Category: Painting

As I wrapped up this last series, I really thought about how amazing it was to get so many people involved in this series and just how popular the paintings became. I have always been an animal lover, but I really never thought this would become something I truly enjoyed!

 

Each painting has its own personality. Although they are all unified together by the style of painting, the medium, and the similar brushwork, they also tell their own story. As I carefully choose specific images of pets to use, my goal was to find ones that showed this unique expression or pose of that pet. I would ask some of the people who generously let me use their pet for more images so I would really be able to express those emotions I thought were important.

 

My initial idea was to bring these animals together to show a family. I think I was truly able to do that not only with enlarging my size for some of them, but also by arrangement of the animals. As it did take a little time for me to finalize my set up, I concluded it with slight variation. This was to break apart some of the pets and put them next to ones you wouldn’t really think of being together. I did, however, leave the cats all together. This was more of a personal idea as I really enjoyed these small canvases all together right in the center.

 

The process for the last series was very similar to that of the first two. I again included both small and large canvases which I ended up really enjoying in the final presentation. I also continued with acrylic paint. I was able to go a lot faster even with the large canvases as I continued to try and just layer paint down and use larger brushes. I also became more adapted to this abstract background. At first I was weary on the idea as I thought it wouldn’t look as pleasing compared to the highly detailed pets. In the end I felt more connected to the main focus of the paintings (the pets) because of this more abstract, surreal background. I find it added an interest to the series, while also bringing the viewers eyes on what I want to be the most important.

 

 

For this part to my series, I focused on three things. First of all, my central idea was based on dogs. Secondly, I decided to add some larger paintings. This included canvases 16×20 inches. Lastly, I wanted to really start looking more closely at the work of one of the artists I am using for inspiration, Joan Jonas.

Part of what really caught my eye and really inspired me for this part was in the Art 21 video of Joan Jonas was when she started to show one of her techniques with these simple washes. She would open a notebook and just start to do really simple ink washes on each page of the same sort of thing. In her case she was painting insects. This really inspired me as I continued to go further with this part of the series as it helped me to increase my brush size and to start with a simple wash of what I am painting and then continue to paint the piece with more layers of paint.

I again continued with the acrylic paint as I had planned and was still pleased with the turn out. On the large canvases I didn’t want to leave the background completely white as I felt there was just too much blank space, whereas in the smaller paintings there was less blank space. I decided to add a more simple, abstract background that was related to the picture I referenced. In the end I fell this helped to achieve my full goal of this project to focus on the importance and value our pets have to us. This gives viewers sort of a mystery as to what is going on in the picture, but makes them reflect back at mainly the pet in which is painted.

The larger canvases were an interesting change to the project. I feel indifferent with it so far. I do like the increase in size and think I was able to handle it the way I wanted to, however I think it also would be interesting if my project was only small canvases and when presented in a gallery, there would just be a huge wall full of these small, intricate, paintings that each have their own separate little story. I do think as a whole, each part put together at the end will still pull off the family-like feeling I want with this idea.

For my three series project I am continuing to focus on animals. More specifically pets. Like my previous data painting, for the first series I decided to again use smaller canvases. I liked the idea of a family-like relationship that the previous piece had with the small canvases. To really expand my idea, I asked my friends and family for a little help by sending me their pet photos. I want each series to be unified with the connection of family and just how important pets are to their owners. The amount of people who have been on board supporting my idea with pictures, comments, sharing, etc. are incredible!

I choose cats as my central idea for the first series just because it started me off in a fun direction. I choose pictures that I thought gave a sense of emotion. For example, someone sent me a picture of their cat who likes licking olives. I really thought this picture was both visually interesting, and really getting to the point of my idea. This fun, intriguing, family sense that can be both silly, and serious. I also choose cats who had both similar color palettes in some cases, and a strong contrast in others. This I feel also brings my idea into visual context. I see family as (like I said before) both silly and serious. I also see family as not just people (or in this case pets) with different interests, but of different color and style. I decided also to leave the edges white. Unlike the last series where I painted the sides of the canvas black, I thought leaving them white ended up giving it another sort of dimension. I am not quite sure why I really like it, it could be the looseness and how I left some soft brush strokes from painting the cats on the canvas or maybe just the simplicity of it when they are set up all together as a whole.

The inspiration for the work is digital identity. When I think of digital identity I immediately think of my art page on Facebook. I typically use social media for my art work not only to show to the world, but to also sell and get commissions. In this painting to show my true digital identity I choose this path of simplicity by painting simple icons and apps that I use. To tie in this sense of personality I decided to add my favorite colors and to also create the piece in a flowing, more artistic way as art is very important to me both digitally and in the real world. For my face and facial features, I decided to create it with a grayscale sort of tone. As my piece is thought out to be, my whole idea behind the grayscale was to sort of push away from the “selfie” lifestyle and think about the personality of the person, rather than the looks. This brings the viewer to look at the apps and icons in which my artistic hair contains and to think about their own personal digital identity and others digital identities versus the way they or someone else may be in person. To get into this painting more I researched this topic by really just digging into my own digital profiles and looking deeper into what I post. I looked at pictures and reflected on myself and created this piece that really shows who I am on Facebook, Instagram, and even when I am e-mailing someone. When I started the piece I really wasn’t confident and didn’t think it would turn out but in the end I am very happy with this idea and how it turned out as I think it created this balance and unity, as well as contrast to the piece.

For the assignment of Large Work out of Smaller Parts, I decided to create a large scale watercolor piece. With the interests I have gotten from my pets, more specifically my geckos, I wanted to continue down this road of painting them but at a larger, more impacting scale. I took a creature the size of my hand and enlarge it to an 11 foot piece of art.

 

In this process, like I said, I used watercolor. This was something that I wanted to do for two reasons. One was to get this sort of multicolored, flowing effect that watercolor is able to achieve. Secondly I wanted to create something that you don’t usually see in art, a watercolor piece at such a large scale. I was very pleased with the look that the watercolor gave this piece and as I went along I wanted that flowing, sort of chaotic look to be more prominent as it shows a side of the geckos that exists. To show that I did a sort of scribbled technique along the head and body. Also incorporated in the process is some acrylic paint. I used this to give the background of each separate piece a solid black color to contrast the chaotic emotion and color of the gecko.

Leopard geckos are very interesting creatures and are very unique in a variety of ways. No two geckos are alike and every time one sheds, its pattern looks a little bit different then it did before. There are endless patterns, color pallets, designs, shapes, and sizes and as I have been experimenting with painting these geckos, I have opened up to more and more mediums and styles of work. My goal is to really continue to create art by making leopard geckos and even continue into using my other pets for inspiration. I really feel that this piece has opened my mind and started a new style for me.

Intermediate Painting Assignment 1: Digital Identity

Here is an in-progress photo of my personal digital identity interpretation. I will be continuing to add more color and app icons and such to my hair as well as add slight more detail just to touch up the face.