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I'm not going to lie, this week was a little rough and I didn't get nearly as much done as I had hoped. I gridded both my canvases and also learned how to photoshop a spotlight onto my reference photos. I also spent quite a lot of time researching how to start this painting process because I am so scared to finally begin painting actual skin tones:
For both the home project and the in-class project, I have decided to do four portraits (realistically!!!) of the female family members in my mother's side of the family. I have always been slightly in awe of my mom's side, because I think that the extended family is so close, and that traits pass through all family members. Another special thing about her family is that all the women have strikingly similar traits starting with their physical features. I wanted to do a realistic series, experimenting with oil paints, mediums, and BRUSHES!!! This project is going to be very difficult for me, and I am working on smaller canvases: 18x18 this time. I will have to seriously work on my mastery of color, detail, and proportions, but I'm really excited to get started. Btw: I plan on using photoshop to give each photo a spotlight colored look, and will also work a lot with deciding appropriate background colors.
This was probably my toughest piece yet. I don't love it, but I'm so proud of myself for completing it. I started painting with palette knife, but actually ended up using a brush. One of the hardest aspects of this piece was actually using blocks of color (Hans Hoffman type beat), but still maintaining a decent aspect of realism throughout my piece. I also accidentally used way too much green and the piece looks almost sickly, but it looks very different in real life than on picture (looks better irl). I think that my biggest success with this piece was deducing value rather than color and placing the brush in a looser and yet more controlled way on the canvas. There are a lot of places to improve with this piece, but I strongly believe that I will experiment further with this style., but I definitely need to focus more on my content and how it comes together with this style.
I think I figured out what I'm going to paint! Originally, I was going to simply paint Bauji's portrait again, but I decided that I should branch out and I decided to paint my grandfather. I think that this piece is very personal to me because of how much it represents about how I think about generation, elders, and tradition. I was brought up in quite a strict and traditional household, and my grandfather was the head of said household. He is a loving, caring, and sincere man, but he never let us kids get away with anything. He taught us and encouraged us to do everything we possibly could while growing up, and he enforced his expectations quite thoroughly. To this day, I have utmost respect for him because of how hard he has worked to provide for our entire family and extended families. His portrait as the subject paired with the tiktoker's style represents a lot to me because I think the style gives off an older and sterner look to it than perhaps something bright like Cezanne's work. The color palette, style, subject, and content come together to create a powerful piece in my eyes that shows how I believe my generations have builded upon the legacy that my grandfather and his father created: layers of dedication and hard work. Creating the charcoal base was quite easy, and I learned that the turpentine was actually veryyy hard to apply over charcoal so that was a struggle, but once I finished, it looked semi-alright in real life. Then, I studied the tiktoker's application carefully and started to apply dark tones in the shadow areas of dadaji's face. However, I did not simply use burnt umber. I utilized various shades of crimson, burnt sienna, sap green, and burnt umber. I am very scared to start applying the medium and lighter tones, but will update you soon.
Hahahhaha update I guess. I actually finished my last painting??? I also made a new one for my favorite friend Kamya Sanjay. Thought I'd share :). I loved doing both of these and learned SO much It's crazy. I also took a much better picture of my last Switzerland painting:
I got inspiration from a tiktok out of all places. Inspiration is inspiration however, and this girl's style is everything, so I am going to practice and try and replicate it and see if I can make a painting that is similar. I am SO excited to see if this would work when applied to a subject of my choice. This artist's style is so incredible because it works on top of a charcoal base, then applies a thin oil paint layer on top, and then paints blocks of paint over that. On top of the very rough and unfinished edges of this painting which makes it *spicy*, it also is less about the realism of the shades of the face, and focuses on the values of the highlights and depth of the face itself because its various different colors coming together. I'm absolutely in love with this post, and I am almost completely sure that I will do something like this when I try and paint my own piece.
Hi! I have been thinking a lot about what this project might entail and what the content might be. Currently I am quite focused on just finishing up my landscapes from the last project, and any potential passion projects I might do during this summer. I know that I want this piece to encompass everything that I have done so far:
- I spent a lot of this and last year perfecting my palette knife technique and playing around with oil paints - I have made multiple pieces about family, legacy, stories, and generations. - I know that I want to make something with many layers and color palettes coming together. I think that I will definitely size up, and work on a very large canvas and hopefully will see something over this summer that catches my eye and works out that I will end up painting. |
Authormy name is shreya. Archives
June 2021
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