ACRYLIC PAINTING
Overview
Title: Summer's in her Blood
Size: 60.96 cm x 91.44 cm Medium: Acrylic Paint on Stretched Canvas Date: June 2023 Exhibition Text
"Summer's in Her Blood" is an acrylic painting representing the importance of summer and nature in my life. This piece is meant to explore the theme of seasonal depression, and how during the summer my livelihood and personality truly thrive. This painting is heavily focused on movement and color, and how brushstrokes can be used to create movement throughout a piece. I drew inspiration from the Post-Impressionist movement for this piece, specifically through the artwork of Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat.
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INSPIRATIONS
When looking for inspiration I also came across the piece "Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte" by Georges Seurat. The painting depicts people in a park going about their leisurely activities. This Impressionist piece immediately caught my eye due to the unique way that he used brushstrokes to create the illusion of blending throughout the piece. He used a technique called pointillism, a highly systematic technique using brushstrokes and color. I thought that this technique creates a very visually interesting piece because as you look closer at certain aspects of the piece, like the trees, you can really begin to see the individual dots and strokes. I also liked the scene depicted in this piece. I enjoyed the natural background with lots of trees, grass, and open waters. I knew that I wanted to encorporate many natural aspects into my painting as well. |
When initially researching inspiration for my painting, I was focused on finding artists and art movements who's primary focus was on using technique and color in order to create movement through their pieces. This led me to the Post-Impressionist art movement which was defined by it's use of light, color, and movement. I was particularly drawn to the work of Vincent van Gogh, specifically his portrait work. I was initially interested in his piece "At Eternity's Gate" which features an older man hunched over sorrowfully in a chair. Though I wasn't necessarily inspired thematically by this piece, I enjoyed the way that van Gogh used color in this piece to make it appear bright and basked in light. I also enjoyed the visible brush strokes featured throughout it which is so common in many Post-Impressionist pieces. I also took inspiration from his piece "Self-Portrait, 1889". I really enjoyed the background of this piece, and the effect that van Gogh created through his brushstrokes. I was also inspired by the way he created movement through the rest of the piece as well. |
PLANNING
Once I made a first sketch of the basic features of the piece, I made a smaller slightly more detailed sketch using some of the same techniques that van Gogh used in his pieces such as varies brushstrokes. I also wrote side notes on which parts from my inspirations I wanted to include in my own piece. On my next page I created another sketch of the details I wanted to be included in my piece except this time I primarily used the specific colors and brushstroke movements that I wanted to include in my final painting. This sketch allowed me to truly figure out what I wanted to include in my painting.
I also created an additional planning page just for the colors and brushstrokes that I wanted to use in my piece. I laid out a variety of different shades of greens for the grass, and included notes on the purpose I wanted for each of the colors. I did the same for the colors of the sky, the tank top, and my skin. In addition I practiced some of the brushstrokes that I wanted to use for specific points of the painting to create movement. I wanted to use a variety of short and long straight brushstrokes for the grass, and use more flowy long brushstrokes for the sky. |
When beginning to plan my first summer project, I was struggling to come up with themes and ideas to show through my painting. However, I did know that I wanted to follow the same theme that I had worked out during the prior school year of how our identities can be impacted by circumstances around us. I eventually decided to lean into the "summer" part of this first summer project and chose to make my painting based on the joy that is brought back into my life with the nature and warm weather that inevitably comes with the summer season. I also wanted to showcase the topic of seasonal depression, and how my happiness and myself as a person truly thrives the most during the summer.
Once I knew the theme I wanted to paint about, I moved to the art movement that I wanted to find my inspiration from. I was instantly drawn to the Post-Impressionist art movement due to the color and movement created through their pieces and once I studied my chosen inspirations I created a first sketch of what I wanted my painting to look like. |
PROCESS
After the trees were done, I moved on to the grass in the background. I used a wide variety of different greens in the grass in order to add dimension to the background. I didn't want to have a flat background with no movement going on. I used different length brushstrokes in order to give the illusion of different heights of grass. I also used different sized brushes to make thicker and thinner blades of grass as well. Using the same colors from the grass I was then able to go in with greens and browns to make the two bushes on my sides at the base of the trees. I wanted the bushes and grass to blend, but still be able to be viewed as seperate pieces of the painting.
Moving on to the next part of the background, I used a variety of different shades of blue. I used the same technique here that I used for the trees. I started with one shade of blue and continued to fill in the spaces with other shades of blue until there was no white left on the canvas. With these brushstrokes I was sure to create a lot more organic movement than I had throughout the rest of the piece. After a while I moved on to the skin, face, and hair of the piece because the tank top was taking so much time. I used a larger brush for the skin since I wanted the base to be mostly the same color and then I wanted to layer other shades on top of it. Once I had the base on I went back in with some darker and lighter shades and placed a variety of different brushstrokes in different places throughout my arms, face, and neck. I was sure the brushstrokes were placed vertically and in a way that made sense movement wise throughout the piece.
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To begin my process, I first created a reference photo of myself and the elements I wanted to include in my painting and projected it onto the canvas I made so that I could trace the key details like proportion and placement.
Once everything was traced I decided to begin painting by focusing on the background. Since I was following the inspiration of van Gogh, I wanted my brushstrokes to be visible and create texture and movement throughout the different aspects of the painting. I started with a darker brown on the trees, and made a variety of different shapes and sizes of brushstrokes. Once the darker paint dried I slowly added more layers of lighter browns on top of that. I repeated this process with all of the trees until I was satisfied with how they looked. After the sky I moved on to the tank top and skin. These parts of the painting took me significantly more time than the rest of the painting due to all of the different colors and layering that were required in order to obtain the desired look. For the tank top specifically, I drew a lot of inspiration from Vincent van Gogh's piece "Self-Portrait, 1889" because of the way he used different shades of blue in his shirt to create dimension and texture. In my piece I used a variety of different shades of purple and slowly layered them throughout the shirt. I had to fill all of the gaps of white in the tank top, which took a long time since I was using a smaller brush.
Once my face and the rest of my body was done, I finished off my painting with the hair. This was a difficult part of the painting for me because I had to create movement with the brushstrokes that were accurate to the way that my hair actually moved in real life. In addition, I was finding it difficult to combine multiple shades of brown in order to create dimension in my hair.
To finish up my painting once I was happy with how the hair looked, I went back in to some spots to add more colors and brushstrokes to make the piece seem more finished. |
EXPERIMENTATION
Another form of experimentation that I had to figure out was how much paint to put on my brush to get a solid brushstroke. At some points during the process I realized that I wasn't putting enough paint onto my brush and the brushstrokes weren't solid enough to make an impact in the painting. I learned that putting more paint onto my brush led to more solid and noticeable brushstrokes.
In addition, I also experimented with the size and type of brush I used for certain brushstrokes. I wanted to use a variety of different sized brushes in order to create different types of movement throughout the panting. I used thin brushes to create long straight brushstrokes, and thicker brushes to create shorter strokes. By using all of these different brush sizes, I was able to have a wide variety of color and brushstrokes in my piece. |
The main form of experimentation I did within in this piece had to do with how I was layering different shades of paint in different places throughout the canvas. When layering these shades, I had to try and make sure they weren't too similar to other shades because that would just cause the colors to fade together and not give enough contrast. However, the difficulty with this was that sometimes a color that I mixed stood out too much against the other brushstrokes of color in that area and I would have to go back in with another shade to cover it up. I didn't want for certain areas of the piece, especially the grass, to become too muddled with paint so I had to be strategic as to what color to use and how much of a color to use as well. I wanted to use a technique similar to my inspiration, van Gogh, so I wanted to have very visible brushstrokes of color.
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CRITIQUE
There are a lot of similarities between my piece and my inspirations Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat. One similarity between my piece and Vincent van Gogh's piece "Self-Portrait, 1889" is that they are clearly both self-portraits. Vincent van Gogh chose to make a painting of himself in the Post-Impressionst style, just like I chose to make a self-portrait using inspiration from the same art movement. In addition, both of our pieces have very visible brushstrokes especially in the background and the clothing of the piece. We both use brushstrokes to create movement throughout our paintings. As for similarities between my piece and Georges Seurat's piece, "Study for A Sunday on La Grande Jatte", the most obvious one is both of our uses of natural elements throughout our pieces. I include a lot of grass, bushes, and trees and Seaurat paints the natural scene of a park.
There are also a lot of differences between my piece and my inspirations as well. For starters, In Georges Seurat's piece, he uses a technique called Pointillism which involves making a lot of very small dots on the canvas rather than brushstrokes like I used in my piece. In addition, the colors within his piece seem to be much more mutes than the more saturated and bright colors I used in my painting, especially in the background. In addition, my piece is thematically different than my inspirations. Through my work I chose to represent how a specific season makes me feel, which is a different theme than what's shown in my inspirations.
There are also a lot of differences between my piece and my inspirations as well. For starters, In Georges Seurat's piece, he uses a technique called Pointillism which involves making a lot of very small dots on the canvas rather than brushstrokes like I used in my piece. In addition, the colors within his piece seem to be much more mutes than the more saturated and bright colors I used in my painting, especially in the background. In addition, my piece is thematically different than my inspirations. Through my work I chose to represent how a specific season makes me feel, which is a different theme than what's shown in my inspirations.
REFLECTION
Overall, I am extremely happy with the outcome of this piece. I really enjoyed using this Post-Impressionist technique that van Gogh used, and it was very interesting to learn a new painting technique and experiment with colors and movement. It was a challenge to mix so many colors together to create a certain type of movement and color palette. This was also a different size canvas than I'm used to. Usually I work with square canvas and I typically leave my backgrounds one solid color. However, in this piece I was challenged to also fill the background of the piece, and this piece was not square so I had to find something vertical that I could include in the background. My favorite part of this process was using lots of different colors and painting techniques in order to create movement throughout the piece. I got to use a variety of different colors and brushstrokes. My least favorite part of this process was how time consuming it was. Since I wanted to create visible brushstrokes, it took a lot of time to place a lot of individual brushstrokes all of the canvas. I hope that others are able to look at my piece Summer's in Her Blood and consider how their physical environment, such as seasons and weather, can impact their identity.
ACT QUESTIONS
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
The inspirations of my piece can be seen in the technique that I used throughout the painting to create movement and use color.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The way that color and brushstrokes can be used to create different forms of movement throughout a piece.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have discovered that when people use brushstrokes in a certain way, or a certain direction, it's because they want to give the illusion of movement in a certain direction.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
How to use a variety of brushstrokes and other painting techniques to create moving throughout a painting.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred that a large part of the Post-Impressionism art movement was to create movement through large and interesting brushstrokes.
The inspirations of my piece can be seen in the technique that I used throughout the painting to create movement and use color.
2. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The way that color and brushstrokes can be used to create different forms of movement throughout a piece.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have discovered that when people use brushstrokes in a certain way, or a certain direction, it's because they want to give the illusion of movement in a certain direction.
4. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
How to use a variety of brushstrokes and other painting techniques to create moving throughout a painting.
5. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I inferred that a large part of the Post-Impressionism art movement was to create movement through large and interesting brushstrokes.
CITATIONS (MLA)
“Self-Portrait.” Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889, www.nga.gov/collection/highlights/van-gogh-self-portrait.html. Accessed 15 June 2023.
French, Georges Seurat. “Georges Seurat: Study for ‘a Sunday on La Grande Jatte.’” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 Jan. 1884, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437658.
Museum, Kröller-Müller. “Sorrowing Old Man (at Eternity’s Gate) by Van Gogh.” World History Encyclopedia, 12 June 2023, www.worldhistory.org/image/15476/sorrowing-old-man-at-eternitys-gate-by-van-gogh/.
French, Georges Seurat. “Georges Seurat: Study for ‘a Sunday on La Grande Jatte.’” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 Jan. 1884, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437658.
Museum, Kröller-Müller. “Sorrowing Old Man (at Eternity’s Gate) by Van Gogh.” World History Encyclopedia, 12 June 2023, www.worldhistory.org/image/15476/sorrowing-old-man-at-eternitys-gate-by-van-gogh/.