Now that I’ve had a bit of time since finals, I’ve been able to process my classes from this quarter a bit more thoughtfully. I was taking a course called “Travel Portfolio,” in which we visited different small towns near Lacoste and drew for several hours. It was a pretty pleasant way to spend class time, and though it required a large amount of work, I was glad to do it because it felt like I am finally becoming a bit more comfortable with line work and with my own style of drawing:
A scene from Gordes with a light mud wash.
A view from Oppède-le-Vieux.
The cemetery in Ménerbes.
A window and letterbox in Roussillon. I'm not quite sure why the letter box is directly under a window and not in a door, especially since the walls were incredibly thick. Perhaps there is some kind of chute for the letters to go down.
A portion of the front of St. Eustache in Paris done with gouache resist. Everyone in the class did a section and we put them together in the end to make a composite of the whole building.
A scene from Gordes done with two different muds from Gordes and a transfer pen.One interesting thing I noticed was something I began to pick up the last time I was in the south of France. When I was in Nice and was looking at the work of Matisse who lived there, I remember thinking, “Well no wonder he used those colors in his paintings!” I felt the same way about Cezanne when I was in Aix-en-Provence. This time, I realized on a personal level how influential our environment can be on our color choices. I have never been much of a secondary color girl (with the notable exception of orange!), but after being in Provence in the spring time, I found lavenders, olive greens and ochres seeping into my work. I was startled at first, but it makes perfect sense. As an artistic counterpart to the saying “You are what you eat,” I’d add “You are [and therefore your art comes from] what you see.”
A scene from Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, where it was raining like crazy. I did it in two different colors of mud that I got there.
A book I did for a demo in my bookmaking class. I bound it with Coptic stitching. I've never been overly fond of lavender as a color until being in Provence.
A cafe scene from Roussillon. I did this with about six different colors of mud from Roussillon and gouache resist. It was a bit of a beast to do because I kept washing off too much mud when I'd wash off the excess ink. It was also annoying when I spilled a bottle of permanent ink on myself and the picture in the middle of the night.
Some of the buildings in Bonnieux. Done with mud from Bonnieux and digitally edited.I was also a Teacher’s Assistant for the Book Illustration class. The professor was very willing to chat about teaching and to answer any questions I had. My roles were varied, but the most significant duty I had was to help in navigating the layout and printing process for the books the students made. This involved me needing to quickly learn several new computer programs which was a little intimidating but ultimately helpful to my knowledge as an illustrator. I am still pretty sure that I’d like to be a professor, but I am definitely more aware of the challenges that can arise when you are in charge of a classroom full of opinionated art students.
My final course was a bookmaking class taught through the printmaking department. It was my favorite because it was both a good break from my illustration classes and a good complement to them. On the one hand, since we were making artists’ books -- books with a very limited edition, perhaps even an edition of one -- we needed to think differently from the way an illustrator would. For an illustrator, the more reproductions of her piece, whether in print or digital, the better. In general, this means more exposure, more profit and therefore more success. For a fine artist, though, an infinite number of copies of a work could actually devalue it. I realized how much I’d bought into the ethos of the Illustration Department, for better or worse, by the questions that initially came up for me when I was working on my books. “What is the point of making a book with such a limited edition?” I wondered. “So few people will ever see it, let alone buy it. How could you make a living off of this? Or even if I’m being altruistic and forgetting money altogether, how can you expect to impact more than a handful of people with the work?”
As the term went on, though, I began to appreciate the individuality of the books we were making. I found myself wrapping my work in cloth to protect it or washing my hands so regularly that they would crack just so that I wouldn’t soil the pages. Through all of this, I was reminded of the importance of craft and the preciousness of having a singular, totally unique product. For some illustrators, myself included, there is a perpetual tension between fine art, in which we were initially trained, and commercial art, by which we must make a living. This tension isn’t negative, and at times, I’m sure is even productive. My bookmaking class swung me back toward fine art while at the same time equipping me to become a better commercial illustrator. We learned about different methods of binding and I now have a better overall sense of how books work.
Perhaps most importantly, I was reminded of the importance of working with other artists. Illustrators can be a solitary bunch but printmakers almost always have to work in communities because they must share equipment. My peers and I were able to share ideas and encouragement and since our books were meant to respond in some way to our experience in Lacoste, their projects helped me understand my surroundings in a new way. There were six of us in the class and I think it’s safe to say that I was six times more aware of Lacoste than I would have been otherwise. One student made a book responding to the sounds she was hearing in Lacoste, one student made a book about the visual rhythm created by the doors in the walls, yet another about how living on a hill overlooking a valley affected one’s perception of depth. My peers’ projects greatly influenced the way I viewed the landscape around me.
My first book project was (not surprisingly!) about the mud found in and around Lacoste. It has fold-out pages that layer on each other and each page provides quasi-scientific information about the mud I'd used for the corresponding image. It was the first time that I used mud and the transfer technique.
Before we left for Lacoste, we were told that previous students had all reported growing artistically by being away. I was dubious, mostly because I’d already done the whole “study abroad thing;” being away from home seems to be a perpetual state for me. Now, though, I would have to agree. Through my classwork, I became more comfortable with my own personal style. In part through my professors and in part by chance, I discovered new techniques that refine the work I’m doing with mud. With a lot of excited determination on my part and patience on my housemates’, I was able to collect and filter a large amount of mud that I can use in future projects. I am itching to get back to work and continue exploring the path I seem to be on, but for those of you who are concerned I don’t actually sleep, don’t worry -- I am taking a break for a while.
Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse
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