A New Year with So Many New Adventures

Dear Blogging Universe,

I have missed this blog. Why have I not kept it up? There have been so many reasons. For one, as you may or may not know, I am no longer living in France. When I was in France, I had to complete blog entries for homework. Well, now that I am back in the states, and back at my little liberal arts college, I definitely do not have required blog submissions, nor do I have the time to really sit down and blog.

But it’s all a matter of balance. If I want to make time for this blog, I should be able to make the time. I am currently on fall break, for a few more days, and I would love to share what I have been working on for the past 4 months or so. It has actually been 4 months since I returned home to Massachusetts, then flew back to school, and started my senior year. I don’t understand how time is passing so quickly. My senior year has brought a bundle of new challenges to the table–My senior thesis (which is painting-based) is in full drive, and there is a lot of pressure to work harder than I ever have before.

Today I will show you first some ideas that I organized during the summer. I will discuss those in some detail, but then I hope to discuss my current work in more detail, and share some of my inspiration. Lately, it has been difficult for me to articulate what “I am trying to do.” Where am I going? Why do I paint what I paint? These are questions that I have to keep considering, since I eventually have to present this work, write artist statements, ect….

The good news is that I am a lot more confident about my ideas and my work than I was one year ago. Thus, I am noticeably taking more risks. However, I have so much left to learn, and in a very short period of time. I am learning so much more about the language of paint application. For instance, I only use paint brushes for about half of the time now. For the remainder of time, I am scraping away with pallet knives. Scratch marks and scribbles are ways that I would like to redefine my paintings, and moreover, I would like to make a better connection between my drawings and my paintings. The paintings have really been based off of the drawings. I never knew I loved drawing so much until I tried etching (Look at previous post).

Anyway, the count-down for the final thesis show starts now: In approximately 6 months, I will have a finished body of work. Yikes.

To start off this blogging spectacular, here are a few things that I made over the summer.

The first drawing was probably the best piece I created all summer. The funny thing about it is that I created it without thinking, and rather accidentally. After I made it, I realized that my other work should strive to have the same qualities: implied space, depth, contrast…Also what makes the drawing successful, I think, is that it is based off of these reoccurring blob-like characters. This figures REALLY excite me because they can be anything I want them to be. They can fold over each other or fall back in space. They can create mysterious landscapes, revealing all sorts of hidden treasures. This might not make very much sense at the moment because I haven’t shown my most recent work. What one needs to know is that this is all still based off the figure. I am still studying the figure a lot in my spare time. However, I am only studying parts of the body–typically the parts that carry the most weight and stress. I will show some of these later.

I will return later today to add more photos.

A Bientot,

Zoe

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