Maureen

__Artist Statement__ Right from the start, I really loved this painting by Lucelle Raad. I enjoyed looking at this piece and taking in all of the emotion it portrays so beautifully. Another feature that really intrigued me was the sky in the background, and I couldn’t wait to recreate it using oil pastels. This painting is also quite different from anything else I have done in previous art classes, so I felt that it was time to try something new! Let’s just say, this project was definitely not without its difficulties. Although I very much enjoyed most of the process of creating the work of art, there were a few aspects that really challenged me. The biggest issue I faced was trying to make the pile of sand underneath the girl actually look like and have the feeling of a pile of sand. My solution to this problem was to use white acrylic paint to accent the areas that appear brighter than what I could get using white oil pastel. After applying the white paint, I was relatively happy with the result, and I’m glad I chose that method of fixing the problem. Overall, I must say I am happy with the end result of my oil pastel/painting. My favorite part is probably the girl’s face, I am just really happy with how this part of the piece turned out. I also enjoy the sky part of the background, and I like the texture the oil paste gives it. However, my biggest problem area with this piece is the sand portion of the background. As mentioned earlier, this was what I struggled with most in the process of making it, but in the end, I’m happy with my picture and myself.

__ Social Issue Artist Statement __ I must admit, I had a little bit of a hard time deciding on what social issue I was going to choose to do my project on, because I have some pretty strong opinions on many issues. While trying to decide, I started thinking about major issues that are relevant with things in the news today, which lead me to the topic of funeral protesting. Funeral Protesting is when groups of people, typically church groups, go to the funerals of soldiers and protest, saying things like, “God hates You”, or “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”, and they say that God is punishing America for being tolerant of homosexuals by killing our soldiers. This is just so ridiculous to me that anyone could ever do this to a family in mourning, and the fact that the people doing these horrible acts called themselves Christians was even more disgusting to me. I can’t say that I have had any encounters with this issue on a personal level, but as a Christian, I felt that it was important for me to make it clear how wrong the things these protesters do are, so that people know that all Christians are not like the poor examples that choose to protest at funerals. The first decision I had to make, obviously, was what issue to base the project on, but I also had many other things to consider. One of the first problems I had to address was how I was going to fill my background. Initially, I was going to do a block poster of a person holding a protesting sign, but I ended up not being happy with how the block poster turned out, so I instead chose to paint my own signs to attach to my tri-fold background. Another major decision I had to make was relating to my clay figure. I wasn’t sure if it would be better to make the figure of an actual protestor or a family member mourning over a dead soldier. I decided that the family member route was a better option, and although I had some problems with actually making the figure, I worked through them and managed to end up with a person mournfully leaning over a soldier’s casket. Overall, I do feel that my project is pretty successful in persuading the audience to my anti-funeral protesting views. I like the strong statements that I hope will catch people’s attention, and once people look at it initially, I’m hoping they see the deeper meaning inside the shocking statements. However, I wish that I had done a little better with planning the layout of my whole background, because I think that I could have made my overall theme of funeral protesting more prominent if things had been arranged different. If doing this project again, I also would have spent some more time on my figure to make it a better addition to this piece. Overall though, I’m glad with the final product of this Social Issue assignment.

__ Social Issue Painting Critique __ I’m choosing to critique the painting at the bottom of the page that’s about smoking. I really think that this is a successful social issue painting for many reasons, one of which being that it is made very clear what issue the artist is talking about, and also what their views on it are. I also think that the very strong images of the person smoking and sort of turning into a skeleton really add to the artist’s argument that smoking is bad, and they also do a good job of capturing people’s attention. Really the only thing I would consider changing about this is the watercolor background that almost looks like a mistake, but at the same time this also adds to the atmosphere of the painting.