Planning
Inspiration
Inspiration for this Series in General were the artworks of Ellsworth Kelly (1923-2015) an American artist. Ellsworth Kelly started to create artwork based off of abract shapes he saw in the everyday. I decided to take inspiration from his piece Purple and Orange for the color scheme. With the theme of Identinty and self I choose purple because of it's association with ambition and Indepence.
My second artistic inspiration is japanese Illustrator Hirohiko Araki and I took inspiration from a cover he drew for his publishers magazine. The subjects gesture spoke to the theme of a search for identity with the subject looking for something. Another aspect I took from Araki's work is his use of Mt. Fuji in his backgrounds. With the combination of gesture and the mountain I wanted a focus on the subject while retaining a sense of atmosphere and surrounding. |
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 focused on in this piece is the fifth stage of identity vs role confussion where we dive into how and why we look for a place to fit in the world. We do this out of a need to fit in with a group and have a sense of purpose and individuality. I wanted to incorporate this stage into my piece by having the subject searching. By having this gesture as the main focal point of the piece I want the viewer to see the subjects urgency in their search for their nieche in the world.
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Planning Sketches
And these three planning sketches I tried to explore the different routes and directions I could have taken in this piece. I wanted the top compass to be a little more personal. To help with that the body composite show what I did to bring more focus on to the subject himself which was just to focus on the subjects face and simplify his surroundings and because of the inspiration with Erikson's 8 stages I decided to have the subject looking forward as a metaphor for looking forward in Life or looking to what's ahead of us. Then all this, did in the final rough draft sketch where I had a good idea of what I wanted to shade how I would draw the hand how I would draw the face and what the background would look like. Although I didn't get to do a fade org radiation from Orange to Yellow like in the sketch to the right i'm So Satisfied with the final product.
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Experimentation
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Frustratingly this was another one of the pieces in the series that required painting tape. And in my past experiences, the painting tape lifted both the gouache and marker from the piece and this time was no different. To try to prevent the tape from lifting anything from the painting I both used it on other pieces of paper and try to weaken the adhesive bye applying it and taking it off other objects. But after I finish painting the sky I took off the tape to reveal that a good portion of the hair of the subject and the sleeve had their gouache and marker lifted by the tape. For now I believe the solution is finding a betters painters tape that has less adhesive and is created more for the type of work I do but for now trying to weaken the adhesive is the best option. But because they did he serve lifts off the marker and the wash from the painting I had to alleviate this problem by using my flat tip brush to lift some of the glass from the surrounding area make everything look even and filled and then I applied some gouache to the brush and re applicated it onto the piece. As for the hair it was a simple fix just using my fine pointed marker again to color it in although with the tape lifting off some of the marker and some of the paper this really showed bad for the wear of the paper.
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Process
I began with prep of my materials getting my stick sponge flat tip brush as well as the Gouache with ultramarine, crimson, and white being used as well as vermillion. I began by sketching out the subject on the paper as well as the Moutain in the background. to distinguish shaded parts of the piece particulatly folds and shaded parts of the subjects skin I then scribbled shaded portions using the hatch method. I then painted the subjects skin with a base tone of ultramarine mixed with white and crimson to make that purple tone. After that I painted the shaded portions with the ultramarine mixed with just crimson to make a darker skin tone. Moving to the close of the subject I use the flat tip brush to apply first just ultramarine and then I used a mixture of ultramarine and white to create a light violet tone to blend into the rest of the jacket. Afterwards I use my fine pointed marker to create bold lines outlining the jacket well they used a much finer tipped marker to bring out the lines of the subject's face and hands. After this I put painters tape on the subject and the mountain to separate those planes from the sky and I painted the sky with a mix of lemon yellow and Vermilion using a semi soaked stick sponge. Afterwards I took off the tape and had to repair the damage made by it specifically in the hair and sleeve of the subject I did this by using a moist flat top to pick up the color of the surrounding area and get rid of the discrepancy. Then I used a light ultramarine and a fine tipped brush to do the mountain and the snow on top. Then I filled in the mountain with a fine pointed marker and made a distinction between the sky and the plane behind the subject. Can I use the dried stick sponge to apply the mix of yellow and Vermilion on the plane creating a much more solid hue. After that I did. Which entailed using a paint pen to whiten the teeth i'm using my fine point marker to hatch several shading lines particularly on the sleeve, nose, neck, and fingers. After that I was finished with the piece.
Reflection
This piece was frustrating to make mainly because of my arch enemy which is my painting tape. The rest of the process was fine and this particular piece spoke to me a bit since this is the stage im in right now when it comes to the psychosocial development. When it comes to the reperesentation of the inspiration i believe this isnt the strongest the connections have been unlike the previous project. Araki's work was pleasent to translate and the development of my anatomy skills in particular hands was nice to be able to practice and I believe I translated the gesture well. I believed I used Kelly's coloration well with both purple and orange taking up a majority of the piece. I also think I did well in representing the fifth stage with both the title and gesture of the subject with the subject lookin for something. Overall this piece was a decent entry in the series although I still have trouble with my painters paint it was enjoyable to make.
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 8 stages in particular had a huge influence on what I looked for from the other artist which in turn had a massive impact on the end product of my work.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Most of my sources just gave objective info on the topic but with the kelly interviews the had an semi emotional approach with the way kelly talked about his process and art pieces.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While reasearching into the 8 stages I can to the gerneralization that overall people try to find themseleves and what they want to be in their teen years which helped me understand why we think the way we do at this point in our lives.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme gathered from Erick Erickson's 8 stages is that every single one of us as individuals look for ourselves and who we really are.
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 things that we normaly don't think about ourselves to understand why we think and do what we do to find ourselves.
The 8 stages in particular had a huge influence on what I looked for from the other artist which in turn had a massive impact on the end product of my work.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Most of my sources just gave objective info on the topic but with the kelly interviews the had an semi emotional approach with the way kelly talked about his process and art pieces.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
While reasearching into the 8 stages I can to the gerneralization that overall people try to find themseleves and what they want to be in their teen years which helped me understand why we think the way we do at this point in our lives.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central theme gathered from Erick Erickson's 8 stages is that every single one of us as individuals look for ourselves and who we really are.
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 things that we normaly don't think about ourselves to understand why we think and do what we do to find ourselves.
Bibliography
Kelly, Ellsworth. “Ellsworth Kelly. Purple and Orange from the Series Line Form Color. 1951: MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/109759.
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
“Ultra Jump #201110 - No. 10, 2011 (Issue).” Comic Vine, comicvine.gamespot.com/ultra-jump-201110-no-10-2011/4000-404982/.
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
“Ultra Jump #201110 - No. 10, 2011 (Issue).” Comic Vine, comicvine.gamespot.com/ultra-jump-201110-no-10-2011/4000-404982/.