SPECIAL EDITION: "Art Institute of Chicago"

On Saturday, February 11, 2012, I went downtown via Metra train to meet up with Nathan Peck and my classmates at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Just in case Mr. Peck was still hungover and could not remember who was there that day, I have provided a picture of him as proof.  I have also included the three pictures he told us to take before venturing into the museum and starting the tour:

To be honest, I cannot say I REALLY liked any of the works of art I got to see in the museum.  It is just not the style I like.  On the other hand, I can say that I really did appreciate many aspects of some artworks.  I know that many of these were done with limited resources, low technology, took a lot of time and/or effort, and have their own story to tell which I truly admire.  I especially learned to value the era of accurateness.  I admire those who had the patience and talent to depict the realism in everyday life: to be able to take a visual scene and put it on canvas. 

When we started moving toward the modern art, which was based more on style and experimentation rather than emphasizing precision and accurateness, I felt that they were interesting works of art, but just did not catch my eye.  I have a preference for something that depicts reality pretty accurately while still using some sort of style (not counting photography).

There are many masterpieces that I could talk about but the one that almost blew my mind was Michele Marieschi's The Church of Santa Maria della Salute, in 1740 Venice.  The concept had grandeur in itself because it depicted such detailed and beautiful architecture but it was not spectacular.  The composition caught my eye because it really looks like you are standing there watching through your own eyes.  The people at the foreground give a sense of going about their daily lives, which gives me a sense of time.  This single moment makes it feel like this artist captured a split moment in time and painted it on canvas just like a modern day photograph.  The buildings in the background are made to scale and have a feeling of depth to them.  Even though they are supposedly far away, there is still an enormous amount of detail in them to add to the realism.  For me, this showed a great deal of talent and skill.  What really came as amazing to me was the craftsmanship.  The fact that Marieschi painted all the windows black to achieve total darkness and drilled a hole in his wall to have light only come in through there shows a level of ingenuity on his part.  The light is able to enter through the tiny hole and show the other side, which was essentially this scenario.  Due to light refraction, the image of came out to be upside down.  Even back when there were no cameras, artist still found ways to capture a moment in life a make it concrete through painting.

WEEK 6: Trace Drawing Completed

Craft: After initially starting the trace of the wolf picture, I further enhanced the accuracy of the drawing by giving it more detail.  The tools I used for this task were the brush tool, gradients, transparency, and blurs.  There was a specific brush stroke that resembled hair which was perfect to depict the wolf's fur.  There was another brush stroke that seemed like a smearing effect and was appropriate for some areas requiring blending.  I used a large array of values and hues and thickness of brush strokes.  They ranged from 0.25 to 1 thickness and utilized shades of greens, whites, blues, browns, yellows, and other greys.

Composition: It was very difficult to portray the exact coloration of the fur, considering there were countless hairs and a great number of hues of hairs.  I tried using the first layer of basic shapes as my foundation to the general color in that area of the wolf.  The hair that I placed stroke-by-stroke was laid on top to cover the shapes.  This gave the illusion of a very detailed coat of fur, while not having to completely cover the wolf in single hair pieces.  For the very small areas that the hair did not cover, the shape that lied underneath made sure to act as a good buffer.  Since most of the picture was wolf fur, I had to take quite some time to fill it with appropriate amounts of colored-hairs.  When I was done using the general hues, I moved into more complex values of each color in order to build layers on top of one another.  By using this stacking technique I was able to achieve a lever of three-dimensionality.  After that, I focused on the eyes, the nose and the background.  For the eyes and the nose, I tried to give the a glistening and blending effect while still keeping them very detailed.  This gave a level of life and emotion in the wolf.  To finish, I blurred the background to contrast the foreground with the background and really make the wolf pop out and grave the spectator's attention.

Concept: I wanted to really depict the wolf as accurately as the photograph.  One thing that really kept me from that is that Adobe Illustrator supposedly encountered frequent errors and reached its limit concerning space for my drawing.  There were an incredibly large number of brush strokes that went into making that wolf which might be why it halted Adobe from working properly, as well as the mass use of blur effect.  The real goal of this work of art was to recreate a certain level of realism with human abilities and replicate an accurate illustration of what technology is able to produce through absorption of light (cameras).

WEEK 5: Layers- 1st Trace

Craft: The tools I used to trace this photo were the pen, eye dropper, and layers tools in Adobe Illustrator.  I saved the picture of the wolf and placed it in the adobe file.  From there, it was a matter of tracing the outline of the wolf.  Tracing the whole wolf with just one consecutive outline was not the most effective approach.  Therefore, I would work from background to foreground in order to make several layers that would help overlap certain aspects.  I would start with the body, neck, and ears and place the face, mouth, eyes, and nose on top of those in a specific order, so as to not overlap the face over the eyes.  I also used a different arrange of hues and values for both the fill and the pen stroke

Composition: In order to overlap the layers and still bring out the accurate image representing the wolf, I had to trace the outside.  Some segments are made a little bigger in order to avoid overlapping lines.  After accumulated a lot of layers and sublayers, I went back and tried to find the color that best defined the photo's color.  With the eye dropper I managed to give fill to the shapes I had traced out with the pen tool.  The one notable thing I tried to mess around with was the gradient tool to transition from a dark color into a light color.  This transition is in the wolf's face, above the eyes and down towards the nose, expanding out-ward toward the exterior fur.  At this point, I really wanted to bring the wolf to life by making a lot of layers for the eyes.  This detail in the eyes really brings the attention of the spectator.  From the eyes I think the viewer might look at the nose, and how it has shine on it.  The last thing I wanted people to notice was the smooth transition from one color to the next by using values of different hues and gradients.  Mixing different grays allowed me to make a soft blend between hues.

Concept: Screen shot comparing both photograph and trace drawing

Concept: Trace-drawing of a wolf

WEEK 4: Color and Texture Vessels

Craft (both): To create these shaded drawing, I utilized Adobe Illustrator (mainly using the "paintbrush" tool), a Bamboo pad, and a Bamboo pen.  I made these drawings by drawing a rough outline to guide me.  Then I filled in the object with one single color.  I started with a plain color with no value to it and started adding layers of dark and lights to that color.  I combined all types of strokes, ranging from 1 point to 20 points in thickness.

Composition (Color): To really bring out the shades and make it look 3-D I kept on adding layers of thick and thin lines. After getting a solid 2-D figure, I worked my way up to 3-D by adding many thick and thin lines of different values of the same color. I tried focusing on the on the light, shiny parts, and the dark, shaded parts.  This enable one single color to be stretched across and transition from a light to a dark smoothly or drastically, depending on the material the object was made out of.  If the object was made out of glass, I noticed a lot of the lights and darks did not transition and overlapped.  On objects that were dull, such as plastic, there was more of a smooth transition from lights to darks.

Composition (Texture): This was a little bit more challenging since it does not coincide with my style of drawing.  I had difficulty repeating the same numbers over and over again, especially when you just got good at unconsciously repeating the number 8, and now you have to draw the number 5.  I tried to make small numbers for finer detail and larger ones for broader strokes to take up more room.  I used one color in the background that was complementary to the color of the objects so that it made the object really come forward and pop out.

Concept: Glass vase

Concept: Gatorade bottle

Concept: Bottle of Patron Tequila

Concept: Wine bottle

Concept: Martini glass

Concept: Large round vase

Concept: Screenshot of glass vase

WEEK 3: VALUE- 5 Shaded Vessels

Craft: To create these shaded drawing, I utilized Adobe Illustrator, a Bamboo pad, a Bamboo pen, the CS5 Mac's at the VAC lab, along with items found in the gallery, and the lab's own artificial lighting.  I made these drawings by trying to replicate the actual item and capturing the image in black and white.   Even though some items where in color, black and white would help show the value of the object and show a more three dimensional figure.  I began with a rough sketch of the outline and worked my way to the darker and lighter ends.  I combined all types of strokes, ranging from 1 point to 20 points in thickness. 

Composition: To really bring out the shades and make it look 3-D I kept on adding layers of thick and thin lines.  I also focused on the object's width versus length.  If the width was greater then I focused more on horizontal lines.  If the length was greater, then I focused on vertical lines. I wanted the viewer to see the image as a whole at first and then realize that it is all just made up of mono-directional strokes.  The parts of the object that seem to be colored in are also thick strokes followed by the smaller detailed strokes. The third thing I wanted them to notice is that I go through the entire spectrum of greys, from black to white, in order to show a bigger contrast, which makes the drawing really come to life.

Concept: Screen shot of a plastic milk bottle

Concept: Small teapot

Concept: Large teapot

Concept: Metallic coffee container...?

Concept: Small ceramic coffee mug

Concept: Plastic milk bottle

WEEK 2: 5 100-stroke Drawings

Craft:  I created these sketches with the program Adobe Illustrator, the Bamboo touch pad, and the Bamboo pen.  I also collected a wide variety of vessels that are used in the every-day house-hold.  I started by getting used to the Bamboo pen and experimenting with long, short, thin, slightly thicker, horizontal, diagonal, and vertical lines, and also with the different color schemes available.  

Composition: I arranged the elements the way I did because that's how I could compromise between the reality of the object and the assignment's directions of only drawing the object with 100 strokes each.  I used one color to draw out the main color shown by the vessel.  As far as the directions of the lines went, there was no real purpose to their direction.  I tried using both opposing directional-lines when it came to the syrup bottle and the crystal glass vase to show the border of the vessel (outline) a little bit better. I wanted the person to see the outline of the shape first (to know what it is), the color second, and the thickness of the lines third.  The thickness would symbolize the material's frailness or toughness. 

Concept: Crystal vase

Concept: Maple Syrup bottle

Concept: Six Flags drinking cup with straw

Concept: Glass wine glass

Concept: Glass vase

Week 1: Introduction

Jon Torres
Sophmore at SXU
Major: Psychology
Expected Graduation: May 2014
See "About Me" section for more info