Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Art on the Run: Sketches Capture CMU, Pittsburgh
www.cmu.edu/news: Lumi Barron likes to make art on the run.
The first-year College of Fine Arts student has been regularly painting and sketching the places she visits since she was in high school, and she continued the practice when she came to Carnegie Mellon University this fall.
Barron's drawings and watercolors take from five to 90 minutes to complete. When something catches her eye, she'll break out her sketchbook, pen and watercolors to create a new piece.
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7 comments:
I wish I was a talented enough artists to do this kind of stuff, but alas I am not. Although I imagine the only way you get better is by doing it. Funny enough I see people setting around campus all the time drawing or painting and the common thread I have found through looking at most of it is that CMU looks pretty beautiful. If you ask me CMU and sometimes just Pittsburgh are very grey and not always too appealing to the eye. Just yesterday my snap chat story was a picture of mud with leaves in on campus with the caption "welcome back to Pittsburgh" so I guess I am not the type that is looking for the beauty in everything I see. But what I realized from this article and just from my own personal experience with people creating art around campus is that there is beauty everywhere if you train you eye to look for it. If you zoom in or out just enough there can be something gorgeous in a grey building on a rainy day surrounded by exhausted students. My favorite art is that which makes something ordinary looking or an ordinary task more interesting of compelling. Sorties that are just about people but make us look at them through new lenses, or art that takes something mundane and makes it beautiful. Oddly enough I think CMU is the perfect place for people to learn how to do that, and I look forward to seeing the art that the student in the article and other students produce throughout their careers.
Wow. Little art things like this always amaze me, small things people do just for themselves. They always seem one step removed, something I could never do, or almost something no one would do, having a Carnegie student draw places I know makes it feel more personal. I think that now with how accessible photography is that taking pictures where you go, doesn't even hold a chance next to something you draw of what you see. Her drawings are not perfect, nor are some finished finalized works, but they are hers and capture special moments-and I think that's why I find myself, and others would agree, just intrigued by them. I've always thought our campus to be beautiful, but I know many disagree, I like how these simple sketches really bring out the beauty in the everyday around us. I'm glad she shared her work with our community and that CMU recognizes the art students, as so often everything on their pages is about the STEM majors!
I read this because the title sounded like an action movie about art. Obviously, after reading this action-less miniature article with no depth, I was disappointed. This person is obviously a talented artist and I envy her wicked watercolor skills but CMU really has to step it up in their newspaper.
I’m just going to talk about these nice sketches now and forget about the articles content (lack thereof). It’s interesting to see how an artist captures life here. Her use of color breathes a life into CMU and her paintings/sketches exude feelings of happiness, vivacity and tranquility. Ironically, this is not the general consensus on how CMU makes students feel. Outside the school of drama there is a stress culture that is potent and students in a lot of majors constantly feel overwhelmed. I would love to see how these drawings progress through the course of the semester and the course of her education.
Logistically, how is she doing watercolors on the go? Does she carry a bottle of water she can’t drink from? And how long is she holding the sketchbook open to keep from messing up the wet painting when she is on a city street or about to walk into a meeting? And if she is actually completing the piece on site, does she just wait around until the watercolor has dried enough to add pen without the ink bleeding? I commend her for practicing and experimenting in a variety of different styles. And it is impressive that she seems to be able to create these so quickly. I think she did an especially good job on the house one, great colors on the page and in real life, and an interesting composition, eliminating details on the adjacent buildings and extending the telephone lines into negative space. Though, like Cosette, I misinterpreted the title and I was disappointed to learn that she wasn’t painting while walking.
Lumi Barron is a remarkable artist – I really hope to run into her sometime while I’m on campus in order to tell her this in person. I especially enjoyed the image with the actual leaf placed beside her image – I wonder if she ended up keeping the leaf. I find that a lot of criticism has come up recently about people taking photos and videos when they are at events; by taking out their phones, audiences are no longer enjoying the moments they are in, but rather trying to capture a lower-quality version for future views. I often find this to be excruciatingly true when I myself take my phone out at events. However, I see Barron’s art as a completely different event. By making watercolors, Barron is taking the time to really enjoy and take in her surroundings; in a way, she is both respecting the moments she is in and getting a lasting image out of them. The best part is, these images are for herself; she is not trying to make a living off of them, but rather is giving herself some time to take in her surroundings and also create a memory.
I currently had a class in which we discussed the importance of noticing your surroundings and living in the moment. After our discussion we were given and assignment in which we had to take a picture of an environment we encountered on our walk home, taking three pictures of the same place at different times of the day. I loved the idea of this assignment. It is so simple, yet it provides a great lesson on the idea that inspiration is all around us and that we shouldn't take for granted our environments. I think what this art student is doing is a great way not only to get inspired by the things that surround her, but also practice her talents in drawing. I agree with her that Carnegie is a great place to do that. The combinations of passion and innovation here make it easy to get inspired by you surroundings and applying that inspiration to your trade.
YES! I love, love Lumi! I met her really early on in orientation week and she's just a great, fun, amazing, and inspirational mind to be around. She's a great inspiration and it's pretty awesome to be following her on snap chat and seeing these exact paintings getting the credit they deserve in this article. Watercolors are a great medium to use because of their accessibility for on-the-go art. In addition, Lumi is really great at recreating her experiences, not only visually, but emotionally through her brush strokes to create this snapshots of the places she's been at. Personally, I've been killing myself and ripping my hairs out trying to carry around a sketchbook to draw in everyday for at least 10 minutes a day and can't get myself to do it. Lumi's photos are the reason I just recently bought a moleskin to carry around in my pocket all day so whenever the moment strikes, I'm locked and loaded. The two of us have been planning to draw/paint together one of these days but CMU SoD is killing me and I'm sure the CFA is doing the same to her.
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