Cameron Robie Senior Project

  Last blog! Holy crap it was a long day today. I woke up early today to meet Molly Leith at 8:30 in the studio in order to go over website making on SquareSpace. In the end we just fiddled around with the website some more and decided that it was not worth my time as much as working on my painting and writing the final reflection essay. I then worked on my painting for a little while and then went outside to work on my essay. We had a quick seminar, and then went back to work. I was able to get most of it done before having to go to my dorm at 3 in order to clean up the common spaces. It’s crazy that it is time to start cleaning and packing… I personally haven’t started yet so I should probably get on that. Anyways, after cleaning the dorm I went back to the studio to work some more. I worked on painting the umbrellas so that they had more depth, color, and shape, and then I finished up my reflection essay. Tomorrow I still have the finished the hanging umbrellas and I need to paint

  As of right now I have a day left of senior project! Well, hopefully I’ll be able to use a bit of Wednesday to add some finishing touches. Today was a big day because I turned a corner where now I am a little bit less stressed since the painting is coming together more. Today I finished the shapes of the hanging umbrellas (I still need to go back through and finish adding details) and I added texture to the road. I think that adding the texture to the road was the extra oomph that the painting was missing. Also, after the weekend (where I only painted a little) I had more energy for working today so I was able to accomplish a fair amount. Now that I am thinking about this more… ok yes I am still a little stressed because I pretty much only have tomorrow left. I still need to clean up the painting, finish some details, make a website with Molly tomorrow at 8:30, and write this final reflection essay. Ok so I do still have a bit that I need to do, but I know that I’ll get it done. Al

   As my time with senior project is coming to an end, I am able to thoroughly reflect on two full weeks of art. This week specifically has been more rhythmic compared to the previous week because I have just been focusing on painting the Umbrella Street piece. This week has also been more stressful compared to the previous week because it seems like time has just completely flown by – I kept thinking that I had more time than I actually did. It also feels like I have just inched along with this painting: I will spend hours on it and then look back and realize that I only added a small section that I feel should’ve taken less time. I was able to go into the studio today (Sunday) and work for about an hour and a half, but in that hour and a half I only added some umbrellas (which really does not look like much but I have a lot of trouble when it comes to spacing and proportions).  This week one of the things that I learned is that I am someone who needs mental breaks from art. As much a

  Honestly, today was pretty much the same as the previous days – this week has just blurred together. Today I actually did get a lot done though: I added more depth down the street by adding more colors to the road, making the sky fade to yellow, and I added people walking down the street. I think that the people that I added really made the painting come to life more, and it added more colors to compliment the heavy amount of tan colors. Honestly I am not quite sure how to go more into detail about my day because that is pretty much all that I did in the studio. After working for a few hours, I went to the swinging bridge with my friends because it was such a beautiful day. Then some of my friends left and I stayed with Hailey Towne for a few more hours. We then went to support Alex and Hannah at their tennis matches. Overall I have been very grateful for the freedom and flexibility that senior project has given me. It is crazy to think that there are only about 3 days left to work

  Aaah stress! I didn’t realize that I have about four days left of senior project aaaah, that is not enough time to finish my painting. Well maybe it could be enough time but I will definitely have to crank and get really motivated. Today was very similar to the previous two days and mainly consisted of me adding more to my Umbrella Street painting. The past two days I have mainly focused on the left side of the street and adding more depth. I still need to continue with the right side, add the hanging umbrellas, and create more texture on the road. I am starting to like the painting more than I did yesterday but I still have such a critical eye. I don’t take super good care of my paint brushes, so now the small ones (which are the ones I use the most) are creating scratchy, very not clean brush strokes. Hopefully I will have time at the end to clean up some of my lines and marks on the painting. I just really want to be proud of this painting because it is for someone who has made

  I had originally planned on going to breakfast again and getting to the studio at an early hour, but I ended up snoozing my alarm so that I got to the studio at about 9:30 (which was fine with my schedule). Again, today was all about the Umbrella Street painting because I am still pretty stressed about finishing in. Today’s work was similar to the previous day where I just slowly added more and more, but I am getting stressed and so far I have not been super proud of my work and am having trouble visualizing the end result. I also am a bit stressed about having to make a website when all I want to do is focus on this painting and make it as perfect as I can. My thought process has been that because I know that this painting will be on someone’s wall, I want it to be perfect. If it was just a piece of art that I created for me I would care a little less about whether it turned out perfect or not – but especially because it is going on the wall for someone I care about a lot, I want

  I actually went to breakfast today (I think it was the first time all term). I had Hannah Stowe come in and jump on my bed to actually get me to wake up because I knew otherwise I would just snooze my alarm until I really needed to get up. After breakfast at around 7:30 a.m. Hannah and I made our way to Slocumb. We proceeded to spend most of the day in that room along with some of our other friends. I am currently focusing all of my attention on the painting of the street in Israel. I have been having some difficulty knowing where to start and what to paint – that has been the most challenging part of painting from a reference photo with impressionism in mind. After a full day spent in the studio, Hannah and I were able to get Corby to let us into the studio again at 8:30. It sounds like Corby is alright with repeating this every night, which I will probably be needing because I am already starting to stress. I am not sure why but I thought that I had about 12 days left, but Hanna

  The second Monday of my senior project was fairly productive. I have been spending so much time working on the portrait that I thought I should spend most of the day starting the painting for Annie Mackenzie. I added some touch-ups to the collarbone of the portrait before I grabbed my large canvas that I had already painted sky blue. I then mixed a nice tan using white brown and yellow. I painted over the blue and created some building shapes with the tan and a light cream white. I added some very subtle highlights so that I would have a better understanding of the layout since it is still very early on in the process with this painting. After about 4 hours of working in the studio during the day I felt very tired so I decided to call it. I texted Corby later in the day requesting access to Slocumb at night. He was able to grant me access to the art studio from 8:30 to 9:30 where I started to add some darker streaks for the roofs, a balcony, and some archways. Overall, today I work

             This week of doing my senior project has taught me a lot about doing art and about myself as an artist. Monday was probably the most difficult day for me because I was just getting into the swing of things, and my body was not quite used to doing art for so many hours. By Monday night my body and brain hurt a bit and I was kind of dreading having to do art for two and a half weeks. Now that it is Sunday and I have completed about twenty five and a half hours, I feel much better about finishing this project. I also have been realizing lately that I use a fairly wide range of art styles – my water bottle is colorful, abstract, and detail oriented compared to the portrait that I am working on which is supposed to be as realistic as I can make it while also using a fairly limited color palette of browns and blacks. Also, the painting that I am going to work on for Annie Mackenzie is probably going to be similar to a commission that I completed in the winter which was less real

             My Saturday was very chill and I actually gave myself the day off from my senior project. I added up the math Friday night and realized that I have completed about 25.5 hours of my senior project so far (which is about two hours more than I had originally planned). Even though I didn’t do any art today I did still have a pretty full day with a vocal lesson at 9:30 followed by a jazz rock rehearsal at 11. After a morning of singing I went right to lunch and then sports. I believe that it was important for me to take the day off from art because, especially on Friday, I have been noticing just how much my back hurts while I paint. It is interesting because while I do art I am very hunched over with horrible posture. This gives me pain that bothers me right where my neck meets my back. Hopefully after this weekend my back will be rejuvenated and I will be able to focus more and put more energy into my artwork on Monday. 

             On Thursday I had told my friends that I would wake up early and go to breakfast with them… but I ended up snoozing my alarm for an hour and a half (they weren’t that surprised). After I actually woke up I grabbed some ice coffee from the fridge and made my way to slocumb as usual. I immediately started back up with the portrait of this woman that I found on Pinterest. This portrait ended up being the only piece of art that I worked on for the day - but I spent many hours on it. I started the day working outside in the warm and sunny weather. After less than an hour I moved back inside because I kept getting frustrated with the wind, bugs, and not being able to see my reference photo because it was so bright. During the day I focused on the skin, the shape of the face, adding some hair, fixing the left eye, and starting on the neck. After sports and dinner I returned at 6:30 and continued working on the neck and collarbones. I then decided that something on the face was to

  I started the day by granting myself a sleep-in until about 10 am. I then made my way over to the studio where I was greeted by a lively art class. As I started trying to figure out which reference picture I wanted to use for my painting for Annie Mackenzie, Corby pulled me aside a few times to look at other students’ work which was all very beautiful. Then, after asking many opinions from different people, I decided to go with a horizontal scene of a beautiful street in the Old City. I sketched a few thumbnails and then painted the canvas a base color of sky blue. After an entertaining lunch break with Alex Hotz I went back to the studio, started to work on an art website, and began adding to an oil painting of a portrait (which, at that point, I had barely started). By the time I had left for sports I had traced out facial features and had added details to one of the eyes. For my afternoon activity today we dropped off some food to a food pantry and got Dunks – this only took abo

  I woke up today feeling extremely lazy. I ended up snoozing my alarm until about 9:45 and then arrived at the studio at around 10:15. I then proceeded to continue working on my water bottle – I finished it up by adding fanned out playing cards (the worst hand in Chicago) with falling poker chips and a tiny rocket ship. Right before I went to lunch I stripped off the painters tape from the bottle and discussed with Corby if I would want to add a gloss or matte finish (I think I’m going to go with a semi-gloss coating). I then went to lunch and sports and then didn’t return to the studio until about 7 pm. I then stayed there until around 9:40 cutting and stretching canvas onto the frames that I had built – it was actually a lot of work stretching the canvas tight, and n ow I have a pretty big blister on my thumb. I then ended the night by coating my two canvases with gesso (pro tip: apply generously but not too generally because then you’ll have to thin it out). Overall I spent abou

  For the second day of my senior project I was able to continue with painting my water bottle, and I was able to start charcoal with a live model! I kicked off the day at 9:30 by painting more of the acrylic flaming cherries on the Nalgene. I then took a break from the bottle when one of our teachers (and my riding coach) brought her horse Danke in as a live model. I went outside with one of Corby’s classes and started a charcoal sketch of Danke. After that class block ended I went to lunch and then returned to continue working on the bottle. Then Danke resumed modeling duty for a second class block and I resumed drawing him – but this time adding more browns and whites. By the end of the day I had drawn a horse (which I may continue to work on), and I had almost completed my water bottle (I added the cherries, a cool Venn diagram face, and some blue fish). In total I worked today from 9:30 to 2:30 which adds up to another 5 hours of art. 

  5/10/21 Day one of my senior project went pretty smoothly. This morning when my alarm went off later than 8 a.m. I thought something was wrong – it was bizarre going off of my own schedule rather than a pre-planned schedule with hour long organized blocks. I arrived at Slocumb at 9:30 and at first felt a bit lost. There was no one else in the studio and I was still a bit unsure of what I was supposed to do. I knew the general goals for the project were to paint and to set up a website for my art – but I have such liberties to do what I want that I did not know where to start. I ended up spending most of the day adding acrylic paint to my water bottle project, which I have been working on (on and off) since last spring, while I listened to music and watched some Saturday Night Live. After lunch I then cut strips of this specific wood in order to make frames for stretching canvases with Corby. By the end of the day I had spent a total of 5 hours in the art studio, and was exhausted: