Just the Horsha

Another painting in the "Horsha" Series. Started out with a specific sketch but paintings sometimes have a will of their own and it came out quite different. 

Horsha, Hebrew for a small wooded area. Quite happy with this one, playing with the lights and shadows.

30 x 22 cm

Oils on cut canvas

Required Assignment 3: Work of Art Redux (Track A) Coursera

Required Assignment 3: Work of Art Redux (Track A)

Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers

We’ve done a bit of research and have identified at least thirty artists who created work based on Velazquez’s Las Meninas. See here for a short list. Now it’s your turn. Make a work or series of works, in whatever media you choose, that takes its inspiration from Las Meninas. You can: 

• take apart and put back together selected elements of the painting (as Picasso did). 
• riff on a theme of the painting (looking and being seen, reality and reflection, a moment in time, stillness, the painter’s process, etc. Note that many of these themes have actually been modules for this course). 

Both of the above are possibilities, but there are certainly more. At any rate your approach needs to be deliberate. Consider the difference between making a “copy” of the original, “appropriating” the original (as a creative strategy) and working “off” the original. Along with your images, post a short (2-3 sentence) explanation of why you did what you did.

After much thought   I felt that Las Meminas  reminded me of the pageants for young girls that sort of exploit their femininity and sexuality.  At my weekly workshop I noticed two Barbie dolls that my friend Riva was working on and photographed them to use on my assignment.  It is a riff on the some of the themes, exploitation,reflections, looking in and being seen and in this case the "photographers" process. A photo montage plus some digital sketching. 

Haunted by Family Portrait!!!

Required Assignment 2: One Thing and Then Another (Track A)
Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers  Coursera

Instructions:

Choose an object or an image.
Turn it into something else.
Then turn it back into itself again. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a major project of deconstruction or manipulation. But it could be. Or it could be just a change of context, orientation, or point of view.
Document your process and post the results with a short 3-4 sentence description of what you did.
Some things to think about:

Your object or image can be in two (flat) and/or three dimensions.
You could make the objects or collect them from elsewhere.
Your "process" could be sequential or not.
Your documentation could be a photograph, drawing, digital image or other similar visual element.
Your documentation could be one or several images. (Note: Because of the limitations of the platform and in consideration of your peers, please consider limiting the number of images you decide to include. Between 1 and 6 images should be sufficient for this assignment.)

Haunted by family portrait!!!

I took a family portrait that has bothered me over the years... perhaps it sort of haunted me.  I looked so sad while everyone else is smiling... perhaps I was jealous... my brother getting most of the attention. Well after all is was his Bar Mitzva!!! Maybe cause I didn't like the skirt I wore... my mother had hand painted a rose on it.. So it was time for a little destruction and manipulation...  The painting was  done before the course but I felt it fir the assignment.. The photo manipulation was done in the same spirit. 

Original Portrait

Oils on grey pressed cardboard

Photo manipulation

Workshop Wooden Ship

Wooden Ship

Another oil on cardboard from an old family photograph.  This time myself playing in the water with some sort of wooden ship.  Limited palette of diluted oils.

Wooden Ship

Oils on cardboard

54 x 37 cm

Workshop Day at the Beach

Day at the Beach

This month started out good.... had really good intentions to continue the momentum of the 30 in 30 challenge of January but sometimes things don't work out the way we plan.   Not to go into details but I got some mysterious infection.... and was quite ill for about three weeks....even missed one of my workshops along with my weekly visits to Jerusalem... I am starting to get back to myself so I hope to continue daily/almost daily paintings.  I did however finish two paintings at my workshop.

I like to experiment and recently fell in love with this hard grey cardboard format.  Its a medium grey about 1/8" thick... I used this for many of the paintings I did in January but on a coat of gesso... These paintings are straight on the cardboard using a rather diluted oil paint.  see family portrait from January. The oils of the paint are quickly absorbed so they have a more dry surface. One has to be careful not to scrub the paper surface so it won't peal.

Both images were done using old family photographs taken between the years 1936- 1940... The first is a beach scene... my mother... used a very limited palette and slowly worked up the layers.  Made use of charcoal sketching  as well.

Oils on cardboard

54 x 37 cm

Day 5 30 in 30 Challenge

Day 5 Leslie's 30 in 30 Challenge

22 x 22 cm

oil on gessoed cardboard

Started early this morning... got a sketch in ..but when I got to painting... just didn't seem to work out... 

guess that happens.... more to me it seems.... scraped and rubbed the paint and toned the board a second time.   Didn't  want to use -white-- so wiped the highlight areas... used the oils thin.    Well in the spirit of the challenge and according to "my rule" to post no matter .... hey I do like the bottle cap!!!!

Day 3 30 in 30 challenge

20 x 22 cm

oil on cardboard 

Day three... Leslie's 30 in 30 challenge

Friday.... lots of household chores before Shabbat, so started painting after lunch today... no sun from my window and had to make do with artificial lighting... also I am a morning person so will try harder to find more "window of time" in the morning when the sun, streams through my window.

Tried to vary my grays with the hues of my basic gray... in this case ultramarine + raw umber.  So I have some cooler and warmer tones.  Tried to not fiddle to much and put done color and leave...Oils with palette knife on gessoed cardboard with a thin tone of raw umber

Calling this a WIP because it does need some tweaking and its too wet....

Day 2 30 in 30 Challenge

 20 x 22 oil on cardboard

Palette Knife

Still working in the grays with a palette knife, this rime I toned the background.  

Feel a bit better with this than yesterday's. which I have scraped and will re-paint.  Still not completely satisfied with the knife strokes... want them more decisive and confident... hard on such a small format.

Pot a little lopsided and had problems with the handle... scraped at least twice...

Day 1 in 30 in 30 Challenge

Yael's Pot

20 x 22 oil on cardboard

Its started.. Leslie Seata's  30 paintings in 30 days . For the past week I have been giving this much thought going in and out of stress.I have asked myself why put myself through this stress...
 only if I push will I get over the fear barrier
 only by painting will I learn
 only by painting will I experiment and play
 January my birth month
 14 my birth day

 I decided the first week to try to go to the basics.... and what better way then using monochromatic tones.  This first painting  20 x 22 cm done on card board with one coating of gesso.  Worked with oils and palette knife.... one thing I noticed on the gesso was that my strokes weren't going on as smoothly as I wished... so I may put on a tone of diluted paint next painting. Grays  where my own mix...  french -ultramarine + raw umber.

a few of my own rules  "... not EVERY painting has to be a masterpiece!!!!"   "no matter what POST....."  
" don't look at other posts before you post"


I was completely not satisfied with this painting...so today scraped and wiped most of it off... hope to repaint tomorrow morning with the pot in morning light from my window....

WIP