Project II
Isolation vs Growth
24in by 12in Painting October 2021 Isolation vs Growth is a painting that goes into the representation of my mental health from six to four years ago versus now. It shows development and growth of one's self while growing into a young adult, with the blending of two colors and their hues. Inspired by Ellen Greene's Past, Present, and Future, Isolation vs Growth focuses on the representation one's self in different time periods. |
Inspiration
Ellen Greene
Ellen Greene made Past, Present, and Future in 2017, and showed in this art, herself in three different time periods and used a lot of other things as symbols to things she wanted to present in this art piece. She wanted to show things such as love, family, motherhood, and death as some example given from the flowers, pacifiers, breasts, and hand with the tattoo that says "MOM". She was an inspiration to my piece specifically because of what she wanted it to represent by using symbolism and herself staring off into different directions. |
Planning
I first did a very rough plain sketch to know how I wanted to make it paper because I already had it in mind how I wanted to present it. I made it an eight by four grid so then when I transfer the grid onto the canvas, since each square was one inch, on the canvas it would triple in size.
|
Since I already had an idea on how I wanted to present this artwork, I took pictures on how I wanted represent my present and past self. I started off with my "present self" by taking a photo posing like I'm looking at someone behind me as if I'm leaving them kind of wanting to go back to help. This is representing my present self moving forward and accepting what happened in the past but still reaching out wanting to change what was already done. I then put it in a grid and added a filter to lighten it to focus more on the outline made.
|
Next up I did the same process with my "past self". I wanted to represent how I felt mentally at the time, alone, curled up in a ball. Something that I would have to change somehow in the sketch would have to be the hair length and texture because my appearance consisted of long, wavy/straight hair. The coloring of my clothes will be different, but I did know I wanted to have a hoodie in the image to give it the texture of it instead of a shirt or long sleeve that was form fitting. I then put a grid on it to know where to place it on the canvas, then added a filter like the other one to make it lighter and have more of an obvious outline to it.
|
Process
I started off by making the grid like in my planning process of an 8 by 4 square grid, making the 1 inch by 1 inch squares converted to 3 inches by 3 inches squares on the canvas. After that, I started to insert the diagonal lines where I was going to place the present self. The reason for presents self grid being a 2 by 3 was so when it gets placed with the past self, it is shown taller than the person sitting down. |
Adding the body to the canvas, I had made two grids, thinking that the first one was deleted, so the placement was off by just a little. Because of that, the head placement was in the incorrect area, making it a little higher and the angle to a different degree. The same thing happened to the arm because of the misplacement of the body with the neck and face. All of it had to be lowered by a bit or else it would be noticeable the off area |
Because of the little mishap, I had to replace the head like the image shown in the planning section in order to be proportional to the rest of the body. The hair looked a little off because it didn't have any of the other lines on the curl pattern, but that would be added once painting it. The same thing goes with the hands, the jewelry on the wrists were minimized at the moment, only adding one of the bracelets on each wrist. Other minor details I didn't add either were the flowers on the dress, and the facial features. The flowers would be added later on after painting the dress it's main color, the face was something I was going to leave blank because I prefer that type of style where it's minimized on details and the body is already showing the type of emotion being shown in the piece. I still needed the points of the folds so I still added that since it was minor on the third row second column. |
After finishing up the present self sketch on the canvas, I did my past self's sketch. I made the grid a 2 by 2 square one because I wanted to make it slightly smaller than the one standing up. This one had the face more covered by there was small hairs there too but I decided to add them once I started painting. The side part seemed a little off but I knew once I started adding the color and highlights given by the light, it would look better. Some of things I also added were the lines of the folds of the hoodie in order to know where to add certain shadings. |
Once I had the sketch done, I started off with my past self and used white paint to cover the pencil marks and to have a bright white as the light shining in the back of the person. I then kept going outwards but stayed on the left side within the four square by 4 square area. Since the middle is the blended areas, I just added the main two colors used on top and bottom, being black and white. It looks like just random brushes, but it was my method of shaping the piece to how I wanted it to look. I added the main black on the outer areas and then started adding white to blend in to make a dark grey that will lead to a lighter grey. |
This is the end result from having a lot of blending of black and white to make a gradation in between. I would add a generous amount of black on the upper middle and would layer it with white to blend them in making a dark grey and then slowly spread it downwards in order to then layer it with another generous amount of white. I would use an upside down U brush motion in order to blend certain parts without messing up the upper or lower areas that were to my satisfaction. |
After blending them in and adding more white, I was able to shape it into a highlight line surrounding the person. The past self had a more oval shape to it but that was because the position the person was in could be wrapped in a simple circular shape unlike this one that had a more organic shape that was long and curvy. It gave a background with movement since the person seemed to be walking forwards, the light also had to give that feeling of following along. I then also blended the black and pink at and angle to make it look like pink has more area and is covering off the black and over powering it slowly. |
I then add the skin tone to both people and add some slight shade to the present one under the chin because of the angling of the face, it had shading under from the neck. Since I had leftover pink, I was able to use it and lighten it to the peachy shade of the dress from the reference. I make it slightly dark at the bottoms to give it the shading of the folds and lighting. |
Noticing with the pattern of just going with the three main colors (black, pink, white) and just going off in different hues of those, the color of the clothes for the past self was for sure the hoodie be black and then leggings and dark grey. Something I had to do to get some lighting on the hoodie was to lighten the folds on the lines and then blend a solid black right above it. A very good example is the bottom half of the hoodie that has a section folded and how it has a light line and blended down to a black to give it the effect of light hitting it.
|
Compare & Contrast
Compare
|
Contrast
|
Reflection
This was a personal piece that represented in a simpler way my mental health in the past (4-6 years ago) versus the growth I gained within then and now. Isolation vs Growth is an art piece that went off my self portrait Blooming From My Head. My self portrait used a more indirect way of showing my mental health by using the meaning of the flowers and the placement. Whereas this one used body, posing, and background. This was more direct showing from darker tones used on one side and lighter on the other where these colors are associated with certain feelings.
ACT Questions
1. Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
Past, Present, and Future affected my artwork from the similarities of sharing a representation of different time periods by using head direction, expressions, and meaning behind it.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Greene approached showing different parts of her life by using other objects besides herself to represent them, whereas I used myself and the simple background as a way to present different parts of me.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Everyone is in different phases of life and many represent them in different ways such as using one's self as the example or using other objects to represent different periods of time.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My mental health and my way of presenting it slightly more directly compared to my self portrait that was based the similar central idea.
5. What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
The disconnection Ellen Greene mentions that relates to my own art such as disconnecting from one's self which is used in my artwork.
Past, Present, and Future affected my artwork from the similarities of sharing a representation of different time periods by using head direction, expressions, and meaning behind it.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Greene approached showing different parts of her life by using other objects besides herself to represent them, whereas I used myself and the simple background as a way to present different parts of me.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Everyone is in different phases of life and many represent them in different ways such as using one's self as the example or using other objects to represent different periods of time.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My mental health and my way of presenting it slightly more directly compared to my self portrait that was based the similar central idea.
5. What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
The disconnection Ellen Greene mentions that relates to my own art such as disconnecting from one's self which is used in my artwork.
Bibliography
Greene, Ellen. “‘Past, Present, and Future.’” Ellen Greene, https://artbyellengreene.com/artwork/4165874-Past-Present-and-Future.html.