theOn February 26, 2020, Ms. Kitts, an educational leader at the VMFA who has a Russian history degree gave a very interesting lecture about the Faberge Egg Obsession. She discussed the romance, revolution, and history behind this Russian decorative arts. It stemmed from a doomed love story, fabulous craftsmanship and search for lost treasures. The story began when Nicholas II gave an egg as an easter gift to his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, who took a liking to Faberge's work. His workmasters used to use different colors of gold, many diamonds, and rubies, and rock crystals to create beautiful, delicate, and small eggs which were passed around Russian novelty. In fact, they are now work many millions of dollars. Lilian Thomas Pratt was the person who bought the original egg from a collector and gave it to the VMFA. I thought it was very interesting about the story behind such beautiful creations and how it illustrates an age in Russia that most people know very little about just because of the persona that Russia has today. The story that 7 eggs are still missing, and the journey that these works had as they were passed down from generation to generation is fascinating. It also shows the importance of these Faberge pieces and the uniqueness of his creations. The Romanov dynasty truly begins to invest in Faberge's workshop because the Empress of Russia being the first to buy a pair of cufflinks, Faberge's work became quite successful due to her family. Overall, Faberge was a brilliant businessmen who hired the very best workers to create beautiful eggs which have an amazing historical background to them. I personally thought that this was a very special lunchtime lecture because of the intensity behind the stories of the artwork she was discussing. Also, I think that it was a refreshing change from standard paintings, I had forgotten about the type of art that requires such a fine detail with respect to jewelry and metal. I also thought that the fact that the eggs had prizes inside of them made them more exciting, and the whole mindset that these eggs are one of kind spurred the frenzy that surround them today. Amazing lecture, I loved learning about the history behind the eggs as well as the detailed Russian craft.
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Oops. I am about to start over and we only have a week before the final critique. I think that this was a really important step for me to make because although the previous piece wasn’t necessarily going badly, I did not feel as I was growing as an artist by making that piece and wasnt practicing new skills which I wanted to try. I also don’t think that that piece would have taught me more or given me a more definite direction, so I decided that it was a better use of my time to start a completely new piece. I did a little research on Monet and Van Gogh, and studied their impasto technique. I think that with the time I have remaining, it would be most effective to copy on of their works to truly understand their technique and how they have their impasto style. Im really looking forward to copying their work because I think it will reveal more about the art that I want to create since I am so drawn towards their paintings in the first place. The practice will allow me to assume a more concrete way of painting and will hopefully open some new doors/ideas for my content and subject matter going forward. I want to learn from these artist’s use of composition and application of paint as well as their specific color schemes. That is why I am copying the piece by Van Gogh, “Autumn Landscape”.
Shreya Malani
I make art with the purpose to make people feel something. I strive to create an image of either a scene or a person that resonates with the experience of another. For example, I want to connect people’s travel experiences or childhood memories with a common factor. Although people have wildly different lives, I’ve noticed that there are key similarities with how we feel about specific events or respond to changes in our lives and I hope to be able to transfer this factor into my artwork. My ideas for artwork usually come to me at the most random of times – either when I’m crying about something silly, or if I’m about to finish the last bite of my pasta dinner, or if I’m driving with friends and jamming out to a song. I generally have an idea for what I want a piece to look like when I’m starting and I’ll plan a preliminary sketch of the composition, but my plan is constantly evolving during the timeline of a piece. I think of new ideas and incorporate them into my work, and I am also constantly starting over or making mistakes, which allow me to better discover what I want to create. I usually work with oil paints and a palette knife because I love the textured feel of oil painting and the layered paintings that I am able to create. Using a palette knife allows me to paint with a different degree of realism in each piece and its rough feel has a certain beauty about it that allows me to imbue more emotion in my artwork. Currently, I am working on multiple series of landscapes and portraits. I began the year with the purpose of creating abstract portraits of people, using themes that represent their life and realistic representation of the actual individual in order to show their diverse life stories. Now, I have started doing landscapes from my travels in Europe, India, and America. I chose this because I want to be able to capture the feeling of awe that any tourist feels in a foreign location when they come across a particularly beautiful monument or experience a perfect moment in a café. My ultimate goal is to convey slightly more abstract themes in very realistic pieces, and I am constantly struggling with how to approach such a complex challenge. However, my last pieces always influence my next and I am constantly learning as an artist, and I am looking forward to creating more art that resolves this challenge. I’ve started!!! I’m so excited for this project, especially since I am going for a more realistic piece with a smaller knife. For now, I am focusing heavily on just simply getting colors (more dramatic) and getting the perspective perfect. As for now, I am doing a series of bots and different locations in different travels. I have always been enamored by boats and their mysterious aura bobbing on a body of water and majestic feel of it lying on a beach. The only trouble I’m having is that I used raw canvas and therefore I think that the oil is being absorbed and is not able to be picked up easily, making it harder to blend colors.
I’m so excited for this piece!! This is a huge landscape with the dimensions of 24x36in and the scene is a street in Heidelberg, Germany. This photo is both sentimental and one of the most aesthetic pictures I’ve taken because on that trip I remember thinking about the pure beauty of such and old and simple town. I’m so excited for the colors of this piece and I bought a smaller palette knife just so that I can make this a really realistic piece. I also plan to focus a lot on the perspective in this work because I need to learn about how to properly paint a street with perspective and foreshortening which I struggled with last time. I’m also determined not to procrastinate on this piece because I wanna give it my all, so starting this two month period off right :)
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Authormy name is shreya. Archives
June 2021
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