Some (Interesting) Excuses and Pages 10-13

I'm really sorry that it's been so long, but I got really into some minimalist paintings the past few weeks. The very first I created for my oil painting course; my class was working on landscapes at the time and as I approached my final painting (last out of 3), I decided to approach it differently by using stencil-like layers to create an image. However, after I put down my first two mid-tones for the Earth and sky, I realized I didn't have time to put down anything else over top of them because the oil paint was not dry. Looking closer, I found that I really liked the extreme minimalism of the piece and decided to give it a shot and show it to my class during the critiques. The painting was embraced completely by my peers and my professor, which inspired me to make many more.

This one was my first, which I called "Deserted" because it looks like a desert and it symbolizes my act of deserting the classical landscape entirely. The brown started on the bottom during critique, but as my class discussed it, I turned it upside down, which provoked a different feeling than the original way had that I preferred.
The piece is 2 feet by 3 feet, and I mixed both of the colors myself.

Then came my two smaller pieces; they're both _____  and experiments with different color swatches I found on http://www.colourlovers.com/.

This one is my most recent one. I'm really excited about these because I'm really into flat colors and making everything about a painting perfect - I find this a great outlet for that. And I'm thinking about transferring this idea to my future prints because it would be very simple to duplicate.








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 Now finally to the sketchbook!

 Page 10 was done during Art History class: the professor says "kind of" in front of everything, stutters and makes a "t" sound while he talks which gets rather irritating sometimes.
During that particular class, I was introduced to a group of peoples in the Papuan Gulf who make gope boards. This sparked a printmaking idea and the planning for it is on the bottom of page 10.

 Page 11 is mostly a sketch of my cat sitting on her favorite chair. :3
The rest of the page is a rubbing from the front of a library book and some planning for an oil painting.









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 Page 12 is a study of a still life I found at the Figure Drawing studio (the model was doing any interesting poses that day - all sitting).
The rest is some oil paint tube sketches, class notes about very influential artists, and some writing.

Close up of my still life study. Thought I did a great job on it. :)