Project 1 by Xiaoyan Zhang

John Myers

xzhang0320237_2 — 2023-10-02 22:19:28 UTC

“Life As It Is”

John Myers (born 1944) is a British landscape and portrait photographerand painter. Between 1973 and 1981 he photographed mundane aspects of middle class life in the centre of England—black and white portraits of ordinary people and suburbia within walking distance of his home in Stourbridge.

Wide flat brush with black and brown

xzhang0320237_2 — 2023-10-02 22:38:54 UTC

I try to feel the emotions expressed by the figures and ignore their outer forms to create them.
Using a wide flat brush, I present a large outline of the figure, and by controlling the intensity of the ink I paint the figure with different looks.

Fish and banana

xzhang0320237_2 — 2023-10-12 10:49:35 UTC

I tried painting with green ink, which is supposed to be a more delicate material, but I used a very large brush to paint on the paper.

xzhang0320237_2 — 2023-10-12 10:51:36 UTC

xzhang0320237_2 — 2023-10-12 10:51:52 UTC

Etel Adnan

xzhang0320237_2 — 2023-10-12 11:25:55 UTC

American poet/ essayist/ and visual artist

Adnan also worked as a painter, her earliest abstract works were created using a palette knife to apply oil paint onto the canvas – often directly from the tube – in firm swipes across the picture's surface.

Four areas about collaborate with

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-23 20:00:12 UTC

1:Co-consulting

2:Co-contracting

3:Co-producing

4:Co-curating

Co-consulting is similar to primary research, raising awareness through research and bring new ideas together.

Co-contracting is a way to collaboration many things, like stitching, drawing(on the paper), or using different material…..

Co-producting is a good method to increase confidence in own abilities, and creating trust through care of communication.

Co-curating is a process to test the context and communication.For me, it’s a critical thinking practice.

By embracing collaborative teamwork,I can maximize academic knowledge and personal growth.

Storytelling:

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-23 21:17:40 UTC

Storytelling is connection, collaboration , doumentation , responsibility, thinking.

I need to think about audience(age, meet environments )

Why I want to drawing this story?

Is this story inside of me? ??

Do I want the audience to be a listener or actor???

How to combine with my personal identity in the whole story.

—— About deliberately weak (something make successful)
Thinking and speaking.

Expolration

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-23 21:23:38 UTC

Travel(an unfamiliar area）

accept fear

Think of yourself as an risker,inventive,driven by experimentation and curiosity.

Creating own dashboards

Never too much

Just get lost

Threads don’t die

Be your own distraction.

(manage timetable)

About her artworks

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 11:52:05 UTC

I really like this painting of hers, it gives me a sense of balance

The pink and orange and yellow in this picture makes the whole picture very comfortable and simple

Sketchbook(paper cutting)

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 12:10:43 UTC

I also tried to collage images with simple graphics and colors,I find it is a good way to balance the image.

sketchbook（papercutting）

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 12:15:31 UTC

For this collage I wanted to express mountains and waterfalls, I tried to add red and blue to expressa sense of balance in the image

sketch

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 12:44:47 UTC

About his background：

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 15:24:12 UTC

William Traylor (April 1, c. 1853 – October 23, 1949) was an African-American self-taught artist from Lowndes County, Alabama.^[1] Born into slavery, Traylor spent the majority of his life after emancipation as a sharecropper. It was only after 1939, following his move to Montgomery, Alabama, that Traylor began to draw.

Bill Traylor is considered to be one of the most important American arttists of the twentieth century.

“As simply as the work may look,and new answers is much more prices”

sketchbook

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 15:26:39 UTC

After learning the background of his work, I replicated his paintings, I feel Traylor devised his own visual language rooted. About poor, black, indigent people at the time.

sketchbook

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 15:39:59 UTC

About Euphorbia

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 15:50:36 UTC

Euphorbia is a very large and diverse genus of flowering plants, commonly called spurge, in the family Euphorbiaceae.

Euphorbias range from tiny annual plants to large and long-lived trees.with perhaps the tallest being 30m or more.

The portraits of John Myers

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 15:51:26 UTC

If we fancy some strong emotion, and then try to abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its characteristic bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no "mind-stuff" out of which the emotion can be constituted, and that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is all that remains. … What kind of an emotion of fear would be left, if the feelings neither of quickened heart-beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is quite impossible to think.

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 15:55:06 UTC

The plants are annual, biennial or perennial herbs, woody shrubs, or trees with a caustic, poisonous milky latex. The roots are fine or thick and fleshy or tuberous.

Euphorbia sketch

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 16:03:42 UTC

Plants have a very powerful evolutionary energy for me, and I'm inspired by them to create plants with simple abstract shapes. For me,It's only natural for me to express what I've learned and been inspired by my plants through artwork about balance, patience and potential!

Euphorbia serrata

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 16:12:42 UTC

Hagrid’s boots

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 16:24:31 UTC

This drawing is about Hagrid’s boots, (big nails under the boots).When he get up in the morning, he took off his heavy dentures,put on his boots and go out.

Workshop

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 20:35:40 UTC

Cutting experiment：

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 20:44:04 UTC

We tried to paint with only scissors, which was very different from the feeling of painting. I made collages based on some existing paper-cut items.Paper cutting made me realize that white can actually be the color of the image.

Weeping woman

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 20:52:48 UTC

pencil sketch

Blue

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 20:56:33 UTC

Tips：

At first the color I put on was too thin so I put it on again, but then the color I put on the latter time was too strong, which resulted in my image not being well rendered, and paul encouraged to do a few more so I wouldn't be afraid to do it wrong.

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 20:58:37 UTC

Outcome:

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 21:10:47 UTC

I attempted to go out around the dormitory to spend the day. During the dinner,I recreated the photos from my phone by cutting off the paper, and even though the final was relatively simple, I tried a variety of materials in the process, even using onion!

Next time I will prefer to use less color! It will make the drawing much more clearly

Vase is falling down

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 21:22:14 UTC

This is a experiment I did in class where I tried to use paper cutouts to show a sense of movements in the image.

Love vase

xzhang0320237_2 — 2024-01-27 21:22:41 UTC

It's a vase that feeds love！I like geometric shapes ,simply but comfortable.

2024-01-28 14:36:49 UTC

2024-01-28 14:40:25 UTC