For all of my students who will be following this blog, you will come to see this as either the bane of your existence or your salvation...  Time is fleeting.  School begins in a few short weeks and I'm anxious to see your summer ideas and the museum visit.  How are you finding them?  Are your ideas thoughtful?  Do you think they'll make a great portfolio?  This is the year of the 5.  For all of you. Commit now and let's DO this.  No excuses.

Now go do art.

Investigation Ideas (to name a few...)

1. Car part ads
2. Portraits detailing emotions
3. Portraits detailing odd body positions
4. Extreme abstract close ups
5. Extreme abstract close ups of nature
6. Normal things using alternate colors
7. What people throw away
8. Family heirlooms
9. Variations of one thing
10. Seasons
11. Recreations of famous art pieces
12. Close ups of person - abstracted
13. Designing shoes/shoe close ups
14. Portraits of things broken or ruined
15. Opposites (ie: something hot as cold)
16. Textures
17. Animals.insects in environment
18. Close ups of sports equipment
19. Close ups of art supplies
20. Distortion
21. Optical illusions
22. Where has it been? (ie: the dollar)
23. Items upside down or backwards
24. Items missing something vital
25. Images inspired by songs
26. Cause and effect
27. War and its effect
28. Landscapes: day and night
29. Perspective
30. Significant buildings
31. Accessories
32. Sunglasses and faces
33. Scenes from dreams
34. Scenes from books
35. Self portraits with traits exaggerated
36. Illustrate a story
37. Line drawings of objects
38. What will the future be?
39. Past and present
40. Modern and historic
41. Odd, interesting people
42. A day in the life of...
43. One object 12 different views
44. Technology
45. Different cultures
46. The Heavens (planets, stars, etc.)
47. Aerial views
48. Stages of growing up
49. Things whole, broken up
50. Surrealism paintings
51. Real to life with surreal background
52. Hands doing things - different media
53. 12 different parts of a face, together creating a whole face again
54. People who are angry (happy, sad)
55. Buildings
56. City scenes
57. People in motion
58. Innocence
59. Nature scenes
60. One person, portrait young to old
61. Areas of concern in America
62. Old photographs
63. Polaroids
64. The act of protest
65. Shape (altering with diet/weights)
66. Triumph
67. Using trash to create
68. Teenage life
69. Monochromatic (life?)
70. The game of life
71. Childhood mementos
72. Family vacations
73. Family members
74. A friend’s different moods
75. First day of school pictures
76. Elderly
77. Playgrounds
78. Door handles
79. Bathrooms
80. Scenes from a music video
81. Beach scenes
82. Undersides of desks and chairs
83. Insides of things
84. Jewelry
85. Zippers
86. Metamorphosis
87. Close ups of favorite foods
88. Sweat
89. Beauty of hands - how they are used
90. Generations
91. Things we desire
92. Love/friendship
93. Vulnerability
94. Change
95. Hope
96. Appropriation
97. Helping others
98. Picking up after hard times
99. Newspaper headlines
100. Natural disasters
101. Human emotion
102. Leaving things behind
103. Adventures
104. Nonconformity/individuality
105. Conformity 
106. Sameness
107. Comfort zones
108. War and peace
109. Diversity
110. Beauty in simplicity
111. Where have you been?
112. Forever young
113. Evolution of objects
114. Light
115. Sound
116. Motion
117. Abandoned buildings
118. The smallest parts of a whole
119. Media impact
120. Parts of the body to represent different emotions
121. Necessary objects
122. Communication tools
123. Different scenes through broken glass
124. Famous speeches (...to be or not to be...)
125. Photographs telling part of a story
126. Windows/mirrors
127. Fire
128. Water
129. Earth
130. Wind
131. Comic strip
132. Parties
133. Skeletal structure
134. Wood
135. Walking on the ceiling
136. Through the eyes of animals
137. Life as a napkin
138. Life as a paperclip 
139. Life as a ____________
140. No skin, just the inside
141. Negatives
142. Pure line
143. Overconfidence
144. Fashion designs
145. Illustrate a book
146. Night scenes
147. Opposites
148. Same place, different time
149. Decades
150. Fruits inside and out
151. Produce
152. Sleeping people
153. Patterns
154. What is art to you?
155. School life
156. Your surroundings
157. Refuge
158. Current issues
159. Death
160. Abstraction of every day life
161. Different rooms - what makes them interesting
162. Hats
163. Fear
164. Poverty
165. Interiors and Exteriors
166. The figure in space
167. Abandoned houses
168. Deterioration - the body, a structure
169. Morning rituals
170. Shadows - extreme
171. Reflections in surfaces
172. Interpretations of one object
173. Creating a drawing for every line of a song or poem
174. Decaying objects
175. Illumination with candle light
176. Drawings/paintings in different artistic styles
177. Daily Routines
178. People and their pets
179. Jobs
180. Horses
181. Trash versus treasure - who decides?
182. Bedrooms
183. What’s in your closet?
184. Child labor
185. Poster events (rodeos, carnivals, etc.)
186. Homelessness
187. Unfinished things
188. Assemblages
189. Boxes
190. Boxes as a metaphor
191. Stages of Life
192. Paths
193. Unusual environments
194. Colors as influences
195. Seeing color where others don’t
196. Chairs
197. Art and text
198. Illustrate Shakespeare
199. Illustrate a famous historical event - (JFK assassination, Harvey Milk and SF gay rallies)
200. Body language
201. Drawings of reflective materials
202. Dolls
203. Drawing over time (one setting adding a new element every day)
204. Drawing in each color scheme (warm, cool, analogous, etc.)
205. Pop Art analyzed personally
206. Organic materials used non-organically (clothing? transportation?)
207. Changing landscape (Monet)
208. Emotions through abstraction
209. Temporary art - graffiti, sand on sidewalk, dust on car windows)
210. Toast
211. Clouds
212. Light fixtures
213. 7 Deadly Sins (lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride)
214. Kitchen objects
215. Focus on Vermeer (friends set up in famous positions)
216. Fauvist style landscapes of favorite places
217. Human influences on environment
218. Close up of machines
219. Emulating artists’ styles
220. Braids
221. Interior of moving things
222. Unusual landscape alteration
223. Portraits with your mother
224. Portraits with your art
225. 27 dresses

I once received an email from a student who was going to be taking AP Studio.  He was responding to suggestions I had made on ideas he had for the concentration section of the studio portfolio.  I was blown away by his response and level of thinking on how he took my thoughts and digested them, then took off in a new, exciting direction.   He wrote that he'd seen an old, abandoned bed post and was thinking of salvaging it and "just maybe based on the idea of modern society through the lens of the whole altarpiece type feel" he could use that idea and his love of art history (proudly, another class I taught that he was in and received a 4...) My response back was long-winded and I realized I was revealing more of myself to him (and to myself) than I had planned - but I kept going anyway.  He was also concerned about being excited with the concepts but afraid he didn't know enough technique to pull off the finished work.  My response:  I hear what you're saying as far as technique.  That will always be a fear (and should be to challenge you).  You can do this - just keep looking at art.  I have become completely addicted to looking.  While I want to do everything I see and wish I could have the time, I learned something when I was in advertising many years ago - I can't be the best at everything.  I realized I would never be the best painter, drafts person, whatever - but I knew I was really, really good at how I approached a concept and could follow it through.  That's my talent.  One of the reasons I have had such a difficult time going back to the studio is that I was trying to do what I have always done - created the still life images I have sold for years.  My fear:  am I still good enough?  Will these still sell?  My reality:  I am a different person and I don't want to do the same things I did 10 years ago.  My love of sketchbook and deconstruct has led me to experience and experiment with  materials and a "quickness" I never thought I could do.  I don't approach every piece as if it has to be in a gallery (and I can tell you many would never make it...) but what I've discovered is what YOU are suppose to discover in doing a concentration.  What you are capable of - what you truly love and are interested in.  The rest will follow.  Technique is about practice...again and again and again.  Concentration is about concept and how you THINK over and over again.

So I'm starting a full length self portrait based on a piece I saw present day but reminds me of John Singer Sargent (I always loved Madame X, I will admit...the attitude and, at the time, secretive nature of the painting and her pose).  This is WAY out of my comfort zone but I actually don't care.  My mother posed an interesting question the other day when i showed her all the self portraits I was doing (I'm working on three...).  she asked me what I was going to do with them - was I going to hang them?  Art has a purpose other than placement on a wall behind that chair...it allows you to see inside who you are and how you perceive the world.  Even if you never show the work to anyone else.  When my mom asked that question I was, at first, annoyed and then I realized she just doesn't understand.  It's the journey that is the adventure.  Not the destination.

Beautiful.

Beauty in Brokenness - a concept to play with

What does beauty look like to you?

What does broken look like to you?

Does beauty have to be a set standard agreed upon by others?

Is broken something less beautiful?

How would you put these concepts together through your art?

That’s the question.

What will your answer be?

Interesting Idea for Concentration

I found this image while attempting to do other work - just like all of you, I get caught up in something other than what I need to be doing - but thought I'd share it as I think there is something in it that speaks to a greater idea.  So simple but it pulls at me to try to understand and explain it.  

Art should have a voice.  

Art should not just be a pretty or shocking image.

You have a voice.

Use it well and make people listen.

Now THIS is the way to use pencil...

If you can control the medium like this, you are a master.

Jan Albers, hundredfortyupanddown, 2011, graphite on oak