Amelia L. Murdock Painting

New blog and website...

2010-06-04T12:42:00.000-07:00

I've Moved!
For all further information please see www.amelialmurdock.com is my new website and blog. Check it out for all my new updates.

Portrait of a Piedmontese Cow

2010-02-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

Scholarship Winner!

2009-11-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

The second place awards of $4,000, go to two students this year, Amelia Landes Taylor, for the Adrian Gottlieb Studio & Atelier,....

Jacob Collins, Director of the Grand Central Academy finds Amelia Landes Taylor "extraodinarily focused and intense...with great energy and ambition, realizing her natural talent."

It had been a goal of mine since I was 16 to place in that competition and I feel that I did very well. I am very excited about working on the west coast.

For photos and mor information the link is :

http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2009/Scholarship/results1.asp

Tribute to Anna Sewell

2009-10-22T17:44:00.000-07:00

This is a still life I recently finished. I have always been a lover of horses and of the book Black Beauty. When I learned that the author Anna Sewell had sold the all time best selling manuscript for $25 and received no royalties, I was shocked. I was more amazed to learn what she said when asked how she felt about being swindled out of her rights. She said she was just glad that her message of animal abuse awareness was spread so far. This painting is a tribute to her and the influence her book and the equine animal in general has had on my life. Enjoy.

Just About the End of the Year Art

2009-05-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

Here is what I have been working on the past few months. Very exciting to finish my first real painting. Let me know what you all think!

New Website

2009-03-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

http://web.mac.com/ameliataylor21

Is my new website. Please check up on this to see any new art. My blog will now be for more personal use. Thanks!

ps, I'm getting married hence the added Taylor to the name

Figure Drawing

2009-02-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

My Latest Figure Drawing, with chalk and pencil on toned paper

Latest Studies.... a little blurry

2009-01-16T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of portraits and a painting in progress. I really need to get a new camera. these pictures are completely awful. But you can kinda get the idea.

Latest Drawings

2008-12-02T16:37:00.001-08:00

Feel like a few tragic thoughts?

2008-11-15T21:50:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I like to feel well, ... how do I put this, Tragic. I know it's weird. But sometimes I like the feeling of deep feeling--deep tragic feeling. As long as it's not real :) Does anyone else feel like that? So what better way to feel that way then through poems?

I found this poem in a book of love poems, and is one of the most beautifully tragic things I have ever read. Emily Bronte is one of my favorite writers of all time, so that helps.

If you ever have lost a loved one in anyway I feel this poem helps to do those feelings justice.

The last two stanzas are horribly heart wrenching but have so much truth to them. I just love this poem so much.

A little background first on Emily Bronte, I added a painting of her and a drawing of her home :

She was born England in 1818 and died at the age of 29 from the flu. She had two sisters who were also fabulously successful writers, Charlotte and Anne. Their mother died when Emily was 3 and their two elder sisters died before they were yet adults. The three sisters wrote together from childhood. They published themselves together (at their own expense) under pen names. Currer, Ellis, and Acton. They published a collection of poems. How cool is that!

They all wrote their intensly influential novels around the same period (I'm sure they are like my mom and sister and other writers of our clan who bounce ideas off each other's heads all the time ) Emily wrote Wuthering Heights (a tragic gothic romance which happens to be one of my very favorites) and Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre.

Emily died only a year after her only novel was published an her sister Anne died within a year after her, leaving Charlotte as the remaining sister, with no mother.

Their lives have been painted as very isolating and tragic, which it sounds like it was.

But maybe they were just like me, happy with who I'm with and who I am, but like to feel and express tragic feelings sometimes.

Or maybe they were all horribly depressive old spinsters.

Remembrance

COLD in the earth--and the deep snow piled above thee,

         Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
         Sever'd at last by Time's all-severing wave?

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
         Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
         Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?

Cold in the earth--and fifteen wild Decembers
         From those brown hills have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
         After such years of change and suffering!

Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
         While the world's tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
         Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!

No later light has lighten'd up my heaven,
         No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given,
         All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee.

But when the days of golden dreams had perish'd,
         And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
Then did I learn how existence could be cherish'd,
         Strengthen'd and fed without the aid of joy.

Then did I check the tears of useless passion--
         Wean'd my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
         Down to that tomb already more than mine.

And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
         Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
         How could I seek the empty world again?

My Favorite Painting

2008-10-26T10:38:00.001-07:00

"Abbey in the Oak Forest"
By Caspar David Friedrich of Germany

This is and has been one of my top five favorite paintings of all time. It is not classical, and it is not a painting that most would consider their favorite, but to me, the power and feeling, and sense of morality and hope this painting gives, along with its sheer beauty, is all that a painting should be.
Info on the painting from Wikipedia:
A key innovation of Friedrich's was his use of the landscape genre to evoke religious themes. . Friedrich sought not just to explore the blissful enjoyment of a beautiful view, as in the classic conception, but rather to examine an instant of sublimity, a reunion with the spiritual self through the contemplation of nature. Friedrich said, "The artist should paint not only what he sees before him, but also what he sees within him. If, however, he sees nothing within him, then he should also refrain from painting that which he sees before him. Otherwise, his pictures will be like those folding screens behind which one expects to find only the sick or the dead." Expansive skies, storms, mist, forests, ruins, and crosses bearing witness to the presence of God are frequent elements in Friedrich's landscapes. Death is referenced more directly in paintings like The Abbey in the Oakwood, in which monks carry a coffin past an open grave, toward a cross, through the portal of a church in ruins. The bare oak trees are a recurring element of Friedrich's paintings, symbolizing the "pagan aspect" of death. Countering the sense of despair are Friedrich's symbols for redemption: the cross and the clearing sky promise eternal life, and the slender moon suggests hope and the growing closeness of Christ. In The Abbey in the Oakwood, the movement of the monks away from the open grave and toward the cross and the horizon imparts Friedrich's message that the final destination of man's life lies beyond the grave.
Obsessed with themes of death, Friedrich developed images that, through their silence, sadness, and symbolism, provide meditations on mortality.

I agree with most of this article about the painting, except the last sentence that says he was obsessed with death and the sadness and symbolism is what provides meditation on our mortality. I look at this painting and see so much hope! I love this painting because depending on the viewer it can be taken as a hopeful painting of the resurrection and eternal life, or a painting showing how religion can not save you.
For example, is the sun setting or rising? I feel it is rising. This could symbolize the risen lord, or that death is merely the beginning of a new life, a new day.
I love how vast the landscape and trees are, and how small the people are. To me it shows the plan of eternal life and how much greater the whole picture is then just us.
I also love how it's a ruined church. This could mean so much! To some it could show the corruption of religion, and how God is really in "the landscape".
To me it shows how Christianity is so much more then just church, or the letter of the law. Yes, they are passing through "the ruined church" to the next life, and it could be necessary, but in the grand scheme of things, Christ is in the rising sun, not in the crumbling, skewed crosses.

To me this painting reminds me of eternal life, and the ressurection, not death. And how much God loves us and how grand and perfect His plan is.

Summer Summary

2008-10-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Summer in Utah So, I had a summer in utah. The majority of it was pretty awesome. I rode horses alot, hung out with my family, and did absolutely no drawing. It was so nice to be in the sun for 5 hours a day or more! Such a contrast to 10 hours a day in the studio, aka the cave (black walls, no windows). I sold 5 of the 6 horses I was planning on, which makes this years financial state in NY much easier for me. I'm just lucky people are still buying horses in the midst of this financial insanity. Here are some pictures of my sun filled summer. Some family pictures, some family reunion pictures, som adorable pictues of my neice and nephew. Look at Elle's face next to Buttercups! So adorable.

Latest Art

2008-06-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

Here is my final cast drawing finished.... Pan the Satyr.

Plus a drawing of Melissa... which I sold before I came home.

I am currently back in Utah Valley. ........ super exciting..... yep

More art will come! Don't you worry your little heads.

Much Love

Amelia

ps.... um my new favorite quote

" There is Love of course,.... and then there is Life......It's enemy"

go figure

Final Cast

2008-05-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

Here is my final cast in progress. It is a drawing of a cast of Carpot's Pan the Satyr. Super awesome. I have three weeks to finish it, wish me luck!
Hope you enjoy!
There is also a picture of me in front of my drawing in the studio. Pretty much spend my life right there :)

much love
Amelia

Giving up. . . .

2008-04-04T20:40:00.000-07:00

Well, here is my most recent drawing. I'm really proud of it. Everyone thinks it's really nice. It looks so much better in real life. She was a beautiful model and I had the best spot ever. This picture was taken a day before I finished it so the other hand and thighs are finished. . . so it looks even better now. But, lately I've come to really really appreciate what I have given up to be able to draw this. Where I could have been if I had stayed home became very apparent this week, in all different kinds of ways. So, I hope you guys appreciate this, because I have chosen to do this and have given up alot, so I WILL be offeneded if you don't appreciate it :) jk But seriously, this symbolizes all the sleep, money, beauty, relationships of all kinds, fun, I have sacrificed. Hope you enjoy! :)

old guy

2008-02-28T21:25:00.001-08:00

here is a new drawing. This guy was awesome. So much fun. His hands were really tricky because they were so forshortned. anyway, let me know your thoughts!!

Some New Happenings.....

2008-02-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

This model, Melissa, was a 3 week pose. She was really great. Can you see her tan lines? I was really happy with this drawing as it is my very first long pose. I wish I could have had another week to finish it.

I have been working on the block in of Alan for 4 days and think it's coming along great.

The next image is my cast drawing of an eye, if you couldn't tell :) All the modeling is finished, all I have left is doing the reflected light. I did all the modeling in exactly a month..... 2 months faster then the last one!

Thank you for all your support everyone! I'm learning so much out here!

Much love
Amelia

The Joys of New York's Trash

2008-02-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

soooooo.....
The greatest day of my life pretty much was yesterday when I was walking to my baby bulldog sitting job and found beautiful french easel in somebody's trash!!! it is in GREAT condition and is really high quality. It would cost me around 200$ to buy it. It made me so happy! I can go plein air painting now.... paint/draw in my room.... go to other people's house to draw/paint..... so cool!
And no I was not "going through" somebodies trash, I found it on the side of the street. In New York everyone puts their trash on the street with no cans, so I happened to see it!
Happy Day!
Here are some pics.
I didn't set it up because I need some tools to turn the butterfly screws because they are kinda stuck.

Art for My Sake

2008-01-23T17:30:00.000-08:00

Here is some of the recent art projects I have been working on since I came back for Christmas

This one is my cast drawing of an eye if you can't tell. It's halfway finished. It should take me about 3 more weeks to finish (if I'm lucky). This one has been really fun and much better and faster then the mouth I did. It should look really sculptural and "formy" as they say, like it is actually popping out of the page.

This second drawing is the model Melissa we have in the afternoons. Yes, she is nude :) sorry everyone, but an artist's gotta do what and artist's gotta do. I just started the modeling on her shoulder yesterday and it's coming along so well!! I chose to be cheap at the art store and regret buying cheap paper now, it makes a big difference. Next time I'll get better paper. She has faint tan lines on her chest you can see if you look closely.

Anyway, I have another week on this one and we'll see how it goes!! It is SOOOO much fun to draw the model like this! Its so amazing! I can't wait till I get really good at it!

much love

Amelia

My (un) Adventure outside The City

2008-01-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

Okay, wow, just have some good stories from today. I had a job interview outside up manhattan, uptown. In a place called Ossining. They offered a music teaching position to me. I couldn't decide whether or not I should even go, I kept changing my mind. It's too far.... but it's good pay.... but its too far.... but it's better then Starbucks.... but it's too far.... So I ended up going, just to see what it was like.

Can I tell you how horrible getting there was? Somone pickpocketed me and stole my wallet in the trainstation!! I only realized it minutes before my train came (the next train was in an hour) I ran back downstairs and luckily someone had turned it in, whew... what a relief. But they had stolen the cash and my credit card. What a gentleman of a thief! steal the stuff and give it back... how kind :) seriously though, I was way thankful that I hadn't lost my debit card and driver's license and everything else.

So, I barely made the train and was on my way to the interview. I called the credit card company while I was on the train and it took forever! And while I was on the phone this old guy across from me kept flirting with me with a very strong spanish accent, so I was distracted and stressed and everything. He was like "Oh I know where your stop is, I'll let you know when it comes up." What a nice guy, so I kept being nice while I was stressed about the interview, the credit card theif etc. The next thing I know I'm fixing my credit card and he's like "oh no! there's your stop!" I stand up and the doors close and I missed the stop. AGGG! so I had to get off the next stop, wait a half hour in below 20 wheather.

So, I finally made it, they LOVED me, offered me the job and..... I didn't take it.

A whole day of horribleness for nothing :)

Oh well, just another day in new york!!

I did meet a really cool guy who worked at the music school and talked to him the whole train ride home, so that was fun.

I'm putting up some pictures of the day. The first is the empty train I was waiting on because I missed the ossining stop... which is the second picture. The other two are are pictures of the beautiful sunset over the hudson river on the way home in the train. Made the day much better.

much luv

Amelia

First blog entry

2008-01-20T20:17:00.000-08:00

So.... This is my first blog entry... I don't really know what to do so just hang out with me and I'll figure this out eventually.

I decided to do this because I'm constantly repeating everything to everyone back home about all my amazing adventures here in NY. So check up occasionally and you can see the latest of everything.

I'll be posting my art, pictures and stories of stuff out here in the The City, so hope you're excited because I am!

the above drawing is a self portrait I did while feeling especially serious :)

I learned I can't concentrate on drawing and smile at the same time