Australian art history!!

I went to Australia as an American student ambassador when I was fourteen. While I was there, we visited Kakadu National Park, which has a lot of really old Aboriginal artwork painted on the rocks. I did a little bit of research on it:

"The rock art of the Australian Aborigines represents the longest continuously practiced series of artistic traditions anywhere in the world. The site of Ubirr in Arnhem Land, northern Australia, contains one of the most impressive assemblages of Aboriginal rock painting, ranging from the earliest periods to works created within living memory. A favored camping place during the annual wet season, the rock faces at Ubirr have been painted and repainted for millennia. The sequence of rock art at Ubirr and other sites in Arnhem Land has been divided into three periods: Pre-Estuarine (ca. 40,000?–6000 B.C.), Estuarine (ca. 6000 B.C.–500 A.D.), and Fresh Water (ca. 500 A.D.–present). These classifications are based on the changing style and iconography of the images.

Pre-Estuarine rock art is characterized by a variety of images in red ocher pigments. In historic times, such images were created with brushes made from bark, feathers, or the chewed ends of sticks, and it is likely similar tools were used in the past. Among the most distinctive images are the animated stick figures of the Dynamic Figure tradition, which are often depicted clad in elaborate regalia and shown participating in hunting and other activities. Some contemporary Aboriginals identify these figures as mimi, slender spirits who taught humans to hunt and paint during the Dreaming, or creation period. In present-day Aboriginal belief, many Dynamic Figure images are said to have been painted by mimi rather than humans. Pre-Estuarine rock paintings also include depictions of extinct animals and enigmatic beings that combine the features of humans and wild yams.

Rock painting had several functions in historic times. Images were created to increase the population of game animals or for use in magic. Depictions of important Dreaming beings are common, as well as secular paintings made for amusement. Although the original significance of Ubirr's prehistoric images is unknown, they likely had similar functions."

--- http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/ubir/hd_ubir.htm

So you want to be a painter..

There are probably countless different types of art that I could write about on this blog, but my current forte is painting. I've compiled a list of three main different painting styles, so you as the general public can glance over it and decide which would work best for you.

ACRYLIC - One of the most widely-spread and well-known style of painting in a student artist setting. Acrylics are based on a type of plastic, and they dry really quickly. If you mix them with different mediums, you can get them to do just about anything - they'll stay wet longer, thicken up to give you texture, or thin out so you can paint over previous layers and have different levels of opacity. Probably the most user-friendly painting style out there.

OILS - My favorite way to paint. Oil-based paints take way longer to dry (up to several days), but if you like to take your time and make everything perfect, it's a really fun style to use. You can do fantastic glazes with oils, which really add detail and texture to your paintings. It's a hard technique to master, but in my opinion, it's totally worth it, and a lot of fun.

WATERCOLOR - Watercolor painting is one of the hardest techniques, in my personal opinion. You mix out small amounts of pigment with a lot of water, and use the white of the paper to get a sort of "glowing" appearance. You can't do much layering with watercolors, which means they don't take very long to finish, but on the other hand, if you mess up, there's no real good way to disguise it.

How to...

I painted this picture of myself last summer (2007), using acrylic paints and colored pencils, on a piece of stiff cardstock. I started off by choosing a picture that I wanted to paint, which is by far easier than just making something up out of your head. Then I made a few copies of the picture, with different levels of contrast, just so I could see where the dark and light areas of my painting would be.

Next, I sketched out the picture on the cardstock so I could get the proportions right. Getting the sketch to look the way you want it to is important, but it's really just a general basis for how the painting will look like when it's finished - you can change whatever you want to as you work.

When my sketch was done, I just started painting. I paint in layers, so when I've finished one area, if I don't like how it looks, I can change it when I get to the next layer. Acrylic paint dries fast, so it's convenient for that sort of painting style. Plus, using lots of different layers adds depth to the picture, especially if you let earlier ones show through the ones that are more recent. Every person has their own painting style, however, so it's hard to write out a how-to for this stage. The way I did this one is a little more abstracted and less realistic than some people would prefer, but it's all up to you.

When I was done and the paint was dry, I still didn't quite like the way the painting was looking, so I got out my colored pencils and defined some of the lines a little bit more. It's an easy way to make your picture a little more clear, and can help make shading a bit easier, too. If you don't really feel like drawing all over your painting, though, you don't have to - and pastels are another option, if you're feeling creative.

Lame Art-related Cartoon

Here is a lame cartoon. It is on the subject of art, therefore it is marginally relevant.