The reasons for the change are

1. Chez Schmidt is hard to say in real life if you don’t speak French. Actually the alliteration makes it hard even if you do speak French.
2. It’s confusing if you don’t know French (“what does ‘chez’ mean?”).
3. Even in French, it sort of implies that this blog is a house.
4. I think I’d like to start using my first name (horror of horrors!) on this blog, as I use it everywhere else on the internet, and increasingly in real life. I could start signing my posts as Catherine, but then the title would make even less sense

I like “depicted” but I’m not wild about it. I think it’s clever, but it might be just clever in a bad way. It could even be a little too bland.

The other option I had was a little worse though – “dépeint”, the French for “depicted”. I like it better in theory, but I think to non-French speakers it’s just annoying.

Thoughts, suggestions? Should I just revert? Oh dear reader(s), please give me your input.

xoxo
Catherine

P.S. I know, I know, how weird is that.

P.P.S. Input on the header also appreciated.

Everything about this is gorgeous. Her expression, her skin, her posture, the background, the shadows. It’s all absolutely gorgeous.

I forgot how much we owe to these guys; Raphael, Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and the like. Their work is still beautiful and still relevant.

In modernism we discussed the nature of beauty. Art is all about beauty, even the ugly art (how can you have ugly without beautiful?). That we can be floored by beauty is a testament to the power of beautiful art. That we seek beauty is a testament to art as a whole.

Another one of my all-time favorites.

A sketch of Da Vinci’s with the Virgin and St. Anne. Mary’s face is indescribable here. That expression – it’s tender, it’s divine, it’s knowing. This face has haunted me ever since I saw it in person at 11. This piece is beyond an inspiration for me; it’s part of why I make art at all.

Okay, I’m ending the ramble here. But I am curious about what all you intelligent people have to say. What role does beauty play in art, and vice versa? Is purely beautiful art still relevant today? Do beautiful images, all on their own, have merit? Etc, etc, etc.

xoxo
Schmidt

So I’ve been trying out gouache recently. I’ve never used it before, and I thought it’d be neat to potentially do that D&P project in.

I am sick and tired of doing self portraits, but people are my favorite and it’s not as though I have a live-in model on hand.

Preliminary sketch – the reflection in my window:

That trapizoidal thing is a lampshade. Doesn’t look like me and the hair is redic, but the posture is better than on this one:

Combo of charcoal pencil and gouache. That stuff is seriously tough to work with. Good for blocks of color, but tough as heck to blend! And so chalky – when it dried, the charcoal pencil showed up really well.

Loved the dramatic lighting; love that in general. Maybe a few of the portraits in the project will be something similar to this – crazy lighting, telling pose/action, that kind of thing. A sense of place.

Keep in mind, this is a sketch, not any serious work. The messiness is kind of fun in my opinion, but not really tolerable in something finished.

I do think that the charcoal pencil and the gouache is a pretty good combo, and looks like a promising option for the project.

Now, I need to find faces/people! I’m probably doing about 12, and I want them to be very very random. I really want to get some complete strangers in there – that is, if I have the guts to go up to them like a creeper and take a picture of them (no, I won’t have them come in to sit. Way too awks). It would be pretty sweet though.

It’s definitely still a little bit too sketchy as a concept. Usually I have the end product fully formed in my head, and I’m really not getting that quite yet. I’m going to forge on regardless.

xoxo
Schmidt

So I haven’t posted in forever. That’s a bad thing. One of my goals with this blog was to keep it current.

One of the reasons is that I’ve been busy, mais bon, so have we all. The other reason is that things have been very dry art-wise lately.

p>Tonight I’ve got doodles from the Escape Into Life Moleskine Project moleskine that I’ve started.

At the risk of sounding like a white person, using this little moleskine has been infinitely more fun than using any other similar journal. I can’t quite explain it; it’s just so neat and clean and classy. I’m debating whether or not to paint the cover. Maybe when I’m done.

The only downside is that the paper is terrible for watercoloring (even though it said it was heavy enough for guache, another water-based medium). It’s not porous enough. Also, the paper is tinged yellow, which affects the colors.

I’m going to keep it very informal with this guy. Nothing too weighty. Just pretty pictures (and yes, I realize that last one is kind of a fail).

And then some weirder ones (why not?).

I love those little bat-wing corners!

Yes, that is U of-windy-city admissions letter, and electrical tape.

In other news, I’ve started a tumblr for more random, incomplete, and un-art related thoughts. Mostly I’m just curious to see what tumblr’s all about – it’s really innovative. If you’ve got one, follow me/give me the link!

Don’t worry about my moving this blog though, as I’m too entrenched in blogger to switch now.

As for my latest projects (this is a very rambling post) I’ve got something brewing in D&P; though as those actually in D&P can attest, I’m way behind schedule. It’s going to be a little different, and involve watercolor and ink, and be about Seattle. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to articulate that sense of place though. I’m probably going to do a series of portraits…but there’s something missing. I’ll put up any good sketches/progress that I have.

That’s all for tonight folks. Thanks for putting up with the rambling/my sporadic posting.

xoxo
Schmidt

The last two are “Midriff” and “Hair,” respectively. Yeah, “Hair” is kind of a tenuous title.

I had a hard time deciding about “Hair” because it includes a face. My other option would’ve been been a shot of a back. I think the back idea would’ve fit better with the intimacy theme, but would have turned out worse as an individual painting.

And here’s why the nose is so oddly large: the angle. Seriously, there was no way I could get around it.

I still think the best of these is “Clavicle”. It captures the idea best, and is more anonymous than the others. I was going for a kind of generic-ness in these paintings. Of course, I ruined that with “Hair”. Woops.

Comments/feedback appreciated, especially concerning the style, concept, and articulation.

xoxo
Schmidt

I’m not crazy about it. Halfway through I started to hate it, so I rushed to finish it, and then here we are. I’ll probably submit it like this, but I might go back and fix it later. I was debating between two concepts for this one…and I think I actually like the one I didn’t pick better. Oops, too late.

Whatever. Onwards and upwards.

Here’s the latest (as of this morning:

This one is called “Midriff” (yes, it really is). I love how you can see the reference photo.

Anyway, a bunch of stuff on this one is wonky – the proportions on the hands are all wrong, blah blah blah.

I’ll fix it. Anyway I’m much more excited about this one. It’s so warm!

Other than that everything is falling apart. No biggie.

Feedback appreciated.

xoxo
Schmidt

Which, after some work, turned to this:

It’s called “Knees” (are you seeing the pattern?), and that’s an idea of the process.

I always love seeing the process, like those movies where the building is built up from the ground because it’s just a series of quick stills. Or like that function in photoshop where you can track all of your changes and play them back in a cute little clip. I find that absolutely fascinating.

The process of painting in particular is super-interesting because there are so many ways to do it, and I’m not talking about the “anything goes” school of painting. Whether you start with an underpainting, with tones of color, or, as one art teacher suggested, the most saturated hues first, you can come to a similar and spectacular end.

So here’s the record of progress.

I’d say I’ve got one more session left for this guy, then on to the next. To give you an idea of what “rush” looks like.

Also, I’m thrilled at the feedback I’ve gotten from “Clavicle”! I take praise badly, but to everybody who’s come up to me and said something, thanks a ton! It means a lot to me that you guys take the time to look at my work.

xoxo
Schmidt

I think it turned out alright. FYI, the colors are all wrong because I had to take this without flash (flash + shiney shiney oil paint = terrible) and my room is orange, so everything in it turns orange.

I’m not 100% sure about the background. I went on a bit of a limb. Is the contrast between the brushy pattern of the shower curtain (yes, that’s a shower curtain) and the skin too much?

For reference, and because I realized that I haven’t put the finished version up on this blog, here’s “Legs”.

So I’ve figured out what I’m going to call the series. It will be called “Intimacy” (yes, Intimacy), because that’s the underlying idea. What’s it like to see out from a personal perspective? We do it from our own bodies every day, but never from somebody elses. We share this collective experience of looking out, yet it’s impossible to switch perspectives. It’s impossible to be as intimate with somebody else as you are with yourself.

Mumbo-jumbo aside, here’s the challenge. The YoungARTS scholarship materials are due Friday. I have two paintings in a 5 painting series. Nothing in the world would make me happier right now than to be able to submit them. These represent my absolute best work (even if they aren’t made yet…) and I want to be judged on that.

3 paintings in 5 days. Yes, it’s a bit of a suicide mission. But what the heck, might as well.

I’ll be posting with new info/pictures of what’s going on every night until Friday.

Feedback appreciated (read: required).

xoxo
Schmidt

So I’ve finally started the next installation on the vein of “Legs”.

It’s called “Clavicle,” and I’m sure you can guess why. This is just the beginning, which is why it looks so flat.

I had hoped to do something to accompany “Legs” for a long time, on the theme of the body, not the face.

Even then, I’m not sure how well this goes with it. The idea is similar, but there are definitely other things at play here.

Also, yes, I realize that the shoulder is a little off, and that’s the first thing on the agenda next time I get around to working on it.

Now, what to call this series. I’m thinking “Big paintings of bad flash photos of Catherine Schmidt in the bathroom” might be fitting.

As always, comments and feedback are aprreciated.

xoxo
Schmidt