Planning
Inspiration
Inspiration for this Series in General were the artworks of Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) an American artist. Kelly studied art in France, wanting to seperate himself from the mostly realistic work he did in the army Ellsworth Kelly started to create artwork based off of abract shapes he saw in the everyday. These shapes were mostly organic shapes we see every day such as leaves and seen mostly in his work the dark and simplistic shapes that shadows casted. I took this aspect of his work as a base for the symbolism I inject into my work. And for this piece I used the imagery of an ice pick as a play on "Breaking the Ice" since in the context of this stage in development we start to interact with others more often as we meet friends and new people. The composition of the color scheme was also something I took into account when creating this piece by having the subjects twords the left of the composition. The colors themeself also have some sort of signifigance with Orange being an energetic color and the green keeping with the theme of grwoth still similar to it's use in Project 3.
My second artistic inspiration is an japanese Illustrator by the name of Hirohiko Araki and I have always had an affinity twords his recent works. One of the things I took from his work is the emotion he displays in his work through gesture. The piece I took inspiration from seemed to fit the themes of the piece as far as interaction and assertiveness are concerned. A comomn aspect in this piece and others from him is the emptyness of the enviornments surrounding his subjects with them being the main focus of his work. I took this part of his work into account to bring emphasis to the gesture of the subjects and make them the main focus of the piece. |
Another inspiration for the meaning behind the title was the 8 stages of development by Erik Erickson who was a professor at Yale and Harvard. The stage that I wanted to focus on in particular was the third stage that has to do with initiative and guilt with children at this stage learning to become assertive in their lives and start to grow relationships with those around them but those wo don't do so have guilt out of the regret of not growing an bonds. Overall I wanted this work to have Kelly's use of color composition and havin Araki's Gesture and the ideas and concepts of Erick Ericksons 8 stages of development drive the meaning this piece.
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Planning Sketches
In the skteches to the left I highlight what are the pros and cons with each planning sketch (you can click on it for clairity) synopsis is that I shifted around the color composition and highlight the main ideas of the stage to help with visual ideation wihich helped me develop the final rough draft to the right which is drawn at a bigger scale than the beggining planning sketches and is like a calmination of everything I appreciate from planning sketch and Idea. So some of the main components you can see are the expressions, gradiation in the sky and particularly the way I drew certain aspects i.e hands, hair, clothing. This porocess helps emmensely with Ideation in the way I approach going about the final draft.
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Experimentation
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As I began preperation I sketched the figures annd inked them then I applied the Gouache this was a BIG mistake. With the nessetie for opacity in the gouache I needed it wet but even with the ink being dry the gouache smudged it ruining the piece. I ended up finding a new technique which was to sketch out the subjects then lightly erase the pencil and fill in the lines with gouache and after it dried I would go over it with the ink.
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Process
I began with the prep getting my hues ready and for this particular piece I used two hues one was vermillion with yellow and the other was the same combination of cors but with white to act as a base so the the original hue would act as shading. For the sky I used a watered down Viridian with a tad of white and the ground was a very light hue of yellow ochre and white. After prep I transfered the subjects by eye with a sketching pencil. I began to gesture the three subjects onto the paper and refined their forms. After lightly erasing the trace I started painting the subjects with the base first then highlighting parts that are shaded with the darker hue. After the gouache dried i began to ink the subjects with a fine point and fine tipped marker. After all that I did touch ups on the subjects whether that be bolding lines or hatching lines for the shaded regions. I also used a paint pen for the teeth to keep them white. I then moved on to the background which used the light viridian and I used a stick sponge for application I also did the same for ground with the yellow ochre color. I then traced out the Ice picks on the background and inked it.
Reflection
For what this is I am fine with how the piece turned out although there is room for improvement I see it in the anatomy of the subjects since that is a skill I am working on developing. I believe I also accomplished my goal of using Kelly's color composition since if you only paid attention to the basic composition of the colors it is very similar to Ellsworth Kelly's Orange Relief with green. Araki's gesture was something else I captured in this piece and I believe I emphasized it a bit more with the expressions since the inspiration illustration is mostly static with very samey faces and that just wasn't something I wanted in my piece. And when it comes down to the Erickson's stages and their representation in this piece I believe I captured a portion of the overall meaning of the 3rd stage I dont think the visuals lack at all but there is something missing that I cant put my put my finger on. Overall I didn't do bad on this piece but it didn't reach it's full potential.
Compare and contrast
Comparisons:
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ACT Questions
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
The color from Kelly's work and gesture from Araki's work effected both the composition and content of my piece.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The videos with Ellsworth kelly helped me understand him better since the author used him as a part of the video by interviewing him.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I drew the conclusion that even though younger children are a bit much sometimes I've come to understand that they're just learning and understanding how to create relationships
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme gathered from from My research is that even though we may be comfortable we should always be assertive so we don't have regrets about what we didn't do.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I can conclude from my research that sometimes we have to pay attention to human behavior and development to understand each other better.
The color from Kelly's work and gesture from Araki's work effected both the composition and content of my piece.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The videos with Ellsworth kelly helped me understand him better since the author used him as a part of the video by interviewing him.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I drew the conclusion that even though younger children are a bit much sometimes I've come to understand that they're just learning and understanding how to create relationships
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme gathered from from My research is that even though we may be comfortable we should always be assertive so we don't have regrets about what we didn't do.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I can conclude from my research that sometimes we have to pay attention to human behavior and development to understand each other better.
Bibliography
Araki, H. (2014). Jojoveller. Shueisha.
Mcleod, Saul. “Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development.” Erik Erikson | Psychosocial Stages | Simply Psychology, www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html.
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 1. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-5jBP3ttm0&ab_channel=Phaidon
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 2. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CVI77mwr1s&ab_channel=Phaidon
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 3. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnmwqLsfrSU&ab_channel=Phaidon
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 4. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejxRV_phhcE&ab_channel=Phaidon
Tate. “'Orange Relief with Green', Ellsworth Kelly, 1991.” Tate, 1 Jan. 1991, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kelly-orange-relief-with-green-t07478.
Mcleod, Saul. “Erik Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development.” Erik Erikson | Psychosocial Stages | Simply Psychology, www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html.
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 1. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-5jBP3ttm0&ab_channel=Phaidon
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 2. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CVI77mwr1s&ab_channel=Phaidon
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 3. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnmwqLsfrSU&ab_channel=Phaidon
P. (2016, June 16). Ellsworth Kelly Part 4. Retrieved September 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejxRV_phhcE&ab_channel=Phaidon
Tate. “'Orange Relief with Green', Ellsworth Kelly, 1991.” Tate, 1 Jan. 1991, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kelly-orange-relief-with-green-t07478.