Art 2.3 internal (I finished my board!)

Art 2.2 internal :)

 

 

a cheeky (forced) level 2 art portfolio update

As my portfolio due date nears closer and closer I'm working towards completing the second panel on my board (technically the first). To remind you, my kaupapa this year is flowers, and I'm basing it on the artist models Vincent Van Gogh, Mimmo Paladino, Jim Dine, and Yuzuru Hashimoto, among others to likely come. 

This is my planning sheet for my second panel:

As you can see, I'm aiming to complete 7-8 big-sized artworks; made up of 3 series. One series focuses on Vincent Van Gogh's art-style- that sort of impressionist, abstract, vibrant style. My second series will focus on Yuzuru Hashimoto, so will be Japanese woodblock painting inspired. One change I have made to this planning sheet is my last series will be a realism series, for that I don't have any artist models, I am purely going off a variety of reference images to paint it as realistic as possible- this will likely be the most time-consuming series and so I will work on it last. 

The series I am currently working on is inspired by Japanese woodblock artist Yuzuru Hashimoto, who specialises in flowers and nature scenes, which obviously links into my kaupapa. This style is very out of my comfort zone and is actually quite challenging at times- it focuses a lot on clean lines, blocks of just one colour, and it takes a lot of patience. I feel as if with my usual style I can just go crazy, I don't have to really map out or take a lot of time on each artwork. But for this style I find myself having to actually take the time to complete it, which is I guess in a way good because it's teaching me new skills, new techniques, expanding my style. 

Below are some photos of my progress so far: 

Next steps: Finish this panel as soon as possible. Then I will likely move onto Vincent Van Gogh inspired-pieces. Really I just need to keep producing as much artwork as possible to ensure my portfolio gets finished but as well to have time to receive feedback from my teachers (and work on it, unlike Rheanna). 

Overall I'm proud of my progress so far. My board is a lot more put-together, connected, and includes so many more artist models and different styles compared to last year, which is definitely improving my painting skills and knowledge. Excellence here I come, hopefully :)

level 2 painting update (in lockdown!!)

 Covid-19 has blessed New Zealand with another lockdown so here comes another few weeks of trying to finish my portfolio at home, much like last year. One of many issues that comes with lockdown is a lack of proper art supplies, not having access to the art department paints and brushes I'd usually use. I do have my own supplies hanging around but I'm not wasting my expensive oil paints on my NCEA portfolio (sorry).

What I do have is watercolour, so after ordering wet-strength paper and brushes that turned out to be absolutely terrible, I've been working on a few paintings I hope to put on my portfolio. I think at school I've really been focusing on my more 'grunge' artist models - Jim Dine, Mimmo Paladino, so my goal for lockdown is to continue on the more pretty, bright paintings inspired by Van Gogh, even Marilyn Webb, etc. Remember I'm aiming for my portfolio to look like a story in sequence, going from these bright pretty flowery paintings to the way more grunge, dark, rotting flowers look: kind of representing how flowers themselves slowly die. 

This painting I am a bit reluctant to put on the final portfolio as it does look similar-ish to the reference I used, and it doesn't actually have flowers on it, only bamboo. But I really liked the style I ended up using. It's a fine-tip black pen with watercolour on top, it sort of looks Japanese inspired so I might research some Japanese artists to continue this sort of style. 

This painting I'm definitely more proud of. Again it was created using a fine-tip black pen and watercolour on top. The colours have sort of faded since I painted it so I might go over it again with a few more coats, you can hardly see the blue sky. This is definitely making its way onto my portfolio. I didn't even have an artist model for this one, I just used an assortment of reference photos of flowers and joined it all together into one. I should stop doing that.

Of course I had to go back to my favourite style of painting, the really grunge, dark, sort of abstract ways. Jim Dine is a really prominent artist model in my portfolio/inspiration pinterest board. He uses negative space and really dark colours to create really grunge works which I love. This was created using a fine-tip pen with black watercolour on top. As you can see I've used that pen to depict some little figures on there just to make the painting more interesting while still keeping the flower the focal point. I think I'll have to add a few more coats of black once this one dries because it's not as dark as I'd like it, I definitely want to add more dimension. 

My next steps are to continue creating more of the bright pieces as well as some transitional pieces (i don't want the portfolio to go directly from bright and sunny and vibrant to sudden black and dark and death pieces.) Also researching some more artist models as well as the work of my current ones just to get more ideas and references. As much as I love making really dark works I have to get the pretty ones out of the way (ugh)

L2 Art | T2W7 update

 This term for me has consisted mainly of doing practical work to build up for my folio at the end of the year. I found last year that I was scrambling at the end to find and finish art to put on my board and this year I want to minimise that. Another goal for this year is to take more inspiration from my artist models: Vincent Van Gogh, Marilynn Webb, Mimmo Palladino. This goal is definitely something I've achieved so far as I've make sure to include lots of their different styles/stylisations in my work. 

One painting that incorporated Vincent Van Gogh's art style (heavily impressionism inspired, very visible/prominent brush strokes) is a painting I recently completed. My thought process in creating this stemmed from me sitting down and just thinking about basic concepts of mindfulness that could translate well visually in my artwork, really get my kaupapa across. 

I started with this quick thumbnail sketch. 

I then started painting and playing around with colours. One thing I didn't want to happen is to make the painting too dark, especially the background- I feel it makes the painting lack depth perception. I made sure to really ensure the background and parts of the painting meant to be further away were much more lighter and muted in colour. One example of how I achieved this was mixing in a tiny bit of red with the green I used on the hill to mute the colour and make it less vibrant. 

Also in accordance with using Van Gogh as my primary artist model for this painting, I made sure my brushstrokes were really visible and also quite tiny, to achieve some detail I mixed slightly different hues of the same colour to create contrast especially with the grass and the schoolbag. 

The finished painting I'm actually really proud of. It definitely has the Van Gogh element I was hoping for, it's generally very pretty and it includes lots of different painting methods/techniques that will help me as I progress through painting more for my folio. 

One part I'm especially proud of is using a sort of dark blue-green colour underneath where the tree was: this originally started as just figuring out where I wanted the tree and branches to be placed. But it ended out well as the brown I used had a reddish undertone and so the two cancelled out to create a dark, rich sort of brown to act really well as the shadowed portion, it also made the paint more opaque than it would've straight on the paper. 

Update: I've decided to add a few refinements to this painting but I will update again when that's done :)

L2 painting update | T2W1

Through the holidays I worked on building up some ideas for painting, based around my kaupapa and based off of my artist models - Vincent Van Gogh, Mimmo Paladino, Marilynn Webb. The idea I worked on the most and developed further is a painting inspired by Mimmo Paladino which I've since titled 'Smell The Roses'. 

1st thumbnail sketch- very rough idea

2nd sketch based off of first thumbnail sketch -developing, identifying key aspects

3rd sketch, continuing to strengthen ideas and aspects, identifying the meaning

Final painting.

I'm very proud of how this painting turned out because it incorporates a lot of the stylisation and art aspects of my artist model Mimmo Paladino, I feel like I didn't really include much of that in last year's folio so it's a goal of mine this year to incorporate more as well as combine them. It's a very dark painting both in meaning and appearance which I'm going to try and stray away from on the rest of my board, but again I still like how it's turned out. 

One thing I'm going to try and do in my next paintings is make a more clear link to my kaupapa of mindfulness that's not through actually reading text. However it does link into my kaupapa well I think, it represents one's pessimistic outlook on life, I included the text 'Smell the Roses' as a sort of mock on how people tend to handle other people's mental health -  expecting the tiniest things to make a huge difference when really it doesn't have much of an effect most of the time. 

L2Art Week 8 update | Building up my folio board

Second artwork - still life :)

 

First artwork - tree :)

Third artwork - skeleton :)

For the past week I worked on these three paintings, white acrylic on black gesso, to develop my understanding of the technique of negative space for my folio. The first works especially link into my theme of environmental protection and kaupapa of mindfulness. The skeleton is less obviously linked but it still helped a lot with developing a better understanding of highlights, shadow and light sources. 

What is my Kauapa: three key words

Landscapes, fruit, environment

What artists have I looked at so far?

Vincent Van Gogh (so far!)

How does my work show that I considered Negative space?

My work uses negative space because I’ve specifically chosen a “point” where the light source is and used high contrast between light and dark areas, so most of the subject matter is shadowed but you know it’s there because of the highlights. 

What has happened in the making process that led me to new ideas around negative space once the works were made?

This has given me a better understanding of how I can effectively use negative space but still keep a high level of detail. Eg. negative space doesn’t have to be as simple as I thought, and I can generate great art using it. I’ve also learned a lot about light sources, highlights as well as shadows. 

What can I do to go further with my work?

Introducing colour, backgrounds, keeping fruit as a visual symbol throughout my folio board. I also want to start looking at my other artist models, Marilyn Webb and Mimmo Paladino, and generate works that I've incorporated some of their elements into. 

L2Art / Week 1+2 update

 In Weeks 1 and 2 I've been working on choosing my theme and developing a kaupapa branching off of that. 

The theme I've chosen is environmental protection. 
This could look like:
-Landscapes (rural)
-Cityscapes, landmarks, houses, villages
-Genre painting

This could include (subject matter):
-Trees
-Water
-Grass, flowers
-Houses
-Fruits and foods, still life

My board this year, visually, will be inspired by artists Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet- these are both very famous landscape painters so it fits into my theme very well. My board will revolve around mindfulness.

This is a moodboard I created from a variety of artists. As you can see they are predominantly landscapes or cityscapes, people have been included in some of them. 

I think this moodboard really sets the tone on how I want my folio to look this year. 

The artists I've chosen for 2.1 is Vincent Van Gogh, Mimmo Paladino and Marilynn Webb.

L2 Bio | De-extinction and CRISPR

L2 painting | Subject matter vs. Kaupapa