Title: "Memories"
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas Size: 91.44x 91.44cm The artist was inspired by surrealist artist's and a combination of art nouveau. The combination of both Dali's and Kahlo's work. The flowers melting away represent her precious memories from her childhood, when she felt free and no worries in her life. The gold border is her shyness sometimes that holds her back from trying new things, however the designs on top are the memories and goals she has accomplished and is very proud of. |
Planning
For my self portrait I wanted to make it different but I also wanted to combine some art movements together. For this project I did sketches incorporating my ideas. I wanted to incorporate art nouveau, surrealism and cubism. Like I said before I wanted to make something different. I couldn't get my ideas straight and go for one art movement, I really wanted to challenge myself and incorporate more ideas into my self portrait. Process 1. First I had to build the frame of my canvas (the frames were available in class and all utensils) 2. Next I had to stretch the canvas 3. Then I had to Gesso the canvas 4. Next I started working on my background 5. Then I free hand myself in the canvas 6. Finally I started painting |
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Artistic Inspiration
I was inspired by surrealism for this piece. I really like surrealism is a combination of unreal and distortion of things, I wanted to incorporate this idea with my self portrait. I was inspired by the painting of Salvador Dali Persistence of Memory . Also I was inspired by the flowers of Kahlo's work. However, I added a twist in my work, because although is mainly inspired by the surrealism movement i wanted to add art nouveau in my painting, so I added a gold border in order to pop in the painting. |
Meaning behind the piece
I really have a variety of colors in my piece, this shows my personality how I'm a joyful, fun person. The background color is like a gradient peacock color reflects how I'm a patient but also a serious person when it comes to work or a serious occasion, but also I love to explore new and create new things. At home I'm a different person, I'm more talkative more open and funny. At school people have seen me as a more shy person, quiet and serious in my class work. Also the meaning of the flowers are the symbol of my great childhood memories melting away, because nowadays being a young adult is a step closer towards being an adult. The gold border is what my shyness holds me back and is something that I don't like because I wish I can be more open and feel confident about myself. The designs on top are the memories and goals that I've accomplished and feel proud of it. Reflection Overall this project was the most interesting, because we were able to choose which ever art movement in our self portraits and let our imaginations flow through the process. Also how I changed my ideas of creating a shatter effect at first and actually attempting it but at the end changing it completely. During my process of creating the shatter effect it was very time consuming and difficult making the geometric shapes very tiny and close to each other. I didn't like this idea later on because like I said it was very time consuming and annoying, so what I did repaint the background and make it one single color and paint over the detail I made about the 'shatter'. Then I made the border and the designs on top and added waves (details) on my hair. Also the flowers it was rather easy to do but when the dripping effect was going to take place I needed to repaint the flowers layering them with even thicker blobs of paint and sprayed water all over the flowers to create that nice dripping effect I desired. I really enjoyed making the piece and incorporating my ideas and letting my imagination take over it. If I can do my self portrait again I would do it again, and try some thing new and simple. |