Breadth #12

This piece focuses on balance.  I was inspired by the De Stijl style that uses only primary colors, black, and white in a grid. I was also inspired by some pieces full of concentric squares drawn with fractal algorithms on the computer. I may need to take another picture as I can't seem to get it to lie completely flat causing some of the lines to look crooked.

Breadth #11

This week I decided to draw a map of the world. I used prisma color markers to show desert, mountains, forests, grasslands, and tundra. My original idea was to incorporate designs representative of various colors, but that proved to be too complicated, so I showed geography instead. I am still debating whether to add certain details like an elephant in Africa or the Eiffel Tower, but I haven't decided yet.

Breadth #10

This is a piece I did a while ago with a palette knife. The buildings are supposed to be really loose and textural, but I think the perspective is off on the shorter ones, so I might change that.  The focus principle is rhythm through the brush strokes.  Also variety through color and texture.

Breadth #9

 I did this acrylic painting in the fauvist style by using extremely bright colors that do not match the subject matter. I also tried to emulate the large brush strokes. I was especially inspired by a couple of boat paintings by Derain. For this piece I focused particularly on contrast through the individual brush strokes, the value range, and the complementary colors.
Here is the updated picture:

Breadth #8

Ink and watercolor. In this piece I tried to show a sequence of ten images. Reading from left to right (and top to bottom), each diagonal set of squares shows one image of the story. So, the first one is the very top left corner and the last one is in the bottom right corner. Following the yellow umbrellas from the first image to the last image shows the whole sequence. Now, I don't think the viewer necessarily gets all that, but I think the general idea of a girl dancing in the rain does come across clearly. I used a generous amount of salt in the background to make it look like rain. I used Emmy's idea of the lamp post, and I think that is one of the most interesting aspects of the painting. I think its changing position from image to image reinforces the idea of movement and a sequence.

Breadth #7

This week I did a still life in Sharpie. For this piece I focused on texture and unity through mark-making.

Breadth #6

Pointillism. Historical reference: Seurat.  This is the edited version; I made the shadow bigger.

Breadth #5

Negative space with cut paper.

Breadth #4

This is a street scene in New York City depicted in cut paper.  I tried to focus on variety, harmony, and rhythm with the paper.  The buildings look a little warped because I am having trouble making it lie completely flat.

Breadth #3

I decided to do a landscape in acrylics inspired by Chuck Close's portrait work. The large majority of the piece is composed of squares. I used a few short lines for detail too fine to be a square. I am thinking about making the red boat house on the edge of the lake more solid looking. I don't really like the way it looks now. Overall, I am happy with the contrast and visual texture.

Breadth #2

Ambiguous Space. Oil pastels and turpentine.  The goal of this piece is to convey ambiguous space.  So I drew rooms going back in space in different directions and to different depths.   The bright, warm colors come forward and the dull, cool colors recede, showing a sense of space.  I retook the picture in better light.  It is no longer super orange.

Breadth #1

Self Portrait. Pencil and prisma color. I added paper scraps from my photography class last year. I think the background is now less distracting and more integrated with the portrait.

Concentration #12

This piece is Color Blindness, specifically Protopia (middle) and Tritopia (bottom). There are three different kinds of cone cells in a normal human's eye, which absorb light of different colors, allowing the colors to be distinguished.  The three types of cones look very similar and in my painting are represented by the three rainbow cones. If a person is missing a type of cone, then he or she is colorblind. The middle row shows a type of color blindness that occurs when the cones that absorb red light are missing (person cannot see red). The color scheme for these cones shows how a person with this type of color blindness (Protopia) would see the rainbow cones of the top row. The bottom row depicts a type of color blindness in which the cones that absorb blue light are missing (person cannot see blue). The color scheme for these cones shows how a person with Tritopia would see the rainbow cones. The black sharpie designs pick up some of the shapes from inside the cones. These patterns are inspired by the color blindness tests that are made of little tiny circles.
I plan to take another picture because for some reason the edges of this one are blurry.

Concentration #11

This painting depicts Familial Hypercholesterolemia, or FH for short.  This week I decided to make the cholesterol molecules the primary focus.  So I super-magnified the spheres made up of cholesterol and other molecules.  The orange spheres are coming apart, which is healthy because it means the cells are breaking down the bad cholesterol.  However, if a person has FH, then they do not break down the cholesterol, which is seen in the solid blue and green sphere.  The almost white overlaid images are the cell membranes.  The bottom two are healthy because the extensions (LDL receptor proteins) coming out of the little dips in the cell membranes (coated pits) are able to grab the cholesterol spheres (LDL) and pull them into the cell to be broken down.  However, in the top cell membrane the receptors are not in the appropriate spot, so the cholesterol does not get pulled into the cell and does not get broken down, causing many problems in the body.  I am happy with the way this one turned out.  I like the high contrast, the large size of the molecules, and the clean lines of the cell membranes.

Concentration #10

This piece is Multiple Sclerosis. This genetic disease causes the coating on the nerve cells to deteriorate, depicted in the frayed orange nerve cell in the bottom left corner. The blue and purple nerve cells are smooth and healthy.  The brown round shapes are the nerve cell extensions as they appear under a microscope. The ones in the bottom section are slightly fades and the outlines, the coating that deteriorates, is very thin. The ones in the top of the painting are dark with thick coatings like healthy nerve cells. I added some fraying to the brown nerve cells in the bottom of the picture to strengthen the anomaly.

Concentration #9

This piece depicts PKU (Phenylketonuria). I chose bright yellow for the healthy section (bottom two-thirds) and a cool blue for the unhealthy section (top third). PKU causes brain damage, represented by the unraveling brain in the top of the painting. The other two brains are solid looking to convey that they are healthy. The three molecules running vertically in the middle of the bottom section are the type of molecule a person with PKU is missing, therefore the top lacks this molecule. The missing molecule normally converts the little yellow molecules seen in the top of the painting (phenylalanine) into the small blue molecules seen in the bottom of the painting (tyrosine). So, the little yellow molecules are accumulating disorderly in the top of the painting and the normal product is seen in organized rows in the bottom of the painting. The shape of the little molecule, the hexagon, is magnified in the large green shape seen in the background to give the eye a break from looking at all the little shapes and to integrate the two sections of the painting. I am very pleased with the composition of this painting. I think it has good balance and rhythm, and the anomaly in the brain and the anomaly with the various molecules are strongly evident.

Concentration #8 2nd Picture

I added more contrast, but I'm still not quite pleased with it.

Concentration #8

This painting depicts Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or more commonly known as Brittle Bones Disease. A person with this disease has weak bones that fracture easily due to half the normal amount of collagen. While researching for this piece I was inspired by old medical journals that doctors would fill with their observations, so the first layer on my canvas is torn paper. I found a book that had really old, golden pages and the color makes a good background and the text adds linear texture. Next I added the skeletons in pencil, charcoal, and a little acrylic for more intense white. The molecules are collagen and the section depicting Brittle Bones Disease has one, rather than two, collagen molecules to represent half the normal amount of collagen. To visually tie together the bottom skeleton, the single red collagen molecule, and the red set of dots in the bottom right corner, I used red. The red dots continue behind the bottom skeleton to include it in the Brittle Bones section. The dots represent bone density and I painted them in concentration structures that are very dense for the normal bone and considerably less dense for the brittle bones. One thing I plan to improve is the contrast in this piece, particularly on the skeletons - part of the problem is the light I took the picture in...I need to take another picture and maybe the contrast will be okay.

Concentration #7

This piece portrays Muscular Dystrophy. In this disorder cells are not able to produce the protein dystrophin which stabilizes muscle tissue. So the muscle cells turn into weak connective tissue. The top section of this painting shows the cells of a person with Muscular Dystrophy; the cells are faded and empty-looking. The blue strands are tangled because without dystrophin, the muscle tissue is not stable. The bottom section shows healthy muscle cells and strong muscle strands.

Concentration #6

This painting depicts Cystic Fibrosis, a disease in which build-up in the lungs and other organs cause frequent infections. I used a blue and green color scheme to partially represent the build-up in the organs, but I chose shades that are not disgusting. The long horizontal shapes are the cell membranes which contain the protein which allows chloride ions (the green spheres) to pass through, or in the case of a person with Cystic Fibrosis (the delta508 form), the protein does not let the ions through so they collect on the outside of the cell. The deformed cell membrane protein is represented in the top cell membrane, it is missing several of the extensions seen in the protein in the middle cell membrane. The rods in the background are chromosomes which code for this protein, and the nucleotide sequence for the healthy or malfunctioning protein is written into the shadows of the cell membrane for texture.

Concentration #5

This piece is Down Syndrome, which occurs when the chromosomes do not separate properly in cell division. Someone with Down Syndrome has an extra 21 chromosome which results in the symptoms of Down Syndrome (written on DNA strands in background). People with Down Syndrome have very happy, innocent dispositions (represented through the color scheme in background and chromosomes). This piece has developed considerably from its early direction and the suggestions I received at the critic helped me to change it to the way it looks now. However, I am uncertain about the extra chromosome in the middle of the bottom row of chromosomes. I don't know how best to make it stand out, while still making it appear to be a part of the set of chromosomes.

Concentration #4

This concentration piece is Hemophilia. The background texture is drippy and splattered to represent blood. The top and bottom blood vessels (dark red) are healthy, while the blood vessels in the middle are broken in two places, and they are not healing. The bright blue strands are fibrin molecules, the molecules necessary for blood clotting. The fibrin molecule in the middle is falling apart because it is missing key components (specifically factor viii) which are not synthesized because of the genetic anomaly that causes Hemophilia. Finally, I added blue splatter on top of the section of the painting depicting the structural breakdown during Hemophilia to give it a foggy, broken feeling (also to represent atoms and molecule building blocks of the fibrin that are not put together properly).

Concentration #3

This piece depicts the general qualities of cancer. It is black and white because the kind of microscope that shows cells in three dimensions do not show color. The top middle section shows cancer cells growing uncontrollably. The bottom left and middle right sections show normal cells that grow in sheets then stop growing. The sections with words in the top corner and middle left describe the effects of normal cell growth and division in non-cancerous cells. The bottom section with words described the impact of cancer cells going through abnormal cell division (they don't stop dividing). The white sections show the cell cycles, how a particular cell grows and divides, and fails to divide if there is no need for more cells. The half circle in the cancer column portrays an abnormal cell cycle. A cancerous cell ignores key signals that regulate the cell cycle, so cancerous cells divide ceaselessly. I thought about adding color, like red, in a few places, but I am worried about it looking like an after-thought. I may add color later. I would appreciate any suggestions regarding where color might add interest to the piece, without looking out of place. This piece fits into my concentration as it investigates the impact of a breakdown in microscopic structure (cellular regulations in this case). I chose to divide the painting into distinct sections this time so that not all of my pieces are very heavily layered; so it is different from the others but it still has the same central idea.
Here's the edited version with color:

Concentration #2

I took the advice from last week and added visual texture to the surface of this painting before I began adding content; which definitely adds depth to the piece. The texture of the background represents the deterioration of order in the brain. This painting is loosely divided into three sections. The top section represents a normal brain, the middle section represents early Alzheimer's Disease, and the bottom section represents late Alzheimer's. The yellow diagrams in the background depict nerve signals being transmitted in the top section, and failing to be transmitted as well in the bottom two sections. The white brain nerve cells are healthy in the top, but in the bottom of the painting they become seriously tangled, preventing proper brain activity (depicted in the yellow diagrams). The brain in the top section is red and orange, representing healthy brain function. The middle brain is yellow and orange, representing a slight decline in brain activity. The bottom brain is blue and is sort of falling apart, representing an extreme loss of brain function. The brains are set at different angles to suggest the idea that the brain is falling down. This piece shows that the tangled nerve cells in the brain cause the brain to be unable to transmit signals properly, resulting in a serious loss of brain activity. This stays true to my concentration of exploring anomoly in molecular and cellular structure and its results. I am very pleased with the way this one turned out.

Concentration #1

This piece shows the structures of red blood cells. In the bottom 3rd fourth of the painting I show structural anomaly that occurs in Sickle Cell Anemia. The actual red blood cells are in the background, with some sickle shaped ones in the Sickle Cell Anemia section. On top of that I painted in the hemoglobin protein structure that is responsible for carrying oxygen in red blood cells, and in the anomaly section the hemoglobin is deformed. Then layered through the hemoglobin are the abbreviations for the amino acids in the sequences for normal and Sickle Cell Anemia hemoglobin and the molecular pattern of the hydrocarbon backbone of the amino acid chain (excluding the r-groups except for the ones that change for Sickle Cell Anemia) in green and blue respectively. I think the structure and visual texture are strong in this piece, and I think the white highlights on some of the red blood cells make them stand out more. I think the anomaly could be emphasized more strongly. In my next piece I will focus on making the anomaly the central focal point of the piece.