This piece isn't a real project that I had to do for class, but I did it over the little break we have between semesters, and I'm really proud of it, so I thought I would share. It's a portrait of one of my cousins, and it was a really fun piece to create because it was really quick and loose, and it totally renewed my love for watercolor painting. I love doing these fast, sketchy, mixed-abstract-and-realism pieces because they're a great way to loosen up in between my big pieces, especially because they're often really stressful and detailed. I loved creating this portrait, and I can definitely see myself doing more in the future while I'm working on my concentration.
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I think it's safe to say that this semester flew by. It really does feel like just yesterday I was starting senior year and art 4 (for the second time). It feels strange to know that I'm done with the "learning" part of my high school art classes, since AP Studio is going to be all about coming up with my own pieces and ideas. I'm super excited to explore my more creative side next semester, but needless to say, I'm a little bit freaked out by the idea of having to come up with 12 pieces around one theme. It's definitely going to be a new experience, but I think I'm ready for it.
Over the last semester, I started to see that I am definitely capable of coming up with my own projects and creating pieces that are unique to my style. I feel like this round of Art IV was like pregaming for my concentration. I had to come up with my own ideas and really be self-motivated to complete my pieces. I learned a lot about my own processes with art, one of them being that I am the worlds slowest painter. Maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but regardless, I need to be faster when I paint in the future. If anything, my slowness with oils has shown me that I need to use some different mediums for my concentration because if not, it will never be done by May. I'm so grateful that I got the freedom to create pieces that I really wanted to create this semester because I feel like I've become much more aware of my own personal style and the things that I really enjoy creating. For example, I discovered that I really enjoy doing portraits, and that I like creating pieces that have some non-literal meanings. This semester showed me that I want my concentration to be portrait-based, and I'm really excited about it. I also reinforced the already-known fact that I love to paint, and that it's something that I can totally see myself using for twelve pieces in my concentration. More than anything, my last round of Art IV has shown me that I am more than capable of completing my portfolio. I can't wait to see how the finished product comes out, and I'm so excited about my concentration. All I can say is, bring on AP Studio and second semester! Let me start with this: I did NOT aim for this piece to turn out how it did. That being said, I don't hate it. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but it's not the worst thing I've ever done. It was, however, a very stressful process. Anyone who saw me working on this piece will tell you that I had a seemingly constant internal battle with myself regarding the eyes. The main issue was that none of the eyes I drew looked right with the piece, which is something that usually never happens with me. I love drawing and painting eyes, so the fact that they were turning out so badly was a bit of a blow to my love of eyes. Eventually I decided to just leave them blank until I figured out what to do, and it ended up sticking. Again, I don't hate the absence of eyes, but it's still super off-putting to me. I do feel like they ended up looking kind of angry in the end, when in the beginning they looked more sad and emotional, which I would have preferred to the angry look. Another regret, before I get into what I actually like about this piece, the hair is WAY too dark. I keep looking back at my old in-progress pictures where the hair is light, and I get SO upset with myself for making it as dark as I did. I think it would have been a nice contrast to how dark the piece got. More than anything, I just wish this piece had ended up more emotional than creepy, because that was not the vibe I was going for at all.
Okay, so I do like some of this piece. The whole torso-plant-thorn thing I have going on is one of the coolest things I've done, and I love the way it looks in the pen and ink. I think it's really interesting how underneath the vines the body is totally empty, and the vines still look like they are popping out from her body. It definitely gives an eerie atmosphere to the piece, and I like how she is almost entirely covered in the vines. Because of how much I like the vines, I really think that this piece could have been a favorite of mine if it weren't for the face and hair. I actually realized after this piece that it works really well with my concentration theme (more on that later) and how it might look really cool if I redid it with oil paint or watercolors. It would be really interesting to me to see how it would look if I changed the medium. I will probably end up doing that just because I love the idea behind the piece, and I want it to look how I imagine it in my head, while still keeping it visually cohesive with my concentration. All in all, its not a bad piece (at least I don't think it is), I just wish it had turned out more like I had imagined. I think it's safe to say that this painting has been one of the longest and most difficult pieces I've ever done. I knew when I started that it wasn't going to be an easy project to do, but I had no idea that it would take me as long as it did. If I'm completely honest, I'd say that I'm still not 100% happy with how it looks, mostly because the background is very empty, and I want to fill up some more of the space. That being said, however, this is definitely the best portrait I've done.
This is sort of a weird thing to point out right off the bat, but I'm really impressed with the nose on this painting. Its a known fact (well, at least known to me, that is) that I cannot usually draw a nose to save my life. It's something I am well aware of and have been trying my best to work on, and I think it really shows in this piece. I put so much into the face and shading of all of the aspects of this piece, and for me, the fact that the nose turned out so well is a little symbol that maybe there is some hope for me yet. I am also super proud of the hair on this piece. If I'm honest, I wish my own hair looked like the hair in this piece. That being said, I was hoping for a more wild look, and the hair in this is pretty much that "perfect effortless beach wave" that really takes 30 minutes to achieve. Either way, this is the best looking hair I've ever painted, purely from a technical standpoint. My patience with the layers and adding more highlights, details, shadows, and then more highlights definitely paid off. I would say the last thing that really stands out to me as a good part of this piece is how the colors work together. I wanted to convey a very safe, peaceful, and warm feeling with this piece, and I think all of the golds I used in the flowers and the portrait itself really bring that emotion home. For me, the torso was a huge struggle. I don't think I've gotten the shading quite right, and I know that drawing more of the figure is something I definitely need to work on, but for a first attempt at drawing a human torso I'm fairly pleased. My absolute least favorite part of this piece, however, is the background. It still feels too empty to me, and I don't really like the color I picked for the background. I think I should add more flowers to really make it feel like the girl is within the flowers, and to make the whole thing feel like the space is filled. I also originally wanted the color of the sky to be cold so it would contrast with the yellow flowers and the warm emotions in the piece, but I still think it should have something different in it. I'm not entirely sure what, but definitely something. When I started this piece, I had no idea that it would turn out this way. I started with a few sketches to practice my blind contour drawings(see previous post) and I found that I really enjoyed how loosely I could draw and paint with them. For this piece, I originally wanted to make it a mixed-media collage sort of thing with the paintings that I had originally done, but I wasn't sure how to make it work and still look good. So, I decided to do three new contour sketches and combine them into one big piece. I took all of the colors that I used in my original sketches from over the summer and tried my best to incorporate those into my piece. I tried to make it a little bit looser and more free flowing than the original three sketches. After doing such a realistic and structured painting for my last project I really wanted to do something more loose, and I think it turned out way better than I'd anticipated.
I really like the colors that I used in this piece. I think that they all go really well together and contrast nicely with the serious faces I used for the people. One of the things I really wanted to do with my original pieces was to juxtapose the bright, happy colors with more moody and emotional faces. I think I achieved this a little better with my first few sketches, but I'm still really proud of the faces in this piece. I like the freedom of doing "semi-blind" contour sketches because I don't have to think too much about the perfect proportions or blending the skin tones just right. Everything was up to my own creative liberty, and it was really nice to be able to do something and just enjoy the process. That being said, one thing I would do differently if I redid this piece is that I would add in the areas of realism to some parts of the faces. I feel like they would convey a bit more emotion into the piece and make it more interesting to look at. The whole thing is very even, and I wish I had made something that stands out or acts as a central focal point, something to really draw your eyes in. I do love the intensity of the colors, and the pen work, but I feel like there is still something missing from it. All in all, this piece was definitely good for me to loosen up my creative juices and get me back into a mindset where I can come up with more ideas for future projects. As someone who tends to find herself in a perpetual state of artists block I think it was incredibly helpful to take a brief break from the realism and do something more abstract. I definitely feel now like abstraction is a technique I should work more on and incorporate into my work more often, and after doing this piece I'm not afraid of straying from realistic paintings. When I went into Art IV for the second time, I was a little worried about redoing all of the projects that I had already done before. Thankfully, after the reflection project, I was told that I didn't need to be doing the same projects twice, for the sake of my portfolio and for my sanity. So when my teacher asked me what kind of project I wanted to do, I naturally picked the project that would stress me out the most. I had this amazing picture that I took of my cousin at the beach, and I've been wanting to paint it for forever, and I finally got the chance. Since acrylic paints are the bane of my existence, choosing oil paints was easy. Not as easy: painting the hands and the mouth. Even though I loved the picture, I chose an idea with my two least favorite parts of the human body to paint: hands and an open, smiling mouth. But nevertheless, I was determined to do it. And do it I did. I am actually incredibly pleased with the result of this painting. It took me was less time than I'd anticipated at first, and I think it's the best portrait I've ever done. Knowing that I did this portrait makes the idea of future ones WAY less intimidating.
If there's one thing that I'm really proud of on this piece, its the emotion I showed in the face, and that NOSE. I usually think that I'm pretty bad at painting noses, but I actually think that the nose in this portrait turned out really great, and I'm super proud of it. It was a little daunting at first to look at the reference picture and attempt to create the same emotion that I feel in that photo. On the day the picture was taken, my cousin was wearing my glasses, which are clearly too big for her, and the joy on her face was obvious. I really wanted to try and capture that in my painting. Since painting mouths has always been something that I sort of dread doing, I was really impressed with myself and how well it ended up turning out, and I think that the mouth was a key aspect of making the emotion really come through in the painting. Another thing that I was super apprehensive about going into this piece was the fact that I had to paint hands. Painting hands is one of my least favorite things to do, but alas, they were a pretty substantial part of this piece. I'm pretty proud of how they ended up turning out, but I know that there is still a lot of room for improvement in the hand-painting department. This is hands-down the best portrait I've ever done. I'm SO impressed with myself. I never expected to make a painting this realistic before and I think I'm still a little bit in shock that I did this. I can't wait to paint more challenging portraits and see what I can do; knowing that I've accomplished this painting has definitely made me feel a lot more confident about portraits in the future. |
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