About My Project

Hello! I'm Sarah Allen, a senior at BASIS Peoria. Welcome to my senior project blog! This is where all the magical, wonderful, artistic stuff gets posted as well as the dry and not as exciting research that goes with it. For my internship, I will be spending about two months in Alberta, Canada learning about- you guessed it- art. My on-site advisor is none other than the greatest Albertan landscape painter of all time: Brent Laycock, a.k.a. my grandpa. He will teach me painting techniques, business skills, and help me develop my artistic abilities. When not in the studio working, I will be exploring nature for inspiration, gathering information from galleries, reading texts related to my research, and interacting with other artists.

All of this will help me answer the overall question that makes up my project: Does *traditional art still have a place in modern society? Or in other words, are pieces made with conventional materials and techniques still bought and appreciated in a society where almost everything has become unconventional or digital? Due to increased popularity in digital paintings and graphic design, many
artists have abandoned the traditional mediums and techniques in favor of drawing tablets and software. Other artists have continued to use the "old-fashioned" mediums of paint, pencil, and other physical materials.

My goal is to see whether or not traditional art is "dead," as so many people believe. In addition, I want to prove to people (and perhaps even to myself) that becoming a free-lance artist is not an unrealistic goal if you have the passion to pursue it. I hope to show through my project how traditional art skills are important for any kind of artist, and that painting is not a dying art. I hope you enjoy my blog!

*For the purpose of my project, I am defining traditional art to be any kind of fine art that is created using conventional mediums such as paint, graphite, charcoal, or typical sculptural material (clay, wood, etc.). However, I will mostly be focusing on painting for my personal art studies. In addition to mediums, I am also going to observe how prevalent classical and representational styles are (as opposed to abstract).