Impressionist Choice Piece
"Wise, Yet Not Heard"Medium: 10" x 16"
Acrylic on canvas Fall 2020 Exhibition TextThis piece was inspired by the great works of Monet, and My very own pet Chameleon Vivian, This piece is to show the struggle of not being heard within the world, despite knowledge and understanding there are those who will not listen no matter what, and can make you feel monotone. This is the message of "Wise, Yet Not Heard".
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Inspiration / Thought Process
My first Idea of inspiration when it came to wanting to represent my chameleon Vivian was I wanted to express her vibrancy, being a chameleon she had beautiful colors to her, with vibrant greens and yellows and blues, after searching I remembered Impressionism specifically Monet's works were known for being beautiful vibrant colors that truly show meaning and emotion through its vibrancy. Monet's style of painting impressionist pieces amazes me, in fact the style of impressionism itself amazes me, Its such a beautiful and sloppy colorful mess that truly makes me feel something. I had to study the way Monet painted and just how to actually paint within the impressionist style, I also figured out my own way to paint within the style developing my own techniques. The reason as to why the paint method of impressionism started was because painting landscapes was something very quick, they needed to capture the image before the scene changed too much, seeing as my chameleon is slow, I decided to choose her to not only emphasize color, but to also challenge myself to fit the method of impressionism
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I used my chameleon as a live model to see her colors and her movements. I wanted to show something like wisdom, or knowledge for the piece, I felt like doing this by making her in a contemplative pose, with her eyes closed and her hands near her head as if she was thinking, or was a wise sage, but none will listen to her. I wanted to replicate the same feeling from the statue I have presented, showing a great man contemplating. By mixing the two I had to work fast, i had to make sure to get her within a very nice pose and with nice colors to be able to capture what I wanted to for my purpose. I wanted my message of wisdom showing and the background to show the chaos and the other things going around to not only show contrast but to also show the actual message of being over looked.
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Planning sketches
This is the first concept I came up with, while it was not the first one I chose, but I think it still definitely was a contender. I was going for a more light hearted and happy version or take on my message, but the dotted lines are to show the "invisible area (that's what I was going for when I thought of the sketch). My original idea was to show that the chameleon feels invisible because he was being ignored.
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This was the final and almost perfect final sketch of my piece, I wanted to take the cute, and the tail from the 2nd sketch, yet I wanted to keep the somberness from the first one. I made Vivian the central figure, and also at a more vertical angle, to make her not only fit within the vertical style of the canvas but also to make her the big focal point of the piece. The only changes were some of the limbs, and the face, I wanted her to look more realistic but also more wise and simple.
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I was hoping on bringing more to the pose that I had chosen, but I was still looking for more within my own work. I wanted to show the cute and cuddly side of the chameleon, But I realized after making it that it wasn't transparent with the idea that I wanted to convey, It looked forced, and I didn't think that I wanted to run with this idea. But I really loved the tail within the picture, and wanted to make sure that I could bring it within my work.
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Process
Experimentation
I wanted to see how I could use colors to my advantage with this piece, so I wanted to see how I could mix colors to see what hues and different grades of saturation I could use and have within this piece. Starting with the branch I mixed black with brown, white with brown, and also yellow with brown to make sure that I could get the 1. impressionist variations to look beautiful, 2. I wanted to give variety to the branch so my craft could be seen better. But one change I might have considered or made was maybe just going in with base colors and mixing in more unrelated colors like orange, yellow, blue etc. to simulate weird color reflects etc.
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my biggest challenge and fear when creating this piece was messing up that classic impressionistic style of splashes and very hastily made brush strokes, integrating colors together without actually mixing them together in a gradient, leaving space and variation between each brush stroke, I experimented with different types of brushes, and different amounts and colors of paint till I got a consistent pattern going with how my colors and paints went onto the canvas. I found this to be incredibly successful as the piece went on.
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My over all approach after figuring out the method I would stick with was to almost sponge paint with a brush, by dabbing my brush onto the canvas over and over in different areas to create texture. I would mix paint colors that most likely shouldn't be mixed, being green and red and blue all in the same leaf. My goal was to emulate the impressionist style while making it a chaos and control style of painting, I used different types of paints, such as gouache and acrylic, and used pencil to sketch out the rough Idea as seen in the 2nd picture.
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Process
I first started my process out by grabbing 3 brushes of varying sizes and brush strength, going from small to large. I wanted to use the small square brush tip as it would give me the most control and the best brush strokes for an impressionism piece, especially with the size of the work too. I started by mixing colors and grabbing the right hues, these being brown first for the branches, I went with a nice neutral brown from which I mixed red, white, and black into three separate globs of paint so I could use them throughout the course of painting the branch, which I painted first so I could (If I messed up) go over it with the green from the chameleon.
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I used the texture method I gathered from the previous paragraph and made the branches and leaves to have almost shading with how their values are represented. I wanted to give off a continuous almost scaly and texturous look to the art with how I painted my work. The final result of the branches and leaves look almost perfect. I did this by dabbing my brush onto the canvas repeatedly onto the different parts of what I was painting, whether it was the branch or if it was the skin of the chameleon or if it was the actual leaves that hung from the branches. I made it consistent only changing the colors used within the art.
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Then the last portion of the process was just to paint the rest of the chameleon and the background in, I went with a standard yellow, green, blue color scheme with the body and head of the chameleon using only black and white for 2 specific areas of the skin to give that devoid of color look to her for the idea of the narrative behind the piece. I used yellow for highlights and to bring emphasis to certain key areas of the piece. The background was arguably one of the hardest components of the piece, I had a huge area to cover and also try to make a background fitting of the color scheme to make the chameleon pop out but also to make the background interesting. So i went with a mishmash of the primary colors yellow, blue and red, mixing and dabbing the colors everywhere I saw it to fit. making the colors "mix" without mixing them together to try and show chaos around the entire piece. starting with a solid base, I then made it so the impressionistic style of almost chicken scratches of paint were everywhere to give it that almost burning look. This was one of my favorite parts of the piece.
Compare/Contrast
Similarities
Differences
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Reflection
Looking back on the piece I created I think that with all my meaning behind it, the style Ive done it in (being the first time Ive done impressionism with paint) and the actual outcome, I think this is one of my best works, I really enjoyed making it from the initial conceptualizing, to choosing my model (being my very own pet chameleon) and actually getting it down very well on paper really impresses myself. I found the process not only natural and easy, but also fun, I was able to connect the thematic styling of Paul into my piece, and end up with a very beautiful piece full of movement and texture, but also the contrast with not only the colors of the foreground and background, but the actual textural implications of the contrast, being bigger yet smoother background painting, but more rigid smaller brush strokes for the foreground.
The final piece puts a smile on my face even though the actual meaning of the piece shouldn't put a smile on my face, I enjoyed the making of this work, I really want to integrate more painting into my works, and maybe more impressionist style too, as I really felt happy and calm while doing this, as I didn't have to worry about messing up the colors or the brush strokes, I could really just do what ever I wanted and I loved that.
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ACT Responses
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork:
The inspiration and my art work has the same methods used in the inspirations, I wanted to recreate the same method they used. like using brush strokes to actually create the texture.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Impressionism is a method of making a specific scene but only using very primitive brush strokes for the actual scene that was built.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Most impressionism paintings are made with the intentions of making a quick but very efficient way of painting landscapes while I wanted to convey that same way but instead of a landscape I wanted to do a character.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
Chameleons and also color, Color was one of the biggest things within this piece.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Impressionism is a very easy way of painting "detailed' portraits and landscapes.
The inspiration and my art work has the same methods used in the inspirations, I wanted to recreate the same method they used. like using brush strokes to actually create the texture.
What is the overall approach (pov) the author (from research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Impressionism is a method of making a specific scene but only using very primitive brush strokes for the actual scene that was built.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Most impressionism paintings are made with the intentions of making a quick but very efficient way of painting landscapes while I wanted to convey that same way but instead of a landscape I wanted to do a character.
What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
Chameleons and also color, Color was one of the biggest things within this piece.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Impressionism is a very easy way of painting "detailed' portraits and landscapes.
Bibliography
Musee-orsay.fr. 2020. Musée D'orsay: Paul Signac The Red Buoy. [online] Available at: <https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/painting/commentaire_id/the-red-buoy-3000.html?tx_commentaire_pi1%5BpidLi%5D=509&tx_commentaire_pi1%5Bfrom%5D=841&cHash=a14676cc> [Accessed 7 October 2020].
Metmuseum.org. (2020). Retrieved 7 October 2020, from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm.
Chameleon. Kids.nationalgeographic.com. (2020). Retrieved 7 October 2020, from https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/chameleon/.
Metmuseum.org. (2020). Retrieved 7 October 2020, from https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/cmon/hd_cmon.htm.
Chameleon. Kids.nationalgeographic.com. (2020). Retrieved 7 October 2020, from https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/chameleon/.