Final Practicum Works

Missing Home (You) 5.1.23

1. My portrait in this picture is the live element. I bought a mirror and did my portrait while posing. This was a little tricky, but I stuck with it.

2. Joey's portrait is a learned style. While I have done some portraits in the past, I've typically done either realistic or geographical (?) depictions of a face. Instead, in this picture, I tried to make the strokes more loose but tight enough to make him identifiable.

Studying abroad and being away for 4 months is both an enriching and difficult experience. Of course, I am incredibly grateful to have the opportunity and support to be on the other half of the world learning and exploring once-in-a-lifetime experiences. However, on the other side is that studying abroad can sometimes feel very isolating and lonely. Luckily I have been able to support my mental health through museums, exploring, and art, but sometimes I *really* miss home and I really miss Joey (in this picture), my mom, and my cat. To cope with missing home, I have sometimes sat on my phone and looked through pictures and videos I took before I left. One of these photos was this silly picture of Joey that I really love. This photo makes me smile a lot, shows his goofy personality, and gives me a sense of comfort. To portray this process, I wanted to draw him in a way that I view him. Less "life-like" and leans more towards the essence of who he is. Full of color and subtle silliness, but also a strong comfort and supporter. For this, I wanted him to look directly at the viewer (like he looked at me when I took this photo) and I also wanted him to have bright clothing and bright features to bring him forward--I wanted him to be the focus of this picture. As for my perspective, I wanted to show how I reflect on this image I have of him. For this, I drew myself without color so that it would look like we are not in the same time or place (being apart). I removed my eyes because I feel like when you see a portrait the first thing you look at are the eyes. To make sure he was the focus, I removed my eyes and instead added a comical :) (I was inspired by one of the museums I saw in Seoul where the artist was just making funny art; ie. the Butterfly/Bat pictures). Also, my depiction of a smiley face is made this way because I've only been communicating with Joey over text; :) appears this way when typed out. Finally, similar to a lot of other pictures I've done, I added text in the background that can only be partially viewed--both obscured by the wrong lighting and the page. Here I just freely reflected on missing Joey, how I'm feeling about the future and other things. This obstruction--to me--shows how I know how I'm feeling but I struggle to communicate that fully to other people. The white of the page gives a sense of timelessness but also space between Joey's portrait and my own. Overall, I wanted Joey to be seen by others how I see him with an added element of how I reflect on him--and on home--while I'm away.

Family, Us 5.26.23

1. The flower background is the live element. I went to a garden and found some flowers to paint with the brown charcoal pad I have.

2. The portrait of my mom and I and the background of flowers are learned. I haven't ever drawn this detailed of a portrait before. Also, the background painted flowers are a learned skill that I've developed through going out and doing landscape paintings. I used a charcoal block and pen to draw this background--this was a material I learned how to use in France in Andrea's class.

For the actual portrait, I tried doing a technique that Mitch Caster talked about. By sort of blending the figure into the background, you can make a sort of dreamy portrait. I wanted to do this to make the portrait feel reflective/insightful as well as make it seem like a happy/softer memory. Additionally, I intentionally have the white from my mom's shirt blend into the white of my shirt. I did this as a connecting element physically showing how my mom and I are connected to one another. For the background, I wanted to use a nature scene to frame the portrait. My mom has a love for nature and growing plants and this has passed down to me. Drawing in plein air puts me in a really reflective mood as well. Being surrounded by nature, I have had a lot of time to think about my childhood, growing up, and where I am now. Because of this reflective process, this was another reason I wanted to include nature in the background. In terms of the material for the background, I ultimately decided to use a charcoal pad with pen. Like I said previously, this was a material I learned how to use in Andrea's class. I chose this material for two reasons: 1. the lighter values and 2. the monochrome color. I refrained from using a multicolored background because I thought it might distract from the portrait. Using brown also is more of a neutral color that doesn't distract from the grey pencil used in the portrait. I used pen to add details and fill in the spaces between the leaves. Again, I used a grey pen instead of a black pen because I thought black would be too strong of a color.

In terms of the picture itself, I wanted to give homage to my mom. She has given me an unbelievable amount of support throughout my life and I wouldn't be where I am today without her. My decisions for different directions in life have been completely supported by her. While many comment that pursuing art as a STEM major is useless, she has continuously encouraged me to take classes and develop my skills. Not afraid to tell me when my picture or writing is bad, I've been able to push myself to do better with her critiques. When different challenges faced me as a child and into adulthood, she has been my biggest supporter. For these reasons--and many, many more--I wanted to show our connection to one another through a picture.

Untitled 5.23.23

(vase inspired by 장안연우 (Jangan Yeonwoo) painted by 겸재정선 (Gyeomjae Jeong Seon))

1. The “live” element is a little different than my other pictures. While I am not painting from life, I am painting live in a studio, 토화랑 (to hwa rang), in Goyang. As this can only be done in Korea, I’m counting this as a live experience. 

2. The learned skill in this is landscape painting. I’ve been practicing landscape paintings the whole time I’ve been in Korea and France. Painting a vase was tricky because I had to make a continuous design, my reference design was too short, so I had to imagine some parts of the landscape.

I have really enjoyed learning to paint landscapes over the course of this project. Additionally, I also liked learning about landscapes in my Korean Art History class. I was blown away by the monument-style landscape paintings we were shown. I appreciated how nature was portrayed as very grand and spacious and--if it included humans--humans were only tiny figures. I liked this concept. Most of my art has focused on people with no background because I like how the pictures feel both intimate to the person and isolated from the outside world. I feel like my description of this is bad, but it's ok. Anyway, I like large landscape-focused paintings because they focus on the beauty of nature. 

At the studio I took this class, Seok Man had laid out many different Korean paintings as referenced and I loved the painting done by Gyeomjae Jeong Seon. It looked so open and peaceful. Thinking also about what I learned in class about landscapes, I chose this painting to work off of. While the original painting was a discontinuous painting, I had to come up with some more features to make a continuous design around the pot--Seok Man helped me brainstorm some ideas.

I wanted to only have nature in this painting to show how nature is both peaceful and brings a reflective mood. I have thought so much about myself, the people around me, and various topics when sitting outside and painting. I think nature offers an interesting type of comfort and space to just sit and think; this is a surprisingly hard thing to do in the 21st century.

여기, 같이 (yeogi, kati ; here, together) 5.29.23

1. The live element of this piece is the painting of the flowering plant. I traveled to Seoul Botanic Garden and thought this plant was so beautiful so I wanted to paint it in this Minhwa-style painting.

2. The learned skill in this painting is using Minhwa materials. I bought some supplies from Soon Hwa to paint with--I got a scroll, brushes, and paint. The scroll is definitely harder to paint on than the panel I did in one of Soon Hwa's classes, but I wanted to challenge myself.

There are a couple of different things I've learned during my time here that has influenced this painting. First, I bought a Minhwa art book after taking Soon Hwa's class. I was flipping through the pages and fell in love with the style of suns used. I thought this element would give the painting a warmer feel. Second, in my Korean Art class, we learned about many corner-type paintings. Funny enough, my teacher made a comment that she thought these paintings were sort of boring but I actually really liked them. I'm typically used to seeing art where whatever your focus is towards the middle or at least follows the one-third rule when designing a composition. I find paintings that have the subject constrained to a specific corner really refreshing. I think the reserved space feels really open and gives a sense of reflection, openness, and loneliness, but also closeness with the subject that is painted. Additionally, many of these corner-type paintings included some sort of poem in the opposite background. As I don't know much Korean--but wanting to challenge myself--I wanted to write a simple poem to describe how I felt in the moment of sketching this plant. I wrote a slightly longer poem than what I finally chose to write, but I ended up liking (and actually think this was more fitting for this picture) just writing 여기, 같이 (yeogi, kati) which means Here, together. I find it so peaceful to sit with nature but get distracted with classes and life when I'm back home. In the gardens, I thought about how both myself and this plant were sitting under the sun, in the same place, and living together. I'm not really sure how to describe this feeling in words, but I think that's sort of the point of art--to hint at an indescribable emotion, thought, or feeling. 

I don't think this is my best work, but I wanted to include this as a final piece because it demonstrates a lot of what I learned in Korea and the motivation behind various elements. As I've seen over my many landscape paintings, portraits, and drawings, learning a new skill takes time and doesn't follow a linear path of improvement. I hope to practice Minhwa painting more when I'm home.

Reflection 6.1.23 

(Drawn from Lim Ok-sang's sculpture)

1. The live element of this piece is the drawings of the sculpture. While the sculpture was removed after the first time I viewed it, I luckily did a rough sketch of it beforehand. For the final picture, I copied this original sketch and worked off of a reference photo that I took in person.

2. The learned skill in this painting is the drawing of the figures. One is drawn in pencil and the other is done in charcoal.

As I've discussed many times, I have had a lot of time to just sit and reflect on myself, my surroundings, and the people around me. Time and time again, I've been thinking about my past self and how I compare today to this past self. I honestly never expected to live in South Korea for 4 months and could have never expected the various life events that have brought me to where I am now. In these reflections--although I'm reflecting on a younger version of myself--I don't feel disconnected from my past self in terms of age. While I feel old now (I know I'm not old, I think I'm just in a weird transitional period moving into *true* adulthood), I don't view my past self as younger. Rather, I think of my past self as a different form of self. With this in mind, I was really inspired by the sculpture made by Lim Ok-sang at the MMCA in Seoul. The sculpture was very moving in person. It was a heavy rusted-color-type sculpture of an old woman looking into a reflecting pond. Because the viewer is restricted from seeing it past the glass windows, this scene felt very isolated and personal. The older woman didn't look upset, angry, or remorseful. The older woman also did not look joyful. Instead, she looked like she was just in a state of deep reflection, distracted from the world around her and focused purely on her own memories. This was just my impression of the sculpture. However, I wanted to expand on this idea in this picture. For this picture, I sketched the figure and a reflected figure--the woman in the same position but in different styles. I wanted the two figures to look independent of one another with the differing styles of drawing, but similar in that it's the same person. Additionally, I didn't want the "real" figure and the "real" reflection to be identifiable. Instead, either figure could be reflecting on themselves in the past, present, or future.

I would like to fix this picture when I get back home. I want to put slits in the background paper so that the figures are emerging from the paper. I don't have the right tools to do that here so for now this is what my final picture looks like.