Project #40 Pinterest Challenge
The Pinterest Challenge is a wonderful way to discover artists that you did not know about or find artworks by artists that you like but had not previously seen. Of course, you can use this game with any themed imagery - gardens, vegetables, dogs, recipes, architecture, travel, etc....
I have discovered and artists unfamiliar to me by taking advantage of Pinterest's image search algarhythms. I usually research the artists and artworks futher. I have learned some art techniques this way. Some of the artists have become the subject of projects in this blog.
My example starts by using the image above by Mary Potter, whom I learned about on Pinterest. Starting with her painting above, I followed the steps below. The result are the images that you see below.
Start with an artwork you know or use an unfamiliar artwork that you know and like. Scroll down under that image and pick another image that you like of an artwork and artist new to you or an artwork that is unfamiliar by an artist that you know of. Above is a painting by Mary Potter (I had not seen this painting but was familiar with her work). Read more about the artists in this post below.
Save that image in a Pinterest gallery dedicated to this game or take a screenshot of it. Repeat these steps 4 to 6 more time.
The 5 -7 images that you have chosen might be similar or the from first to last very different. You can look for similarities or differences in your choices, an overall mood of the choices or discover other things about the artworks. What is similar about your choices? Colors? Techniques? Materials? Themes? What things are different? What have you learned about your own aesthetics?
The end result of the game, Pinterest Challenge, is that you have learned about 4 works of art and maybe some artists that you were not familiar with.
After researching all of the artists that I chose, I discovered some similarities. Read more about the artists at the bottom of this post.
What I noticed about my results:
The artists were all formally trained. All of the artists are European. All of them except Elena Korshak begin to reduce or minimize their art at some point in their careers, either by controlling colors or compositions. All of them use very subtle and tonal colors. Many of them cited Morandi, Vuillard, Bonnard and other artists that I like as influences or have been compared to those artists. All of the paintings that I chose were all still-lifes.
Mary Potter was born in 1900. She died in 1981. Potter was an English painter whose best-known work uses a restrained palette of subtle colours.
After studying at the Slade School of Fine Art, Potter began her career, exhibiting in London by the early 1920s. From the 1950s, her work became increasingly abstract, and she gained wider notice.
Andrew Cranston was born in Scotland in 1969. He lives with his partner, Lorna Robertson, and their two children. His narrative paintings are poetic and humorous. He manipulates the surface of his paintings by layering, lacquering, bleaching, collaging and reworking them creating a very lush textural surface.
Nicholas Turner was born in London in 1972 and currently lives in Wales. He studied Art and Design in Bristol. His uses mostly calm tonal colors in his narrative paintings.
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter. He was born in 1890 and died in 1964. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. His still-life compositions became more and more reductive. From the 1920's until his death he focus on subtle gradations of hue, tone, and objects arranged in a unifying atmospheric haze.
Morandi's works and altelier were donated to the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Bologna, Italy where you can see a replication of his studio and works today.
Evgeny Krastov was born in Russia in 1965. His work is reminiscent of American Realist Andrew Wyeth. He draws inspiration from the Russian North. Kravtsov’s unique mixed technique – graphic sepia drawings combined with oil painting – adds a similarity to an old, yellowed photograph taken as a keepsake.
Elena Korshak is a photographer from Minsk, Belarus. She expertly photographs still-life's and nature. Many of her still-lifes look like paintings because of the lighting and painterly backdrops.
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