Sister Corita

Unit 5 – Contextual Influences

Sister Corita

Sister Corita, formally known as Sister Mary Corita Kent born 20^th November 1918 and died at the age of 67 due to cancer on the 18^th September 1986, Corita was born with the name Frances Kent in 1916 in Fort Dodge, but as she grew up in Los Angeles, Corita joined the Order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1936, this is the time she took on the name ‘Sister Mary Corita’.  Sister Corita was an artist as well as an educator, where she ran the Art Department at Immaculate Heart College until 1968. Sister Corita was best known for her vibrant and beautiful art work during the 1960s and 1970s, this involved silk-screening and serigraphy; her art work usually involved small messages such as love and peace.

After studying at high school, Corita joined the Roman Catholic order of Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which was set up in Los Angeles. Throughout her years she was always fond of art and soon took classes at the Otis College of Art and Design as well as Chouinard Art Institute, here is where she received her BA in 1941. From then on Sister Corita sooner or later earned her MA at the University of Southern California in Art History in 1951. However in between these times of studying once she graduated Immaculate Heart College, she then went on and briefly taught grade school in British Columbia. Not only this but the year she graduated from the University of Southern California, Sister Corita exhibited her very first silkscreen print, which got her started with her well known career

It made a change for Sister Corita moving on from phrases out of the bible to be involved in her work, to using popular culture such as song lyrics which got incorporated into her raw material. Unfortunately not everyone appreciated Corita’s work, in 1965 her “Pewce on Earth” exhibit in the IBM’s New York show room, came across as too disturbing and reblious so Sister Corita had no choice but to take it down. But this one event didn’t stop Corita carrying on with her art career.

After this occurrence, Corita became the chairman of the Immaculate Heart College Art Department. An American architect, author, designer and inventor Buckminster Fuller visited Corita at her department and was pleased how she was turning out; he even described the event as “among the most fundamentally inspiring experience of my life”

Sister Corita created several hundred serigraph designs for posters, book cover and even murals.

To me her work inspires me, the bright colours and extravagant type seem as if they shouldn’t go together, but it goes together perfectly. The vibrant colours makes her message stand out a lot more and encourages people to take her seriously.

My favourite piece that Sister Corita had created was “If I” which was made in 1969, there is something peculiar about this piece that I particular like. I love the way she has reflected different type onto the opposite side as well as sticking to plain and simple colours which makes it stand out even more.  

 

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corita_Kent - Sister Corita, Wikepedia

https://www.corita.org/coritadb/index.php?id=5&option=com_content&task=view – Art Centre

https://www.spruceaustin.com/tag/sister-mary-corita/ - Spruce

Digital Art

Over the past four weeks I have created five digital art images by using an app on my IPad.

I simply took photos of different architecture around chesterfield and drew them by using different tools on the sketch book app.

I surprisingly loved doing digital art and it is something I will definitely use throughout my courses!

Chesterfield architecture

23rd April 2013 - To start off with our teacher briefed us in on what we were going to do today.

First of all I photocopied my pictures I had taken and turned them into black and white.

I then did some mono printing, simply by song one of my pictures and putting it onto black paint, then by using the end of a paint brush I would draw around my image so the paint would pick up on my card.

I then chopped down one of my photos to A5 to stick onto A5 white card, when doing the photo emulsion.
When doing this we had to stick our photo face down onto white paint and smear and push down onto the photo. Once every bit was covered I could peel it off the paint and place of onto card to let it dry. Once it was dry I could scratch off the paper for my image to appear underneath.

I then started my new collage, by doing this I ripped up one of my photos into strips then got rid of some, then drew them in as a replacement. I then added brown card to my sections of my picture and once again drew over it. I also added charcoal to parts of my image.

I then photo copied my own work and added colour into my work by using inks.

Life Drawing

Tuesday 12th March 2013 - Today we have been doing more life drawing of a males body.

Rather than drawing on newsprint on an easel I decided to draw in my sketch book with pencil for the first sketch ad charcoal for the last two.

I do not like any of my sketches due to how I found it hard to draw on my lap in my sketch book and I couldn't get the right shape of my models body

Life Drawing

5th March 2013 -
Today we have been doing life drawing, starting off by arranging our easels around the model so we could each get a different angel.

First of all we drew in pencil on newsprint paper and had a time limit for about 20 minutes, as soon as we finished drawing we put a fresh paper of newsprint on the easel and drew the model in charcoal.
Once we finished each drawing we turned round our easels so everybody could see your drawings, this way we could get an idea of what everyone else's style and perspective was.

After break we went to the library to get information about Leonardo Da Vinchi to find out how he measured the human body and what techniques he used, we took this in and used a similar technique for us to use.

As soon as that was over we had to change over and put brown paper onto the easel, we carried on drawing in charcoal put only had ten minutes to draw three then we drew another three but had a tine limit of five minutes.

Finger Painting

Today we did some finger painting which was inspired by Jenny Saville.
We started off by choosing an image that Jenny had done for us to use later on.

We then had a male model at the front of the class who was posing for us to draw his face, by using a central line and shapes we created a simple outline of his face.

By using our fingers and the specific colours that are used in the images we chose, we created a colourful eye catching art piece in the style of Jenny Saville.

Life Drawing - Hands & Feet

Tuesday 29th January 2013 - Today we have carried on drawing hands and feet, but instead of just drawing in pencil we got told we had to go and find some sticks from outside and use them along with ink to draw with instead.
I found it difficult to start off with as I couldn't get it neat and perfect, however the messy effect did work on some of the pictures.
I especially like my final drawing as I was able to use a mix media throughout, I used charcoal, white pastel and ink to get different tones and textures.