Semester One - Master Art 2D to 3D

Georgia O'Keeffe painted from the 1900s to the 1970s, inspired heavily by her surroundings and her travels throughout her life.

Georgia O'Keeffe went to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League in New York, although her painting style drastically changed after being inspired by the artwork of Arthur Wesley Dow.

Through her artwork, Georgia O'Keeffe became a pioneer in modern painting and the first female painter to gain respect in New York's art world. Her new way of painting shapes and simplifying art forms inspired generations of new painting.  

After scrolling through countless pieces, I saw Rams Head With Hollyhock and it inspired me. I don't know if it was because of the dominant Rams Head in the center, or the orange gradient mountains, but I had to attempt the piece. 

I started with a basic oval slab as a base for everything else. I then used a medium sized oval that I had flattened out the top of for the Ram's Head. I carved divots for the eye holes and skull to add dimension to the head. For the horns I used long rectangles that I rounded out and thinned at the ends for them to reach either side of the edge of the slab. I curved them to add more dimension to the piece and match the painting. Too add even more dimension, I used the dull side of a butter knife to carve out mountains on the bottom of the slab, and to make clouds I used a round-top tool to make circle-shapes of the clouds. 

My biggest challenge was creating an artwork to scale with all components. I started out with a tiny rams head and large horns. I added more clay to the head to make it larger, but then when I made my clouds, I built one too close to the Ram's head, so I ended up painting the Hollyhock flower over a carved out cloud. I also added the flower last, and it ended up much larger than the flower in the painting. 

The end result before it's been fired looked a lot like how I had hoped, and a lot like the painting aside from a few minor details. I think another success was by paint job and use of layering and mixing colors to get my desired shades. 

I used too many glazes to count by two main brands: Blick and Mayco. The colors were: Irish Luck (Mayco), Clover (Blick), Java Bean (Mayco), Orange-A-Peel (Mayco), Rawhide (Mayco), Sunkissed (Mayco), Wine About It (Mayco), Milk Chocolate (Blick), Tuxedo (Mayco), and Cotton Tail (Mayco)