Linked here are the in progess reflections on specific projects, but also just general blogs! To view the completed project pages and their own reflections, either click the underlined project title or select from the drop-down menu under "Studio Practice" tab on the top right.

For writing and specific homework assignments, click here.

For more information about me, click here. Artist statement here.

Organized from newest to oldest :)

Side Note: I've been exploring art in the form of scene design this semester!

Scene Design with Anshu has taught me so much about how to conceptualize 3D space (which I have always struggled with) and how to use it it nontraditional ways. It has opened up a whole work of model building to me, which I hope to continue! Here are a couple projects we have worked on this semester, with my final being the model for Marisol:

Finished Final Exhibition <----- click here

Academic Conference and Opening

Wow! What a fun time! It was so nice to see everyone who showed up for us. I was so grateful that my Mom and friends were able to come and support. I was so happy to see everyone get up in front of the group and speak about their work so confidently. I was also really proud of myself for reading my artist statement. I had practiced a lot over the weekend and in my public speaking class, and was feeling really confident and excited. I got some really great feedback and good questions! These two events made me so happy. Seeing a semesters worth of work from all of my classmates up in a professional gallery was so gratifying. 

Installation!

John taught me how to attach D-rings, and I was pretty proud of myself being able to do it on my own. Some of the charcoal rubbed off, so I quickly fixed it with charcoal but forgot to spray fixitive. (This, in the end, was not good. During installation, one drawing's charcoal got especially rubbed off and turned a little gray. I wish I had said something but I'm not entirely mad with how it looks. It does look more ghostly, its just not what I intended. Lesson learned.) After this, we loaded John's truck with Kristina and I's work. Kristina and I met John up at the PAC and we loaded our work into the gallery. Tim and Patrick were so helpful and kind during the process!

I ended up getting a corner wall, which was totally not what I was expecting. John told me to keep an open mind about where my art would be, so I remembered this when I got there. I am really glad I printed out the photo of my layout. We were able to fold the piece of paper to resemble the corner of my area, and decide where the best place for the corner to be was. The corner definately threw me off but it grew on me. I enjoy how it invites people to step into the space and be semi-surrounded by the art. It encourages my art inviting people into a new world. It encourages slow looking and it creates its own space separate from the entire exhibition. I am so so so happy with it. I ended up staying for atleast an hour and a half, talking with Patrick and helping with figuring out the layout and installing the first half. I really wanted to be involved in this process and see how it worked. I didn't want to just show up, drop my stuff off, and say "see you later!" It means so much to me.

Deciding on Layout

I spent hourssssss figuring out the layout of how I wanted my drawings on the wall. Literally hours. I did not think it would take so long but the shape was more complicated than I thought. I knew I wanted them arranged like a sine curve because of the chemistry connection with wavelengths of light. In my head it was simple because I knew the shape, and it just had to make a curve. Easy right? Wrong. It took a lot of trial and error working on the floor before I felt even remotely comfortable putting it on the wall of the lower drawing studio. I ended up referencing a sketch I did, and configuring the shape by comparing how the top and bottom of each piece lines up with the others. In terms of spacing, I wanted the shape to be recognizable, so close spacing was probably best. It also helps with leading the eye from drawing to drawing if they are close together. All of the moments will be connected.

I worked for a while just moving the pieces on the wall. I really liked ending with a group of three, but was trying to play with how it would flow in and out of the whole piece. I even had a friend come and sit with me. We were talking and I was definately listening, but it gave me time to just look at the layout and go back and forth fixing things.

After four hours, I came to my final design. I printed it to bring to the gallery with me.

Reardon Reflection

I was so happy to hear that I got the Reardon Award! It was really validating to hear that my ideas came across and that my smaller pieces held their own against the bigger ones. This is what the juror had to say about my work:

In her fully formed painting and drawing practice, Gabriella Trznadel strikes a confident balance between art history and contemporary image culture. Demonstrating a remarkable mastery of color, composition, and material, Trznadel renders everyday scenes, still lifes, and narrative vignettes using subtle transformations of scale and perspective, inviting us to look at the world around us with fresh eyes. Bold choices of monochromatic palette lend each work its own emotional timbre, invoking and reconfiguring a smart range of art historical precedents, from van Gogh to Vuillard. Adventurous applications of canvas scraps, string, and handprints remind the viewer of her images’ materiality. Of particular note is Trzandel’s fluid competence at different scales; the iPhone-sized still life paintings from her “Camera Roll '' series more than hold their own alongside larger and more detailed works in charcoal and acrylic. Each of Trzandel’s works is a world unto its own. 

I'm glad that the roots in history shown through my work. I really put a lot of effort into my artist statement and my presentation- I wanted to put my best foot forward and am so glad it paid off. I also really appreciated the voice memo the juror left for me. He mentioned as critiques being more mindful of the meaning behind the canvas scraps and pushing their visability. He also mentoned working at even larger scales and really pushing the boundaries further.

I am really proud of myself. My art has come a long way, from being just black and white charcoal to now. It is an extention of myself and I am so happy that others can see it and understand where I am coming from. It's super validating and I am really grateful for the feedback and recognition. Sometimes I get quet or shy of my accomplishments, but I am trying to just enjoy the moment.

Company Chair Progress

This was my favorite drawing!!! Green is my favorite color and I loved the lighting in the reference photo. I used a quote that I have had saved on my quote wall all semester from the opening monologue of Company. Company is a Sondheim musical, in which the main character Bobby contemplates what it is like to live life alone, with friends, and with a partner. He learns about all forms of relationships. I chose a quote from the Opening, which I linked below, in which Bobby thanks everyone for surprising him on his birthday and being there for him. I decided to include this on the image of the solitary chair as a juxtiposition between having company and being alone. Is there someone there who we can't see? Does thinking about someone bring their presence into the room?

Creating Masonite and Backing Small Drawings

I worked with John to measure out each small drawing and cut a masonate panel for each one. Then I drilled a hole in each for hanging. I was really excited for this because the paper by itself looked unprofessional and I wasn't sure how to even hang it. This will give it more mass so that it holds its own more against the canvas.

Below is the process for attaching the drawings. I am super happy how they came out!! I also added back ontop of the drawings and the wood after painting to make sure they looked cohesive. 

Photo Gallery from Boston Trip (ICA, WholeFoods, Galleries, Rinklin Studio)

Preparing for Reardon

In chosing what I wanted to put in for the Reardon, I wanted to showcase mainly the colorful works I've been working on this semester. I chose my biggest three canvases because they are the most finished and the one's I have been working on for the longest. I chose the 2 midsixed canvases because at this point I was finally okay with how they were turning out (I considered this my reason to stop messing with them). I really wanted to include the smaller ones from the 20 works because I genuinely like them and I think that they add visual interest through size variety. Finally, I chose my charcoal from last semester because 1. I love it. and 2. It shows a lot of my technical skills and the beginning of mixing charcoal and oil pastel.

I wanted to try really hard to display these semi-professionally, so that I could give myself the best chance. I first laid everything out to see how it could be arranged. I decided on a semi-balanced but offset layout that seemed organized and linear but unsymmetrical. I used a level and covered up an outlet! In the end I am really happy with how it looks, although on both ends I was very close to other artists' work.

I then spent a good amount of time reworking my artist statement to put my best foot forward.

The Orange One

Roadmap Update: What We Have and Where We're Going

During the month of March, I did one studio visit with a candidate for hire, NE Brown. It was really cool hearing from someone who doesn't know me and has never seen my work before. She validated a lot for me. She understood the slow looking of everyday scenes, noting that the coffee drawing made her stop and think about the smell of coffee in the morning. One critique she had was that you can tell that it is student work through the canvases I use. She encouraged me to make my own, because she said my work is professional but the drawing surface is what makes it look eh (not her words, mine. this is how it felt though). She also encouraged me to apply to workshops in papermaking to enhance my drawing surfaces. She had confidence that I could get into those programs.

I also asked Prof. Schomp to meet with me in the studio. First, she encouraged me to put only my works for the show up in my studio. This would allow me to be able to see what the piece as a whole needs and brainstorm layout. I found this super helpful and it kept me on track. It also let me know what colors I need to balance everything out. She also encouraged me to lean into the abstraction, especially in the Pierogi piece with the pan. She referenced Hyman Bloom and that got me really excited, because of his uses of bright colors in unusual ways. This pushed me to add more greens and purples into the frying pan. Prof. Schomp also pointed out how in the Hailey and Tony picture, she is more interested in the person driving than the girl looking at you. I need to make her interesting through texture.

Week 9: AHHHHHHHHH

Week 8: Pierogis and struggle and purple

This week my goal was to finish a midsize (pierogis) and start a large canvas (Haileytony). I had trouble at times with the Pierogi piece... I felt it started in a place I really liked with the charcoal drawing and then when I started adding color, it lost that definition. It was almost like a battle back and forth to try to get it back to that place. Adding contrast helped a bit and I'm still not quite sure if its done.

I'm excited for the Hailey and Tony piece, and I really want to do the drawing and the idea behind it justice. I want to devote a lot of time to these. There is so much pressure with the show for these to be the best that they can be. I have to admit I am really nervous it won't turn out right- that my ideas aren't strong enough and the drawings are either over or under worked. 

For this next piece, I chose purple as the under painting. I was between orange and blue because they were the most prominent colors, but in talking to Vienna we noticed that the interior of the car was tinged purple. The purple is also found in both of their shirts. The underpainting should be a unification factor and allow the colors you want to stick out to pop.

3/10 and 3/11: CANVAS PREP!!!

Using a video that John sent me of Prof. Rinklin attaching canvas onto masonite board, I attached canvas scraps (thank you Kristina <3) to my premade canvases with mod podge (which I surprisingly can't remember ever using before, though I must have at some point). The video mentioned using gloss medium ontop of the masonite to seal it but also to provide stickiness. I decided against that because I am gluing canvas onto primed canvas already. I think it will be okay but we will be able to say for certain later on. I used my markups as a template, and then for an extra one I improvised, using the negative space left behind from the hand cutouts to make an interesting design. I decided to keep a lot of the strings and fringe- these will add to the texture and visual interest, and will hopefully grab viewers' eyes to the collage. I hope these work underneath the drawings!! I also patched up one of the canvases because it had a small hole in it. Great use of scraps! 

I also decided to leave one out of the four midsize canvases blank from collaging... Since my shoe drawing does not have collage, I think it might feel out of place if all other canvases have collage elements.

Next, I worked on gessoing these canvases, which was pretty straightforward. I also talked a bit with Kristina and she suggested adding in the strings of the canvas into gesso to make designs. I did this on two of the canvases. I also started on a midsize canvas, painting the base layer pink. This will be the pierogi piece, because my Babcia's plates have pink designs on them.

3/6 Marking up drafts of canvases:

Red outlined squares are layered, collaged canvas. Text will be written in with either charcoal, oil pastel, paint, or some other drawing medium

COMPILATION OF REFERENCES FOR FINAL EXHIBITION

Subpage added to keep track of references and see their story together in one place. Will add as they are compiled.

3/4 General Journaling: Photos I've Taken, Possible References, and What's Up

The Importance of Scale

To the left is a drawing I did for my 20 works and to the right is a copy of the same drawing, using mostly the same colors at a larger scale (8.5"x11"). Scale changes the detail capacity (if that makes sense???) and forces you to add more or less detail. This changes the look and effect of the work.

2/28: Thesis Proposal Draft and Goal Setting 

Exhibition Proposal

Working Title: Audience and the Everyday Stage

Description of work:

Using photographic references of objects and scenes from my everyday life, as well as staged self portraits, I create drawings on canvas and occasionally paper. Often I create plain collages of paper or canvas to act as the drawing surface. With acrylic paint as a base layer of color, I start a charcoal underdrawing from deductive techniques, then layer crayon and oil pastel on top to provide more color and abstraction. The use of handprints is prevalent in my work and I hope to subtly incorporate text from theater in some drawings. While some may categorize my artwork as paintings, I consider them drawings because I don’t rely on a brush or pallet knife to create them,  although the two are often indistinguishable in my mind. 

Artists such as Frank Auerbach inform my use of charcoal, as well as the collaging technique. I am also greatly influenced by my study of Polish abstract artists working between 1950 and 1970, such as Piotr Potworowski, who depicted everyday scenes using unnatural colors and whose style aimed to introduce abstraction into a socialist realism mandated art world. Finding inspiration in Polish artists is also a personal connection for me; my heritage informs my interest in life beyond the physical and pushes me to remember the loved ones who passed traditions on to me. Besides traditional media artists, I am inspired by my interest in theater and chemistry. The idea of audiences and stages in everyday life is something I found in the work and quotes made by Polish artist, set designer, and director Tadeusz Kantor, as well as my theater classes and general knowledge of musicals. My interest in color as well as the macro and micro scale stem from my chemistry background.

Conceptual Framework:

Through my exhibition, I want to bring the viewers attention to the theater of everyday life through the idea that there are presences found all around us. These can be spirits in the traditional sense, like ghosts or deceased loved ones, but can also be our past selves imagining where we would be by now and our future selves looking back at us. Regardless, the subjects of my drawings (memories and scenes of everyday life) are the actors, so there must be an audience, even if they remain unseen. There is a playfulness in how each reveals themselves to the other- often there is a curiosity, connectedness, interdependence, and longing to be witnessed from each party. I want to offer viewers the time and space to reflect on how they can translate this same way of thinking into their own experiences, and push them to consider how we can be witnesses to these presences just as much as they are to us. I want to skip the fear associated with the idea of being watched and instead point out the innate desire for our existences, memories, and experiences to be acknowledged by others.

By using photographic references to portray everyday objects, I want to emphasize the feeling of the subjects being stumbled upon, as well as the normalcy of the mundane being part of the “stage” in which we can become aware of unseen audiences. I also want to call to mind the snapshots we keep of our memories and the presences that live there. I want to draw the viewer's attention to the physicality of my drawings through textures of the media as the collaged canvas as to not simply just reproduce an image, but leave traces of my role in creating the work. The mismatch of materials and collaged drawing surface are meant to show the coexistence of different “planes” of existence- alongside a mashup between abstraction and realism, it shows the two coexisting. There is a push and pull between them.

Materials

• 4-6 Canvases, about 16” x 20”

• 10-15 Smaller Canvas Paper Drawings about 6” x 6”

Installation

For my section of the gallery, I am not particular about any specific wall that my work will be hung on. I am hoping to arrange my pieces in a scattered way, again to emphasize how these memories, scenarios, and presences can seem “stumbled upon.” I want to lead the viewer's eye from piece to piece, adding in clues and connecting the drawings together through their content, so that viewers can slowly arrive at the message. Below are various layouts, each with a different number of drawings, as well as different ways it leads the eye through the collection of moments. I am very flexible about layout and, as far as framing goes, I am open to conversation on whether or not frames are both conceptually and practically necessary.

Week 4: Work based off of 20

Art21 Research

Based off of 20 Finished Work

20 Works Redo! Finished project

Week 2 and 3: 20 Works Progress

Inspiration Corner:

Piotr Potworowski:

links:

https://mapartme.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/piotr-potworowski-polish-painters-series/

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/actor:potworowski-peter-18981962

Tadeusz Dominik

links: https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Dwie-postaci/11249D10FE0B14DE726B34E54922CB45

https://pieknagallery.pl/nadchodzace-aukcje/art/amazonia-1997-534/

Spring Semester Begins: Work on Mini Project Learning to Love You More

This week I got back into the studio! 

On Wednesday, I cleaned up my space a bit (I had so much scrap paper lying around- it looked like I had just stopped what I had been doing and left!). I brought in some supplies I had at home (more charcoal and drawing supplies, pads of paper, and these canvases I forgot about). I then started to think about the mini project! It didn't take me long to pick a prompt- after a few minutes of skimming the prompts, my eyes gravitated toward 62.

On Saturday, I did the Saltz reading (the response and photos of notes can be found here) and started working on the plaque.

For research this week, I watched a few videos on Art21 about artists who focus on drawing, or use drawing to some extent. In Vahi210 last semester, I studied Polish artists and I remembered being very captivated by Tadeusz Kantor, a Polish painter and theater artist. I researched him some more and I think that I am going down an avenue that will lead to something good!

I also created a little thought board in my studio, where I can brainstorm themes and write down quotes that could inform my art. Much of it is from theater.... am I coming across something that will change my art?

Work Over Winter Break

1/8: Some more photoshop collages

1/3: Babcia's Birthday present

For this drawing, I wanted to use charcoal because I can blend it to create a dreamy effect, but I also wanted to incorporate color because it is a garden. All last semester I was working on how to use charcoal and bright color, but this drawing incorporates light color. I liked the texture that the oil pastel added, and the small marks and subtle color that the colored pencil brought to the drawing. In the end, I used some graphite pencil to add shiny accents to it.

12/18-12/24:  Charcoal drawings for family

These drawings gave me more practice on proportions, value, and deciding which details to blur and which to point out. It also allowed meto practice more with charcoal on different paper.

12/27: Photoshop Collages!

I really liked working in photoshop to create digital collages in Digital Art 1, and often used photoshop collages as references for drawings last semester. While I am home, I still have access to photoshop, so I thought I could experiment with collages again and maybe make some that I could reference in the spring semester.

Fall Semester:

Submissions for ArtsWorcester College Show

I was giggling and kicking my feet when submitting these.

Update 1/29/24: Then and Now got into the show!

Final Project- Finished project and reflection

11/21 Beginning work on Final 5

In this project I will work on bigger paper and go back to my charcoal roots, hoping to add color here and there with oil pastels. 

In #1, my idea was to draw a full self portrait, but cover most of the portrait up with tracing paper so that the viewer wants to see it, but can't. I added some cool effects with glue: first gluing the edge of papers onto the big paper, and then giving it a few minutes to dry before ripping it off. What is left are the shapes the glue creates and the paper layers it rips off. I like how the paper parts collect charcoal, while the glue repells it. I also added other white papers and dripped glue, ultimately tearing pieces of these papers off to further obstruct yet get the viewers curiousity. I added in a paper saying "don't strain your eyes" to almost taunt the viewer with the fact that I won't let them view what is underneath the tracing paper. I'm considering further covering this paper to even obscure the message.

In #2, I want to depict my family's Wigilia table and the extra placemat we set for anyone who wants to join us, but many times I imagine our loved ones sitting there with us. I collaged some papers and realized they looked like doors, which goes along with the idea that we will invite in anyone who knocks. I want to collage onto the page some teal textured paper I found in our communal resources to add color. This one will be more colorful than the rest, with pink plates and blue placemats to remind me of my Babcia's house. The glue ended up warping the page, so I placed it under some weight so that over Thanksgiving break it can attempt to flatten.

In #3, I started with a rough drawing of my house. I think I want this one to be about home. I want to add in some family photos, possibly from an old album I have from when my family went back to Poland when my Dad was young.

5 Obstructions: Finished Project + Reflection

5 Obstructions Progress

Between having to start over a week into the assignment to crazy work weeks, this project challenged me in that I had to overcome some obstacles besides the 5 instructions! Check out this video to see:

Art + Me, finished and extended wall lable 

Weeks 4-6

Process and Critique Refection

Besides the addition of photoshop, my process did not change much from the usual collage, charcoal, oil pastel routine. I did end up collaging more layers, as well as thicker layers, than usual. I also made sure the photoshop collage did not precisely coincide with the physical collage in order to make the design more complicated. I also got to a point where it looked to be "too much"- too much color, no cohesivity... etc. I decided to bring attention back to the materiality by coloring over the design in certain rectangles in yellow. This would emphasize the collage aspect and add visual interest and cohesiveness throughout the drawing. 

One thing I struggled with was the border! In the last critique I got the advice to either make a bigger border or have no border to begin with, so I started off with a larger taped-off border. When I took the tape off, it did not look right! While I liked the way the patches of collaged paper came through on the sides, the white border was too disorienting. I tried cutting off the areas around the patches, but the way they sticked out the side were not uniform and awkward. I am happy I settled on no border, as it makes the piece more immersive and flowing. A border would have been distracting.

I thought critique was going to go a little differently. I thought that the drawing seemed a little too messy at times. The day before critique I kept waffling between it being "too messy" and "just messy enough." I think now I have settled in the belief that it is just messy enough, especially considering its small size and small subject matter. I do really want to work large! I got to this point because of working on the murals for the Corita Kent exhibition, as well as wanting to switch things up. As said in critique, the small size makes the tone of my work overwhelming (not in a bad way, this is intended) but because I have been feeling so much happiness in my life lately, I want them to be joyful. Making the art bigger and more immersive would help achieve this. Below is the canvas that John gave me and I am so excited!!!

Photos I've Taken on Campus Lately!

These are very interesting and I could use them in future works!

5 Works Project! Reflection and Photos

Week 3-4: Finishing 5 Works

This week I had to finish my 5 works, but I also collected some supplies! Some little things:

• I went to the store and got some CRAYONS!! I think for a future project I want to contrast the waxy, thin crayon with the thick matte oil pastel. It will had new textures and I think the layering moments might be fun. Crayons are such an accessible art medium too, and I feel like they aren't used enough.

• Prof. Pacheco dropped off a California Impressionism book. I took a look at the bookmarked pages and really like the painting style! I see how to relates to my oil pastel drawing in application, with much more globs of color instead of my blocks of color. I think this is something to experiment with, but I feel like it is a little daunting. I think I need to work my way up to that, or possibly work on a larger scale to achieve this. I will read the book more!

• He also dropped off a mechanical eraser, and I grabbed some glue sticks for collaging. These will come in handy all semester!

Process Gallery

Week 2-3: Starting 5 Works 

Working at the Cantor with Lukaza

20 Works Project! (Reflection and Photos)