When I prompted ms. Rossi about the possibility of making a finger-painting, her response was "you're not doing a finger-painting." Much like her advice against putting the subject in the center of an image and smudging charcoal with one's finger to achieve blending, I promptly ignored this declaration, because it is 2016 and the age of fascist autocracies has long since passed.
Now, (and I stress this has no relevance to me ignoring ms. Rossi's advice) this is the painting that broke me. In the back of my head, I knew AP art would get to me at some point, but here, 3/4 done with the class, it finally breached my defenses.
I had been trying to figure out what the robot would be painting. I was trying to portray a point in the future where robotic automation can replicate art, but not humor. Sort of like bot-generated memes, which are hilarious, but not because they have a coherent punchline. They are funny because they are weird.
Now, (and I stress this has no relevance to me ignoring ms. Rossi's advice) this is the painting that broke me. In the back of my head, I knew AP art would get to me at some point, but here, 3/4 done with the class, it finally breached my defenses.
I had been trying to figure out what the robot would be painting. I was trying to portray a point in the future where robotic automation can replicate art, but not humor. Sort of like bot-generated memes, which are hilarious, but not because they have a coherent punchline. They are funny because they are weird.
The robot probably would have a rudimentary understanding of irony, sarcasm, and the basics of how manipulating expectations effects how humorous something is. However, it would not understand the nuances of humor that humans have an instinctive understanding of. So I had to find a thing that followed this theme, that could match the perspective of the canvas, and was possible to paint with my fingers.
After 15 minutes of thinking and eating Tostitos lime chips I decided that instead of continuing to think, I would lie down on the cold, hard, dirty kitchen floor (I paint in the kitchen because its table is the only place in my house with enough space for my art stuff) and sleep. I vividly remember waking up about ten minutes later to the ceiling lamp beating down on me like the sun of a Saharan noon, if the sun was five fluorescent light bulbs, the Saharan desert was my kitchen floor, and it wasn't noon, but 10:20 PM. I groggily glanced up onto the table at my painting, and decided that I was not ready to be awake yet, and slept for another 20 minutes.
When I woke up that second time, it was like I was a former caterpillar transformed into a butterfly. That is, I trapped myself in a coffin and digested my own flesh from the inside out and had reformed in a pool of enzyme-ridden acid. Needless to say, I was not in my best state. So I packed up my art things and played video games to numb my mental fatigue.
I put off finishing this painting until only several days ago. Surprisingly, I managed to pull it off easily. After making 6+ more concentration pieces, I had been a psychopath for so long at this point that being mentally fatigued and devastatingly sleep-deprived really could not hinder my process anymore. This made for an interesting final boss for AP art, as it was the last piece I finished, the night the portfolios were due. I had finally returned to confront the thing that drove me insane, and I vanquished it.
After 15 minutes of thinking and eating Tostitos lime chips I decided that instead of continuing to think, I would lie down on the cold, hard, dirty kitchen floor (I paint in the kitchen because its table is the only place in my house with enough space for my art stuff) and sleep. I vividly remember waking up about ten minutes later to the ceiling lamp beating down on me like the sun of a Saharan noon, if the sun was five fluorescent light bulbs, the Saharan desert was my kitchen floor, and it wasn't noon, but 10:20 PM. I groggily glanced up onto the table at my painting, and decided that I was not ready to be awake yet, and slept for another 20 minutes.
When I woke up that second time, it was like I was a former caterpillar transformed into a butterfly. That is, I trapped myself in a coffin and digested my own flesh from the inside out and had reformed in a pool of enzyme-ridden acid. Needless to say, I was not in my best state. So I packed up my art things and played video games to numb my mental fatigue.
I put off finishing this painting until only several days ago. Surprisingly, I managed to pull it off easily. After making 6+ more concentration pieces, I had been a psychopath for so long at this point that being mentally fatigued and devastatingly sleep-deprived really could not hinder my process anymore. This made for an interesting final boss for AP art, as it was the last piece I finished, the night the portfolios were due. I had finally returned to confront the thing that drove me insane, and I vanquished it.