Clara Lieu's Blog, page 38

Back in the studio

After taking time off to brainstorm and reboot this project, I was back in the studio tonight for the first time.  I’ll admit that I’m still feeling uneasy about whether or not this idea is going to work.  There’s only one way to find out!  I’ll make three of these large images and then be able to make some concrete decisions.

Settling in

After a lot of back and forth, I’ve decided to move ahead with this idea.  Throughout all of the ideas I’ve run through, this is the idea that keeps coming back. I’ll do a few test pieces on the 7′ x 4′ sheets of Dura-lar, and make a final decision once I see how those turn out on the large scale.

I’ve been pasting my smiling face on top of my reference photos of nude figures over the past few days and it’s created some rather startling images. (I can’t post those images out of respect for my model, so above is a pencil sketch I did of a composite figure) The smiling faces are very unsettling when they are on the anguished figures. I find them creepier than a tormented figure with an upset facial expression, which is what you expect to see.

Smiles and laughter

I’ve been continuing the brainstorming process by writing down ideas in my sketchbook.  The range of what pops into your head is incredible, I’ve thought about everything from ballet, acting, the Incredible Hulk, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the theater masks of tragedy and comedy, the Greek god Janus, secret identities, etc.

I worked on two new Photoshop sketches today, adding smiling faces to anguished figure poses.  The jury is still out on this idea, and I’m hoping by doing more sketches that I can figure out whether this idea is going to work or not.

Two visuals I definitely want to use are smiling and laughing. I see smiles and laughter as the mask I used to wear to hide my depression. It reminds me of this quote that one of my friends showed me recently:

“The loneliest people are the kindest, The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.”

Brainstorming

I’ve been brainstorming every night this week, trying to seriously entertain any idea that floats into my mind.  Contrary to what I was thinking a few days ago, I don’t think I want to depict the actual act of hiding something. The visuals I came up with were so terribly cliche that I decided that I didn’t want to go that route. I realized tonight that what this project is really about is living a dual life.  When I was at the height of my depression, I would spend all of my energy during the day trying to appear happy.  Then at the end of the day I would come home and explode.

I’m trying to think about how I could represent the mask I wore during the day. My thought was to merge the smiles with the anguished figures, so I put together a really really rough sketch in Photoshop, using my own face on top of one of the figures. I don’t know what to think, it’s either really awful or incredibly unsettling in a good way. What do you think?

Hiding

I just woke up, not being able to sleep so here I am blogging at 4am. I’ve been consumed with the standstill my figure drawings have come to and I can’t seem to let it go. My mind has been racing and so consequently I can’t sleep. Over the past few days, I’ve been wondering whether my impulse to scrap these figure drawings was simply a form of procrastination, and that eventually I would get over it. After talking to my husband about it last night, it’s become alarmingly clear that indeed these figure drawings aren’t working, so as painful as it is, I’m going to go ahead and scrap them and start fresh. I don’t want to work for the next year in denial about this work.

I think what has been bothering me is that the figure drawings weren’t doing anything new conceptually. They seemed to be trying to do what the 50 self-portrait drawings already did, and I felt like it was purely a matter of just executing the work at this point.

Lately it seems like a lot of former and current students have been privately coming to me seeking advice, Many of them have expressed feeling broken and falling apart on the inside.  I’ve been telling them my latest theory on the world:  everyone is fucked up. Everyone has something in their life, whether it’s their own personal issues, an issue with a family member, etc. that is difficult and trying. Why did I come to this theory?  Because when I talk privately to my students, I am surprised at what comes out.  Even the students who on the outside seem so fearless and solid are in reality barely holding it together. When I talk to my close friends, many of whom look successful and happy on the outside, they all express feeling like they are coming apart at the seams.  It makes me think of that quote “Be kind, for everyone you know is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”  In my experience, this could not be more true.

I think about all of the years that I had to hide my depression, having to act happy on the outside despite feeling so turbulent and out of control on the inside.  This is what I want to talk about in my new work.  Falling is now officially over, and this is now a new project, called Hiding.

Ask the Art Professor: Where Do I Start?

“I don’t know where to start. I am a very creative person who one day decided to borrow my friend’s acrylic paints. I just started to blend and created something that was not that bad. Since then, I’ve felt encouraged to keep trying it. My question is, where do I start? I know nothing about art and I don’t want to come off as a poser.”

The visual arts are so incredibly broad that there is an overwhelming amount of options when you’re just getting started. I would suggest starting with the one classic tool that artists throughout history have used: the sketchbook. Drawing is fundamental to every area of the visual arts, so any experience you have with drawing in your sketchbook will eventually contribute to your experience with other media. Drawing in a sketchbook keeps things very simple and accessible.

Sketchbook by Myles Dunigan.

Buy a small sketchbook, and carry your sketchbook around with you everywhere that you go. Be on a constant hunt for ideas and images. Any time you see something that excites you, draw it or write it down in your sketchbook. Think about your sketchbook as the ultimate resource for ideas and visuals; it should reflect the inner workings of your mind. Your sketchbook is the primordial soup for all of your creative pursuits. Everything in your sketchbook should be raw and unfiltered material that could some day emerge as a larger project.

The great thing about a sketchbook is there’s no pressure to perfect or finish anything. Many artists get caught up in overworking their art because they are too precious about their work. In a sketchbook, you can draw freely without feeling like you need to live up to a set of expectations.

Sketchbook by Sara Bloem.

Commit to drawing something in your sketchbook everyday. Draw with simple materials like a pen, a pencil, colored pencils, etc. The simplicity of these materials will keep things straightforward and focused on the pure process of drawing. Date your drawings so that you can see your progress as you flip through past drawings in your sketchbook. Even if you only have time to do something quick, like a 10 minute sketch once a day, that time is still valid and will contribute to your overall progress. Spread out your work, it’s better to sketch for a few minutes seven days a week, rather than to draw for three hours once a week.

Once you’ve been working in your sketchbook for a few months, you will be able to look back on your past drawings and start to figure out where you want to go from there. I love going back and looking through my old sketchbooks, they are visual archives of my creative process at the time. You will be able to watch your ideas and images evolve, and track your progress in this way. Your experience with your sketchbook will steer you towards more specific interests, and guide you to towards the next step.



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

Artist Masterclass: Crises

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

CL:  A lot has been going on.  For starters, I’m thinking about scrapping my figure drawings altogether and doing something new. I would use the same reference photos with the same figures, but I’m thinking about completely reconfiguring everything.  I’m a little freaked about it, it’s not the best timing since I have a solo exhibition coming up in one year.  Now is really not the time to be making dramatic decisions about my work!  How has your work progressed this week?

SB:  I feel bummed about it, honestly.

CL: That makes the two of us being bummed about our work.

SB:  I don’t think I put enough time in, and I’m not totally crazy about what I did. Well, I guess it’s a phase that comes to us all in time.

CL: You are just getting started, you probably just need to build up some momentum.

SB: I need to, but I just barely got the ball rolling this week. I would sit down, do one plan or one tiny sketch, and then feel like I didn’t like it.  It was just so pathetic.

CL:  I know what you mean, I was in the studio the other night, and I looked around and realized that I hated all of the work I’ve been doing for the past 4 months.

SB:  I know the feeling! I mean, I don’t presume this is exactly what you felt by any means, but sometimes I just have this existential crisis. And I ask myself, “Do I even like any of the work I’m doing right now?”

CL: I think I’m having an existential crisis right now too.

SB: For the record, there’s so much I like about the figure drawings as they are now. But you feel how you feel.

CL: Yes, and the sign to me that something needs to change is I can’t imagine working on these figure drawings over a long period of time.  Maybe I’m getting overwhelmed by the scale of the drawings.  That sounds really lame.

SB: Not at all. Well, I’m thinking about it now, and I think in a way, these figure drawings are busier than your previous two series.  Wading was very pared-down and minimalist in a lot of senses, and then Falling was all about the face and neck.  The portraits in Falling had more opportunity for detail in some ways, but it was focused around one thing. Bodies have so many elements, like ten times the elements of the previous two.

CL: Maybe I need to take it to an extreme, make it even more complex, go the Hieronymous Bosch route? I’m thinking Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

SB:  That would be very interesting coming from you. Do you enjoy making these “busier” pieces? More than making something more pared-down like before?

CL:  I think I do because they’re a greater compositional challenge.  I didn’t think much about composition when it came to the portraits,  and I absolutely love a great composition.  You’ve got me thinking!  What would a Bosch-like composition look like coming from me?

SB:  I think that would be amazing.  I feel if that were your inspiration, you could go amazing places with it.

CL:  So let’s get to the heart of your crisis. Are you just not enjoying the process of making the work, or are you dissatisfied with the results?

SB:  There have been times this week when I started getting really into it and enjoying it, but then I felt too tired and stopped. So it’s not that I don’t feel the satisfaction – I do. I’m not crazy about the results either but I know I just need to work through it. There are aspects I like.I think I feel trapped inside my own persona in a way. I feel like, “Oh, black and white charcoal drawings of figures being mysterious. Typical Sara.”  I criticize myself for being so cliche, and I question if my choices are right because they just feel so predictable.

CL:  I catch myself doing classic “Clara” things with my work too.  You know…. angsty screaming naked people. Do you have to do charcoal drawings though?

SB: No, but I do sincerely love charcoal.   It doesn’t leave a lot of options for color, though, which I’ve considered.  I guess I haven’t thoroughly considered it, because I just assumed I’d be using charcoal.   I don’t feel this is a major setback at all.  It just doesn’t feel great.

CL: So the question is, do we just ride out these crises?

SB: I think yes. For me, I think I need to encourage myself to play around with this project more frequently during the day and also earlier, when I’m not so tired. I was thinking about this today, about how imbalanced it is when I’m guaranteed to think about my job 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, but the amount of time I spend with my work isn’t so regular and predictable. I think we both have high expectations for ourselves. Extremely high.

CL: That does make it hard to live with ourselves most of the time.

SB: Yeah, you have this running dialogue in your head.

CL: I think it’s fine as long as it’s not debilitating.  I did have a former student a ways back who gave herself such a difficult time that she was just paralyzed and couldn’t make any work after school. She was so worried that she wouldn’t be able to make something that would be “good enough” for her.  She was her own worst enemy in that respect.

SB: You definitely can’t let your anxieties stop you from doing something. I often think about what you said way back in freshman year, about how 90-95% of work is never shown, because it’s awful, but the good work is winnowed out from that huge mixed heap of mostly crap. So every time I make something awful I’m happy, because I know I’m 1% closer to making something good.

Related Articles:

Conversation #5: Results

Conversation #4: Taking Direction

Conversation #3: Preparations

Conversation #2: Logistics

Conversation #1: Solidity

Introductory Interview

Reflecting

Something is not quite right.  I went to the studio last night, intending to catch up and immerse myself back into these figure drawings.  I worked for about 45 minutes and then abruptly decided to abort the studio session.  Either it’s me feeling disconnected from the work, or the premise of these drawings isn’t working.  Right now I’m thinking it’s the latter.  I’m seriously thinking of scrapping all of these figure drawings and revisiting how I’m working with these images.  I have an itch at the back of my head that isn’t going to go away until I do some major reflection on the work that I’ve done so far.  I’m going to take a break from these large figure drawings and do some sketching to see what I can come up with.

Ask the Art Professor: How Do I Help My Daughter Reach Her Potential in Art?

“My daughter is 14 and has not had any training but we think she has talent. What advice would you give for helping guide us to help her reach her potential in art?”

I started to demonstrate artistic promise from a very young age. According to my mother, I could draw before I could talk. My parents felt that I had potential, but they knew absolutely nothing about visual art. Despite their lack of knowledge, they did two things for me that were critical to helping me develop as a young artist: (1) they let me take art classes outside of school; and (2) they bought me all of the art supplies that I wanted.

I had art class in my public school curriculum, but my parents also supplemented this experience with Saturday morning classes at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where I studied for a number of years. By taking a class, I had the opportunity to build relationships with peers who shared the same interest in art. I learned just as much from my peers as I did from the teacher. Having the chance to see how other students dealt with the same assignment and art materials opened my eyes to an incredible range of artistic approaches. In addition, most of the instructors for these courses are working artists themselves. Working with these teachers was significant because they made the idea of being an artist real. You can read all you want about artists from textbooks, but nothing will substitute being able to meet and work with a professional artist when you are still young.

If you have the resources, send your daughter to a pre-college program at an art school when she’s a sophomore or junior in high school. I still look back on my experience at the Rhode Island School of Design Pre-College program as one of the most formative experiences in my career. It was just a six week program, but it profoundly transformed my life. Being on a college campus working in professional artist studios and facilities was exhilarating. I was taught by teachers who took me seriously and understood where I was coming from. Most importantly of all, I was with literally hundreds of other students who shared the same passion and interest in visual art. Coming from a public school where I was the only art “freak,” it seemed like a dream come true to have all of these people in one place.

Provide your daughter with all of the high quality art supplies that she wants. When I was ten years old, my mother once gave me a professional artist portfolio case and a stretched canvas for Christmas. Those art supplies felt so real and professional, and I cherished them. Professional art supplies are more costly than student grade supplies, but they are vital to having a positive experience. Many student grade brands, especially paints and brushes, are so poorly made that they can actually be a hindrance, making a simple task difficult. Instead of ordering online, be sure to take your daughter with you to the art store to purchase the supplies. Some of my best memories as a child was going to the art store to pick out new art supplies.

Already, you’ve taken the most important first step by providing your daughter the moral support to make her art. By giving her the opportunities and means to create art, she will be able to determine on her own whether this is a path she would like to pursue.

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

Artist Masterclass: Results

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

CL:  So how did the photo shoot go this past week?

SB: It felt so legit. The models were really fantastic people, everything went pretty efficiently, and I had snacks and a heater. Definitely felt like a professional one-woman operation.  And I’m really thrilled with the material I got!

CL: I would be very excited, you got some really gorgeous shots. I think having all three models at once was the way to go, there are some interesting interactions between the models. The images definitely had an atmosphere to them which I think will greatly contribute to the final pieces.

SB: Yes, having the models interact more with each other was a spontaneous decision that came midway through the shoot. I actually wish I had done that earlier, but on the other hand, the only reason I thought of it was because all three models were there together. So yes, I think the smartest decision wound up being having them all there simultaneously.

CL: The sense of depth is so much more palpable when you have more than one figure in a scene. I especially like the shots where the models are overlapping each other, they worked out beautifully.

SB:  I think so too! It creates more of a sense of community, rather than just having the models hanging out separately, like I just put them like stickers into the room.

CL: I’m super psyched for you, doesn’t everything feel so concrete now? It’s like you actually have something you can hold onto, instead of some abstract idea floating around in your head

SB:  Yes! I think the problem now is almost that, inspired by the photos, there are almost too many directions I feel like I could go now. There are so many things that attract me in the photos, like the overlapping, and the power dynamics of the models interacting with each other. In the last two sessions I had them “help” each other get dressed. Sometimes the shapes of light and dark on their forms get quite abstract and I like that too.

CL:  The shapes are stunning, and the clothing is lovely too.

SB:  I also planned on collaging in Photoshop, which I will still do, but there’s so much already going on. I’m torn; I feel like I have to choose between focusing on the lovely abstract shapes that are happening with the clothing, or the interactions, or the collaging. I guess I really don’t have to choose, but it’s just so overwhelming and exciting.

CL:  I would simply try all of those approaches! A little bit of this, a little bit of that, by actually doing each of those approaches you’ll figure it out.  I also find that sometimes what I think is a great idea in my head isn’t actually a good idea in reality when I realize it. I think it will work itself out, just give everything a shot. Plus, who says you can’t do the abstract shapes and the interactions together?  Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too? These are very exciting compositions, I think they are by far your most ambitious pieces.

SB: You’re right, I just need to work it out more on paper. I wasn’t planning on taking my compositions directly from the photographs as they are now but taking different groups of figures and making collaging together an environment?

CL: That’s good, the less you can approach things verbatim, the better.  I think it sounds like a great approach, you’ll be able to process and manipulate things more, which is exactly what you want to do with reference photographs. The further you can get from the references, the better.

Manipulate, manipulate!  I think you’re doing so well. I feel like I’ve had so many former students contact me who are having a really hard time. I have two former students who contacted me recently, they’re struggling with depression, having no money, they don’t have an active studio practice, and had to move back in with their parents. You’re totally doing it on your own.

SB: Honestly though, I am so happy that I can check in with you on a regular basis. Without these nudges I don’t know if I’d be doing the exact same things.

Related articles:
Conversation #4: Taking Direction
Conversation #3: Preparations
Conversation #2: Logistics
Conversation #1: Solidity
Introductory Interview