is also very interesting because it uses depth of field, and also the color and tone change linked to the depth. The background behind the painting being very light and happy with a brighth blue sky. And then there are the two subjects in front are wearing very dark colors and harsh expressions. I love the contrast of the composition an think its makes the painting more interesting than the rest. The painting was made in 1930 and was modeled after Northern Renaissance art.