Head in the clouds
Acrylic paint on wood boards 3ft by 3 1/2 feet July 2019 EXHIBITION TEXT: The reason I created this piece was because I love using acrylic paint on wood boards at work so I wanted to try something more advanced than stencils at home. I was inspired by Rene Magritte and Judith beheading Holofernes. I was inspired to create a subtle dream place painting as my favorite artist Magritte does. |
Critical investigation
I was really facinated with Magrittes clouds for a very long time and I have wanted to incorporate them into my own work. His clouds are very dream like and I wanted to put that element in aswell. Although I am inspired by Magrittes clouds, I put my own spin to them and gave them an added slight impressionist style.
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This piece still holds a special place in my heart as my favorite. I did my last self portrait inspired by the layout of this piece. This time, I wanted to just use the baroque style to blend my face in this portrait. While it was more of a backup because my pallete knife techinique wasnt working very well, I am very proud or my results. My skills in this technique have definetly improved from the last time.
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Planning Drawings
This is my first planning sketch, my original idea was to use fishing wire to hang up things in the shape of something. In this sketch the shape was the heart, after planning and shopping I realized this piece was too over my head and I just couldn't reach it.
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This was my second sketch which was more focused on nature after seeing Andy Goldsworthys work in class. I was thinking about hot gluing rocks together into the shape of wings to show that the things that bring you down can be used to make you fly. I actually tried out this idea but the glue didn't work so I had to go back to the drawing board.
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This was my final sketch. This is the plan that actually worked out. After sketching project after project, I was so happy that this one actually worked. The plan seemed really hard and complex so I was ready to lose hope but it actually worked better than I had anticipated. The idea is to make the phone out of clay and then decorate with colored rice.
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Process, Ideas and Intentions
Process
first I sanded the boards down to create a smooth surface for the paint.
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next I began painting in a very harsh stroke dabbing pattern. This technique is very harsh on the brush but has great results. I began with varying shades of blue and marking clouds with white
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once having the background filled, I used the same technique to highlight the clouds and give them a lighter finish
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Once the background was done I moved onto my layout of myself with pencil. I used the app Picsart to simplify my photo, With this I could sketch it out as you see above.
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Once I had my basic outline to follow I started my face. I start face first because the face takes me the longest to do. I did this in a baroque style. I started with a basic baroque shade application with a pallete knife. My original intentions was to paint the entire piece with a pallete knife but I realized I don’t know how to do that technique and for times sake moved to brush and blended it out
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when doing the mouth and eyebrows I wanted to add small details with a tiny brush and a rectangular brush. Giving the hair a “fluffy” soft look
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Now that you have begun using clay, make sure that unused clay is either in an air tight container or kept moist with water. For the buttons, roll out the Das clay like cookie dough as you had done for the outer of the box and cut out equal sized squares. Once you have 9, blend them onto the face of the box with your fingers and water. For the phone holders, roll 2 small coils and cut out 2 rectangles out of flattened clay. Conne
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Experimentation
I needed to experiment with my black and white rice because i didn't have a food coloring for those colors. I ended up using acrylic paint instead of food color and I hoped for the best. It worked out but it wasn't the same texture of the other rice. I really struggled with this project as it gave us a lot of freedom and I was accustomed to just being told to do something and copy it. My ideas were very nature centered because I really admired Andy Goldsworthy but after this project I realize that I do not enjoy making art as Andy does. These are three examples of my attempts at being Andy. The first being, getting rocks to glue together so I could make wings, the second being putting lines onto a tree with the iron oxide of the creek nearby and the last being sticks put together to make a circle on the water.
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I experimented with the placing of the rice, at first I was planning to place the rice on individually (like in the photo to the left), but being pressed for time, I needed to ditch this method. I came up with using paint so if i missed some areas with the rice, it would still look okay.
When I had started working on the base(box) I tried to use the coil method. This method did not work at all and I had to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to make this project work. My brother eventually gave me the idea to get the box out of cardboard first, which makes the piece even more mixed media. |
Reflection
I am extremely proud of this project. This was one of the hardest projects to come up with. I am very grateful for all the things I learned from this. I now know you cannot glue rocks together and that I do not like creating things like Andy Goldsworthy. I also remembered that I really dislike working with clay since the bad memories from creating coil pots had resurfaced. However, even with all the dislikes and struggles I managed to come out with a very nice piece. It came out exactly as I had wanted it to. The bright hues and the texture is perfect.
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Critique
I feel that my piece came out better than I had anticipated it to be. I originally thought it was going to look really childish and slapped together but that's not what happened. It does look like a cake instead of a clay and rice sculpture but I still think it looks very neat. The texture is perfect and the shape is perfect. I am so proud of myself for creating this piece. The unity of all the rainbow hues and the travelling of the eye from one area to the next by color is perfect. I love it!
Compare and Contrast
Similarities between my piece and Call for Couture :
Similarities between my piece and Final Phone:
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Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and it's effect upon your artwork?
Each of my inspirational pieces had a effect on my work in one way or another. For example, Since i had been inspired by odees collages it had effect on my work by giving me the idea of and ocean for my foreground and background
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
So Odee was describing himself and how he describes his art.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas,culture,etc. While you researched your inspiration?
One generalization from Odee was that he didnt want to be associated with the typical artsy people and their sterotypes.
What is the central idea and theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea and theme around my research was to put feelings in my piece, from Salvador Dali and don't think about it too much, from Odee
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred that Odee wanted to visually express himself instead of making art.
Each of my inspirational pieces had a effect on my work in one way or another. For example, Since i had been inspired by odees collages it had effect on my work by giving me the idea of and ocean for my foreground and background
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
So Odee was describing himself and how he describes his art.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas,culture,etc. While you researched your inspiration?
One generalization from Odee was that he didnt want to be associated with the typical artsy people and their sterotypes.
What is the central idea and theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea and theme around my research was to put feelings in my piece, from Salvador Dali and don't think about it too much, from Odee
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred that Odee wanted to visually express himself instead of making art.
Bibliography
1.“I Create Digital Colleges To Express Myself Visually.” Bored Panda,www.boredpanda.com/digital-collage-art-from-iceland/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic.
2. “15 Things You Didn't Know About The Persistence Of Memory.” Mental Floss, 21 May 2018, mentalfloss.com/article/62725/15-things-you-didnt-know-about-persistence-memory.
2. “15 Things You Didn't Know About The Persistence Of Memory.” Mental Floss, 21 May 2018, mentalfloss.com/article/62725/15-things-you-didnt-know-about-persistence-memory.