Shadows

Hi, artists!

So we had to portrait a classmate and then do another portrait just next to it and put as many shadows as it was needed. This allows to give volume to the drawing. 

I have to admit that although in the hybrid I finally did quite some good shadows, it was very difficult for me to imagine where was appopriate for the shadows to be. You cannot draw them wherever you want. You have to imagine there is a light, locate it and then do the shadows as they would appear if the light was in there. I still think the shadows are my weak point, but I tried to do my best and I searched for Rembrandt in order to inspire myself. But even though I did that, I still think the result was not as good as I expected. I will have to practice more the shadows but I am improving.

This is the result:

As we can see, the first one is the one without shadows. We can see that in the other one there is more volume. Of course, this will be useful for me in the future to improve my shadows.                       

El dibujo infantil y adulto

Hi, artists!

Our teacher made us read a text the other day that really impacted me. The text started with a very convincing sentence: "All human beings have the capacity to draw". I do not know what you think, but all my entire life I have lived with this sentence: "I do not know how to draw". I never get satisfied with what I do and people around me have never really felt that what I did was really good even though they all tried to hide it with nice words. So this sentence completely caught my attention and made me want to read more. What the article says is that drawing is our way of getting to know the world, of understanding it and that, unfortunately, we usually stop drawing once we become teenagers. This is because schools do not potentiate drawing as an important aspect of our lives.  Actually, Howard Gardner, who made the theory of the multiple intelligences, says that in schools they only work with the linguistic and the mathematical intelligence and ignore all the other ones:

Multiple intelligences (Gardner)

Retrieved from: https://nursingeducationnetwork.net/2017/12/18/gardners-multiple-intelligence-theory/

I honestly believe that schools are doing that. I like drawing because it is one of the moments, together with writing, in which I can express more what I feel and how do I see things, but because I have never used the canons expected by other people or adults, I have never felt like my message arrived to the people and I stopped. I only draw sometimes for myself in the borders of a blank paper.

Another sentence I really liked from this text was this one: "Nobody stops writing because they have bad letters or because they are not great writers". Then why do we stop drawing for that reason? Drawing and writing both want to communicate, so why do we put more importance to one than to the other one?

Another aspect I found very interesting of the article was that we are constantly visually reading, but that we do not know how to read deeper. We only see what is in the surface. In an era of technology and screens in which we are living today, we definitely need to know what they are telling us deep down. For example, there was this advertisment from Carrefour:

Retrieved from: https://publimetro.pe/actualidad/noticia-supermercado-tuvo-que-retirar-campana-sexista-dia-nino-77119

What can we say? I think everybody can see the problem with this ad. The boy has a "c" of "champion" and the girl a "c" of "cooker". Because everybody knows women are supposed to be in the kitchen and men are supposed to have cars and be the champions (sarcasm). Such a shame that in the 21st century we still have to find things like that. This ad was created in 2018. Carrefour had to get rid of it.

In this case it is very obvious maybe, but would you have thought about it if I had not told you?

This ad is not only giving the message of "el día del niño" and the toys you can find, but it is also putting in your head an idea of what boys should receive as a present and what should girls receive. An idea that, thankfully, we know it is wrong.

Caixaforum exhibitions: Tolouse-Lautrec and Velázquez

Hi, artists!

The other day we went to Caixaforum, where we saw two very interesting exhibitions: Tolouse-Lautrec and Velázquez.

In the first one, called "Tolouse-Lautrec i l'esperit de Montmartre" we had a guide who tried to emerge us inside the world of the posters and explained us a lot about the movement of the end of the XIXth century. And let's not going to forget about the cabarets! Specially one: the Chat Noir. The truth is that I was really happy to understand more about the Chat Noir because a friend of mine who also played the guitar bought once some strings that had the name of the Chat Noir and the image of it. It remained in my head until one day in History of Art they told me about it. What surprised me in the visit was to find out what the "cat" meant. INDEPENDENCY. ELEGANCE. The independency the artists who lived in Montmartre looked for, not obeying the standards of the Academy. It was the Bohemian life.

Posters took relevance in order to attract clients to the cabarets, but it was not considered an art as other artistic manifestations. Such as it happens today with the marketing somehow. 

                             

                             

Why is not marketing considered an art? What is art? Those are questions we should done to ourselves.

Therefore, I think that the exposition was interesting because I learnt new things from an era I like a lot (I have watched Moulin Rouge more than once), but maybe it was because of the guide, I think I got confused in some parts. Maybe the exposition was done too fast. Anyway, I could learn more about Tolouse-Lautrec, who escaped from the canons established by the Academy and helped introducing, together with other artists, posters as an art, an art that could be seen by everybody and that explained the bohemian life.

After that, we went and visited Velázquez's exposition. In this one we did not have a guide, which maybe was a problem. In my case, as I studied History of Art I knew a little bit about him, but I would have liked to have more time. I spent so much time in each painting that the guard had to come and tell me that they were closing. I could not see the last ones. I was very excited because I knew that seven of Velázquez's paintings from El Prado were there and that is the maximum of paintings that are allowed to get out of El Prado. It was amazing to see the paintings I have studied during post-compulsory education. I did not know how the others felt, but for me it was amazing. The seven topics in which Velázquez portraits could be understood (mythology, religion, court...) could be appreciated. These different topics also were shown by paintings of other important painters. I really enjoyed identifying these different thematics and I enjoyed watching the mythology because I know almost all the stories and I could understand the symbolism (Marte can be identified as the god of the war because of all the weapons, for example).

Retrieved from: https://www.elestudiodelpintor.com/2015/09/comentario-exhaustivo-v-marte-diego-de-silva-y-velazquez/2-foto-marte/

Educational Project Museum: MACBA

Hi, artists!

In order to find out how museums bring art to students from Primary Education, we decided to contact MACBA as we found out in the webpage that they have a lot of educational projects. I was one of the members of the group that was lucky enough to go to an exposition and a workshop with a school to see how they did it. Not all of the members of our group went there because they told us that we were a lot of people. So only I and Eugènia Delgado went there.

It was incredible to see how topics so important such as racism, inequality between men and women or war were introduced to the students through the different artistic works. Topics that are so important to work in a democratic society and that can allow us and our students to become citizens engaged with human rights were introduced in a fascinating way. The guide was all the time asking to  the children questions that would allow them to contextualise more the topic developed in that painting or sculpture. For working the topic of feminism, they were asked to tell names of fampu artists. Surprise! Almost all of the ones students knew were men.

Art is about thinking about the inequalities in the world, about opening your mind, about becoming a more democratic citizen as Heike Freire would say. Why do we not do this at school when this is so important? It seems like politicians do not want people to think about these thematics... Is it more important to constantly learn about the grammar, about the numbers... and not about human feelings, fights and ways of expression? Art is a way of reflecting what you are feeling, what you see in the world and what has concerned humanity. That is why it is as important as reading and doing mathematics.

We did a written project and a presentation about this experience. As that would be too long and too complicated to do through here, I will just leave you some photos in order for you to get an idea of what it was like. Think about the different topics I have commented you previously.

Retrieved from: https://www.macba.cat/es/self-portrait-0413

 

Retrieved from: https://www.macba.cat/en/aspiradora-etnografia-3777  

Retrieved from: https://www.macba.cat/es/expo-coleccion-macba-2018

Retrieved from: https://www.macba.cat/en/projecte-de-monument-per-a-un-jardi-1473

   

After this, there was the workshop, which consisted in the students doing a poster by using all the knowledge acquired in the exposition.

But if you want to know more about our project, we have done a power point in which there are some images. You can also access to our written project.

Portrait

We had to do a portrait of one of our class mates.

First of all, we had to do it without watching the paper, only the person. In my case, I was portraiting Eugènia Delgado.

 

  

And in this one I did look the paper while I was looking at Eugènia. An aspect I want to highlight is that the teacher said that by looking at the person and doing this we were working our observating skills and our concentration, which is something the schools always look for! Why do we not do more art classes, then? That is a good question, isn't it? Maybe we would be too curious and creative? We should really start thinking why schools only focus in maths and languages and not in the different communicative ways that exist. Isn't painting a way of expressing ourselves as valued as writing? Why not?

                                 

                   

To compare these two results is really funny as you really see the difference between drawing and observing the paper and drawing and only observing the person.

Hybrid

Hi, artists!

Today I am going to explain you a concept called a "hybrid". I will also give you tips about the process you can follow to create one of your own.

We started the course by creating our own hybrid (to make something new by taking two objects that exist). In order to do so, there was a process that was followed.

1. First of all, we wrote down 15 concepts:

And then we had to choose two. It was told to us that it was better for them to be different (one organic and the other inorganic, for example). That is why I chose a "duck" and "skates".

2. I started doing sketches of my idea in order to know how I was going to draw it and paint it.

I decided to name it "Duller" as it is a combination between "duck" and "roller skate" and because it is similar to "ruler" (leader). 

I started skating later than other people did but I gave my best and I improved a lot in little time. I do believe people can follow their dreams no matter what people say. You must be the ruler of your own destiny. 

The duck for me, as a bird, also symbolizes the freedom. In this case, freedom of choice. And that is why I chose these two objects and this name. Duller is similar to "dollar" and I thought it could be a critique as, for example, skating is a very expensive sport, which does not allow everybody to enter. It is a critique about how does money block the freedom of choice of some people.

3. Finally, I draw my hybrid and I painted it (what I focused on was on the shadows in order to give volume to the painting).

I think I learnt better how to put volume and to express myself (something that for somebody could seem only as a weird combination, for me means much more), but in the end, the hybrid means not being able to identify any of the elements you have used to create it and maybe I have not got quite well that because the duck is quite identifiable. But we learn from mistakes, don't we?

Arte infantil y transformación social_Heike Freire

Hi, artists!

The article "Arte infantil y transformación social" really made an impact in me. I went to Heike Freire's conference, but in this article instead of talking about green pedagogy, she was talking about how art can help create democratic citizens.

In this text, the beginning is really impressive and, at the same time, represents very well what does the text talk about. Authoritarianism and fascism are a result of the fact that the educational system suppresses the creativity we all have and need in our lives (Victor Lowenfeld and Herbert Read).

We draw in order to understand the world but since Illustration, art has stopped being considered important and that is a mistake as art can help us respect different people and different thoughts. Arno Stern mentioned a concept called "drawing game" as all children enjoy drawing. But games are not really considered important neither, even though Piaget and Vygotski said how important it was for kids to play as it has a lot of benefits for them. They even distinguished four categories of games:

1. Movement games (helps to the psycho-motor skills and to the development of the notion of space).

2. Manipulation of objects (helps to structure and coordinate areas of the brain --> mathematics

3. Symbolic games (social and effective relationships...).

4. Games of rules (social bond).

So, after seeing the categories, we can really see that games are important for our development. Art is also important. But, somehow, we keep telling to our schools that it is not like this. Why do we put more importance to mathematics and languages than to art and games? Do not all of them help us develop as people?

Art can be therapeutic, as it was for me in the mud session (explained in BLOCK 2), and we should use that. Would we not be able to have a better emotional intelligence if we could control our feelings of anger doing a figure of mud?

As Diderot said: "I would like to know where is the school in which you learn how to feel".

Retrieved from: https://fineartamerica.com/featured/color-of-emotions-michelle-wilcox.html