Second Piece and Last Piece

The two last pieces that I am going to create are connected to one artist which is Agnes Cecile. I have already gone through the reason why her artwork inspired me and how he uses colours to express the person's emotion. If you look at my blog post (artist research) you will be able to see how I struggled with water colour as it was hard for me to control, so I decided to look at one of her artworks and when browsing through all her works I finally found something that was really eye catching which is called drip painting. I really thought this would be good for my last two pieces as it expresses lost memories because even though the piece looks abstract you are able to see a face or what the artist is drawing. This feels like you are having a memory but you do not seem to remember. The medium that she uses is varnish, acrylic and black paint mixed together to be able to make the black paint drip. Instead of me getting all these mediums I bought a paint called gloss "no drip," even though it said no dripping it still dripped so I decided to do some experiments with this medium.


When experimenting I used a crafting knife to do the dripping because I tried to use a brush last time and the paint was unable to drip  as all the paint was being held in the brush. I tried to spell my name "Divine" on the paper it was hard at first but when I did it again I got the hang of it. I tried to draw my name out again and it was clear that I was writing my name, the trick of it is that you should put your hand (which is holding the craft knife) 7 cm away from the paper, it makes your dripping look messier and expressive as it is hard to control.
After doing my experiments I wanted to go for a break so I left one of my experiments straight up unto the wall and when I came back it had a nice effect. The paint was driping down from the paper, I was thinking of using this mistake for one of my last pieces as this technique can express emotions which goes well with my theme.

 

For my second piece I had a friend pose for me normally with a smile. I asked "why are you smiling." she said "because there is a package waiting for her at home." So I took a picture of her face and started looking from the photograph (as the Artist did) and started dripping on the paper. When doing this I looked at the artist's wok as well to give me some tips on what to do in my work. I was able to see that she added more black paint or dripping on the parts that makes the person look like a person. For example; the lips, eyes, pupils and the nose but mostly the lips and the eyes. It was hard to do it as I was having some cramps from bending down because if I have to drip the paper has to be on the floor so I had to take some breaks.When the Artist does her work she also uses charcoal at the end of her dripping to put on some little shading on the eyelids. I did the same but instead of using charcoal I used acrylic as we had to make sure we use acrylic or oil paint in one of our works. I thought this went well as I was able to show that it was a portrait, I mainly like the way I was able to be expressive to give it more dripping. What I thought went bad is the lips it made her look like a 'monster' in my point of view.








For my last piece I told my sister to pretend that she is having a headache so she screamed. The reason she screamed is because she was showing that she is in pain which then goes to my theme emotions. I took a picture of her pretending to be in pain and this time did my dripping on a canvas that was not plain, I thought this would go well with my dripping because even though she feels pain she is also crying out for peace. The background on the canvas is in the colour blue and is related to nature which symbiosis peace. I did the dripping and made sure my arms was 7 cm away from the canvas. Now I felt more prepared because I knew how to handle to craft knife and the paint. When doing the dripping I used different techniques to hep me drip which was cross hatching, I used it on the hat to show the shading. For the fluffs on her coat I went very expressive because I remembered that I am not trying to be detailed in my work as it is lost memories. After finishing my last piece I made my work stand up close to the wall so that the paint will dripping of the canvas. Using one of my mistakes this will bring out the emotion in this piece because it shows tiers. What I should have done differently is change the background and make my own instead of using a background, but other than that I really  liked it. I like the way I was able to show her emotions by using the dripping effect and using hatches to make the painting eye catching for the viewers. I really thought the three pieces went well because instead of doing a normal portrait I was able to do a portrait but with different techniques.

First peice

We have been given a task to make our own three art pieces that is related to the artists that I founded thought-provoking. Out of my three artists that I found interesting I decided Nikos Gyftakis would be an interesting piece to do because instead of painting a simple portrait he uses oil pastels to create a nice effect on the portrait, which makes it more appealing to the viewers to look at his works. The medium he uses are oil pastels on canvas, we were also given a task that oil and acrylic paint has to be used in our three pieces so I decided to use oil paint. I decided to use this medium because the artist used oil to be able to make the effect successful in his work, what I mean by that is if you look at his paintings he makes sure that the colour he is using is nicely intermingled in with the other colours to create a nice undulating and curled lines. The portrait I am looking at has a man who I think looks confused as his faced is being touched by someone’s hand while his face is getting squeezed. When I get confused I always tend to squeeze my face, this goes well with my theme as what I am talking about relates to emotions.

I took the picture for my art piece in the kitchen because she was looking for her two pound that she lost. She felt sad while looking for it in every corner of the kitchen, so I decided to take a picture of her as it was hard for me to get her to pose while she was feeling unhappy. I asked her to put her hand over her face so that the portrait will look more stimulating than just a face painted. I then took a canvas and started drawing the outline of the picture that I took and drew it on top of the canvas, while doing this I made sure I drew gently on top of the canvas as it felt very thin and delicate when touching it. After that I experimented a bit by drawing and tried to make the oil paint look like an undulating line which I though worked. When I finished with that I tried to paint the whole finger with white oil paint and painted on top of the white paint but instead it made it look lighter. After looking at all the experiments I did I then knew how to use the oil paint, I needed to paint first and then use a white oil paint with a very small paint brush and go over some of the undulating or curved line I painted which created another tone and made it clear for you to see the curved lines.

 

 After doing my experiments I went straight on doing my piece, when doing it I founded it hard to mix the colours to get my sisters right skin colour, so when I went home I retook the picture and made her stand in another place where the light was not too bright, I was then able to mix the right skin tone of colour. When doing the painting I thought it would not be enough because the canvas was making the paint dry, I then just realized that I was being dumb that I should have added more oil in the paint that I just mixed and it made my painting easier. When I finished doing the face and the hands it looked abstract since you were not able to see the face only curved lines so I decided to add darker colours to bring make the parts that looks like a portrait more vibrant such as; the fingers, lips, mostly the eyes and the face.

 

 When I finally finished I thought it went successful because I was able to do the same techniques he used in his painting. I also thought it went well as I was able to make the person see what they can see in the portrait that I painted which was depressed or unhappy. What I think I should have done differently is paint on top of the blue that is close to her arms because it does not really go well or blends well with the other colours. The colour of tones that I used closed to her fingers seem to be too dark I should have changed the dark colours and tried to mix it with the other colours because the dark tone for me looks random. Other than that I think this work went well as it was my first time of using oil paint and canvas.