Reference and In Progress Photos Final: I knew what I wanted to paint as soon as Mrs. Rossi said we had a free project. My friend Alisha wanted a renaissance style portrait of her and her dog for her birthday. I thought this would be a good challenge and a way to see how much my skills have grown over the semester. I've definitely learned a lot about color and have become comfortable adding colors in where you don't see them in the picture. For example, you can't see a lot of dark blue in her dogs face in the photo, but it kept the shadows from looking too dark around the ears. I also used a lot of pink in her dogs face to show warmth and how short her hair is.
I also learned a lot about fur textures in this class. The first time I painted fur with oil was on my cat portrait. I added a lot of colors like blue, purple, and pink into her fur to make the piece more interesting and used long thin brushstrokes to create her fur texture. I also added liquin to make the brush glide easier. This dog's fur texture was much different from my cat's. Her dog, Lucy, has short stubbly fur and I created that texture by using a flat, wide brush and blending a lot of colors together, still using liquin. I like the way Lucy turned out, and I also like how her accessories turned out. I also like how I painted the background. The red velvet curtains were fun to do. It took a lot of trial and error to figure out what colors to use for highlights and shadows, but I ended up liking the gold outlining the most. I also found it difficult to make the folds in the fabric look realistic. I followed a picture of curtains to figure out what position they fall in. My lease favorite part of this painting is Alisha's face. I could have made the skin tone closer to reality, but I'm not very good at mixing skin colors. I had Mrs. Rossi help me but after that I still couldn't get it exactly right. I like the way the eyes and lips turned out, but I accidentally painted the hair too close to the face and ruined her face shape. The left and right sides look very different, especially around the cheekbone and jawline. I should have pushed the darks more and been more careful with the hair. I like how her pearls and the shadow around them turned out, but I think I should have added more accessories. I also don't like how her hair turned out, I could have done a better job adding more colors and highlights/shadows. You can tell that I became more and more unmotivated as this painting progressed, I got bored half way through and just wanted to finish it. Therefore, her dress is very plain and her hair looks flat. I did learn a lot from this class. Mostly about using oils and the tricks that come with them, like using liquin and learning to stop blending when enough is enough. I also learned about different mediums, colors, brushstrokes, and patience. This painting was the biggest I've done, and it showed me that I don't have the patience for big pieces and should stick to smaller canvases. Through this class I learned that my favorite medium is oil paint and I enjoy painting more realistic pieces like landscapes.
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This project was to help us learn how to paint glass and other reflective objects. I think painting from life helped me because I was able to see which colors reflected on which surfaces. Before we started the painting, we practiced painting a cup. I don't like how my cup turned out, it needs more detail and highlights. We also sketched different perspectives of the set up and then decided which one to paint. Once I started the final piece I sketched out the objects with a white pencil and added white highlights. After I finished the highlights, I worked on the colors in the glass. It was difficult to find where the colors reflected on other objects and also add depth to the clear glasses. When I was done, there was too much open space in the middle of the top so I added a metal wind chime to take up space. It doesn't look very shiny, I should have added more highlights to it. However, it does reflect the colors below it. Overall, I think this painting turned out fine. I don't like it, but I think I did a good job distributing the colors and highlights.
For this painting, I used colors and values that weren't in the picture to add depth and make it interesting. I used similar colors in the background and fur to bring the piece together and create harmony and a nice aesthetic. I worked on the fur using short brushstrokes going in the direction that the hair grows. I found it difficult to keep the markings in the fur from blending in too much. To help this, I started with a medium value of a color, then a dark value, then a light value. I also had to let it dry sometimes and go work on something else to prevent it from becoming blurry. However, I found that making an oil painting look kind of messy can actually add to a piece. You can still see the soft texture of the fur without having to do tedious amounts of work trying to make it look super detailed and show every strand. I like the colors that I chose, especially the purple on the belly and pink and blue on the chest. However, I didn't get the proportions right, her legs should be shorter and her stomach should be bigger. The eyes also look uneven and I need to make the pupils the same size. I improved a lot by practicing different textured furs before hand and learning which values to put down when.
My painting is neat considering how easily oil paint can smear and be misplaced. I did a good job being careful not to get the paint on my hands and spread it everywhere. For this piece, I used mostly greens, blues, and grays. Since the majority of the painting is green, I used many tints, shades, and variations of different greens to keep it from looking flat. I also used cool tones in the grass and rocks to create harmony with the blue water and sky. The blue and white throughout the piece help draw your eye along the entire painting. Cutting the hills of green in half with the rock ledge, waterfall, and stream helped define the foreground from the background. The contrast of the bright white waterfall against the gray and green colors helps make the water look in focus while the rest of the painting is well blended and almost blurry. I also gave the rocks in the water defined lines to keep them from getting lost in the stream.
To create the different textures in the painting i used many brushes and brushstrokes. I used a small brush to stipple a bumpy texture into the mountains and grass in the background. For the foregrounds grass, I used a medium sized brush and made small strokes in the direction in which the grass grew. Then, to give the waterfall texture, I used a fan brush and tapped several layers of white on to make it look like spray/foam. To create depth, I added highlights to the grass and mountains to show the high points and I added shadows where the hills dip and behind the waterfall to show where the darker areas are. The most difficult part of this painting was making the hills rise and fall where they were supposed to. It was also hard working with so much green but I remedied this by using several different greens and making the brushstrokes go in the correct direction to make the hills look realistic. To make this painting better, I should have made the mountains in the background more defined. Overall, I'm happy with how this painting turned out. I did a good job adding depth in the grass and movement in the water. I'm also happy with how the sky and clouds turned out. This is probably my favorite painting I've done and I'm proud of how it turned out. Before we started our oil landscape we practiced painting fruits. I enjoyed doing these exercises because it gave me a chance to add colors in the fruit that you couldn't see in the picture. I did the gourd with a paint brush and the grapes with a pallet knife. Painting with a brush was easier because I had more control over where the colors were placed and how blended they were. Painting with the pallet knife was fun but I didn't like how little control I had of where the paint went. The grapes turned out messier, but I think it has more style than the gourd. The gourd is more realistic than the grapes, but is less stylized and colorful.
1. The craftsmanship of the painting is good, there are no stray patches of paint and the lines are neat.
2. This painting reflects Hundertwasser's style by showing many patterns, spirals in the grass and stars, and the use of analogous colors. 3. I used green, blue, and purple as my color scheme. By using different shades of each color I was able to show contrast in the patterns but still keep the overall theme of analogous colors. To make everything pop I used gold and silver sharpie to outline the cat, grass, and stars. 4. The focal point of the piece is the cat. It's the brightest color and takes up most of the space in the artwork. 5. I used different patterns on the blades of grass to make it more interesting and I put dots radiating from the stars to make it look brighter against the dark blue and fill the space. 6. I chose not to add a border to the piece. 7. The most difficult part of this project was making the colors opaque. Everywhere needed multiple layers of paint to get the full color. For my references I used a pictures of my cat, a beach trip, and a lake trip to turn into Hundertwasser's style. I narrowed it down to the beach and my cat for my final sketches. I decided to do my cat and add stars and grass to give it more patterns and designs.
1. Using the wet on wet technique allowed for easier blending. Painting layers with washes helped me build up colors and depth. Dry brushing was useful for painting the grass along the edge of the bank because I didn't want the blades of grass to mix in with the colors of the rocks.
2. Using transparent layers was useful while painting the clouds to show that some are father away and some are closer. 3. The background, middle ground, and foreground are all easily distinguishable. The mountains and grass have texture to make every spot look unique, the value of the water and mountains change to show distance and depth. I used balance while painting the proportions of the scene to make sure there wasn't a distracting amount of water, sky, or mountains. I used contrast while making the mountains to show that there were several instead of one. 4. Color choice was important because they all had to be earth toned in order to look like nature and successfully show depth. 5. I was careful to make sure the colors of the bank and water didn't bleed together but I made sure the colors on the mountains blended together to show smooth hills. 6. If I could choose something different I would paint a sunset because the colors would be bright and fun to work with. 7. Through this project I learned that using layers is really useful when building up colors and using the wet on wet technique is good for blending. I used 2 different pictures of the same place to decide which perspective would be better to paint. I cropped the picture in different places and added more clouds to the practice drawings. In my final sketch I practiced with watercolor and figured out the base colors.
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Photo used under Creative Commons from NathalieSt