No, I don’t remember which one

Sometimes I’ll have friends over and we’ll decide on a theme to make some quick art together. We opened a book by Neruda on a random page and got to work. This one was mine.

Something “silly” about it (maybe it’s the huge flower?), but I still like it a lot.

  • FishLake@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    3·
    10 days ago

    I was looking at your other posts, and I’m excited for you taking on this medium. To me, oil pastels are fickle. I’ve never been able to get a good grasp on them. While you’re juggling how each color blends, you also have to judge how much pressure to use and how the layers of pastel interact. They are much more similar to oil paints in that way than drawing. I mean they are essentially frozen oil paints anyway.

    So hey, imma say some shit about this piece because I’m too much of an art teacher to stop. All of this comes from love and admiration for you putting your work out there for others to see. That being said, I think there’s some interesting stuff going on here. There’s a bit of searching in the lower left swatch one, a little smudging at the top left of it, maybe an attempt at blending, that gives off a bit of unfamiliarity with the medium. A similar thing is going on with the tree, where the branch on the left becomes more vibrant as it interacts with the darker color underneath (it’s the white acting as a glaze over the navy). The base of the trunk is left kind of scumbled or unarticulated, which gives in an ungrounded feel, as if it’s anchored to the paper by only its branches and that flower. Im not trying to just critique your technical application of the pastels. I’m wondering if the poem this piece was based on would be illuminating to some of your choices. Is there a theme like that in the poem? Or perhaps I’m detecting a through-line of unfamiliarity, with both the medium and the poem, that deserves further investigation.

    I would strongly suggest sitting down and really thinking critically about what you like about this piece and how your execution is informed by both the poem and the application of oil pastels. Ask yourself what you think is successful and why. And then replicate it. Again and again, until one piece feels no more precious than another.

    • TheSovietOnion [none/use name]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      3·
      9 days ago

      I appreciate you taking some time to write this, I was very happy to read your thoughts :)

      I’ve found the poem, it’s poem XLI from The Book of Questions, but I couldn’t find an English version in a quick search. Two lines got stuck in my head when I read it that day, here’s a free translation:

      “Do the leaves live in winter in secret, with the roots? What has the tree learnt from the soil to speak with the sky?”

      We timed ourselves ~15min to make each piece, so there wasn’t a lot of thought into every decision, honestly. Apart from taking the sky and tree figures, I initially wanted to follow this thread of a dormant ground / speaking to the sky. That translated into dark/light contrast then materialized further into a nondescript tree connecting with two different “skies” or fields of blue, one nurturing and another draining. Then I mostly thought of the blue fields as the emotions themselves concentrated in those places, ie. the bright blue touching the flowering branch as a reinforcement for the eye (there was going to be a centipede hanging from a branch touched by the dark blue, but I tried it to the side, out of the pic, and it looked too silly).

      a little smudging at the top left of it, maybe an attempt at blending, that gives off a bit of unfamiliarity with the medium.

      Precisely :P

      It immediately didn’t look right, so I decided to make it textured with lines instead. I really enjoy making these color rectangles and texturing them. Like you said, there’s this pressure and layering aspects to keep in mind, and I’m still trying to figure those out. For example, I did the one below two days ago (I promise it looks much more interesting in person) and I’d love to add somethimg on top, but it is way too cakey now.

      As for the base of the trunk, I noticed my eyes were only being drawn to the branches that touch the colors, so I didn’t give much attention to anything else.

      perhaps I’m detecting a through-line of unfamiliarity, with both the medium and the poem, that deserves further investigation.

      You’re right.

      Thanks again for this, I will reflect on it for sure Care-Comrade