Clara Lieu's Blog, page 37

Artist Masterclass: Synthesis

Artist Masterclass is a series of conversations between myself and visual artist Sara Bloem. 

SB: What’s been going on in the studio?

CL: Well, I finally got myself back into the studio last night, after a three week hiatus while I was brainstorming and sketching. I felt very out of shape, but excited to be back.

SB: I liked the latest sketches, the direction they’re going in is exciting.

CL: I think the thing I like the most is that these drawings are much farther away from my reference photos.  This new approach is demanding that I innovate much more with my marks.  I have to interpret and process the images more dramatically.

SB:  I think you’re skilled in both drawing in this smooth, modeled way, and drawing really energetically and coarsely.  I think these sketches challenge you to unite those approaches in one drawing.

CL:  I like qualities of both a tight and loose approach to drawing. They’re both exciting for different reasons. How is your work progressing?

SB: I’m a little frustrated, but other than that I think I’ve made progress this week. I said last week that I wanted 12 compositions by today, but I don’t have them. I feel this weird anxiety about making them. I guess the anxiety is to make all 12 compositions matching.  I feel like every composition I come up with or every idea, I criticize it a lot.  Like, “Too much detail would be too simple and boring. But too much detail would be too decorative.” I don’t know, it feels like a mental block, like my mind is coming up with excuses to not finalize things. Have you ever experienced something like this?

CL:  All the time. I’m one of those people who really thinks too much. I get obsessive about things and I ruminate over the same thing over and over again. I’ve had to teach myself to reserve judgment on my work. When I start criticizing myself is when the trouble begins, because then I can talk myself out of everything.

SB:  I think thinking about things too much can cut off an avenue before I’ve even really explored it.

CL:  It’s like you’re criticizing artwork you haven’t made yet.

SB: I caught myself thinking the other day: “Maybe black and white is too boring? Maybe I should do color?” But I haven’t even made the black and white series yet.

CL: You can make yourself insane thinking about all of the possibilities.

SB: I could do literally anything under the sun,  but I have to keep reminding myself: do one thing first.  Basically what’s happening is that doing little things every day has been really helpful, but now I need to transition into actually turning out finished pieces, because I can’t just sketch forever.

CL: While the sketching stage is wonderful and exciting for a number of reasons, you can only do it for so long. After a while I start to really crave finishing something. Actually, I feel that way right now with my current drawings.

SB: Yes, you’ve approached Hiding from quite a few different avenues by now.  I honestly do see how it’s firming up, though. You could get so crazy with the markmaking on the body.  It looks like it’s going to be really fun.

CL:  In the sketches I posted yesterday I still feel like I’m not pushing the drawings far enough, the sketches feel conservative compared to my verbal descriptions of what I want them to look like. I’ve got a ways to go.  So what happened to the reference photos you shot?  The images you have this week are completely different.

SB: That’s my other question for this week.  I still intend on putting together the final compositions using the models, for the record, but I also wonder if I shot the reference photos too soon. I find myself composing a lot of things by just sketching in my sketchbook, and then of course those are out of my head and I don’t have reference for them. So I wonder, should I have waited until later in the process?

CL: Not necessarily, I think I’ve done 5 photo sessions with my model to date. The  idea I had for the work kept changing so I kept reshooting as necessary. I think that’s just part of the process. Sometimes by doing the photo shoot you learn something about what you really want.   In this way, a photo shoot is always useful, even if you don’t literally use those images in the final work. Don’t tell yourself that it was premature to shoot the reference photos

SB: I think you’re right. If I hadn’t done the photoshoot, I think I would be stuck spinning my wheels at an earlier stage.  The photoshoot not only brought to life what I had sketched out in the very beginning stages, but I learned much more about the mood evoked by clothing/unclothing oneself. There were a lot of nicely dreamy images created when the models interacted that I would have never come up with independently, so it was completely worth it.

SB:  I feel like these chats are really helping me transition from student to independent artist.  They keep me accountable. How exactly do you keep yourself accountable? Because I feel like from week to week it’s very incremental progress.  And only through our chats and hindsight do I see how it’s all coming together.  What are your strategies for keeping yourself going?

CL:  My two mentors, who are both former professors of mine keep me accountable.  I respect both of them so much that I feel like I can’t call them up unless I have something to show them. I feel like it would be embarrassing to show up with nothing.  Also, as a professor, you’re expected to be active professionally.  “Publish or perish.”

Experiments

I was back in the studio yesterday after a long hiatus, and it felt great to be working again. I worked with etching ink and lithographic crayon to create some very rough studies. To critique myself, I think I need to push these studies much further.There needs to be more contrast between the fine rendering of the face and the gestural qualities of the body. The body could also become more abstract and suggestive, so that more areas of the body get lost in the marks.

What do you think of these studies?

Progress

I am finally taking some steps forward with this project.  I wouldn’t say that I had a breakthrough, as much as I started looking at what I already had in a different light. I sat down the other night with my husband to brainstorm by talking out the themes that I was interested in. We came back to the initial idea of a smiling/placid face on an anguished body, only this time we talked about what I could do stylistically in terms of my approach to drawing. The idea would be to have highly contrasting drawing styles between the face and the body. The face would be accurately rendered and realistic, while the body would be very violently drawn, with a strong sense of gesture and movement, verging on abstraction, extremely expressionistic, almost as if the body were tearing itself apart. I started to get excited about potentially using tools like palette knives and brushes (as opposed to just my hands) to apply the etching ink to get these kinds of effects. The approach would be closer to painting than drawing, which would be very new and different for me. I could play with the transition from the face into the body, sometimes making the transition smooth and slow, while other times it could be abrupt. Another component would be the figures eventually being swallowed by darkness, to represent time and moving deeper into the night.

There’s no way to know if this will work until I do some sketches, but already I’m feeling excited about the possibilities.  I know that this project would challenge me in a number of ways, which is exactly what I’m looking for.

Artist Masterclass: Scale

Artist Masterclass is a series of conversations between myself and visual artist Sara Bloem. 

SB:  I actually wanted to ask your advice about something. Typically the drawings I’ve made before are very big. I think I would like these drawings to be much smaller and more intimate. What are your thoughts on smaller work versus bigger work?

CL:  I think the scale of a work is very important, it determines a lot about our physical interaction with the work. For example, once something is bigger than we are, that changes the dynamics.  I also see work all the time that is big, just to be big, which I think is ridiculous.  I once went to an artist lecture where the artist blatantly admitted that he made the work big because he didn’t know what else to do. People interact with small work very differently, and I think you’re right that it automatically becomes more intimate. I do think that small work is tougher to pull off in some ways though. Unfortunately small work can sometimes come across as convenient and manageable, as if there’s less ambition in the work because of the small scale. Just make sure that you’re making the work that size for a good reason. Will it be hard to work in charcoal at that scale?  I always think about charcoal as being such a blunt instrument.

SB:  I think that’s my main fear. I don’t want to get precious with tiny charcoal pencils. I think the main reason why smaller feels right in this instance is that the project is about trying to understand a cultural legacy. One of the main access points to 1940’s Indonesia are old photo albums – of this place that once existed, and now no longer does. So these drawings would almost be like me making my own photographs, and because my medium (charcoal) is black and white, and these photos are all black and white, it feels especially appropriate.

CL: I think working small will be a good challenge for you. In large work, there is so much wiggle room.  In small work, it’s like every square inch matters. So how close do you think you are to commencing the final drawings?

SB: Maybe 2 weeks. I think I want to give myself one week to create 12 compositions, then one week to revise. As a general statement, I feel frustrated myself for this project taking so long.

CL:  This is definitely not a long time by any means.  I think you’re still functioning on art school time!  One of my colleagues works on his projects for about 5 years at a time. Compared to him, I feel like I rush through my work carelessly. My colleague has so much patience.  I wish I could be like that. My current project is definitely testing my patience.

SB: How are you feeling about your project right now?

CL:  It’s gotten pretty bad.  I really feel like something should have emerged by now, and I’ve run through such an incredible number of bad ideas.

SB:  Of course when you have a deadline is when you start feeling extremely and unusually stuck.

CL: The problem I’m having right now is that I feel like I’m not being aggressive enough, like I’m waiting around for lightning to strike, when I know that’s not how it works! Then those crazy thoughts start circling in your head that it’s your fault that the idea hasn’t emerged yet. I’ve been spending too much time sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

SB:  I feel like I’ve been doing that too. Like I’ll think to myself, “Wow, so annoying that this project isn’t moving faster”, as I sit at work, exhausted, and not intending to work on the project during my break when I have time or something.

CL: I’ve scrapped and rescrapped everything so many times that I don’t know where I am anymore. Then you start thinking about really eliminating everything which is truly a frightening thought.

SB:  It’s just so easy to get trapped in your own head. I think the dual selves theme that you’re working with now is especially tricky, because it’s a very powerful and clear idea, but somewhat hard to convey visually without being cheesy.

CL: You have no idea how many terrible, cliche ideas I’ve run through… I’ve even thought about the idea of having a “secret identity”.  You know… the Incredible Hulk, being a werewolf… just awful!

SB:  It’s also complicated because what you’re trying to show is something invisible. I’ve thought about this because my recent projects have had to do with time, the relationship between the past and the future, and there’s almost no way to really dictate that explicitly (unless you want to put a clock in the composition) Instead, it’s like you have to convey a mood.

Ask the Art Professor: How Do I Choose a Field for Graduate School?

“I am a junior art major, and I cannot really tell what I would like to focus on if I go on to graduate school. It makes it even harder for me to choose schools because I don’t know what field of art I want to pursue. I just love everything about art to be honest. For such people like me, feeling lost in what we’ve been doing, yet longing for higher education in graduate school, what advice do you have?”

For many art students, choosing their major in order to apply to a specific graduate school is a tremendous source of stress. Being required to select a major when applying to graduate school can feel like being asked to make a permanent declaration of your artistic identity. In reality, your field of study in graduate school does not have to set your artistic future in stone.

While a school may ask you to choose a specific field, the truth is that many professional artists work fluidly in a number of fields. Many of my favorite artists are the ones whose works defy categorization, and who are extraordinarily prolific in a number of contrasting art media. Take someone like the contemporary South African artist William Kentridge, who has worked in everything from drawing, animation, sculpture, and printmaking, to stage design. Picasso began his career as a painter, but experimented tremendously with found objects, drawing, and printmaking. The 18th century Italian printmaker Piranesi began as an architect who later created etchings which depicted imagined architectural spaces. These artists may have started out studying one specific field, but eventually their work in multiple fields blended together into one cohesive vision.

When it came time for me to go to graduate school, I intentionally chose sculpture, a field that I had very little experience with at the time. My primary interest and background was actually in painting, but I was curious to see how studying a different field could influence my paintings. Not only did I end up discovering a new passion for sculpture, but I found myself in the printshop for days on end. Eventually, I dropped painting altogether and emerged as a sculptor and printmaker who specialized in drawing. In this way, I created an interdisciplinary approach for myself that embraced a broad range of fields. My major might have been initially declared as sculpture, but that did not prevent me from branching out into other media.

You can approach this process as an opportunity to study an area you’ve always been curious about, but haven’t done much work in. Or, choose an area that you already have a strong interest in and would like to develop a deeper understanding of. Think about the major you select for graduate school as a departure point. From there, you’ll be able to spread out into other media as your interest and ideas dictate.

Ask the Art Professor is a weekly advice column for visual artists. Submit your questions to clara(at)claralieu.com

Impasse

Over the past week I’ve been trying to buckle down and brainstorm alternatives for “Hiding”. Unfortunately, despite my daily efforts, I’ve found myself at a total deadlock. I know what kinds of ideas and themes that I want to communicate, but I’m having a difficult time coming up with imagery that isn’t terribly cliche.

One of the major themes I want to convey is the concept of leading a dual life when you have to hide your depression. There’s the public life that you lead during the day, when you smile, act well adjusted, and tell everyone who asks that you’re doing great. Then there is the private life that you lead behind closed doors, at night, when you can finally emotionally explode. The concept is there, but the imagery isn’t. All I can do at this stage is keep pushing through the bad ideas hoping that eventually, something will emerge.

Trapped

I’m very frustrated right now.  I’ve been reading through many pages of brainstorming notes about a thousand times over and I feel trapped by my own ideas.  I think I’ve lost my perspective on this idea because I’ve been looking at it for too long. I’m still sketching every night, which I think is useful, but the jury is still out on this idea.

Sketching

Until I have my photo shoot with my model, I’m going to work on more brainstorming and sketches. I want to have some alternatives in case this idea doesn’t work out.  Last night I shot some photos of myself, and did some quick sketches with my smiling face on the poses. My husband commented that he thinks the sketch above just looks like an insane person, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

Itch

I had an itch about the large drawings that I started yesterday. I kept trying to tell myself for the last 24 hours that the drawings could still go somewhere, but deep down I knew that the idea wasn’t coming across the way I wanted it to. So today I made a quick trip to the studio to erase both drawings.  Etching ink is easily removed with baby oil, so all it took was a bunch of rags and a lot of rubbing on the surface to remove the images. I like to tell myself that I saved $80 by erasing these two images. (the Dura-Lar is $40 a sheet, not cheap by any means!)

I rushed prematurely into these two large drawings, when I should have spent more time doing sketches. I did some sketches in Photoshop, but those really weren’t sufficient enough.  In my eagerness to accomplish something, I stupidly skipped over the drawing stage and that’s what really got me.  I really should know better by now, but sometimes you have to be reminded the hard way.

I think this idea will only work if I can get poses that can truly communicate anguish as a strong contrast against the smiling faces. So as painful as this is, I’m going to scrap all of my photo references (I must have over 1,000 images) and start all over again. Many of the poses in my current reference photos are too reliant on the expression of the face to communicate the anguish.  I’ll do another photo shoot with my model, this time with a much clearer vision of the kinds of poses that I’m looking for.

I’m really frustrated with myself right now.  I know all of this indecision and doubt is all part of the process, but that doesn’t make it feel any better!

Rocky

Things still feel rocky to me with this new project. It was painful to scrap four months worth of work.   I guess I’m trying to prove to myself that what I’m doing now will be worth it. I still haven’t developed a sense of confidence yet with this new project, which makes me uneasy.