So. This project was an interesting experience for sure. Being my first with oils, I sort of put this unreasonable pressure on myself to do a perfect job and be the next oil painting pro. Like I said, unreasonable. I will say that I think I did a pretty good job with the oils for the first time, but there is definitely room for improvement (as with every project for the rest of my art career). I really enjoyed the oils, maybe even more than acrylic. I liked being able to go back and blend colors the next day without worrying about them drying, but it was sort of hard to get the highlights at first. One issue I found myself running into during this project was keeping the painting from getting muddy. I started to get muddy in the main succulent towards the end, and I had to take a break for a few days to let it dry, so I could eventually go back and re-add the colors more vibrantly. If I were to go back and add something to this piece, I would definitely add some highlights to the plants so they have that trademark "plastic" look of succulents. I might also try to add more to the left side of the painting, since I still feel like it's rather bare.
What I feel like I did successfully with this painting is probably the variety of colors I incorporated. I started out with just greens and blues, and then I started adding in some purples as well. I tried at the beginning to stick to the same scheme of blues and greens, but towards the end I sort of just looked at my palette and said, "let's see how this color looks," and I'm actually really pleased with it. I also wanted to add in some orange/coral colors to the plants since that was the background color, but this made my plants look sort of muddy. I had a mini heart attack at first when I stepped back and saw this, but after waiting a little bit and then retouching it I think it looks ten times better. One thing I'm still not too sure I'm totally pleased with is the background color(s). I feel like the contrasting colors helps make the main focus of my piece (the plants) pop out, but the color is still a little bit unsettling to me. I sort of wish I'd done a more dulled-down pastel color to make it fee less harsh and in your face. As a whole I think this was a pretty good first oil painting. I feel like I will totally be doing more experimenting with oils in the future, and hopefully now that I have a little bit of a clue what I'm doing I'll improve with my next piece.
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A Little InfoThis page is all of my art from Art Four, which I took my junior year of high school. The main goal of this class was to begin collecting pieces that I can potentially add to my AP Portfolio at the end of Senior year. During this class I created some of my favorite pieces, and also one of my least favorite (I'm looking at you, adirondack chair painting). I'll be retaking this class in the fall of senior year to add more pieces to learn and grow even more, and create more potential portfolio pieces. Archives
January 2017
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