So the Art Assignment we're going to be talking about today
is Robyn O'Neil's challenge to draw a psychological landscape.
For clarity on what that means, you should watch the episode.
This time I asked Robyn If she might join me
in reviewing your responses and picking some highlights,
and we are both ecstatic with what we saw.
Best of all, many of you riffed on the Assignment
and took some liberties with the execution.
The challenge was to "draw" a psychological landscape,
and I was happy to find that many of you
think of drawing in the loose way that I do.
In the most traditional sense, a drawing
is a work on paper made with a pencil, pen, or the like.
But then if you use paint on paper that
can be a drawing or a painting.
And what about the huge range of materials
that one can make a drawing on?
Like it's not impossible to make a drawing
on a canvas or a blackboard or a rock wall
or in three-dimensional space.
Like Beatrice made this really wonderful
psychological landscape on a calendar using water colors
where human-like characteristics are given to the wind
instead of to the human.
I don't care whether it's a drawing or a painting
or a book or a sculpture-- it's just really great.
And if you think about the plethora of techniques
that can define drawing, your head
starts to explode and you realize very quickly how
unproductive this line of questioning
is and oh my god can we just look at the artwork
and take it for what it is?
Linda and Dee rediscovered their love of LEGOs
after watching The LEGO Movie and made
this psychological landscape.
First Linda drew a landscape on paper for a backdrop
and then they put a towel down to make a nice ground.
And then this nice family shows up in a camper
and decides to roast some hot dogs on a fire.
But then this seemingly innocuous dude
shows up on a canoe and suddenly their vacation
has been hijacked by crazy ninja canoers.
It's a great and clever use of materials, and a good reminder
of the importance of imaginative play
and how it can influence and expand
the way you interpret images for the rest of your life.
We also liked this one submitted by Noncommital Writing that
uses crumpled paper as a ground and gummy bears as figures.
It's a small image and it's out of focus, but that kind of
gives it a painterly quality.
And the bears are less bears than glowing blobs interacting
with each other and the landscape.
It's mysterious and funny and I'd
love to see what it looks like blown up to a larger scale.
This is another three-dimensional one
we liked by Leo Quinn titled "Stick Figure Stems."
He used grass to populate his ground
and made the excellent decision to put it
at the top of the page instead of the bottom.
Sylvia admits that she's terrible at drawing
and made this landscape titled "I'm So
[MUTED] Done with Study."
What's great about it is that she
uses the materials around her to create a scene that pretty
succinctly and successfully describes
her psychological state.
We also thought this work by Andrew Orr
titled "Be Careful What You Wish For" is really successful.
The story he tells unfolds over time, post-it note
by post-it note, and it comes across
as a narrative that could be added to
or changed indefinitely.
Others of you used photography and collage
to execute the Assignment.
And I especially liked this one titled
"The Political (Sur)Reality."
You see two very familiar buildings
that symbolize American authority
and then you realize that each scene
is populated with tiny animals tramping around and posing
in these unlikely locales.
These at once remind me of how ludicrous political posturing
can be while also making me think of an apocalyptic future
where we're all gone but the animals remain and take over.
Meg Gilbert used collage and the medium
of video blogging to make what she titles "Psychological
Landscape for Pregnancy."
She tells us a powerful story about losing her first child,
and I have deep respect for her confrontation of such
a painful and personal topic and the attempt
to work through her thoughts through art-marking.
But you know we did get some amazing drawings made with more
traditional media as well.
This one by Mr. AnonymousPrisoneroftheLabyrinth
is a really beautiful and restrained rendering
of a mountain.
The patterning on the mountain is actually
Morse code of the lyrics to the song by The Killers
"All These Things I've Done."
Other really beautiful drawn psychological landscapes
include this one by Hannah Scharton,
and this really quiet drawing by Ana,
and also this work titled "Things I Wish I Had Done
But Didn't Do" by The-Interrabang.
And then we had responses by artists whose inventiveness
astounded us and drew us deep within the worlds
of these imagined landscapes.
This work by Saranna00 makes my eyes bounce back and forth
to every corner and crevice of the picture plain.
Her use of patterning and color is remarkable,
and I don't know what's going on but I'm intrigued
and I want to look at it for a long time.
Juliet made this drawing called "Whale City."
It's a place I never knew I wanted to go,
but I really like it and I'm super impressed
by her rendering skills.
Lastly, Kenton Visser takes us to "Anhedonia,"
which is the title of the drawing
and also the name given to the inability
to experience pleasure from activities
usually found enjoyable.
Kenton says it's a preliminary sketch for a painting,
but I think it's a very accomplished work
in its own right.
Thank you for participating in the Art Assignment
and for continuing to expand my definition of drawing.
To find more responses to this Assignment, follow us on Tumblr
and stay tuned for a new Assignment next week.