BROOKS
small steps change the world with passion
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inside
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Sketchbook- Quick and Loose, 1996
Altered Books - Momento Mori, On Empire 2013 02_ watrecolors
03_ altered books
##_ Watercolor, Space Needle, Seattle, WA
06_ printmaking
Publisher
Dad, Architect, Artist, Volunteer, Cereal Killer, grad student, life-long learner, traveler, all around cool dude that likes most farm animals.
Managing Editor
Daniel Brooks Daniel Brooks Art Director
Daniel Brooks
Printmaking
Brooks Media
Daniel Brooks 4514 NE 25th Ct Renton, WA 9809 206.853.9593 danielpbrooks@ icloud.com
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Daniel Brooks Graphic Designer
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Daniel Brooks, AIA
Cover
X-per 320 gsm by. Proline Paper
##_ ROMA, Italia, 2000
##_ Printmaking, Watercolor Monotypes, ‘Violin’, 2013
##_ Photography, HDR, Seahurst Park, burien, WA 2012
© Copyright 2013 by Brooks Media. All pieces reproduced in this issue are under copyright of the creators and publisher. Nothing shown may be reproduced in any form without obtaining the permission of the publisher and any other person or company who may have copyright ownership.
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GRAPHITE_
sketchbook evolutions The sketchbook has been the most useful tool for me to express rough ideas, conduct visual investigations and really discover the essence of a subject.
I spent the first seventeen years of my life living in an old farmhouse next to a forest near the Mississippi River in Eastern Iowa. I have a lot of early memories of playing outside, wandering through the trees and wading in streams. I remember working on writing my name with a large, thick black pencil on beige newsprint paper. This was most likely one of my first traces left. Any dug hole or eroded land revealed thick clay that was good for sculpting. My three older sisters carved a make–shift kitchen in a clay and limestone cliff near a stream flowing through the forest near our home. There were also wild onions and rhubarb growing in this area. I was force fed both. Limestone shingles often fell out of the cliff face and we would stack them, carefully in-
- Graphite on paper c.1994 Iowa State University Architecture Program
specting for fossils, of which we found many. My sisters taught me how to make charcoal rubbings of fossils, leaves and other found objects. Sketchbooks weren’t apart of any curriculum for me until I was in Architecture school at Iowa State University. We were required to use one to take all of our notes in as well as for some supplementatl drawing classes. It was a hard habit for me to acquire. Currently I have a skecthbook with me nearly everywhere I go. I love to skecth when I travel. I feel it allows me remember the
- Graphite and marker on paper c.1997 Iowa State University Architecture Program
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“You can’t do sketches enough. Sketch everything and keep your curiosity fresh.”
John Singer Sargent Artist
place better and as I visually inspect the subject matter I gain more intimate knowledge of it. Versus only casually walking by and checking that site of the “list” or only collecting a photo. My first official art teacher was Mrs. Burney. She taught an arton-a-cart class at my elementary school. One hour per week we spent drawing, coloring or painting. I remember making bookmarks that were later copied and passed throughout the school. Mrs. Burney and my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Ziegnehorn apparently thought I was talented and recommended
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- Sketch, Wedding banquet, 1998
me for the Talented and Gifted (TAG) after school program. It amounted to art classes at our local museum (with adults). I was intimidated and we basically sat there and copied a painting, step by step, Bob Ross style. But I could use acrylic paints, not tempera, that was fantastic. While the adults threw their palette covers of paint into the trash, I kept trying to hide mine in my backpack so I could take it home. In the summer between 5th and 6th grade my father’s (elementary principal) art teacher, Mrs. Sessler, invited us to go to Taos, NM for a two-week retreat for art teachers. I experienced quite a few new things on this trip, Native American art, crafts, tribal ceremonies and some exposure to Georgia O’Keef-
fe. Mrs. Sessler had a grant to develop a Native American (Hopi) art unit that could travel around the district. She allowed me to pick out a few pieces for purchase. I would return twenty years later and discover Joel-Peter Witkin. In middle school my art teacher was Mrs. Bartlett. We did quite a bit of drawing in her classes, specifically self-por-
- Sketch, technical guide for steel fabrication, 2000
- Technical handdrawing, translating object to paper, 1995
get me wrong, I’m patriotic and was definitely curious as to what military life entailed. Ft. Benning, GA didn’t offer art instruction. I do recall constructing a firing position that was more ergonomic than what we had been taught to do. The drill instructor actually made a positive comment! I also remember loving to camouflage things. My experiences and the benefits from joining the largest fraternity in the world, has benefited my career in ways difficult to express and many times unexpected.
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students with behavior issues in art classes to deal with than in previous years. Distractions were everywhere. Mr. Deason was my photography teacher. He also taught us darkroom techniques and chemistry. I feel fortunate our high school had a darkroom with a competent teacher to go along with it. I joined the US Army right out of high school to get away from current surroundings. Don’t
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traits. But in middle school I was more interested in shop classes, woodworking and mechanical drafting as a prerequisite to architectural drafting. We were issued Ames drafting kits (which I still love) and we could take them home to draft with at night. High school was more drawing and painting with Mr. Kitchen and Mr. Deason as my art teachers. Mr. Kitchen was rough around the edges but he really pushed me to produce more meaningful and self-expressive art, albeit he really didn’t “teach” or follow a lesson plan. In high school there were many more
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watercolor_
watercolor inspiration
Watercolor painting and how it affects my other works.
I always wanted to learn watercolor but never had a teacher available. Until a couple years ago I had no experience with the medium. I changed that by seeking private instruction from Anita Lehmann. Laying out a painting utilizes sketching skills so I could compose a painting satisfactorily but the concepts of value, color and wetness are difficult to grasp. I started, as you see on this page, doing what are esstentially travel paintings of scenes around town. Psuedo-Realism. I started experiementing with
various washes and imagines lanscapes, like the above. But I also started picking up bad habits like you can see below and above left. Value problems or compositional problems even when I was getting the color
- ‘Farmland’, 11”x 14”, watercolor, 2010
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- ‘Low Tide’, 11”x 14”, watercolor, 2011
correct. Or I would “run home to momma” and start inking the images with pen. The images on this page right and above are my examples of my better represetational watercolor work. While not perfect, the do offer some balance and evoke a sense of place. My work with watercolor has directly impacted my work in printmaking, specifically watercolor monotypes
- Pike Place, watercolor, 2010
- ‘Amalfitanian Coast’, watercolor, 2012
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small steps_
THE _altered_ _book
- ‘Vanity Vanity all is vanity, page from altered book, 2013
11 The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? May memory restore again and again The smallest color of the smallest day: Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.
-Delmore schwartz, the burning room
- Vanitas, page from altered book, 2013
In the summer of 2013 I was fortunate to attend the University of Florida summer studio sessions. During which I was exposed to art in the form of the altered book. Google it. Basically, you take and exesting book and alter it any way you see fit. Some paint all the pages white and start from scratch. Others take cues from the text itself as a source of inspiration. I made the book you see here. The book I had to work with is pictured above, altered. The book was written and published in London during WWII. It included alternate food sources and cooking methods that reflected the wartime conditions of England.
- ‘Cover’, altered book, 2013
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Each minute bursts in the burning room,
I used this inspiration couple with the preexisting art thems of ‘Momento Mori’ and ‘Vanitas’ to create a series of pages commenting on life, death and time. A concept that was introduced to aide in book development was that of “small steps”, looking at your inspirations or subjects and just altering them slightly and then repeating the process and following where that leads. I’m really attached to the concept of “small moves.” I volunteer with Sanctuary Art Center, which provides a safe, warm and calm environment for homeless and street involved youth to experience some creativity and success through art. Often they are frustrated by a desire to know the finished art product, or having an absolutely fool-proof vision, prior to even starting a project. I think focusing on small moves as a progression towards a conclusion. I also plan to introduce Willie Cole’s work as an example of how the ,application of everyday objects slightly modified can yield powerful results.
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printmaking_
-’Flower’, watercolor monotype, 6”x12”, 2013
printmaking _transfer_ -’Muskie’, watercolor monotype, 6”x 6”, 2013
Printmaking has really allowed me to use my watercolor skills in a new way. A non-representational way. It also informs my views on the classroom environment as the third teacher. The classroom is a mutable framework in which we conduct learning to achieve greater meaning and relation to the world in which we exist. The very definition of classroom must be expanded beyond the literal physical qualities. The environment I am discussing
is that of the experiences and exposures of students to anything that will drive their artistic and aesthetic development. Whether it’s by creating a safe zone, free from fear and rejection, or creating an environment conducive to pondering essential questions, the classroom space in which any style or vision of art education is the enabling element. Curating this environment also facilitates Judith Burton’s (2001) ob-
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(2004, p. 38) says, “You are not here to prove yourself. You are here to improve yourself.” The activating element of the student’s environment is the teacher role. London (2003) discusses the “I-Thou” teacher and student relationship. In this relationship it is made clear to each student that they have value information to share and the teacher is sincerely interested in what they have to say. If the teacher is the activating element, then we need be concerned with what type of environment they are activating. What qualities should we look for in a teacher that will create trust from the student? Attentiveness without judgment, asking the right questions, sincere eye contact, self-knowledge, wisdom, capacity to focus on others needs (Carroll, 2006).
-’Itch’, collograph monoprint, 12”x18”, 2013
Much like Eisner’s (1980) arguments towards a wider view of cognition, to require an active organism that must interact with the environment, the environment presented must be filled with proper opportunities from which to choose. Art education is marginalized, small time allocations, poor scheduling and through this children infer art is not a high priority. Thereby making cognitive choices to eliminate or further marginalize their art education. (Eisner, 1980)
-’Storm’, watercolor monotype, 6”x12”, 2013
-’Old Glory’, collograph monoprint, 12”x18”, 2013
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servation that Viktor Lowenfeld desired to protect the right of young people “to construct their own meanings and speak in their own voices” (p. 35) and thereby battling forces of determinism and essentialism. Burton said, “Artistry is imbedded in our shared humanness, its outcomes are trans-cultural and trans-historical and permit public discourse and conversations across national boundaries and time” (p. 36). Further, development will not occur in any real sense without a proper supporting environment that supports art creation beyond simple material exposure (Burton, 2001). The Study Group for Holistic Approaches in Art Education affirms safe learning environments where students can cooperate, support and engage art of utmost importance (Carroll, 2006). Mary Wolfe
small steps Dad, Architect, Artist, Volunteer, Cereal Killer, grad student, life-long learner, traveler, all around cool dude that likes most farm animals. www.brooksmojo.com. See art gallery at http://www.brooksmojo.com/#!personal-artistic-development/c1z2v