Thanks to the gracious help of Lea, I was able to cast my mannequin head in plaster. I used Algiform to make the mold, which I haven't done since sophomore year I believe. This was challenging to make because my object was so large; I had several complications, but I was able to get 2.5 heads (hahahah) from my one mold:
Because the base is so wide, the mold started to split more and more each time I pulled the plaster out once it had set. So, I think I will only be able to make 2-3 heads from one mold. But, now that I know what worked and what didn't, I feel my next round will not only be more efficient but successful as well.
First, my plan this coming week is to start sculpting one of the new mannequin heads. I will be looking at sources from anatomy books (I just bought a new one this weekend which is absolutely beautiful) to carve out skeletal structures, and then later paint muscles and other internal forms. Second, I am planning on starting the second hair piece as well. I discussed with Mia during our one-on-one critique about what the imagery would communicate if the hair piece is on an anatomical form as opposed to a monochrome, untouched form. I would like to play around with the placement and see what conversations I can make...
While I was in the process of starting the heads, I finished the painting that was on my easel. I didn't want to start another one and leave her half finished (she was already giving me dirty looks) so I jumped in and went to work. Please excuse the glare from my studio lights:
This painting was challenging because it is only my second oil painting of the figure in color. I practiced using different painting techniques, from dry-brushing to the palette knife. My current studies for Color class have played a role as well, as I tried to practice mixing color and using in on the canvas more effectively. I would love to do another oil painting to explore the medium further; I feel I have come a long way in my painting abilities since starting college, but I know I have so much more to learn.
My admiration for female pop stars is partly my reasoning behind using female figures in my art work. When I watch their music videos for instance, I am in awe at the fashions they wear, their hair and makeup, and the emotions they can evoke through the camera. There is something about all of these elements combined that captures viewer's attention, often making people obsess over the celebrity (I can relate this back to my post from last week and the female seen as a "man eater"). Pop stars are marketed as having a sort of beauty that is unattainable to the everyday person; we are supposed to aspire to be them, to be envious of their material possessions, to buy the same products they "use" (I would bet my life that Beyonce doesn't dye her hair with boxed L'Oreal). For these reasons, pop start are the center of attention for my friends as drag performers. I find a similar connection to the status of female pop stars today, to the nude women painted through out history. The nude female was often looked at as an "object", something for the male to cast his gaze upon...
Finally, I had a chance to read an article Chinn gave me about Degas and the nude female bathers he painted. Carol Armstrong writes about the structures of gender and sexuality in his paintings, while connecting them to others he was influenced by and ones that were influenced by him. Armstrong argues that the female body has been deconstructed through out time, being used as an object of visual pleasure, and often for the benefit of the male viewer. Some of my favorite quotes from "Edgar Degas and the Representation of the Female Body":
"The gaze turned on the female nude in this case (and the disembodied touch which it implicates) is an eroticized gaze, but it is also a highly aestheticized one." (224)
"...a relationship between viewer, space, and body that speak to the traditional positioning of the male body, the meaning of its exteriority, its projection into a field of vision, and ultimately into disembodiment and invisibility" (225)
"As such, it negates the traditional function of the female nude: to be present to the gaze of others; it negates as well the funciton of the nude's aestheticization and abstraction: to provide a sublimated mode of appropriation. The female nude, when free of narrative situations, is most often constutied frontally and horizontally - as a kind of landscape, its significant part the torso, its limbs merely elongations of the line created by the supine, stretched-out torso. " (237)
I am starting to think about these kinds of things when I am working with these female figures, both what it means for me and what it means for the viewer (especially the differences for females and other males). I feel like some of my many ideas are starting to lump together, or at least that's what I'd like to think. Crossing my fingers for an upcoming productive week.
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