I started out drawing on the Yupo paper with watercolor paint pens. My original idea was to do something with flowers but time got the best of me so, I started over. When starting over I remember seeing an atmospheric perspective drawing of trees going off into the distance. 

For my final painting, I started by drawing bare trees with black paint with a pathway in the middle on one side of the first sheet of paper that I used. Then, on the other sheet, I was painting I added some brown pretty bare branches with minimal leaves. The back side of the trees with leaves became the front of my entire piece. On this layer, I painted two trees in color with various shades of green. On the backside of my other sheet, which became the back of my final piece I just did some dry brushing of colors that I used on all the other layers to give a darker background to the piece as a whole.

This is the final version of my painting with all of the layers ontop of each other on a light table so you can see the full effect.

Diego Rivera was born in Guanajuato City, Mexico on December 8, 1886. Rivera was born a twin and his twin brother died just two years after they were born. This event in Diego’s life is what led him to start his art career at the age of three. His parents then started to hang up paper and canvas to encourage his art.

The styles of art that Rivera was known for were paintings and murals. He moved to Paris, France, and found his first wife, Angelina Beloff whom he had his first kid who died at two years old. He had many wives one of which includes Frida Kahlo. Diego Rivera died, on November 24, 1957, in Mexico City, Mexico.

The Woman at the Well, 1913

After the Storm, 1910

Grant Wood was born February 13, 1891, in Anamosa, Iowa. After high school Wood went to The Handicraft Guild in 1910 he later attended the Art Institute of Chicago. Grant joined the military towards the end of World War I where he would create camouflage scenes. 

The style of art that he did was Regionalism. This style is one that I find to be very unique as he focuses on painting the rural midwest, which is where I am from. The painting that Wood is most well known for is American Gothic. This 1930 painting has a male and female in the foreground showing little to no expression while holding a pitchfork. In the background, there is a little white farmhouse with gothic-style windows. 

Toward the end of his life, Grant Wood taught painting at the University of Iowa’s School of Art. In October 1941 Wood was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer at the young age of 50. Four months after his diagnosis, Grant died of cancer the day before his 51st birthday.

Today, his art is displayed in museums across the globe. His paintings can be found at the New Britain Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in his home state of Iowa where he spent most of his life. 

American Gothic 1930, located at The Art Insitute of Chicago

The Midnight Ride to Paul Revere, 1931 located at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This past week we were working on our collages in which we had to incorporate drawing into the collage in some aspect. I started gathering materials by means of large prints that were in the recycling, magazines, newspapers, and cardboard boxes. By scrolling through Pinterest, I found some inspiration collages that gave me ideas as to what direction to go. 

For the backing of my collage, I used a cardboard box which I eventually covered the cardboard with other materials. I started by tearing up a large print in which I found a way that if I tore the paper it could look like snow on the side of a mountain, so I created a mountain range in the back of my collage. Then, from there I wasn’t entirely sure what to put in the foreground of my collage so, I added a lake and some ripples or a current in the lake. The collage was still missing something, so I added some tall grass to emulate a field along the lake. In one of the collages on Pinterest, there were some that had a layer that looked like the newspaper was ripping open to a scene and I thought that it was pretty cool so I incorporated something similar to that in my collage. I found some leftover strips of vinyl to make a frame or border for my collage in an attempt to give it a clean finish on the edge.

Incorporating the drawing aspect into my collage is where I struggled. I was sitting in my apartment during the Texas Freeze the past couple of days and it came to me how I should incorporate drawing. I decided to add some light shading to the edges of the layers of newspaper to give it a little more depth. And that’s the story of how I created my collage for Drawing Into Space.

The first image is after my first day of working on my collage and the second is the final product.

Beili Lui was born in Jilin, China in 1974. She immigrated to the United States in 1995 and graduated in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. After she received her Bachelor’s degree she attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she got her Master’s of Fine Arts. 

Lui first became known as an artist at Art Farm, Nebraska in 2004 and since then she has received many awards. She has been featured on PBS as an artist which can be seen by most people on television.

The art which Beili creates is public art, performance, fiber art, and, drawing. Her art is quite abstract and reminds me of trees. The way in which I see these drawings as trees is because it looks like when you chop down a tree and look at the rings to see how old the tree is and I find that to be pretty.

When going through this assignment’s brainstorming process, I went through my camera roll to see if I had any pictures that demonstrated atmospheric perspective. I found a few images that I could see myself using for inspiration for my assignment and then asked the professor which one she thought would be best as I really didn’t care which one I did.

I started my sketch for my drawing a little confused as to how I should approach drawing a conch shell as there are a few of them in my drawing. As I started to sketch out my shells I started to label what colors were in the undertones of each shell so that I wouldn’t have to continuously be looking at my phone at the reference photo. After sketching out my project I started to add color in the form of colored pencil and proceeded to shade and add some dimension by using graphite. I am not yet done with my drawing but, will update you when I am. I think that my drawing would benefit by adding some more texture in the foreground. I was also encouraged to add some more contrast in the foreground. I plan on adding a little more to my drawing before I deem it complete. – Erin

For my first research post, I chose Samuel Price. Samuel Price is a collage artist. He does his art in San Fransisco and surrounding cities. He was hired by the city of Palo Alto, California to do a 300-foot mural near the campus of Stanford. I found his art by doing a simple google search of collage art and found a few of his pieces. The medium that he uses to create his artwork is paper magazines which he pastes to a canvas. A majority of his artwork that I could find were the faces of pets. His website has many different types of dogs made from collages whether that be a chocolate lab or a huskie. Price offers a ten-week pet portrait art class that he has the link to in his bio on Instagram. Samuel also wrote a book Paper Collage Workshop. He shares different in which you can create a paper collage throughout his book.

Boxer

Border Collie

Chocolate Lab

Hi, I’m Erin. I am originally from central Iowa until my mom moved down here to the Austin area during my first semester at St. Edward’s now, I don’t know where to say I am from. I am a sophomore and my major is Marketing I am minoring in Graphic Design. Drawing is not my strong suit but, when it comes to a physical art form I enjoy painting. Graphic Design is a form of art that I have always enjoyed. When taking classes in high school my teacher recommended me to a non-profit and I did graphic design work for them up until covid hit.

I have always had an interest in art classes. In high school, I made sure that I had at least one class in my schedule pertaining to art until covid-19 hit in 2020. At that point, I had taken all of the art classes my school offered from Graphic Design to Painting. I was in the middle of taking my Drawing class when the world shut down. That being said I have not had much exposure and have done much drawing in quite a few years. So, taking this course I know will be a challenge for me and I am looking forward to that challenge.

-Erin SEU ’25