This painting is called Love Vibrations and it's a palette knife oil painting. I was inspired by the alternation of hues utilized in this painting. The brightness and smooth textures of the leaves in the painting were highly captivating. I wanted to utilize such ideas in Home because my painting contained a literal meaning towards the definition of home and I was trying to making that theme straightforward. Home meant internal peace in my respective artwork hence I wanted to make all the physical features that are surrounded in the work as colorful and detailed as possible. Also the branches of the trees were lean and curvy, which provided them with a stylish yet aesthetically pleasing effect. Trees always add a sense of intricacy in one's work hence I decided to utilize just the branches of the trees in my peace without any leaves on them to represent the feeling of isolation, which was also associated with my theme. All the leaves were on the ground and some were flying away in the air. The technique applied in this painting was something I appreciated. I loved how the leave were composed from swatches of paint and I attempted a similar technique towards the leaves presented in my piece.
Afremov, L. L., & Petrov, A. (2014). Bethe Approximation in the Theory of "Average Spin". Advanced Materials Research, 900, 260-263. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.900.260
This painting is called Caring for Love and it is by Leonid Afremov. Leonid Afrenov is a popular contemporary artists and his artwork deals with the influence art has towards humans. I color scheme in this piece made me think of a fall vibe. Sense I wanted to make all of the leaves on the ground and some flying, this season was perfect for my painting. Also, in the center of the piece there's a female and a male walking under an umbrella. An umbrella can be symbolic towards protection and that element enhanced my theme of internal satisfaction as the umbrella is the shelter that is providing a human with moral support when no one else is around. This painting also assisted me towards understanding the structure of people's backs, as I wanted to make a female walking with an umbrella with her back turned at the audience to reveal her loneliness and the level of hope she possessed as she was moving towards a certain goal and destiny, which in this case was being home mentally than physically. I was pleased with the lights and the bench presented in the artwork as well, as they enhance the physical beauty of the artwork. My theme was literal in my painting and that's why I considered adding vast amounts of detailing in Home.
Figure 2f from: Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: E7720. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720. (n.d.). doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f
This is a hand made painting made by an Indian artist named Mubina. I was pleased with the composition of the house presented in the painting. It provided with a vibe that was filled with happiness. I decided to make the house in Home resemble the one presented in Mubina's work, because the "house" was symbolic towards the calmness one experiences when they become more relaxed and easy. Hence the windows, roof, door, and windows were similar to the ones I created in my work. The incorporation of alternating forms of nature made this piece of art stand out to a great extent. Looking at all the trees and bushes, I decided to make a rose in the corner of the upper left side of my painting. Flowers are a representation of growth as they refer to blossoming and my theme also dealt with moving on. That's why the lady in my painting is walking towards the house to indicate her walking out of the isolation she has been experiencing her whole. I also thought about incorporating mountains in my artwork as well, but I was trying to portray a local area and wanted to maintain a simplistic approach in my artwork compared to Mubina's.
Planning (Sketches)
The very first sketch that I made was of a rose. I wanted to make the rose an essential yet simple element in my piece. The deep meaning of growth that I wanted to display through the incorporation of the rose was an efficient approach as I decided to paint the rose in the upper right hand corner of my piece. I wanted to observe the structure of the rose before composing it on the actual project because I didn't want it to look disorientated and unnoticeable. Despite this sketch of the rose, I alternated the composition of the rose slightly in the actual artwork, because I was longing for unity. I wanted the rose to correlate with the hues presented in the painting and that's why I provided it with colors such as black, red, golden, and white. I made some straight, curvy, and curled lines to maintain the form and the goal the rose had to serve in my artwork.
The second sketch that I made was of a house, which resembled the painting made by the Indian artist Mubina. In the sketch I incorporated a lot of intricate details as I wanted to make the home the center of attention as that was symbolic towards the theme of internal peace which was the main idea of my painting. The problem that I had with this sketch was the amount of designs that were added to the house. It became distracting from the theme of the piece. I already had ideas for the background of the piece where I was going to add a bunch of leaves with colorful hues and if the house had a similar effect the theme would be hard to comprehend. Hence I decided keep the overall structure of the house the same and eliminate all the extra detailing. It was a challenge to display the theme through a simplistic approach but it came out to be aesthetically pleasing, as nothing was overdone.
The very last sketch that I made was of a woman under an umbrella with branches of the tree descending from the side of the paper. I wanted to portray the feeling of isolation, which was a component of my theme through the incorporation of a woman. The woman had to be all alone with the house in front of her to reveal that she is getting close to her destiny despite the hurdles she has previously experienced. I kept the umbrella as simple as possible, because that was symbolic towards moral support and in this case the only support the person had was from themselves. Also the reason as to why the facial expression wasn't displayed was to demonstrate that sometimes one needs to turn their backs on the world to truly explore the relief they were trying to find this whole time. It was difficult to make it seem like a person was holding the umbrella as there needs to be logic towards the body composition of the lady, hence I made the hair every long and made it seem like the lady is wearing a shawl. This was incorporated to reveal the cold atmosphere and how the lady was still continuing on towards her destiny.
PROCESS (EXPERIMENTATION)
During the composition of Home several ideas were considered before developing the final product. I started off by drawing a rose in the corner of the painting with a stem and leaves. The rose didn't as much volume either. As I progressed finishing the other sketches on the canvas, I stem of the rose became extremely distracting and out of place that I got rid of it. I decided to paint the rose with only red and pink, but then unity wouldn't be as prominent in the piece. The theme wouldn't make any sense, because I wanted to correlate everything with the season of fall to symbolize the loneliness the lady in the painting was experiencing. I also started to utilize the technique of making swatches within and around the trees to present the leaves on the left side. I thought maintaining warm colors throughout the painting, but they are typically a representation of anger and regret, which was a component of my theme but not the main initiative. Considering that factor I decided to incorporate cool colors and direct them at the location in which the lady was walking. It would present a sense of positivity the lady was feeling enhancing the theme of the painting. When I constructed the bench in the painting I gave it a solid gray color. It occurred to be outlier in the painting and wasn't adding unification to the piece, hence I designed the bench with colorful lines to combine it with the hues of the leaves. Another element that I altered in Home was the technique applied to paint the house. I was attempting at painting the house with swatches but then the leaves didn't have the emphasis in the painting that I was trying to create through them, so I stuck to simply blending cool colors in the house to make it clean and present craftsmanship.
PROCESS: The very things that I did was build the canvas and apply gesso afterwards. Once the canvas was all completed I began to sketch the outline the structure of the painting. I began by making the rose in the upper right hand corner of the painting. I drew five trees and scattered them around the painting and added on a light to present my theme of internal peace. Light is symbolic towards solutions hence that's why it was incorporated in my piece. After that I sketched the house and the bench. Once all of the sketches were completed I painted the tree branches. I applied a dark brown with a white to provide the tree branches with several shades. The right side were light brown near the bottom while the one on the top was painted black to provide the painting with a sense of darknesses and loneliness. The left side of the painting was composed with trees that were dark brown. I began making swatches of red, yellow, orange, pink, and white to present the leaves on the right side. Once those were completed I added hues such as blue, green, and purple to add the cool colors. After that I painted the bench with a background color of grey with extra detailing. After that I painted the lady with the umbrella. I provided her hair with streaks of brown, black, and white. I made sure the dress of the lady was pinkish as I wanted it to standout from the color of the leaves, so the audience can see the lady. After that I began completing the sky by providing it with a tint of blue combined with white. I also made some leaves fly in the sky to really make the season of fall apparent. Once the sky was finished, I worked on the trees presented behind the house. I gave them a colorful vibe as well so they don't resemble the greenish and greyish tone presented in the house. I outlined the house with black paint to make the structure prominent. There was yellow light from the window to symbolize the feeling of accomplishing the destiny one was searching for.
REFLECTION:
Overall I am satisfied with my piece, because it presents my theme efficiently. The home really does present a literal meaning towards internal peace that one experiences after finding their true selves. Somethings that went well during the composition of Home was the making of the trees and the blending of the sky. I was able to provide to add pointiness and alternating hues in the trees. The layering in my painting was on point and I was satisfied with that. I added layer so green, pink, and purple and blended them slightly as I didn't want to make the texture of the trees smooth, I wanted it be rough and sharp. The blending of sky went well due to the experience I have had painting backgrounds of several artworks with various tones of a similar color. I began with a light sky tone and progressed to a navy blue and a greenish tone. I utilized some water to make the blending more efficient and clean. Also, the water helps prevent the acrylics from drying too fast. The things that I struggled with were making the structure of the bench accurate. The legs of the bench were way too curvy and didn't seem to posses stability. It also seemed disoriented as it was positioned out of place according to my thinking. That's why I added different hues to it to hide the imperfect positioning of the bench. Another things that I struggled with was making the body of the lady. It didn't seem like the lady was holding the umbrella as I overpainted some areas of her structure. I had to clean my imperfections by painting over them and that created a mess. So I added more leaves to the areas that were messy. I can improve such errors in the future by making the outline of the sketches on the canvas a little more darker so I can see them clearly. I can also add tape so the areas that don't need specific colors can be prevented from being covered. It will also save me time and make the composition more clean and organized.
ACT QUESTIONS:
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your art work? Leonid Afrenov demonstrated the theme of love through the incorporation of the season of fall. I had a similar idea in my artwork as I also presented fall through the composition of leaves, vacant tree branches, and wind from which the leaves were flying in the sky. I incorporate the umbrella, a single lady, and a bench as well which were all in Caring for Love to strengthen the true meaning of being at home, which was internal peace. 2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author ( from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration? The overall authors that wrote about Leonid Afrenov didn't have a strong opinion towards Leonid Afrenov's artwork. Rather they just presented the medium and size of the artwork that was made by the respective artist. This demonstrates the lack of interest the author possessed towards displaying his perception of Leonid Afrenov's painting. Everything occurred to be quite neutral and only factual information was presented. 3.What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration? The generalizations and conclusions that I have discovered about people are that they continue to think they are "happy" without knowing the true definition one needs to be aware of to maintain that feeling. Usually when something displeasing occurs in one's life they think it will lead them towards satisfaction, when the reality of the truth is it is not. One needs to find what makes them happy in order to live the life they want to with comfort. 4.What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research? The central theme around my inspirational research was to portray what it's like to be truly at home. There is isolation and lack of support, but when one tends to motivate themselves and try their best to come out of their hardships that is when they are at peace from the heart and have truly reached home.
5.What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research? The inferences that I made were that sometimes one needs to neglect the world to give themselves time to heal, Individuals become so busy accomplishing the stereotypical tasks of the world, that they forget to take care of themselves. When they forget to provide for themselves life becomes a burden and the true joys of its existence begin to diminish.
2. Afremov, L. L., & Petrov, A. (2014). Bethe Approximation in the Theory of "Average Spin". Advanced Materials Research, 900, 260-263. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.900.260
3.Figure 2f from: Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales). Biodiversity Data Journal 4: E7720. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720. (n.d.). doi:10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f
4. Leonid Afremov Bio. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://afremov.com/Leonid-Afremov-bio.html