The Art of Being Artless (chapter 2)

I honestly had a hard time following this chapter, but what I did get from it was Bob Ross. Bob Ross was a television painter and calming person. He had a show viewed by millions that portrayed him painting for 26 minutes. Through statistics the channel learned that only about 3% of the viewers actually painted with Ross. Others were just their because he was calming and zen like. My mom even use to play his show for us when we were babies to calm us down. Being able to have a show that was used for more than one purpose is really cool. While Ross only painted and meant to teach people to paint he help viewers around the relax with his "happy little clouds".

Bonnard's Art

Pierre Bonnard was a french artist, he is most known for his paintings of his wife Marthe in the bath. 

Japonisme (1888)
This is my favorite painting from Bonnard. He uses such basic colors but there is so much going on. It makes me think of the life that I knew he lead which consisted a lot of him at home because Marthe was to paranoid to leave their home. When did he see this happening, Before they were together? When he would sneak out? As a boy? Sadly we wont know. 




The Bath (1925)
This is a painting of Bonnard's formally mentioned wife.  I like this painting not because of the technique or the context but because of what it must have took for him to paint this. As we read Bonnard's wife Marthe  was completely paranoid and had other personal and emotional issues. I can only imagine what kind of convincing it took Bonnard to convince Marthe to let him paint her. I also like that Bonnard always painted her as a young woman but in reality when this painting was created she would have been in her mid-fifties 

The White Cat (1894)
I like how Bonnard took something as common as this cat and made it his own and unusual. It feels realistic but stretched. Plus it's a cat so that's cool. 

A Scene from Bonnard's Life

Bonnard and Matisse are at dinner talking.

BONNARD

It's so great to see you Matisse. We can finally talk face to face instead of in letters.

MATISSE

I know! It's great to see you. How is Marthe?

BONNARD

She is good but her misanthropy is really driving me up the wall. Not being able to talk to anyone is driving me insane.

MATISSE

Hey, You chose her over all those other women.

BONNARD

She was such a joy to paint and was such an interesting person.I didn't want to lose the ability to paint her, some of my best works are because of her.

MATISSE

Then don't complain, this was your doing and if I must admit you aren't the most sane yourself.

BONNARD

Well can you blame me I am and artist, we have to be atleast a little bit crazy after all. Now I must go before Marthe thinks you are trying to steal my tricks.

The Accidental Masterpiece Intro

This week we started to read the book The Accidental Master Piece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa By Michael Kimmelman, and where did we start at the introduction of course. Within the 7 page introduction we get three stories and a bunch of jibber jabber. Now I enjoyed what I read. I thought it was extremely well written and thought out as well as intelligent. My only problem was that there was a lot crammed onto 7 pages and that made it a little hard to follow with the three different stories going on. Other than that I like the book so far and Kimmelman seems very smart and like he knows what he's doing. He also makes some very good points and phrases. From what I can gather Kimmelman is saying that living life is art itself and doing what you love is a masterpiece. Like collecting light bulbs or falling in love. 

Our Projects

    Today in class we started our independent and group projects. I am in a group with Jess, James and Catherine. Our group project is to shoot and write a short film. Today we worked on what our movie will be about and the logistics of it. When we first sat down to write we decided to use the same format to make this movie as we did for the be kind last year. You essentially work backwards, you start by picking a genre and title then you work your way up. I personally believe that working like this is a lot easier because you come up with more ideas this way. Unlike the be kinds this movie will be edited and shot over a number of days. We are not yet revealing what our movie is about quite yet, so stay tuned to find out.