Projects IV and V: Breeding Crisis

Rapid climate change has upset the balance of nature’s proper cycles. Animal species are codependent on the weather for environmental cues that initiate the breeding process. The Canadian red squirrel, European shag, great tit, boreal toad, cascades frog, and painter turtle populations are threatened by increasingly warmer weather. The warm conditions instigate the instinct to breed at an earlier time of season than natural. The offspring are brought into the world before food is plentiful, insuring a higher mortality rate, and ultimately risking the survival of the species.

I intend to force the viewer to take a closer look at the problem. The small scale of the work and the absurdity of the content speak about the fact that the problem is underestimated on the list of world issues. If the animals fade, humans will not be far behind. The pieces spark awareness and illustrate the animals as an exaggeration of the fate of species populations.

Resources:

Red Squirrels: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1691280/

European Shag/Great Tit: http://ezproxy.lib.uwstout.edu:2170/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=14&sid=96f73196-a7d0-48c7-b155-2c345264389d%40sessionmgr4&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN=13514897

Boreal Toad/Cascades Frog: http://www.google.com/search?q=Amphibian+Breeding+and+Climate+Change%3A++Importance+of+Snow+in+the+Mountains+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Painter Turtle: http://www.pnas.org/content/91/16/7487.abstract

I am very happy with my final pieces of the semester. I have found an artistic niche (for right now) that I feel passionate about and enjoy making art for. I have struggled bringing content into my work and I believe I have created something that begins to merge the two with this piece. I think the drawings are successful and I enjoy the absurd, fantastical quality they capture. My only regret is that I wish I had more time to make a larger series. I hope to continue on a similar path in creating work for my senior show next year.
I learned a great deal about myself and my art-making potential through taking this class a second time. I have come to enjoy taking the subjects that I love to learn about and taking that learning, and turning it into my artwork. It makes the work both more personal and interesting to myself and the viewer. I know I will continue to struggle with this looming concept of content and the visual, but I feel much more confident in the decision making in my future work.

Project III: Emulation Project, Brenda Zlamany

I was eager to begin this project, but I found it difficult to select the artist that I wanted to emulate. I wish I would have picked the initial artist that I wanted to emulate; Monet. I have always found inspiration in Monet's impressionist works. His naturalistic settings, on-sit creating, use of color, and ability to set the mood for a piece are aspects that I would have liked to visit in my own emulation. I decided against Monet since most of my pre-Stout artwork frequently emulated Monet as well. I wish I would have emulated Monet now, in my junior year of college, in order to show my growth as an artist.

Aside from that, I ultimately decided to emulate Chiara Albertoni, one of the artists I chose to write about in my paper. I wanted to revisit photo-realism this semester and I strongly identified with her work. I enjoyed her subject matter viewed in non-traditional perspectives. Her close up, slightly distorted images of natural subjects, her use of black and white, and the photo-realistic style were aspects of her work that I tried to emulate in my own drawing. I shot my own photographs for the piece and I had a lot of difficulty in deciding, which image to use. I had a few images that included the entire tree figure (shown above), which may have been more effective to emulate her work more precise. I tried to mesh the close up style of the flower images, with the content similar to her panned out tree pieces. I also wish I would have used a darker pencil and pushed the darks further in the image. I think the piece would emulate her work better if the contrast was boosted. Overall, I wish I would have done A LOT of different things with this project. I think the drawing is nice, but the process was tedious copying and with all of the work I put into it, I still don't love the finished piece...which is frustrating.