I don’t really have a favorite artist, but the one artist that I have always had a little interest in is Chuck Close. He is truly a talented artist, whose remarkable career has extended beyond his completed works of art. Chuck Close started painting at the age of six and has never stopped. Growing up, Chuck had a learning disability, and in the 1940s, most educators didn’t know about LD’s or Dyslexia. Most student’s who had Chuck’s trouble reading, spelling, concentrating, or paying attention was often labeled slow or dumb. As a result, Chuck spent most of his childhood days alone, drawing. When most kids around his block wanted to be a policemen or firemen, Chuck wanted to be an artist. Art was the first thing he was ever good at, and it made him feel special because he possessed skills that other kids didn’t have. Chuck said , “Art saved my life” (Greenberg and Jordan). At age eleven, Chuck’s father died. His mother, who gave piano lessons at home, took a full-time sales job to support the family. At school Chuck’s learning disabilities made studying very difficult, but instead of giving up, he figured out a way to concentrate. “I filled the bathtub to the brim with hot water. A board across the bathtub held my book. I would shine a spotlight on it. The rest of the bathroom was dark. Sitting in the hot water, I would read each page of the book five times out loud so I could hear it. If I stayed up half the night in the tub till my skin was wrinkled as a raisin, I could learn it. The next morning I could spit back just enough information to get by on the test (Greenberg and Jordan). This discipline he had developed to get through school, now became the beginning of a detailed system that he used to organize his art.
Chuck said, “ Almost every decision I’ve had to make as an artist is an outcome of my particular learning disorders” (Green and Jordan).When he makes a big head or a nose, he breaks the images down into small units. He makes each decision into a bite-size decision. The system liberates and allows for intuition and eventually he has a painting. Three of Chuck’s major works, that I have grew to love are Fanny/Fingerprinting, Lucas II , and his self- portrait.
The American artist Fred Tomaselli arranges pills, leaves, insects and cutouts of animals and body parts to create his pieces of art. His incorporation of items are arranged to suggest a level of perception along with a heightened visual experience. This gives me, the viewer, a sense of Energy. The perception of color that Fred uses gives a gravitating feel. If you take a look at the heart of this piece you can instantly visualize the different items Fred incorporates into the piece.
Do you ever just sit back and wonder how many images run through your brain everyday and thinking back on that how many of those were images from our society’s pop culture? With our ever growing technology and media of our society, children are constantly being exposed to visual stimuli. Paul Duncum, a professor of art education, studies how these stimuli not only affect our students and children but also how we can incorporate them into the art classroom in an effective way. In this paper I will illustrate to you the life and work of Paul Duncum. I will be talking about Duncum’s contributions to art education, his teaching philosophy, and how I can use his beliefs and teachings in my future as an art educator but first I would like to give you some background on Paul Duncum.
Anything from a police man leaning on a wall that gets lost in the crowd on busy days to a cleaning lady next to a garbage can. Duane creates life like art pieces that you can lose the fact that they are fake. The amount of detail along with the expressions on the figures’ faces tells the tale. The spectator creates a relationship to the piece because its the familiar look or feeling they receive from the experience. Duane uses the figures’ as they are portrayed to accomplish an everyday ordinary person moreover with that technique displays the ability to relate the viewers to the art
amazing drawing skills. There is a sense of line , contours and forms that existing in 3
...ructure balance of the sculpture. How he did it all from memory and made it look fantastic. The blackberry woman may not be one of my favorites, but I love the controversy it brings. How our world can be so cruel just because the color of one’s skin, will still forever intrigue and irritate me.
While his life was building up to the moment he became rich off of his creativity, it helped him become the man he is today. No matter how unique his life has been, one thing has been a constant in his life, along with many others; He was influenced by the color and personality shown through a piece of art, which was the intent in the first place.
Peter, S., 1996. The History of American Art Education. 7th ed. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group.
“You can’t Judge a book by its cover,” but you can judge it by its content. In the two stories: “Charles” which was written by Shirley Jackson, an American writer, who’s prominence was in the late 1940’s through the early 60’s and “The Open Window” which was written by H. H. Munro, also known as “Saki,” who was born in the United Kingdom and made his mark in the early 1900’s, took fairly different approaches to establishing a similar suspense and ending to their stories. This could possibly be attributed to the era in which the stores were written or may be variations in the author’s personalities or even geographical location, but at final conclusion Charles was the better story. The story Charles
In this piece Benny has depicted himself in the artwork creating another piece of artwork. He is standing at a 45° angle as if he has been interrupted by us, the viewer. This is how Benny engages us, the viewer into his painting. As if we are just as much a part of it as he is. When looking at his painting from a distance it seems as if it is just another oil painting but upon closer observation you can clearly see the different fabrics that he uses to create the collage and which gives the painting its textures. He shows space in the painting by leaving the wall on which the canvas hangs, bare, as is the floor with the exception of the box of rags that he uses in his collage.
As a young boy Chris Van Allsburg enjoyed drawing. He loved to sit down and put his imaginative ideas to paper for his own viewing pleasure. In school and with his family he was not encouraged to spend so much time drawing and painting. Since he was a boy, he was encouraged to participate in sports more often. Chris Van Allsburg abandoned his passion for drawing and went along with the pressures of his family and friends. He would not discover his passion for a few more years.
Chuck creates photo-realism art by etching, when he coats a metal plate with a type of wax called ground then draws and the ground is removed where drawn then is coated with acid. He has a relief print which is when he uses his fingertips and leaves fingerprint. He uses a silkscreen print where ink is forced through a tight mesh screen. Lastly, he uses a woodcut method when wood is cut and then inked and transferred to paper. When Chuck creates portraits he also uses a grid method. He does this by creating a grid on his work and drawing in every square one at a time. Chuck also has a disorder called face blindness where he can’t remember faces and features and can’t see 3-D faces, so he draws close family members and friends 2-D faces so he can see their
Art Education is not always valued in school settings. Although some may see it as an unnecessary use of school funding, there are many who believe it is beneficial to students in more ways than one. There are many different studies that have been conducted to test the effects that art education has on school-aged children. Some studies have proven that art education can help students to improve in other academic areas. In a journal article from Ohio State University’s “Theory in Practice,” Karen A Hamblen states, “There are linkages between art learning and learning in other subjects areas and that art study can promote creative behaviors, critical thinking skills, and academic achievement.” It has also been found that the arts can teach children better self-regulatory strategies, and even foster more confidence and self-efficacy in school which relates to confidence in academics. Overall, art education in schools has been very beneficial and has proven to ignite creativity, confidence, critical thinking skills, and academic achievement in students.
Art and its education are crucial in the development of young children. Therefore, it is of the upmost importance to ensure that our young children are being taught about art and its education in order for them to be successful contributing members of society. June Vail, a professor of dance at Bowdoin College explains, “The arts bring energy and creativity, a kind of learning that can only enhance every other kind of learning. (Vail).” She continues by saying that, “The enterprise of a liberal arts education is integrative, to educate students to be creative and flexible, to harness their energy in a different way (Vail).” Art begins to lay the foundation of success early for young children by developing their motor skills through paining with a paintbrush and drawing with crayons. Furthermore, it also helps promote language development by learning new shapes, colors, and allows them to describe their artistic creation. Lastly, it also helps children improve academically. A report that was done by the Americans for the Arts demonstrates that young people who participated regularly in the arts are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement, participate in a math or science fair, or win an award for writing an essay as opposed to students who do not participate in the arts (PBS). As a result of this, it is imperative to ensure that adolescent children of today begin
The arts have influenced my life in amazing ways. Throughout my life, art has been the place I run to and my escape from the world. As I’ve grown older, art has become so much more than that. Every piece of art I create is a journey into my soul. It’s a priceless way to deal with my emotions and my struggles. I create art not only because I enjoy it and because I want to, but because I have to. Somewhere deep inside there is a driving force, urging me to put my heart down on paper. I become emotionally attached to each of my pieces because they are like dashes on the wall marking my growth. Each one is the solution to a problem I have dealt with and overcome.
Many artists say that they were born to do art, that it was always in their blood and that they cannot remember a time that art was not a part of their lives. For me, this was exactly the opposite. I was always trying to do my best in science and mathematics and art was not even on my radar until I was a freshman in high school where I met my first inspiration for art, Zack Smithey. I was lucky enough to have Mr. Smithey as a guide for the start of my art career all four years in high school and he really pushed me to develop my portrait work. He helped me develop the foundation of my artwork, but at that point I was merely duplicating what I was seen and really had not developed an aesthetic of my own. For me, art was a challenge for me to