EXAM QUESTIONS
2. I would describe my artistic style to be semi-realism with a focus on color and form. I've always been interested in painting from life and fully capturing realism in my art, but recently my style has become more stylized and unique. Success as an artist, from my perspective, is when you're satisfied with your own work. Personally I think that success isn't measured by how much other people enjoy your work, but by how much you like it. I'm still working towards this point; often times art can be frustrating for me, but that also motivates me to keep improving! Reaching this point is also the most rewarding part of being an artist for me, but in general seeing how much I can improve is incredibly gratifying. I don't think that there will be a point where I feel like my skills are where I want them to be because I don't believe that skills can cap at some point. I just want to keep practicing and see how far I can go.
Whether it's traditional or digital, I'm always considering the fundamentals when creating art. When considering light, I try to factor in the direction of the light, how it reflects, ambient occlusion, etc. I try to consider form, movement, and composition as well. This, combined with some other skills I've learned throughout my art journey, are what I draw upon to make my art. The most important thing I've learned throughout my art career is patience. My art can take somewhere from ten to sixty hours, and I often find it difficult to finish things when they haven't turned out the way I wanted to. That's when I really need to push myself to be patient, keep my art knowledge in mind, and work until it looks the way I want it to.
Whether it's traditional or digital, I'm always considering the fundamentals when creating art. When considering light, I try to factor in the direction of the light, how it reflects, ambient occlusion, etc. I try to consider form, movement, and composition as well. This, combined with some other skills I've learned throughout my art journey, are what I draw upon to make my art. The most important thing I've learned throughout my art career is patience. My art can take somewhere from ten to sixty hours, and I often find it difficult to finish things when they haven't turned out the way I wanted to. That's when I really need to push myself to be patient, keep my art knowledge in mind, and work until it looks the way I want it to.
3. A project where I felt the least successful is my landscape project. I feel like it conveyed the least amount of realism out of all the art I did, and it was generally very sloppy and not well executed. If I could redo this piece I would think more about the process towards getting the final piece rather than just having the final product in mind. If I worked in layers; from the background up, it would look much cleaner. I also wish I spent more time working on the perspective as well as the little details, such as the railing and umbrellas. I feel like if I had painted them properly it would've really pushed the realism. The singular thing I found to be successful with this piece is the pool illusion. I spent the most time on this portion of the piece, which is the biggest factor towards its success. I thought that the illusion of the distorted tiles ended up looking quite realistic, and the colors I chose for the pool water matched my reference photo. This was, unfortunately, the only realistic part of the piece. In the future, I want to be more patient with my landscape work and really focus on the details, not just the end product.
4. I feel like these two pieces show my improvement in values, colors, and composition. The first one was inspired by the work of Hundertwasser, so it doesn't entirely reflect the kind of painting style I was doing at the start of the semester, but I think that it's the best example of my color and line work. I think that the colors in the water turned out really well, but it was hard to blend them since the acrylic dried so fast. The most successful thing about this piece was the shapes I used to depict the whitecaps in the water. I spent the most time on them, and they turned out to be the most clean and cohesive part of the piece. The most unsuccessful part of the piece, of course, is the boat. I simply ran out of time and I couldn't establish the depth with values and so forth. For some reason I chose to put the boat in the middle of the piece too, which is just all wrong composition-wise.
My final piece shows a better understanding for painting, specifically oil, and how to properly blend between values. The idea itself was much more creative and outside my comfort zone compared to the simple 2D boat I did in the beginning of the semester. I had never painted a portrait in oil before, so I wasn't really sure how it would turn out. I tried to be patient for my final project despite the time crunch, and I kept my fundamentals in mind. I knew for my final I wanted to do a portrait because it's a subject I really enjoy painting. Additionally, I wanted to include a full landscape in the background to showcase the skills I've learned throughout this semester. When I was approached this piece, I wanted to think more about the composition of everything. I painted the girl slightly to the right for a better composition, using the sun to the left to balance it. I think that the colors in the background came out really well, which is surprising to me because I always struggle with color the most. The challenging part of this piece was matching the skin tone with the colors of the sunset while making sure she didn't blend in with the background. Most effectively, the complimentary color scheme between the cool tones of the dress and the warm sky/skin tone gives this piece a lot more appeal than the Hundertwasser one and draws the eye to the portrait. I ultimately think this piece was more successful because I have a heavy interest in the subject, portraits, rather than just landscapes. Ironically, I think that the sky stole the spotlight! I spent the majority of my time on the background, and since I've had more experience painting landscapes in oil than portraits, it ended being the most realistic part of the painting.
My final piece shows a better understanding for painting, specifically oil, and how to properly blend between values. The idea itself was much more creative and outside my comfort zone compared to the simple 2D boat I did in the beginning of the semester. I had never painted a portrait in oil before, so I wasn't really sure how it would turn out. I tried to be patient for my final project despite the time crunch, and I kept my fundamentals in mind. I knew for my final I wanted to do a portrait because it's a subject I really enjoy painting. Additionally, I wanted to include a full landscape in the background to showcase the skills I've learned throughout this semester. When I was approached this piece, I wanted to think more about the composition of everything. I painted the girl slightly to the right for a better composition, using the sun to the left to balance it. I think that the colors in the background came out really well, which is surprising to me because I always struggle with color the most. The challenging part of this piece was matching the skin tone with the colors of the sunset while making sure she didn't blend in with the background. Most effectively, the complimentary color scheme between the cool tones of the dress and the warm sky/skin tone gives this piece a lot more appeal than the Hundertwasser one and draws the eye to the portrait. I ultimately think this piece was more successful because I have a heavy interest in the subject, portraits, rather than just landscapes. Ironically, I think that the sky stole the spotlight! I spent the majority of my time on the background, and since I've had more experience painting landscapes in oil than portraits, it ended being the most realistic part of the painting.
6. I'm choosing Jude's "Fish" painting for this section because it is probably the best painting I've seen another student make. I just turned around one day and there was like ten fish staring at me in this super creepy way, but it was painted so well that I could overlook that. Not only is it painted beautifully, I think that the composition and the complementary color scheme makes the piece really captivating. I really loved how she used a purple and blue hues for the shadows and a vibrant yellow for the highlights, it makes the piece quite appealing compared to using realistic shadow colors (dark browns and such). The initial project was to do an animal portrait, and I think that she just took the project idea to a whole different level. It's realistic but stylized, cute but creepy, and I really love the background cyan she chose. It makes the fish pop and overall just makes the colors she chose look that much better. Plus, she painted like ten times as much as the project asked for, and each fish looks unique in their own way. Pretty impressive! https://jude-apex-2020.weebly.com/painting-2