Joseph Saunders - Senior Project

#12

This week I continued to work on my portrait of Panda Bear. Its going pretty good, but it is a little hard to work with the photograph i'm using, because there is so much light on his face that there are practically no features shown through shadow, but i embrace this obstacle and look forward to finishing the piece, because i think the variety of lighting for each portrait will add more to the uniqueness of each piece, and will be able to compensate for the strong similarities in the pieces as well, such as the color and design of the backgrounds. I haven't begun to work on the poem for Panda bear, but i think it will involve the sampling quality of hi music. I will clearly rely on this coming break to finish Panda Bear and my fifth character. I'm sure I will be able to reach this goal though, and maybe even do another one, but who knows. I'm proud of what I have been able to accomplish this year so far, and I look forward to seeing what the collection will look like on the gallery opening night. I'm also going to discuss with my mentor today about the possibility of being in the reading night because i think this would be another great way to present my project, focusing more on the poetry aspect for a night. teehee

sevenELEVEN

this week i began to work on my portrait of the musician panda bear (noah lennox). i really admire his music and creative forces and believe he is a key figure in the series. he is one of, if not the, most influential living people to me, and i feel obligated to do an honest and recognizable portrait of him. i also, with the help of my dad, chose the medium in which i will draw the intricate patterns in the background. i decided upon colored pencils because they seem to be most efficient. next week i will hopefully be done with the panda bear drawing, but probably not, and will then begin my portrait of georgia o'keefe. I also need to write the poem for panda bear, i will probably talk about the layers in his music and his innovativeness. look cute

#Ten

during thanksgiving break i got a lot done, as i expected. i did the painting background for all of them with my dad's assistance, and we formulated a plan to make the whole process much faster. i've decided to use colored pencil for the more detailed pattern, which will be quick. i also started and practically completed the wtc. maybe i could've done even more but thanksgiving really broke up all the time, and kinda messed up my schedule. this week i finished the drawing of the world trade center. i also worked on the poem for the wtc as well as for richard brautigan. i'm going to be doing some revisions on them but i'm already pretty pleased with them. since they are so short though i really want to perfect the form and all that. the wtc turned out pretty good, i thought it might be easier than the portraits because its so linear, but i've found it to be just as hard if not more. i decided to go for a bit more of a natural look then the realistic portraits i'm doing. i'm satisfied though. this week i might begin my portrait of panda bear, the musician, or maybe this weekend. after that i will have to choose my final subject. i'm thinking georgia o'keefe right now, but that might change. change -obama.

number nine.

this week i got work done, real work. i spent all of last saturday working on richard brautigan, practically starting and finishing it in that one day. i worked until around 1 in the morning, but it still has some work to be done on it, such as secondary shading and what not. this week with my mentor we set some deadlines for me over the break. for this coming week i'd like to try to finish brautigan along with another one, and hopefully to start another. i think my next one will be the wtc, so with a lot of geometric lines and straight edge shapes i think it will go a lot quicker. i'm really excited for my work cause i really have been going slow. i'll also try to keep the art aspect with tempo with the poetry, because my mentor and i agree that these two processes have been too separated. i'm excited thats all

ate

this week i worked on my portrait of beat poet of richard brautigan, i have not had nearly enough time to work on my portraits as i would like, due mostly to little assignments from my classes which take up each individual evening. i also can't work in school because my work is just too big, oh well. i'm really relying on thanksgiving break and the first portion of winter break to get the majority of my work done, i have no other choice. however, my advisor raised a good point today that these reasons should not stop me from working on the writing aspect of my project, i feel like i have been neglecting this portion  of the project, maybe because the visual part is  just so much more intimidating and tempting to finish. this evening i've gotten the most work done during this week, and i plan to work this weekend, i'd like to really push this one in time for my advisors decision on the approval part on next wednesday. i'm still not incredibly anxious or uncertain of goals, i still believe five pieces is reasonable and can be reached. besides that nothing else has really happened. i'm thinking of contacting my outside consultant after i have finished brautigan.cool

7th heaven

In the past two weeks, I have began my work on my portrait of Richard Brautigan, the last of the beat poets. I really like brautigan's writing style, and have read all of his work. He was one of the main people who I thought of when I first decided on my idea of AMERICAN LOVE, so I hope to do him great justice in the portrait. I've been collecting a variety of photos of him from the internet, because I could not find one perfect one. So I will be doing a drawing done from a collective of photographs of him. I've only done this a few times, and it really leaves a lot for me to make up, so it will be   a fun exercise, and a good experience. 

My dad also got me a bunch of gouache paint to use, just red white and blue. I've also been thinking about where I might show all my pieces on ross campus, if anyone's got an idea that'd be great, because I'd like to show them all together, rather than having to pick like one to squeeze in between something. Also I've been working on the poetry to complement all the work, and my advisor, Ms Cromwell, and I have been brainstorming over a variety of different methods to express my own feelings towards each subject matter. I'm getting some really cool ideas. 

I also went to a show at the neue gallery and a georgia o'keefe show at guggenheim last thursday, where I got a bunch of ideas to add to my own work. 

thats about it for these past two weeks, i'm really looking forward to thanksgiving break, i tihnk i'll be most productive during that long stretch of time. 

number6

The most important thing to happen this week is that I got more paper of the same kind. My dad had to go into the city for some things and he managed to get the paper of the same company. When he brought it home it turned out to be the same size as the piece i was working on. this is really good news cause now i don't have to redraw the whole pattern to fit into new dimensions, relief. I am going to start some other drawings no too, to have more than one piece going at once. this usually works, but sometimes i find myself ignoring on piece and pushing another to a finished stage, which can become challenging, but i think this a good objective i should try. i don't have much else to experiment with. i've got the subjects set, since i'm only doing five, but i do need to write the poems to go with each subject. i think i'll keep them to myself right now, cause things might change and i like to present a final piece without informing everyone of every decision i make. I've been studying for an act test this saturday this week, so i haven't been able to work really on my art. but after saturday i will be able to dedicate myself more to my work, i also feel i have a better handle on college applications and all now, so i'm ready to return to art. i am really looking forward to getting a lot done in these coming weeks, because although i've been working a lot on the conceptual and design aspect of my collection, i don't have much physical product to show. i'm excited

#5

my biggest update is meeting with my outside consultant john alexander. that was really fun and interesting, he offered a bit of information on designs i should think about when rendering the color aspect of my pieces, very valuable informaiton. he really liked my drawing which was really supporting. He also talked about what i should be aiming for in terms of numbers, quality not quantity. That was really enlightening. my dad and i looked up more paper to order online, and i think we found the right type, but it would be a real bummer if we got the wrong one. this week i'm interested in starting my next drawings , but unfortunately i'm going to have to wait until i get my papers, pretty annoying. thats my only real issue, otherwise everything is going great. great.

1glove

Forth Blog

THis week I've decided on a solid design to be applied to each piece, to group them as a collective. I plan on transferring it to tracing paper to make it as easy to make them all appear identical. THis will definitely cut down my production time. What I'm focusing on is to just finish these pieces as quickly as possible, to reach as high a number as possible. I've got at least two more planned out, with poems, so I'm getting kinda anxious to finish this same  piece. I need to set out long stretches of time. I've just been trying to squeeze in tim after school here and there, and it has not been working out perfectly. Next week I would like to start my next piece, hopefully it will go faster than JLH, because this was a first initial designing period. I haven't run in to any difficulties really, and I dont think I will. THe only issue might be trying to find the same type of paper that i used for Hooker, i've only got one left, and i need at least five.