The Ohio State University: Mansfield Campus

Homework 11 – module 4 and 5 reflection

There were a set of question to be answered for this homework and this was my response to them:

For both the gesture module and the collage modules, I think that I filled the criteria of the modules well.  In my gesture drawings my strength was definitely in creating a dynamic and varied space for the project.  In my collage drawing I think my strength would be in the concept/ideas that I wanted for the piece over all.  I definitely could have improved upon placement and flow in a couple of my gesture drawings, and of application and materials that I used for the collage module.  I had a difficult time with both of these because they are more abstract ideas, I struggle when I have no “base” of realism so for example for the gesture module I was supposed to create a dynamic space using the skills I’ve learned up to this point. While for the collage module it was even worse to me… it was both abstract and the thing which haunts me the most a collage.  I always have a hard time wrapping my head around collages for some reason they just don’t click/make sense to me.  From all the artists that I looked at for Project 8, my favorite was definitely John Stezaker because I absolutely love his compositions and the approaches.  What catches my eye the most is when he takes the negative cut of the image where he cut different characters out and uses it to frame “phantom” characters, it implies the there is more to the images.  I also like he piece where he covers what would be the point of interest with a sunset/sunrise or landscape image.  I found his approach to collages the most appealing to me out of all the artists presented.  I also liked the works of Henri Matisse because even though they seem so simple yet they make such complex images when all the simple parts are put together that they still create a complex theme/story to be interpreted by the viewer.  For my third artist that I found interesting I would have to say that it would be Robert Rauschenberg, because I find the placement and mounting of the collage pieces very interesting.  Across all things, subject-wise, material-wise, and composition all lead themselves to drawing in the viewers eye to the piece. Using a simple paper board as the mounting board helps to tie all the pieces (the different collages) together.