i heart art

In the spirit of Valentine's Day I am finally posting some more art on this thing. Most of these paintings were done in my head painting class last semester. It was a fantastic class! We painted heads with oil on canvas (not on bald men's heads, much to my disappointment). Every month we had 12 out-of-class paintings to do and every class we painted from live models. The theory was that if you painted a bizillion heads you might learn how to paint them. My first head paintings were possibly the UGLIEST things I've ever done (no offense to the models). Fortunately for my future artistic career I improved dramatically, but I still have quite a ways to go. That's one thing I love about art. As you work hard you'll feel yourself improve and gain confidence, but it's a constant process. There's always more room for developing your style, learning new techniques and "perfecting" what you do (if there is such a thing as perfection that is).

This is my little sister. I used super cool colors on her.

On this one I tried to use really bright colors instead of toning them down.

In this one I focused on the blocks of color other than his features.

This one was really fun to do. She had red and green lights on her instead of just white light.

Speaking of art....

This past week has been an interesting one. Lots of things happened all at once that made me question a lot of different things, including the humanity of mankind. Last week, right in the height of the drama, my Italian professor assigned my class to read this poem. When I saw the title I knew I was going to connect with Gaspara's poem, and I totally did. It pretty much sums up the past couple of years and is pretty much on-target when it comes to how I was feeling last week. The poem is beautiful. (Actually, I've read a few more of her poems since this one and all of them are absolutely gorgeous. If you like poetry, and even if you don't, look her up.) Read it and weep.


Dura è la stella mia
Gaspara Stampa

Dura è la stella mia, maggior durezza
è quella del mio conte: egli mi fugge,
i' seguo lui; altri per me si strugge,
i' non posso mirar altra bellezza.

Odio chi m'ama, ed amo chi mi sprezza:
verso chi m'è umile il mio cor rugge,
e son umil con chi mia speme adugge;
a così strano cibo ho l'alma avezza.

Egli ognor dà cagione a novo sdegno,
essi mi cercan dar conforto e pace:
i'lasso questi, ed a quell'un m'attegno.

Così ne la tua scuola, Amor, si face
sempre il contrario di quel ch'egli è ; degno:
l'umil si sprezza, e l'empio si compiace.

(dalle Rime, 1554)