Clara Lieu's Blog, page 18
June 21, 2016
Audio Critique Winner #4: Hiratsuka Niki
Hiratsuka Niki
“Ballerina No. 4”, conte crayon on paper
“Inspired by Edgar Degas’ work, I chose to explore the theme of the “backstage ballerina” in this piece. The dancer is depicted in the midst of a warm up stretch. Wholly unaware of being viewed, and engrossed in an inner world, the subject unintentionally reveals components of her private self. In not attempting to showcase her beauty she embodies more of herself within this intimate moment of self-contemplation. This paradoxically brings to light a form of beauty which cannot be witnessed onstage.”
Casey Roonan, Illustrator & Cartoonist
“This is a very elegant piece in a few ways.”
Mentioned: John Singer Sargent, Wally Wood, Bernie Wrightson, Edgar Degas
Annie Irwin, Weaver, Textile Artist, Painter
“The way the conte crayon is applied to the surface has different weights to it, you’ve managed to accomplish a range of value.”
Mentioned: Seurat
Alex Rowe, Book Illustrator
“In just a few simple marks you’ve captured the darkest shadow, the light, the reflected light, the light hitting right on the forearm, that is absolutely beautiful.”
Mentioned: Coles Phillips
Clara Lieu, Fine Artist & Adjunct Professor at RISD
“What I don’t see in the drawing is your opinion. What is your view of ballet? How do you see ballet?”
Mentioned: Misty Copeland, A Life in Motion
Consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign and help us bring ART PROF: Visual Art Essentials with Clara Lieu to people of all ages who want and need art education, but who have no means of access. Our prototype is finished, so our final step is to raise funds to make ART PROF free for all! Even the smallest donations add up. And if you can’t donate, please share our Kickstarter campaign!
Art Hacks!
For the rest of our Kickstarter campaign, we’ll keep creating new video content to give you a small preview of what ART PROF will be like if we get fully funded! One of my favorite things about being a professor at an art school is the great tips and shortcuts that artists invent totally on the fly in order to make a project cooperate, or when they’re stuck at the airport with only napkins to draw on. Sometimes, as an artist, you’ll find yourself willing to do just about anything to make your work happen!
Today, hear from our Teaching Assistant Lauryn Welch above about why “hygiene” is important for artists. Find out from Intern Janice Chun why you might want to skip that $100 light board purchase if you need to create animation on a budget!
Consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign and help us bring ART PROF: Visual Art Essentials with Clara Lieu to people of all ages who want and need art education, but who have no means of access. Our prototype is finished, so our final step is to raise funds to make ART PROF free for all! Even the smallest donations add up. And if you can’t donate, please share our Kickstarter campaign!
June 18, 2016
ART PROF Intern: Jordan McCracken-Foster
The moment I knew Jordan was a true art nerd (like the rest of us who work on ART PROF) was when he told me that he once decided in high school that he was going to draw 1,000 heads and hands. How many high school students do you know who sign on for a task like that voluntarily? We even have proof of his drawing mission from high school: you can see Jordan tracking his numbers in the lower right hand corner of this page of head drawings below.
The first year of art school, which is when I met Jordan, is probably one of the most intense experiences you can have as an artist. For many students, the work load is overwhelming and it’s tough to see clearly, much less make visible progress in your classes. Jordan’s breakthrough came in the 4th week of class, when he walked into class with this beautifully composed lithographic crayon drawing of a gigantic seed pod. I had been on him in the first two critiques about his composition skills, which were dull and static. This drawing below blew the other two drawings totally out of the water. This was Jordan’s first major milestone in my class, and I still remember it clearly. You can see the other drawings Jordan did in my class here.
I love it when former students pop into my class spontaneously, so it was great to reconnect with Jordan when showed up to say hi one day. Another part that I really enjoy seeing is what my former students make after they leave my class. Below is a drawing Jordan did as an Illustration major-the progress he has made since those 1,000 heads and hands in high school, and even the seed pod drawing above is tremendous! If you want to see more of Jordan’s work, you can see his Behance portfolio here. Let’s hear from Jordan now:
“Hi everyone! My name is Jordan and I’m currently a rising senior at RISD in the Illustration department. I’m originally from Los Angeles, the place where the sun always shines and the traffic never stops. When I was in high school, I (thankfully) received a very lucrative art education program learning about figure drawing, form/volume, and things of that nature.
However, I will say that a lot of my art education also came from online platforms like YouTube and studying some of my favorite artists like LeSean Thomas, Ryan Benjamin, and Seung Eun Kim.
Click to view slideshow.
When I came to RISD, Clara was my very first drawing professor. I’m happy to say that I am a survivor of Clara’s Freshman Drawing class. Being her former student, I can confirm that the techniques and lessons that will be expressed in this project will be incredibly helpful to any artist; and this is why we are so excited to bring ART PROF to the world! I know for a fact that ART PROF will encourage anyone out there who, like me, earnestly desires to grow in his or her art making skills. When I’m not doing art, I enjoy reading, taking nature walks, and finding a good burrito place.”
Consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign and help us bring ART PROF: Visual Art Essentials with Clara Lieu to people of all ages who want and need art education, but who have no means of access. Our prototype is finished, so our final step is to raise funds to make ART PROF free for all! Even the smallest donations add up. And if you can’t donate, please share our Kickstarter campaign!
ART PROF Intern: Olivia Hunter
A gigantic part of ART PROF is the extraordinary team of current students and emerging artists who make up our group of 6 Teaching Assistants and 10 Interns. They’ve done everything from brainstorming their eyes out in long discussion threads, replied to panicked text messages from me at 7am, told me when I was doing some stupid, (which happens pretty often) talked me out of some really bad ideas, explained to me how to use Snap chat (you know you’re old when someone younger than you has to explain technology to you) and in some cases, prevented what could have been seriously disastrous situations by thinking quickly on their feet. They’ve even had the audacity to give me my own advice.[image error]
ART PROF would not be what it is today without this phenomenal team. Starting today, I’d like you to meet these incredible artists and their contributions to ART PROF. In the coming weeks, they’ll share with you art tips and advice that can only come from a seasoned artist, anecdotes about their art school experience, tell you some hysterical stories about me, and even make some artworks specifically for ART PROF.
When I met Olivia, I knew immediately within about 5 minutes of talking with her how thoughtful, intelligent, and hardworking she was. Sometimes when I meet people my first impression is totally off, but in this case, I just knew. It’s extremely rare that a student would begin my class with so much self-discipline and willingness to work. The vast majority of students in my classes take at least 2- 4 weeks to figure out how to manage their time and adapt to the rigor of the course. Not Olivia, she invested monumental hours of labor into her pieces, was incredibly tenacious, and was so willing and receptive to try anything.
I’ve been teaching for a decade now, and let’s just say it’s getting harder and harder for me to remember specific students and project. However, Olivia’s final project has been burned into my head since I saw it for the first time. (see above) Olivia and I both agree that the critique she received in this class wasn’t her strongest of the semester, and that it had some composition issues. Fundamentally though, I found the concept behind the piece to be very moving and absolutely riveting. Even the four words in the piece by themselves were so powerful and emotional. You can see all of the pieces Olivia did in my class here.
When Olivia helped out with our shoot a few days ago, she and I had a brief conversation about maybe doing some future pieces that might develop the idea further. Now I want you to hear from her!
“Hi! My name is Olivia, and I’m from Boston, Massachusetts. I just graduated from high school and I am super excited to go to the Parsons School of Design in the fall of 2016. I’m planning to major in Communications Design.
All of my life I have loved making art in almost every form, especially photography, painting, and drawing. Fun fact: a small section of my bedroom is dedicated to my growing collection of vintage film cameras! The art program at my high school really allowed me to explore the different areas in art, through focused and attentive art educators and syllabi that pushed me to think creatively.
Click to view slideshow.
With this being said, I still felt like I was missing something or someone to push me even further. After attending the RISD Pre-College progam and being in Proofessor Lieu’s Design Fundamentals course, I learned so much about myself as an art student. RISD Pre-College was what ultimately what made me want to go to an art school!
It saddens me when I hear about many school art programs being almost non-existent. I love being a part of ART PROF since this platform will help those without access to art classes, so they can practice art more and to learn to think creatively.”
Consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign and help us bring ART PROF: Visual Art Essentials with Clara Lieu to people of all ages who want and need art education, but who have no means of access. Our prototype is finished, so our final step is to raise funds to make ART PROF free for all! Even the smallest donations add up. And if you can’t donate, please share our Kickstarter campaign!
June 17, 2016
Experiments, Glitches, and Learning Curves
I know that some of you tuned into yesterday morning, hoping to see my charcoal drawing demo that we had initially planned to stream on our Twitch channel. I prepared everything for the shoot well in advance with my usual anal retentiveness, did a rehearsal of all the software, equipment, etc. three times through in advance of the stream and felt confident that everything would be fine. The studio we were in was the same studio used when we shot the prototype videos, so it was a familiar space. The plan was to stream the drawing demo through 3 smart phones, which would allow 1 camera that was aimed toward my face, one camera on the drawing, and one camera on the model. (see image above)
Yesterday’s shoot was one gigantic experiment, and was a totally different format than when we used only 1 camera for the videos in our finished prototype, which we shot way back in October 2015. Below is a tiny slice from one of our videos in the prototype.
I had Olivia, one of the ART PROF interns on hand to help with the shoot, with Marianna as the artist model. My partner Tom Lerra was there as well to help oversee the shoot. We got into the studio, set up a scary number of extension cords hooked up to multiple tripods, stands, fiddled with lights and backdrops, wrapped gaffer’s tape to get every phone positioned, for at least 1 hour.
The simplest way to explain our set up (because it was anything but simple) is that the 3 smart phones have to connect to a laptop through the Internet-and that’s when all of our problems started. We were on the guest wi-fi network, which we discovered after setting everything up had a firewall which prevented the set up from working properly. We tried the employee network, which didn’t work either. Tom volunteered the network on his iPhone which eventually worked. This was at least 1 hour of troubleshooting with us frantically re-configuring everything, Tom scrounging for phone chargers, and other desperate measures.
Once everything was finally up and running, we discovered, after many attempts that even the network on Tom’s iPhone wasn’t strong enough, and the streams that we did get onto Twitch were breaking up and going offline without us knowing. We kept at this for about another 2 hours, with a lot of panicked phone calls, texts, and Facebook messages to my husband Alex Hart, who probably has logged more uncredited work hours than any person in history because of ART PROF. (he’s getting public acknowledgement today for the first time since ART PROF started in September 2014)
Eventually, we decided that we didn’t waste any more time trying to fruitlessly do Twitch, have it never work out, and then leave the studio empty handed. So we ditched the Twitch stream, and decided to just record the video, which we knew would guarantee that we would leave with video footage which could be posted on our Youtube channel later. At that point I had probably done the first few parts of the demo at least 5 times, and we had to start all over from the very beginning to record the video. I’m all for risk taking, but when the risk is so incredibly that high that you’ll end up with nothing, the route than guarantees something (as opposed to nothing) is the way to go.
Yes, about 10 billion things went wrong yesterday, and as much as I wanted to tear my hair out every second of that 7 hour long shoot, I kind of found it super exciting at the same time. I was kind of a wreck afterwards, but we did come out of the studio with over 60 minutes of footage, with the demo from beginning to end. And I am so grateful to Tom, Marianna, and Olivia for their resilience, tenacity and unwavering patience through a 7 hour shoot long shoot that was anything but smooth.
Olivia must have saved the day from disastrous consequences at least 12 times yesterday. There were so many tiny details where she would point out “Didn’t you forget about…. Shouldn’t you….?” When you’re on set like that, you need people like that to catch those little details that could make or break your production!
And although I’m bummed that Twitch didn’t work out, and felt horrifically guilty when I found out later that Nikki Murphy-Epsimos had planned on streaming the demo to her middle school art class, I am glad that we had this experience, and that we’ll have the entire demo ready for all of you to watch on our Youtube channel next week. So our sincerest apologies to those who were looking for the stream yesterday, and couldn’t find it!
Sometimes even the best laid plans don’t work out, but Tom and I saw yesterday as a tremendous learning experience, and both of us were kind in awe that we got the results we did with just 3 smart phones and a laptop. Our creative juices started flowing like crazy, and we realized that there are many, many options for how to extend and stretch ART PROF to last longer if our Kickstarter campaign is successful.
The experiences I’ve had where I felt I learned the most, always tend to be under the most difficult, strenuous circumstances, and yesterday was certainly no exception. ( I don’t know why I can’t have a learning experience while sitting on a beach with a cocktail.)
With my partner in crime, Tom Lerra from WGBH Boston.
June 15, 2016
ART PROF Drawing Demo on Twitch tomorrow!
First of all, I am overwhelmed with the extraordinary enthusiasm and support that has been pouring in left and right since our Kickstarter campaign went live yesterday! More thoughts on that soon…. because I have another treat for you that can’t wait.
Many of you who sent messages and made comments yesterday told me that you were dying to see what the video tutorials on ART PROF would be like. Well, now you can get a gigantic taste of that in about 18 hours.
Watch the ART PROF Twitch channel tomorrow, June 16, at about 10:00am EST and watch me do a figure drawing demo from beginning to end!
This is the closest thing to being in one of my RISD classes, and will give you a preview of the kind of video tutorials you would see on the ART PROF site if our Kickstarter campaign is successful. You can even post questions during the live stream and I can answer right then and there! You don’t need a Twitch account to watch the stream, but you do need an account if you want to post questions during the stream.
We will have an artist model posing for this demo, so this demo will be divided up into 20 minute segments so that the model can take breaks between poses.
The drawing demo will focus on the lower section of the face, the neck, and the shoulders. Here is a general outline of techniques and approaches I’ll cover in this demo:
Setting up the Figure
Lighting the figure
Creating a dynamic composition
First round of linear thumbnail sketches
Selecting which thumbnail sketch to use for the final drawing
Second round of tonal thumbnail sketches
Transferring the final thumbnail sketch composition to the final drawing
Drawing with cross-hatching using a charcoal pencil, eraser stick, and vine charcoal.
We’ll announce the start of our Twitch stream via Facebook live video. So, if you like our Facebook page, you’ll get a notification when the Twitch stream begins.
Hope to see you all then!
Consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign and help us bring ART PROF: Visual Art Essentials with Clara Lieu to people of all ages who want and need art education, but who have no means of access. Our prototype is finished, so our final step is to raise funds to make ART PROF free for all! Even the smallest donations add up. And if you can’t donate, please share our Kickstarter campaign!
June 14, 2016
ART PROF: Visual Art Essentials with Clara Lieu
ART PROF is a free, online educational platform for visual arts.
Learn visual arts in a vibrant community for people of all ages.
Visual artist and RISD Adjunct Professor Clara Lieu has partnered with from WGBH Boston and a team of 6 Teaching Assistants and 10 Interns to create a free, online educational platform for the visual arts.
Mission
In most schools, visual arts education is meager or simply does not exist. Outside art programs are not affordable for most people, and are primarily isolated to higher education institutions. ART PROF provides the chance for a global community to access to a high quality visual arts education for free. People of all ages can learn visual arts at their own pace through ART PROF.
Now we need help from YOU to make ART PROF free for all.
Make a donation today !
We have many donor rewards, even the smallest donation makes a difference!
Click to view slideshow.
Site Features
visual encyclopedia of art supplies • short-form video lessons in drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpture • interactive video critiques • trusted advice from the Art Prof and Teaching Assistants • assignments & lesson plans • professional development resources • diverse artist community • audio critiques of user artwork • galleries for user artwork • contemporary art & art history
Preview of some of our site features by looking at our Crit Quickies, Audio Critique Packs, Portfolio Video Critiques and Ask the Art Prof
Stay tuned by subscribing to our email list.
Contact
Want to become a sponsor or advertiser?
Teaching Assistants
Sara Bloem • Casey Roonan • Annie Irwin
Lauryn Welch • Yves-Olivier Mandereau • Alex Rowe
Our experienced team of teaching assistants are emerging artists who work in a diverse range of fields: textiles, illustration, painting, drawing, comics, sculpture, installation, ceramics, and more. Teaching assistants will review user artwork submissions, do audio critiques of user artworks, and respond to your questions with professional advice in our interactive audio forums.
Interns
Anna Campbell • Makoto Kumasaka • Annelise Yee • Enrico Giori • Janice Chun • Julia Orenstein • Vuthy Lay • Olivia Hunter
Jordan McCracken-Foster • Tatiana Florival
Our interns are current art school students who brainstorm ideas, enhance site content, and develop outreach strategies. Their majors include architecture, printmaking, furniture design, jewelry, drawing, painting, graphic design and more.
June 13, 2016
A 2 Year Artistic Roller Coaster Ride
In 2014, I had a fleeting thought for a project that seemed like complete pie in the sky. As an artist, ideas for projects float in and out of my brain. Some ideas are stay for about 3 minutes, some linger and hang out for a week or so, and some permanently attach themselves, refusing to leave.
When you have those pie in the sky ideas, they’re fun to dream and fantasize about. You think in your head “wow, that would be so awesome…” and “if only I could pull that off….” However, there’s the skeptical, practical side of my brain which reminds me of the brutal logistics of reality, and basically obliterates those pie in the sky dreams before they even get a chance to be even considered.
Well, this particular pie in the sky dream didn’t get obliterated, it survived-for a very, long time. And yes, it got me into a lot of artistic “trouble.” I slowly started following a trail of tiny bread crumbs that started to appear in the forest. Sometimes it was months of waiting between each bread crumb, and it was the greatest test of patience for someone who has very little patience to begin with.
Then, some wheels really started turning, and I realized that I was on a gigantic roller coaster ride that I wanted to stay on forever. Except that this roller coaster was in complete darkness, and it didn’t have all the tracks ahead finished yet. I was moving on the roller coaster, but frantically laying the tracks in front of me about 3 seconds before I went over them, all in the dark.
And then before I knew it, I realized that the roller coaster had grown so big that I couldn’t do it by myself anymore. I needed a partner and a team: a fantastic, superb group of art students, emerging artists, and numerous professionals who could help me build the tracks, shine some light on the roller coaster, and make pie in the sky real. This is the most extraordinary group of people I’ve ever worked with, and I cannot remotely come close to accurately expressing my tremendous gratitude towards their tenacity, perseverance, and faith in our project. Without my team, pie in the sky would still be an idea floating in my head, or it would be a mediocre effort that lasted for a few months and then drifted away.
This has been the most exhilarating, terrifying, stimulating, difficult, electrifying idea I have ever experienced in over 15 years as a professional artist and teacher. Every time I thought I had just finished climbing Mt. Everest, I was told “You have to climb Mt. Everest again.” I would finish my second climb, come back to the bottom and be told “Sorry, that wasn’t enough-you have to go again.” Every time I thought I had reached a milestone, or pushed myself as far as I could, the challenges only grew increasingly larger and more difficult, and I had to rise to the task in a way that in a way that was unprecedented in my life time. On top of that, I had to keep this project top secret for TWO YEARS. I’ve been jumping out of my skin, and can’t wait to release the hounds.
Tomorrow is the big day…. get the announcement by subscribing to my email list.
June 10, 2016
Sneak Peek #5
I’ve always loved the multiple personalities a kneaded eraser has! You really can be a total dictator and make the eraser do whatever you want. We are just 4 days away from our BIG news on June 14! Don’t miss the announcement and subscribe to my email list.
I’m jumping out of my skin and working around the clock at this point. You know you’re working hard when you’re a major foodie and eating becomes an “inconvenience”, you have to “remember” to use the bathroom, you’ve been editing videos in Premiere for 2 hours before you brush your teeth & eat breakfast in the morning, (as I write this at 11:50am, I STILL haven’t brushed my teeth or put in my contact lenses yet) and when you look at the clock, which says “11:45pm” and think to yourself, “I still have so much time tonight!”
When you’re working this hard, it’s definitely the biggest contradiction: you’re so thrilled, passionate and exhilarated about your project, but you’re so intensely grouchy, sleep deprived, and aching with anxiety and petrifying fear! I’ll take those symptoms as a sign that things are headed in the right direction…
June 7, 2016
Crit Quickies vs. Audio Critique Packs
I’ve been very excited about the way that Crit Quickies has picked up over the past few days! I think it’s wonderful that submissions are coming in from artists of all ages, backgrounds, locations, and styles. That’s one aspect of being an artist that I think is very unique to our field: your background, age, body type, etc. doesn’t dictate whether you can be an artist. Compared to other fields like athletics, or acting, where if you are just 2″ too short, or if you don’t have the “right look” for the movie role you’re auditioning for, you can always make art no matter what.
If you enjoy our Crit Quickies, check out our Audio Critique Packs. (Click on the three images above to hear each artwork’s Audio Critique Pack.) We gave away 4 free Audio Critique Packs over the past month, so each winner got a 2-6 minute critique from 4 different professional artists each. While the Crit Quickies are fun, as you can imagine, there’s only so much you can squeeze into 1 minute of speaking! The Audio Critique Packs let us go into much greater depth and detail in the critique, so check them out. Our giveaways are over, but you’ll see on June 14 that there will be further opportunities to get an Audio Critique Pack in the future.
Making art doesn’t have to be a gigantic expensive production either. The artistic process can be as humble as doing a pencil sketch for 10 minutes a day in a small sketchbook-you don’t have to construct a 20′ high bronze public art sculpture to be an artist. Keep those submissions coming, and keep your eyes peeled on my sites on June 14 for our huge announcement-I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Subscribe to my email list! There’s a big announcement about a major art education project coming up on June 14 that you won’t want to miss.
