Sunday, May 24, 2020

Portrait of my Grandad... Experimentation of Acrylic paints





This is my first experiment of doing a portrait of my Grandad in acrylic paint.. I started off by sketching out a measured grid of the original photo of him, therefore I knew I would get accuracy in  proportion and size of his facial features.


Using the grid as a guide was also useful as it allowed me to figure out and guided me on where to place certain shadows, the lighter areas as well as where the creases exactly are in the t shirt.


After making major progress on the portrait, I reassessed what I had done so far. When looking back on the original photograph, I noticed that I had started painting what I thought would look right, instead of looking at the correct placement of things such as the neck. I added a darker shade under the neck, which gives the illusion of my Grandad's neck to be a lot longer and slimmer than it looks in the photo. Furthermore, I found that I was using the wrong colour palette of shades, the wrinkle lines along the forehead have been painted on way to dark. In the original photo, my Grandad's skin is overall more red toned, however I noticed when taking a step back and looking at the painting I had mainly used brown toned shades instead, which does not look real skin-like at all. Once reassessing, and before making more progress on this painting, I decided to restart this portrait, however this time be more cautious of what shades I am using.


I started this painting once again - using the grid for guidance of the outline of the portrait, making sure the proportions of the facial features were accurate, however this time I erased the lines once I had the outline complete, this is because when looking back at the other portrait I attempted to do, I noticed that you could see the guide lines through the paint once it had dried. Also, as you can see in the photograph I have used a completely different combination of skin tone shades, which are a lot more red/orange toned instead of brown. On the forehead I added a lot more highlights in the centre, as there were in the photo. Once I added those highlights, I automatically noticed the painting looked more three dimensional.

To make mix the different shades and make sure they're all within the same colour palette, I made sure I was happy with the main skin colour of the face I was using, then once I had that correct, to create shadows I added a tiny bit of brown paint to that colour, and to create highlights I added a certain amount of white, depending on how light I wanted the highlighted areas to be. In the last painting I created of my Grandad, I noticed that I layered the skin tones once they had dried, as well as the shadows, which did not look realistic as they weren't blended with the other skin tones on the face. The shadows I created on the top of the forehead in the previous painting looks too brown toned and looks quite 'muddy'. I learnt from this, therefore in this painting I fully focused on one area of the face at a time, meaning that the paint would be more blended and seamless (which is more realistic) as it is still wet and moveable.


 This is the final outcome of the portrait of my grandad, for the cutting out process, I did the same as I did for the portrait of my brother. In the background of the original photograph, in the left corner there was a tartan-like print umbrella. I decided to make it black instead, due to the fact that I wanted the main focus to be the portrait, not the background and I found that the umbrella would be a distraction, and would also make the painting very busy. For the flowers on my grandads portrait, I used more dual colours for the flowers to make them look like they were decaying. The flowers represent that he was once full of life, however is also starting to decay as he gets older. The colourful use of flowers represent his personality, he may seem quite and a little shy to people who don’t personally know him, but once you know him, you know that on the inside he is a beautiful person. 


Experimentation of digital artwork


Within this project, I wanted to experiment and expand my knowledge on how to do/create digital art. I was inspired to do this from the artist Marcelo Monreal, who I have been doing in-depth research on. All of his artwork is created digitally with photoshop, where he fractures portraits and puts flowers behind the faces. As a result of me not having photoshop, I found an alternative free app on my iPad called ‘Bazaart’ which allowed me to create the same effects to my photo, as photoshop did for his.





This is the picture that I chose to cut out sections of my little brother, I chose this picture as a result of it being at a certain angle where the face will still look right once it has been cut out, as Marcelo Monreal says, depending on the angle of the photo, the cut out can either turn out good or bad. The Bazaart app is also quite similar to Procreate, as it allows you to add and lock layers, cut out images and sections, change opacity of the photo or layer, add in other images and backgrounds as well as stickers and text.



Here are pictures of the process:


I started off by cutting out the right half of his face using the cutting tool. I added a thin line  around the perimeter of the cut out, a little darker than his skin tone, as I found that this added depth to the cut out section.



On the Bazaart app, there are a variety of flowers, which I cut out and added to the cut out section. I allowed some of the flowers to lay over the top of the cut out, and also sent some to the back of the photo. This makes the flowers look layered and look like they are actually blooming from behind his face.

Marcelo Monreal added multiple cut outs to his pieces of work, which inspired me to attempt the same, therefore I added another cut out on the left side of my brothers face, doing the exact same steps as I did with the other cut out.

When doing this section of his face, I decided to do something a little different which I had seen Monreal do in a few pieces of his work,  where he adds multiple layers and rings of skin to one section of the face. I found that doing this made the section a lot more 3D, as if the skin section was actually away from his face.

I then added the cut out face section and the other piece of skin that I had cut out, back into the picture. I realised the face looked unrealistically placed back onto the picture, therefore I decided to add a shadow behind it, as well as behind the other section. This made the section look even more like it had actually been broken away from the  and more realistic.


Portrait experimentations - pencil, prismacolor pencil and paints

I created this portrait using Prismacolor pencils. This took me around 2 hours to do.  I am not overly pleased with the outcome of this portrait. This reason being because I found it difficult to give the face a smooth appearance, as you are able to see the lines from the different shades of colour in the portrait. I think this was my fault, as I should of focused on doing one small section of the face at a time. Also, because this is a large scale portrait (A4) I found it hard to add much detail. If I was to do another Prismacolor pencil portrait, I would consider creating the portrait at a smaller scale.  

I completed this small drawing of part of my brothers face in around 20 minutes, using Prismacolor pencils. when doing this I found that it is easier to add details and more accuracy in smaller scale portraits than large ones.



I completed this drawing of my brothers eyes in around 30 minutes.



This is a portrait I did of my little brother only using pencil and an eraser. this took me around 3 and a half hours to complete. Whilst doing this drawing, I found it very easy to add depth and tone into the portrait, as well as shadows, depending on how much pressure I put down onto the pencil. To add the highlights around the nose and on the forehead, I used an eraser and then slightly blended the blank space into the pencil slightly, to make it look more natural and realistic. I found this to look really effective, and noticed it made the portrait instantly look more three dimensional. I found this a lot easier to complete compared to using the Prismacolor pencils, as a result of the normal pencils being very easy to blend, and I am also able to only use a couple of pencils, where as with the coloured pencils I had to use a lot of different shades of pencil, and had to be more precise on where I put the colours, to make sure it looked correct. With the pencil portrait I was able to correct it with the eraser if a mistake was to happen, however I was unable to erase the mistakes I made when doing the Prismacolor pencil portrait.


This is a portrait I completed of my Grandad, using Prismacolor pencils. Due to me finding it difficult to add details and accuracy in a large scale portrait using these pencils, I decided to create this portrait at a slightly smaller scale. I took my own advice from the last portrait I did using these pencils, and focused more on one area at a time.


I also did this portrait of my mum at a smaller scale (just under the size of A4), and as a result of her skin colour being a lot lighter than my granddads, I found it a lot more difficult to find and use the correct skin tone colour pencils, and found it hard to find pencil colours which are in the same shade range, to highlight and contour the face.  


I drew and coloured this portrait using prismacolour pencils. I was really happy with how this turned out, for the flowers I used acrylic paints and found them really easy to use and i was impressed with how vibrant the flowers turned out to be. This has made me want to use and experiment more with acrylic paints.


I created this small scale eye and nose portrait of my little brother using acrylic paints. I found it really easy to find the right skin tones to use, and enjoyed how I was able to layer many shades, shadow and highlights once each layer had dried. This took me around 15- 20 minutes to complete. 




MARIA RIVANS - Artist Research

Maria Rivans is mainly known for her scrapbook-style collage art pieces. In her pieces, she mixes pop art with surrealism, and they are also very imaginative and fantastical. I have found the colours she uses in her work are quite muted and every detail in her work is very intricate.



When I first came across Maria Rivans' work, I got the impression that her work was based on different cultures and individuals identities. Such as, one of her pieces or art above, when i first had a look at this painting, I thought it represented the woman in the image, and that the objects and things around her described her as a person, such as her culture, where she is from and her interests.


This is a portrait of my brother, that I created in the style of Maria Rivans. I was initially inspired by the meaning which I thought was behind her work, and not the real actual meaning behind it. I chose a photo of my brother, where the angle was similar to the portraits Rivans uses in her work. I thought of all of my brothers favourite things he likes to do and his favourite toys, which is very personal and expresses part of his identity.

MARCELO MONREAL - Artist Research


Marcelo Monreal is a Brazilian collage  artist,  known for his different take on inner beauty. In his pieces of work, he digitally cut open portraits of celebrities, supermodels and other faces, showing beautiful flowers blooming underneath. When creating a piece of his artwork, he has to make sure that in the portrait there is a correct place and correct angle he is able to cut out sections. This is because every face is unique, meaning the cut outs on certain portraits can either turn out good or bad. One of the key meanings behind his pieces of work, and the reason why he includes flowers in his work is because he feels like the cut outs make the people become ‘vulnerable’ to opening up, and the flowers show the beauty that they are shielding with their appearance.




When looking at Marcelo Monreal’s artwork, I really notice the vibrant colours of the flowers, which may represent the true colours and personality of the person in the portrait. In a few of Monreal’s pieces of work, the portrait is in black and white, however he has left the flowers with the vibrant colours. I find that this looks really effective, as it shows that even though the person in the portrait may seem dual and closed off on the outside, on the inside they are blooming, bright and full of life. This leaves me the impression that you should not ‘read a book by its cover’.




He focused this piece of his work on a portrait on Kendall Jenner, an American model who is also known as one of the Kardashians. This piece depicts Jenner in a black and white portrait, the explosion of vibrant flowers coming from the fragmented sections adds amazing contrast.
  The vibrant colours from the flowers give life to the portrait, and also indicates that she is a beautiful person on the inside as well as the outside. All the of the fully bloomed flowers give me the impression that Kendall Jenner is full of life and her life is blooming (like the flowers).

Monreal has inspired me to work on cutting out portraits and involve flowers into my work, however I will be working with a different materials and techniques and my work will have a completely different meaning behind it. I will be focusing on the flowers as well as the person, instead of the flowers representing them in a way of expressing them and their personality. The flowers will represent growth and decay, linking to the person in the portrait and what stage of life they are at, and also slightly representing their brightness and true colours.

PROPOSAL


SECTION 1
Throughout this project, I have been interested in experimenting and improving my skills of collaging, as well as drawing or painting portraits. My starting point of this project was researching into different artists that inspire me and give me ideas. I’ve been inspired and influenced by several artists, three of these being Marcelo Monreal, Magdiel Lopez and Adam Hale. Marcelo Monreal makes deconstructed and digital collages, where he manipulates the faces of contemporary icons and fashion models, and fills them out with lots of flowers. Monreal was the artist that inspired me to experiment with collaging. All of his work is created digitally through Photoshop, however to make the work my own I want to create pieces using different materials and techniques, however I also want to experiment doing my work digitally as I never usually do my work digitally, especially portraits. Magdiel Lopez creates posters, which have a unique style, he uses bright neon colours, photography and he includes a lot of fragmentation in his work, his work is similar to Marcelo Monreal’s, in the way he cuts out sections of faces, but is different as his work is a lot more vibrant and not as ‘pretty’ as Monreal’s. Adam Hale is a collage artist, who uses newspapers and magazines which are left behind by fellow commuters on the London tube to create a new collage. All of Hale’s work looks like it is done digitally, but all of his work is in fact done by hand. A lot of his work includes fragmentation and many different compositions. These specific artists have influenced me and gave me the ideas of adding fragments into my work and to experiment with collaging and a variety of compositions.





SECTION 2
The title for this project is going be Growth and Decay. I am going to be working on producing portraits of a few of my family members and fragmenting the portraits in different ways. I will be experimenting in the way that I lay out the composition and the materials and techniques that I use. After researching the artists, I have found out that when fragmenting the portraits, it is important to make sure the face is facing a certain way to get the most realistic and effective outcome. This all relates to my own practice as I rarely draw/paint portraits, so this in itself will be something I get to extend my knowledge on. I also want to experiment in trying to fragment the portraits digitally on my iPad, which I have been inspired to do by Marcelo Monreal. To extend my creative ability, I am also going to layer and create different levels in my work to make it look three dimensional and to give it more structure.





SECTION 3
As a result of the college closure due to the corona virus, it has meant that I am having to improve on my time management skills. To do so, I have been noting down every week what I want to achieve and my goals to keep myself on track. Due to there being no lessons now, Zoom calls with my teachers and art class has also kept me on track and motivated with what I am doing. Throughout this project, I’m going to experiment and venture out into a variety of different materials and techniques and push myself out of my comfort zone. I never work with coloured pencils, so I will be experimenting with those, I am experienced in using acrylic paints, however not for portraits, so I will try using those too. When using acrylic paint, i have found that it doesn’t take long for me to create something when using them, therefore I know that it wouldn’t be very time consuming when creating a piece of artwork. For doing digital work on my iPad, I will look for an app which does what I’m looking for, and then I will follow tutorials on YouTube and learn how to do this, so I have an understanding on how to do it in my own work.







SECTION 4
Critically analysing my work thus far, I have been working and experimenting with a wide variety of materials and techniques, these being: Prismacolor pencils, gouache paints, pencil and acrylic paint. With each of these I have experimented doing portraits, to figure out which works best for me to use. I have found so far that I work best with acrylic paint, as a result of being able to layer as well as blend the paints with ease. With paints I am also able to mix and get the most accurate colours and shades of paint that I need, which was very important to me when getting the correct colours for the skin tones.





Proposal - section 5 - GROWTH & DECAY - Final Piece and Evaluation.

This is my Final Major piece. Whilst experimenting with different techniques and materials before starting my final piece, I found t...