“I watched you fade away, and I turned my head and closed my eyes, and prayed you'd stay. Then I told myself that it be fine..”, Heard Goodbye by Dan + Shay; “Place your hand on my beating heart”, Thinking Out Loud by Ed Sheeran; “I'm waking up! I feel it in my blood!”, Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. These are some of my favorite lyrics from my favorite songs and artists. To me music is not just about the overall sound and rhythm, although that is an essential part, but it is also about the story that music tells throughout its lyrics, rhythm, and emotions as a whole. Every song on my iPhone has some sort of deeper meaning to me or a specific mood that goes along with it. For example when I am sad I listen to Heard Goodbye. When I feel calm and in a relaxed state of mind I listen to Ed Sheeran songs, and when I am going for a run or getting my self energized for the day I listen to Imagine Dragons. For this reason I wanted to work my deep “musical connection” with musicians and bands into my self portrait because it is huge part of what makes me “me”. I also know I need to add my dog, patches, in there somehow because he is my pet and I love chilling with my fuzzy friend. I also knew I needed some sort of colorful thing to represent my love for art, and lastly I needed myself with some foreshortening in my body to be somewhere in this picture.
With all these, clearly well thought out, mini thoughts I concocted a complex composition, to be done on brown paper in color pencil, of me sitting against wall covered with a few of the many names of musical artists that I like. I then drew a painting palette and brush to add a little more character to my composition, as well as to portray another characteristic of me. I also placed my dog to my right side in the photo, to create a complexed foreground between my legs and my dog. Lastly to meet the criteria I zoomed in on my hand and knees to create foreshortening in my body, thus making my body and head look further back then my hands and knees. To do this I made my legs and hands about a half a head giver take bigger than they needed to be. I did not want to go to dramatic with foreshortening because I wanted the attention to be not just on the position of me but on the background and foreground as well. Over all I like my rendering with the color pencils and some of the interesting colors that I found, however, as always there are a few things that bug me about my piece. One of the major things that bug me is the top of my dogs head, it just looks abnormal to me, and the stone wall looks a little cartoonish. Otherwise I like it more than I thought I would when I started off.
I started planning my composition based on my first proposal description and I did not like it. All my ideas felt bland and not about me. I went back to the drawing board and played around with my senior pick and made it more about me. I first drew the picture then added then made a list of things that I like at the bottom of the page. Then I tried to work as many of those things into my composition as I could. I added pint brushes to my hands and a paint pallet behind me. I also added names of musicians I like in the wall and my dog by me. This idea also still meets the criteria because there is foreshortening in the view of my dog and my body. Lastly I have decided to do this in color pencils, which I will probably regret but I like color so it doesn't really make sense to do this in black and white.
First of all I hate painting and drawing all people and especial myself!
With that narrow train of thought of my mind to even begin thinking and researching this project I needed inspiration so as every artist hungry for an idea doses I went on Pintrest and started looking at portraits of people. I even created a new bored. Some of the images that inspired me are posted below.
For my my composition I am thinking of having me sitting against a tree in my yard holding a sketchbook drawing something with my feet coming out towards the foreground. I m choosing this setting because I love finding a quiet place outside to just sit, put my earphones in, and draw. I am also, contrary to most of the images that inspired me, deciding to draw in ebony pencil. So far this year I have only painted in acrylic or done a collage combined with water colors or acrylic paints, and I miss working with ebony pencil as I usually do. I feel like using ebony pencil will also enhance my drawing because it is something it is my favorite drawing media.
Collage Cityscape:
For my cityscape I was not really sure what vibe I wanted to get across When I started. I am by no means good at collage but I figured it might be fun to try and find a bunch of patterns and object that reminded me of the city and then put them all together in a random order and paint a cityscape over them. as I was doing this collage my excitement and confidence in my little collage skills started to build and I got a little carried away. In a way it was good for me because I just let myself loosely paint what I feel needed to be in a city seen. I painted street lights and planters, building lights and streets that I wanted to emphasize. Lastly I scaled back some of the magazine parts that felt to bold. From a compositional standpoint I did a good job in meeting the criteria because I created a complex foreground of buildings, a complexed middle ground of things that I painted and a complex collaged background of things that I found that reminded me of the city. If there was one thing I changed I would have done this assignment on a canvas because the layers of paper are strong, yet my piece still feels a bit flimsy.
Landscape Painting:
My landscape painting to me is gorgeous. I honestly did not know I could paint with such colors and brush strokes and I love it. I used two different brushes (a medium square brush, and a smaller square one), and only primary colors with white added. The idea from this painting came from a recent stroll through the country side with my family on our annual trip our usual pumpkin patch. The foreground consists of the road that vanishes into the middle ground. the middle ground is my favorite part of this piece and the part I really wanted to emphasize all of the things that I enjoyed seeing for instance I was dazzled by all of the vibrant and warm fall colors. Lastly the day we went to the pumpkin farm was a beautiful sunny day so I painted a pretty blue sky and some darker trees in the background to give my painting a more depth and a complexed look. Overall I just wanted to get across the feeling of just strolling through the countryside without any worries from life. If I could change anything about this piece, I would zoom in a little more and make the road narrow in more and possibly go back in with a thinner brush and add more detail to the tree leaves towards the front of the painting and in the grass to create a more photo realism feel. Overall though I am Happy with how this painting turned out.
Paper Substrate Artist Statement:
Have you ever had a ever looked in a mirror and not liked what you have seen… Well if you are then you will be able to relate to my first piece. Recently my sister and I went shopping and found ourselves critiquing our bodies based on what the clothing looked like on the mannequin, and I took a step back and thought I am not the mannequin and I am me and should not, along with so many people, be comparing myself to something that I am not. For this reason I got this idea to create a painting that expressed this feeling. I started by building a paper substrate out of a plain brown piece of paper and then built up five or six newspaper layers. Next I added a layer of magazines of models and bodies that are considered “attractive”. To finish the paper substrate I painted on a thin layer of gesso mixed with a little water and painted on top of that. Lastly I painted the girl. The girls skin tone is made of only primary and white mixed together to create rich natural layers (I probably painted like 5 layers of her face and arms). The girls hair is also composed of primary colors blended to create highlights and a normal hair color. Thinking compositionally I chose to place the girl off centered and to the left because I always do things centered and I wanted to add more emotion to the piece. I also chose to have the girl hugging her leg because she is sad and the position just looked sad. Lastly I chose to have her face showing, contrary to my planning of just the side of her face, because I wanted to show the raw sad emotion of feeling bad about oneself based on the photo shopped celebrities and magazine models. Overall I like the piece and love the meaning I put in the piece however, I am torn between adding something to the background or leaving it as is.
Canvas Painting:
My next composition started as a cliche portrait of a person holding an umbrella n the rain. While I was painting it I was bored, plus it just felt so icky, and I hated it so I frustratingly painted over it. While I was painting over it I was getting this cool movement and brush strokes from the layer of wet paint underneath. I was then feeling better about my piece and got this idea to paint a girl (which is kinda like me), on top of the cool looking background, walking towards the light. I really loved the movement and subtle drama of this piece however it needed to go farther and I needed to and another layer of some sort. I then thought of all the things I could add like smoke, cities, flowers, patterns, and etc. All of a sudden it hit me I should add more brush strokes that are a different color and break up the flow of the circular motion of the background. I chose brown to do this because, it repeated the color of her hair and I took it to mean her leaving her dark troubles that are closing in on her. I love this piece because it can be perceived in so many different ways, people can view it as they want and take it to mean whatever they want based on how it makes them feel. If I could change anything I would go in and add another layer to her hair and skin otherwise to me it is perfect.
