Technical Tuesday

Jasper Johns

Numbers in Color, 1958-59

Encaustic and newspaper on canvas, 66.5 x 49.5 in.

Encaustic is a painting technique that uses hot wax and color pigments to create a liquid paste that is applied to a painting surface. The easiest way to try one yourself is to melt down crayons...take a muffin pan and line it with aluminum foil or aluminum cupcake cups - this will contain the color of the crayon in each individual cup. Break each crayon down into small pieces and place them in the cups. Heat the oven to 200 degrees and "bake" the crayons for about 12 minutes. You can use a plastic spoon, knife, palette knife, or old paintbrush (the wax will destroy it so be mindful) to apply your wax to paper, allowing you to create a work of art that has impasto - a thick, textural application of paint.  You could also drip the wax from the cups, just be mindful of the heat. 

So try it out and see what you think - it may open up some doorways for future works!

Monday History

Marcel Duchamp

Fountain, 1917 (reproduced in 1964)

Readymade Sculpture

What better piece to help stretch the question of "What is Art?" than the infamous readymade Fountain, "created" by Marcel Duchamp for the 1917 Armory Show in Manhattan - a show that advertised that all works would be accepted. The only thing that Duchamp actually created in this piece was the pseudonym that he signed - "R. Mutt 1917," which he painted directly onto an existing urinal.  The Armory refused to show this piece in the exhibit - but the mere existence of this piece has been a hot topic of many debates over the definition of art.  The original was lost, but Duchamp created a series of replicas in 1950 and 1964, all of which have been valued at well over $1,000,000.

Follow this link to learn more about Fountain

Find 3 more readymades by Duchamp and respond to them in your books. What makes them works of art? What impact did these pieces have on the art world?

As always keep your ideas fresh and your pencils sharp! I look forward to your responses!
-Denner

Check This Out

Aurora Robson

A Community

Junk-Mail Collage

I admire the work of Aurora Robson because it has a great combination of aesthetic beauty, but also represents a body of work that brings forth environmental awareness. The piece above for instance, is a collage created out of junk mail - what a great use for something that annoys so many of us (especially those of us who receive a mountain of it on a daily basis!). Below is a brief bio about Aurora Robson from her website:

Aurora is Canadian, but grew up in Hawaii and has lived and worked in New York for 20 years. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn with her husband, cinematographer Marshall Coles and daughter Ona.

In addition to her work as an artist, she is Director/Co-founder of Lumenhouse, a photo studio, artist in residence program, exhibition space and community/cultural event space located in Brooklyn.

She is also the founding Director of Project Vortex, an international organization of artists, architects and designers working with plastic debris - working with Project Kaisei to reduce the amount of plastic debris littering our oceans and shorelines.

 For those of you responding to this work, please include an example of all three types of work (sculptures, collage, and paintings).
Happy Friday!
-Denner

Welcome Ms. Ashman!

Amanda Ashman

The Whistling Cowboy

18' x 24'

Acrylic on Canvas

Amanda comes to us from Nazareth College and will be here until the first week in May. Ms. Ashman is an artist who has worked in a wide-variety of media and offers her versatile skill set to Our Drawing and Painting 2, Portfolio, IB, and Computer Generated Art students. Amanda's strengths as an artist include her attention to detail, heightened sense of color, and strong sense of composition. Although her work is primarily figure-based, she has a strong understanding of the big-picture concepts that higher level art students need to be challenged by. 

Aida Break

Art With Denner will be taking a brief hiatus for the Senior High Musical's production of Aida. Thank you all for your patience and I look forward to sharing my thoughts with you next Monday!
-Denner

Technical Tuesday

Basic Figure Proportions