Studio Visit with Tony Janello December 21, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Artists, Drawing, Exhibitions, Sculpture.Tags: crayon, Drawing, paper mache, photography, risd, Sculpture
add a comment
This past Friday afternoon I drove to Rhode Island for a studio visit with Tony Janello. He is one of the four artists exhibiting in an upcoming show that I’m curating, titled “Transformations”. This exhibition is coming up in March 2010 at the Jewett Gallery at Wellesley College where I’m the Gallery Director. We first met in 1998 when I was a student in his painting class in the Illustration Department at RISD during my senior year. I now teach Drawing at RISD in Foundation Studies and he’s continued to teach Painting and Drawing in the Illustration Department since then. We’ve kept in touch over the years since I graduated, and it was very exciting to visit his studio and get some insight on his thoughts and creative process.
Janello’s process involves many phases and transformations in a range of media. He creates essentially paper mache sculptures which are then lit and photographed, with the sculpture as a means to the photography. The role of photography as the final result allows him tremendous visual flexibility with the sculptures that he would otherwise not have. I was impressed by how much his photographs looked like paintings; they had an incredible atmosphere and depth that transcended the sculptures themselves.
What is astonishing about these sculptures is how low-tech they are in terms of construction and materials. For the interior structures of the sculptures, he uses sonotubes, which are extremely strong cardboard tubes that are used in construction for pouring concrete columns. You can see in the photo below on the sculpture on the far left an example of one of the sonotubes that he’s sawed into a ring to hold the sculpture up. On top of the sonotube structure, he uses paper towels dipped in elmer’s glue to sculpt the heads into more detail. These materials also allow the sculptures to be highly durable, yet lightweight at the same time.
Below is an example of how Janello uses backgrounds and creates sets for his sculptures. The backgrounds are created from thin sheets of plywood which are then painted to reflect surface, texture, and writing. Several of his backgrounds feature the visual look of a chalkboard which has writing layered over itself continuously.
Below are some experiments for adding yet another phase in his process: after he photographed the sculptures, he drew on the digital prints using crayons. In this series below, there is a progression in the images where he is “healing” the “injury” in the sculpture’s head by drawing with cross-hatched marks on the images with crayon. Janello was a portrait painter for many years , and it seems like this is a perfect way to work in his experience in drawing into his current work. These pieces above are still very early in their development, but we discussed the possibility of creating works with this process for the “Transformations” show.
The back of this sculpture seen in the photo below reveals the interior structure of the sculptures, created from sawed up strips of sonotubes.
Below is a close up view of one of his sculpture heads, where the painting process and surface texture of the sculptures is apparent. For more information about Janello’s work, you can visit this previous blog post from the Jewett Gallery’s blog which features his artist statement. To see more images from Janello’s studio, visit the Jewett Gallery’s Flickr page.
Thoughts on Drawing December 12, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Drawing, Teaching.Tags: Critique, Drawing, freshman, risd, students, wellesley college
1 comment so far
The semester is drawing to an end at both RISD and Wellesley College. At the end of the semester, I ask students from both schools to fill out a “Final Self-Critique” form that allows them to take the time to think about and reflect upon their experience in class this semester. The process is an important from both ends: students are able to articulate what their accomplishments, realizations, and areas to improve, while I’m able to get further insight on their thoughts.
After reading through the self-critique forms, I compile anonymous excerpts from the forms and send them to the class. Below I’ve listed some excerpts from my Freshman Drawing course at RISD, and my Drawing I course at Wellesley College. The excerpts have an amazing range of thoughts and opinions: they’re insightful, intelligent, funny, revealing, engaging, serious, and much more.
If I don’t put it down on paper, I’ll never know what might have happened
with it.
I think this class was about learning how to learn.
I realized that it was impossible to get people understand my drawing when I
myself couldn’t really understand what I was doing.
What may seem like a good idea to me may seem like a bad one to everyone
else.
I’ve learned that there are so many other ways to go. It’s like I was living
in the first dimension unaware of all other possibilities, but now, I know
that there are infinities of infinities that I can explore.
I learned that I still don’t know much about myself.
I’ve learned that I must think about everything I do and the effect it will
have because when I don’t, someone will most definitely notice and comment
on it.
For the first time, I am excited to do work that has a purpose.
I guess I have to lose myself to be able to find myself again.
I find that I am most interested in an assignment if I have an innovative concept.
I think the most valuable habit I gained from this course is almost a new way of viewing the world. Now, nearly everywhere I look I think about how I would approach what I see in a drawing.
I feel that I learned most from the assignments where I made the most mistakes.
I learned how to look at the things around me not as single objects but as a compositional unity.
With each drawing I went through so many emotions, frustration, fear, anger excitement.
I also learned that it will get worse before it gets better.
I feel less of a need to have my drawings look a specific way and instead let them morph into what they can be.
Ideas for Compositions December 11, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Drawing, sketches.Tags: compositions, Drawing, sketches
add a comment
Before I get into the specifics of these three compositions, I thought it would be important to set general, overall aspects of each composition first. This will allow me to keep a grander picture in mind as I move into working out the details. I found it’s easier to think more clearly about your ideas before you’ve gotten into the trenches with specifics. Below are descriptions of each composition; these verbal descriptions help me visualize what kind of mood and sensibility I want to establish.
1) Composition #1: Figures are almost entirely immersed in very deep water, showing nothing below the shoulders. The water is very still and quiet.
2) Composition #2: An extremely crowded composition; so crowded, that there’s a sensibility that many figures are completely lost and hidden from view. Additional emphasis on layering of the figures. The water is active, and in some areas splashing everywhere.
3) Composition #3: A crowded composition, which takes huge leaps in terms of scale: 2 very large figures in the foreground quickly jump to tiny heads in the far distance. The water is fairly still, but active.
Atmospheric Perspective December 10, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Drawing.Tags: composition, Drawing, perspective, sketches
add a comment
Recently I started questioning whether it was important that the figures in my compositions continue to follow aspects of atmospheric perspective. In atmospheric perspective, as objects in space recede into the distance, their clarity, articulation, and light/dark contrast diminish as they move towards the horizon line. Objects in the foreground are clear and high in contrast, whereas objects in the distance are blurrier and low in contrast. I starting thinking about whether I could have the figures be any gradient of tone, regardless of where their location was in space. To figure this out, I did two digital sketches to allow for a side by side comparison.
The sketch on the left follows atmospheric perspective, whereas the one on the right does not. This is definitely an example of thinking in your head that something is a good idea, only to have it not work out on paper. Looking at the sketch on the right, the randomness of the gradients in the figures feels chaotic and fragments the space far too much in a way that is detrimental to the cohesiveness of the composition.
On the other hand, I did have one important discovery in pursuing this possibility. I realized that perhaps I was carrying this idea too far, and perhaps I could lend a subtle hint instead. In both of the above sketches, the figure in the center is the same gradient. However, that center figure does in some ways defy the guidelines of atmospheric perspective: the crouching figure to it’s left is darker, and yet further in the distance. From looking at this figure, it seems that defying the atmospheric perspective would work on figures that are separate and not layered on top of another figure. Without the atmospheric perspective, the layered figures become impossible to decipher. I think I’ve arrived at a better balance for my new “rule”: when figures are separate, they can potentially defy these guidelines depending on the composition, but when they’re layered, they need to follow the guidelines.
More Armatures December 7, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Sculpture.Tags: armature, figure, Sculpture, wire
add a comment
Posing Armatures November 30, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Sculpture.Tags: armature, figure, Sculpture
add a comment
I worked briefly today to pose a few armatures on to their wooden bases. I rarely cut corners in my technical processes, but since these sculptures are not intended to be the finished product I allow myself to create lower maintenance armatures. Instead of putting together a pipe and flange to hold the figure on the base, I opt to use thicker armature wire that allows the figure to stand freely. I attach the armatures by bending nails across the armature wire.
The goal for the month of December is to sculpt 16 figures from which I can create compositional studies from in January.
Monotypes: Rolling Techniques November 28, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Printmaking, Technique.Tags: monotype, Printmaking, prints, wellesley college
1 comment so far
I had a full day in the Wellesley College printshop last week to pick up from where I left off on these monotype experiments. I’m still very much in the experimental stages of these prints. As I said earlier, it’s been a good four years since I’ve worked with monotype, so the monotype process has been feeling rusty and unfamiliar. As a reaction to this, I naturally used the old reductive technique I remove the printing ink from a fully inked plate with a cotton rag.
I worked quickly to produce many prints and try out as many techniques throughout the day. To allow myself to focus exclusively on technique and articulation, I entirely ignored composition, space, and depth in these monotype sketches. The largest revelation I had was that it became immediately clear that rolling up the plate to a full black was unnecessary. Achieving subtlety in the tonal shifts was more difficult from a black plate, and relying on the black tones produced flat images which lacked depth.
Print from a plate that was fully inked to black.
I experimented with rolling up different parts of the plate to different gradients. Ultimately, I ended up toning the area above the water to a mid-grey tone. The area with the water was inked to a full black at the top, and then slowly gradating to a light grey towards the bottom.
Print where different areas are inked to different gradients.
My self-critique of this sketch above is that the gradation in the water has too much full black and the shift towards grey tone happens too late. Since I was eager to figure out how to go about inking the plate, the work on the figures in these monotype sketches is fairly hasty. The next time I’m able to focus more on the figures, my intent is to make the figures more ambiguous, less defined, so they can emerge quietly from the atmosphere. The balance I’m looking for will allow the reflection of the figure’s shadow in the water to be more concrete and articulate by comparison.
“Ghost” print of the previous plate.
One approach that I had been initially excited about was potentially printing “ghost” prints from different plates onto the same sheet of paper. A “ghost” print is a monotype that has been run through the press a second time, therefore creating significantly lighter results. I quickly eliminated this idea since the ghost prints were too unstable and unpredictable. My potential solution to this is to “fake” some ghost prints instead to see if I can get the results I’m looking for. Ultimately, I’m looking to create monotypes that involve multiple plates printed on top of each other to simulate the transparency of the drawings.
Studio Assistants November 22, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Drawing, Materials.Tags: Drawing, wellesley college
add a comment
Last Friday I had a terrific team of students at Wellesley College help me hand sand the Dura-Lar surfaces for three large scale drawings I’ll be working on this year. The drawings will each measure 10′ x 4′ and will be featured at the Davis Museum in a group exhibition of the studio art faculty at Wellesley College.
Hiring studio assistants is a first for me; generally speaking I’m someone who likes to be directly involved in every part of the process. The physical engagement and tactility of the materials has always been hugely important to me. I’ve always known that even if I had the resources to have someone else do the printing for me in my printmaking work that I never would. In this case, the task of sanding 12 sheets of 10′ x 4′ sheets of Dura-Lar was too enormous and daunting on my own, so I knew that assistants would be necessary if I was ever going to be able to realize these drawings.
I had a total of 7 students working over about a 3.5 hour period in the woodshop at Wellesley College. I have to say that I’m still amazed that we were able to sand everything in such a short period of time. As we worked together, everyone got into their own rhythm of working, figuring out their own unique tricks for sanding to make their approach more efficient. The sheets of Dura-Lar were large enough that it took two people to move them around without damaging them, and peeling the protective plastic was a three person job.
There’s something fun and satisfying about working with a group of people to achieve one collective goal, you feed off of everyone else’s energy and gain momentum throughout the time you work together. The assistants I worked with were hard-working, thorough, and detail-oriented, so I feel lucky to have been able to work with them. All of them came into the job without any required experience, and they boldly jumped into the task with enthusiasm and commitment. It was quite a nice contrast against last year when I hand sanded 12 sheets of 3′ x 4′ Dura-Lar by myself in my garage throughout the year.
“The Brilliant Line” at the RISD Museum of Art November 17, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Artists, Exhibitions, Printmaking.Tags: durer, engraving, museum, Printmaking, prints, risd
add a comment
Last Friday I took my Drawing I class from Wellesley College on a field trip to the RISD Museum of Art’s current exhibition “The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver“. Emily Peters, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the RISD Museum and Andrew Raftery, Associate Professor of Printmaking at RISD led a gallery talk at the exhibition for my Drawing class. Their combined expertise in the many layers of engraving: the technical process, historical context, etc. made for an exciting talk.
What struck me as wonderfully unique about this exhibition was it’s ability to reach both ends of the spectrum in terms of an audience. One could attend this exhibition with no knowledge of engraving and come away with a deep understanding of the medium. At the same time, people who are highly knowledgeable and experienced in printmaking will find extraordinary depth in the exhibition as well. The exhibition is accompanied by a terrific interactive exhibition website which features Raftery’s analysis of line systems and divergent styles of the engravings in this show. Display cases were featured throughout the exhibition showing the tools and materials involved in the engraving process.
Towards the end of the gallery talk was an amazing selection of prints by French engraver Claude Mellan and an astonishing portrait by another French engraver Robert Nanteuil. Mellan’s work seemed particularly distinctive within the context of the exhibition, his work was as much about the lines he chose as areas of negative space.
Albrecht Durer, Madonna with the Pear, 1511, engraving
Armatures for Sculpture November 16, 2009
Posted by claralieu in Sculpture.Tags: armature, Sculpture
add a comment
I worked on constructing many armatures this afternoon, in anticipation of the reference sculptures I’ll be working on in December. I’ve made these armatures enough times that it’s become a rather mindless task at this point. I created three categories of armatures: full figures, 3/4 figures, and 1/2 figures. Each category reflects how much of the figure is immersed into the water. This allows me to create partial armatures instead of articulating the entire figure.
