Vision Evaluation

Using emotion as an adaptation of vision allowed me to use my specialist subject in a way to allow me to convey my work in the best way possible. As figurative painting is my specialist subject, emotion was a well goo choice, being able to portray certain emotions in a variety of ways, such as body language, facial expressions, shading and different imagery to express what is being felt in an image.

The work I have done, I had hoped would fit into a public art gallery environment, making my target audience the gallery visitors and other artists. I find my work to be on a contemporary border between expressionistic and impressionistic, using blocked corresponding colours to link together and form a whole in which they fit together to create a detailed image. I find the characteristics of my work fits in with those of many contemporary British artists.

Using artist such as Van Gogh, David Kassan and Jenny Saville, it allowed me to take reference to their work, and adapt my own work into a personal style, using a combination their technique. I get very involved in the technicality of my paintings, from the brush strokes and method of painting, to the way I portray colour and tonal qualities.

I tried to vary which media I used throughout the project, I experimented with a variety of different forms, from using dry media such as pencil, charcoal and conte crayons, to wet media such as paint and ink, and also using other methods of composing and image, such as collaging, and printmaking.

Although the majority of my work is acrylic, I also tried my luck with oils, as I have only used oils several times before hand in paintings which were unsuccessful it was difficult for me to create a successful image in a  media I was not used to. I also realised the benefits of print work, as an efficient way to demonstrate different colours, textures and backgrounds in a highly productive way.

Throughout my development I have almost categorised my work into different relevant subjects, from personal studies to ways emotions can be perceived, such as how singers and dancer show emotion whilst performing, and then collaborating the two to create my final outcome.

I believe my final outcome is a success; the detail is focused on the face rather than anything else, which is why I left the background plank, which also puts more of a structure and almost outlines the face and sharpens the image in general. I arranged the composition the piece as so the face was the majority of the image and took up most of the canvas space, which once again, took drew more attention to the emotion on the image. I have improved throughout the project in my understanding of shading and colour qualities, and how then can make the image.

I hope to see myself working as a studio based artist in the future, working on commissions and exhibiting my work in public spaces, but I also hope to achieve some form of business opportunity in the creative industry, I believe I have the creativity to succeed in different forms of product or fashion design either for myself or for a company.   

Final Piece

After experimenting with the different mediums on my progression to the final piece, I decided the best route for me would be to use acrylics for my final piece. I enjoy the way acrylics can be used to layer and create the effect of a multi tonal space, without losing the line qualities of the initial image.

My final piece was done using several layers, the original being just the original light and dark spaces of the image, then continued to add layers of detail and highlight, and continued to do so with a variety of colours until the image was finished. Although warm colours are typically associated with positive emotions, the use of warm colours almost added to the negativity of this piece.

The most difficult part of the piece was the lips, as I struggle with drawing and painting mouths, it made the piece all the more challenging.

I think the piece is a success; the detail is focused on the face rather than anything else, which is why I left the background plank, which also puts more of a structure and almost outlines the face and sharpens the image in general. I arranged the composition the piece as so the face was the majority of the image and took up most of the canvas space, which once again, took drew more attention to the emotion on the image.

Final Piece Progression

I started by testing the press and the image had printed properly, using black ink, after I was satisfied that the image would print correctly I began to experiment more.

After testing out different colours I used them on different types of materials and coloured paper and different materials.

My favourite print is the print I have done on a black piece of board with white ink. The combination and contrast between the colours bring out more definition. And although it was the same elements as the black ink on white paper, it has more of an appealing look to it.

The prints I had done on cardboard had a really nice effect, once the cardboard had gone through the press, it gave it a great texture as it had been flattened and the inner folds had extruded, also the colours of the ink had connected a contrasted with the colours of the ink.

I attempted to create a collage to add to my selection of prints by adding newspaper exerts to a piece of cardboard and the black and white coloured papers and items to create a nice connection between the twos' old looking qualities, after adding the black print, I realised that it was unsuccessful, the ink had almost blended with the colours of the newspaper and the detail of the print was hidden almost completely.

Printing

I wanted to experiment a bit more with my artwork and add a larger variety of mediums to my work, as I had used a selection of different dry and wet media such as paint and pencil, and I have also done a 3d piece, I had decided to do dry point prints, I chose dry point as I was able to get the effect  I wanted, through trying other forms of printing, like lino, I know that by doing dry point I would be able to give the images the definition I had wanted though tonal and line qualities you wouldn’t be able to get in other forms of printing.

By doing prints not only was I able to experiment easier, for example, being able to use the same image repeatedly rather than redoing the image, and it also gives a better effect then it would if I was to photocopy the image and work into it from there, and being able to choose a assortment of backgrounds and surfaces to work on, and by varying the colour selection, I could make the same image look almost completely different when they were next to one another, but I it was also possible to do it within a reasonably short space of time.

I started by testing the press and the image had printed properly, using black ink, after I was satisfied that the image would print correctly I began to experiment more.

After testing out different colours I used them on different types of materials and coloured paper and different materials.

My favourite print is the print I have done on a black piece of board with white ink. The combination and contrast between the colours bring out more definition. And although it was the same elements as the black ink on white paper, it has more of an appealing look to it.

The prints I had done on cardboard had a really nice effect, once the cardboard had gone through the press, it gave it a great texture as it had been flattened and the inner folds had extruded, also the colours of the ink had connected a contrasted with the colours of the ink.

I attempted to create a collage to add to my selection of prints by adding newspaper exerts to a piece of cardboard and the black and white coloured papers and items to create a nice connection between the twos' old looking qualities, after adding the black print, I realised that it was unsuccessful, the ink had almost blended with the colours of the newspaper and the detail of the print was hidden almost completely.

Tango

Another way to show emotion in an artistic way, is dancing, and the most passionate of all dances hs to be the tango, a mixture between the music and the fluid motions, the feelings behind the dance are made apparent from start to finish.

As I could not find any live performances near me I could photograph as primary research, I instead watched videos of performances online and paused the video in certain places to show the poses of the dance and draw which one I thought had an appealing expression to them, and also shows the feelings behind the performances.

I used a water soluble pen to draw the image out and watered the image to give a contrast between the foreground and background an draw out the detail and focus on the features of the subjects and show the expression to help connect to the passion of the performance.

Singers

There are many ways that people can display emotion, but there is no more passionate, artistic or entertaining to singing. It can be very easy to connect to the meaning and emotions that a song can portray. I have chosen five artists which I believe have the ability to show emotions in their songs in such a way, as many artists perform in such an uninteresting way, or have no real emotion in their songs.

I have done a series of images in a varied medium, although the majority are paint based, I have varied the paint types.

James Brown

Amy Winehouse 

Pavarotti 

Louis Armstrong

Otis Redding

The image I am most pleased with and believe is the most successful is the Otis Redding piece. I originally painted the piece with acrylics on a tan envelope, but as the envelope is only A5, I decided to scan the image into a computer and re-size is it to allow it to fit into my sketchbook in a collage in a more appealing way.

The composition of the image in the collage, allows the viewer to keep attention on the main image, but still gives attention to the reference photographs to the side and below. Rather than cluttering the collage with the same image I had used as reference to paint from I decided to give more of a selection of photographs of the artist, not only to for visual reasons,  but to give a viewer more of an understanding of what he looks like. I also added the black lines to border the image and give it some structure but in a creative way as I was trying to reference the staff lines on music worksheets.

Although I like the Pavarotti oil painting, the way I had imagined the painting is different, as I don’t have the greatest experience in oils I wasn’t quit skilled enough to detail the image as I had liked to. The colour on the other hand I am pleased with, the tonal qualities and skill colours fit very well and the shading was almost perfect to the image I had been using as a reference, and I believe I made the right choice with the positioning of the subject and the choice of for the background colour, as both factors add to the images effects and brings out the highlights of the skin tone. 

Alex

 With the image of alex I had photocopied I had drawn in a life drawing class, I then changed them by adding colours, I wanted to see if by changing them slightly by adding cold and warm colours, I wanted to see if by changing the colours it would change the emotion displayed. The image has a relatively sad look about it. The image with warm colours doesn’t quite fit in with its cold emotions it shows.