Day 10 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge: WIP Art Journal Entry, 'Julia' from "1984"...

WIP: Progress on the '1984' Student Art Journal Guest Entry

Day 10 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge.  19 more faces to go.....

Amazing-- with this post we are officially a third of the way through the Challenge....!

Tonight I continued my progress on the guest entry I started last night for my student's art journal as inspired by the book, "1984".   While last night's Face was Winston Smith's portrait on the right, my Face for today is the portrait I've started on the left, of the other main character of the story, the young-but-wizened, conniving 'Julia'....

Despite his deep doubts and rebellious nature, Winston Smith has spent his adult life passing as a cooperative and committed governmental Party member.  His life depends on his convincingly pretending to be just another non-thinking cog in the wheel of the bleak and soul-crushing society into which he was born.   He has noticed a young woman around and about, the beautiful Julia.  Attracted to her physically, he is none-the-less utterly disgusted by her apparent complete and total commitment to the Party. Even worse, he begins to fear her, when, thinking she may be spy and following him, he plots upon how he might kill her in order to save himself.  That is before he learns  the surprising truth....that despite all outward appearances, he and Julia are actually of like mind, with her act of pure orthodoxy to Party doctrine only a ruse meant to deflect suspicion of a rebellious streak just as deep as his own.   Winston and Julia embark on a near impossible and certainly doomed romance, pledging their love for one another as they, in supreme secrecy, try to navigate  the dangers that the discovery of such an illicit affair would surely bring upon themselves.  Even a stolen glance at each other could be noticed, and duly noted....  In any case I am trying to portray all this complicated emotional storyline into my tribute piece  (and yes, for anyone familiar with the book, indeed that IS the beginnings of a 'Telescreen' behind them...!)....

Day 9 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge: WIP: An Art Journal Entry Inspired by the Book, "1984"

WIP: Another Guest Art Journal Entry Inspired by George Orwell's '1984'....

Day 9 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge.  20 more Faces to go....

Yep, you guessed it.  Another student art journal entry.  As of tonight, I have by now begun entries in exactly half of my students' journals.  However, I still have 5 more to go to even start something in -- and in fact NONE of them can be declared officially finished yet at this point, being as that they are ALL still Works in Progress.   But, I'm getting there....!

Selecting from my literature class book list to use as inspiration for this journal wasn't the easiest -- because this is actually the last student for whom the list applies (all the remaining art journals are from a different class of younger students who did not read the same books).  But finally I'd narrowed it down to three titles:  George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" (I could just imagine Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins), Steinbecks' "Of Mice and Men", and "1984".  I did recall that this student seemed in particular to enjoy the book, '1984', and our discussions of it -- and so it won out.  As such, we have here as my Day 9 Face a quickie start on a portrait of the story's protagonist, the much depressed and desperate Winston Smith.  Winston's existence is not an easy one, living (if it can be called that) as he does in some utterly grim dystopian future state, under an entirely soul-crushing totalitarian rule.  And yet at its heart is a love story..... 

While I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with this fast, preliminary portrait of Winston here, I'm reminding myself it's still only a WIP -- and besides, it'll do for now in order to at least get this entry posted so I can call it a day.   But when I get back to working on it in soon however, I'm thinking I will need to make 'my' Winston look considerably older, and a whole lot less attractive..... 

Day 8 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge: WIP Art Journal Entry inspired by 'Lord of the Rings'....

A WIP of my art journal entry for my student who loves fantasy fiction: A portrait of Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings...

Day 8 of the '29 Faces' of May Challenge.  21 more faces to go.....

Today's Face features another guest entry by me for the art journal of a student, as per my Student Art Journal Project (I have 10 youth for whom I'm doing this  (nearly 1/3 of the Faces right there!), so still PLENTY more art journal entries from me to come....).  

Unlike his classmates, this art journal's owner hasn't participated in my literature class, so the book list  from which I'm drawing inspiration for my other highschoolers didn't really apply to him.  I still wished to do something literary for his entry however, and so, being as that I know he is a huge fan of fantasy genre, I decided to do a journal piece inspired by that most classic of fantasy epics, J. R. Tolkien's, 'The Lord of the Rings'.  Therefore as such, we have here a work in progress portrait that I began...of...(deep breath!) the ranger/future king, Aragorn (son of Arathorn) deep in thought and reflection as he contemplates the considerable tasks ahead of him upon having been presented the powerful sword, "Anduril", reforged from the broken shards of the legendary "Narsil", the blade of the line of Elendil, which was known for having previously defeated the dread evil sorcerer, Sauron, the wannabe Lord of the Ring.... (or something like that anyway, as much as I enjoyed it I confess it's been an age since I've read the book!).    In any case, still lots more to work on here before I declare him finished -- but I'm determined to get to bed at a more reasonable time tonight if it kills me (because NOT getting a decent amount of sleep tonight (finally) probably will!), and so this is where I'm leaving off for the time being until I can get back to it....

I did show my students my progress in their journals today in class, and they seemed pretty enthused and appreciative of my efforts.  Here's to getting all ten of the student art journals wrapped up and completed by this time next week....!

Day 7 of the '29 faces' May Challenge -- WIP: A Portrait of Pip from 'Great Expectations'....

My guest art journal entry:  WIP inspired by the book, 'Great Expectations'

Day 7 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge.  22 more Faces to go....

Seriously, Day 7 -- we've been at this a week already...??

For today's Face, continuing on with my Student Art Journal Project, whereby I am painting guest entries into the art journals of my private students, as inspired by books we have read and discussed in class, I revisited the  journal entry I posted back on Day 5.  Using the classic novel by Charles Dickens, 'Great Expectations', as inspiration, I had first began a portrait of a female -- while flip-flopping as to whether I was actually painting the haughty and proud 'Estella', or the neurotically demented, man-scorning 'Miss Haversham'.  Well, truth be told, I still haven't definitively  settled  that score yet (though I think at this point I'm leaning toward Miss Haversham...?) .  However, I was and am 100 percent certain about portraying the poor, haplessly mistreated 'Pip' on the opposite side of the two page art journal spread, and so I was able to paint full steam ahead tonight as far as he was concerned.  Still plenty more I want to add to complete this journal entry, like some wording perhaps (as well as put the final touches on Estella/Miss Haversham, etc) -- so for now it continues to remain a Work in Progress.  But I shall be needing to get ALL of my students' journals finished and returned by next week, so I will really need to focus my time and attention here in the coming days....

What my journal entry looked like earlier this evening before adding 'Pip'....

Day 6 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge: WIP, The "Frida Portrait Challenge"....

5 X 5 Tribute Frida Portrait for the Gritty Jane Frida Challenge

Day 6 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge.  Only 23 more Faces to go....

This was one busy weekend for me!  The kind of weekend that could really have used a weekend of its very own just to recover from it.  With as much running around as I had on my end, my Face for Day 6 is a Work in Progress that I didn't get terribly far along with, being as that I can barely type coherently right now and am more than ready to call it a day.  But happily WIP's are acceptable additions to the '29 Faces' Challenge, if that's what ya got....  Because that's all I got!  But, at least I did get a start....

If you can make it out, mine is to be a portrait of Frida K., because I was excited to learn today that the lovely artist known on the internets as "Gritty Jane" has herself launched a May art challenge, via her Facebook profile, which she is calling the "Frida Kahlo Challenge".  She has challenged artists to create a Frida-inspired piece for May, which she will post once finished to a designated album on her Facebook profile.  Simple enough -- it's non-competitive, all just for fun as these things usually are.  The one and only caveat is this: it must be a brand spankin' new piece, created expressly for her Challenge (because don't we all have some Frida-inspired pieces lying around ;-).  Here, too...).

I happened to have had a small 5 x 5 canvas on hand that I did not use for the local 5 x 5 art show , which I decided would be perfect for my purposes here, and so I have at least the preliminaries of a Frida Kahlo portrait sketch, along with a small bit of color  before quitting for the night. In any case, a Challenge within a Challenge -- fun times...! (for some odd reason I do get a kick out of intertwining my various online/offline artistic pursuits).  Plenty more to do on her of course before submitting her obviously -- though I have until the end of May to finish up....

Day 5 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge: WIP Art Journal Guest Entry, 'Great Expectations'....

WIP: Guest Art Journal Entry, 'Great Expectations'....

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My Face for Day 5 of the '29 Faces' in May Challenge.  24 more Faces to go....

I admit I had such lofty plans for the day today.  Anticipating a Saturday afternoon with no particular constraints or commitments, I had intentions of getting ALL kinds of things done around here -- from journals to house cleaning, laundry and yard work.  Instead however, my participation in a near-20 mile community bike ride (in the heat) this morning, while I had a fabulous time and fully enjoyed the exercise and  camaraderie, ended up rendering me pretty much useless for the remainder of the day.  Oops!  Oh well....!   

Still, I did manage to finally get around tonight to fiddling a bit with the painting of a guest entry  in yet another of my students' art journals (as per my Student Art Journal Project as written about in my previous posts) -- with this one based upon the classic book, 'Great Expectations', by the ever beloved Charles Dickens. I didn't get terribly far with it -- as you can see I've really only generally  blocked things out, with quite a bit still left to do.  Not least of which is deciding exactly who it is I am actually painting here, since I keep going back an forth as to whether to make this a portrait of  'Estella', or 'Miss Havisham (with poor abused Pip to be on the right side -- you can barely make out my preliminary sketch of him there).   But it is indeed very late right now, with my eyes crossing on me from the fatigue....and so I'm going to post this as is, hit the sack, and get back to this one again hopefully very soon....

Day 4 of the '29 Face' May Challenge: WIP Art Journal Entry

My WIP Guest Entry in my Student's Art Journal:

Day 4 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge brings with it another student Art Journal guest entry for me.  25 more Faces to go.....

As mentioned in this post, I have a number of private art students with whom I've been leading activities in art journal making.  The kids have been working on their journals now for months (we meet once a week), creating entries for themselves, as well as guest entries in each others' journals.  It is now time for me to take my turn creating entries in my students' journals, and so I brought home with me quite a stack of them to work on.  It is my intention to create these guest journal entries with FACES, drawing upon the books we've been reading as a class as inspiration, so as to have images that I can count towards the '29 Faces' Challenge. 

One of the books we read in our literature class this year was "Babette's Feast" (which is also a wonderful movie that folks might actually be more familiar with), and so I chose it as my inspiration to draw upon.   As such here we have a portrait of 'Babette', a french female chef and political refugee (the book is set before the turn of the LAST century) living with and working for two elderly, plain-and-simple, sisterly spinsters in Denmark.  The sisters are unaware of Babette's supreme talent for gourmet cuisine until she wins a lottery and ends up using the winnings to whip up a remarkably sophisticated and sumptuous feast for her astonished employers and their flock.  A lovely story -- as one can see, I still have a ways to go with this two-page journal spread, but I do at least have my Babette tribute portrait to feature as my Face for Day 4 here as I stop painting for the night....