Week 4: Purposeful Chaos

Too Many Goldfish, Too Much Frustration, and Not Enough Time

How Do I Start??

This was probably the trickiest part of the process. I struggle with trying to make things perfect... slaving over a single eyelash or a highlight on a strand of hair. Throwing that all out the window took me straight aboard the struggle bus. Once I got into a grove, though, (and passed the color-blocking stage) it started to get a lot more enjoyable. Unfortunately I didn't find myself in the same state of impenetrable focus where I often find myself in the midst of more realistic paintings. It was fun, though, in a care-free, effortless, loose kind of way. It is counter-intuitive though, because as much as making a painting more messy would make you think that I'd be able to loosen up and relax more, it was actually more stressful than the meditative nature of my more realistic paintings.

Something Familiar in Unfamiliar Territory

So, at this point in my senior project I planned to paint one of the reference pictures I had received from local artists thanks to my outside mentor, Jean Mineo. However, this process was so foreign to me that I ultimately decided that I wouldn't paint a foreign face as well. I chose this picture of my bother since I have painted him many times before and am fairly familiar with his face structure. This proved helpful through the entirety of the process, because not only is it a familiar face, but I also took and edited this picture so I was even more familiar with the primary light patters and colors.

To explain my particular familiarity to this reference picture, this is one of the many photos that I have forced my brother to model for. I also have entire folders for my friend Maria, my sister Lara, and a bunch of miscellaneous portraits. I am known to keep hundreds of reference pictures in organized folders on my computer ready for when I feel like painting. It's only a little creepy...

Impressionism Is Pretty Open Ended... But That Is Certainly Not It.

Aaaaannnndddd here's a failed attempt at a new technique part two. This one... wow... I don't even know that I have any words or explanation as to how I got here. The colors got muddy, fast. The proportions went out of wack, fast. And the light pattern, well, it went out the window... you guessed it... fast. I hated it. I was not enjoying this process even a little bit, and that is when I ultimately decided to start fresh. Now, I full-heartedly believe that there is something to be said for sticking with a piece all the way to the end. Further, I think that it *most of the time* is beneficial to work through a messy beginning, however, my rule of thumb: I stop when I dread picking up the paint brush. So, I set this piece aside, grabbed another canvas, and began again. This piece now sits, unfinished, staring at me from an easel in the art room. But instead of letting me bog me down and seeing it as a symbol of time wasted, I am trying to see it as just another part of the process. Failure is a part of learning, as cliché as that sounds.

Let's Try This Again

Just as I began to clean it to prepare for my second attempt, my handy glass palette snapped into first two pieces, and then into six. Already discouraged, this did not help my mental state. Nonetheless, I trudged on, covered in paint and severely under-caffeinated. I opted for one of the art room's trusty metal palettes and some wax paper, poured and mixed the paint, and prepared for battle.

I Tried To Change My Palette, I Really Did...

Though I tried to switch it up by adding cereulean blue and taking out the browns, I eventually added the browns back in and barely used the cereulean blue. I'm a creature of habit, I guess.

Palette:

Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, and Titanium White.

Mixes:

Skin Base 1: Yellow Ochre, Titanium White, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Red, Burnt Umber
Skin Base 2: Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Titanium White
Muted Purple Hue: Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Yellow Ochre
Red-Brown Hue: Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red
Dark Purple Hue: Titanium White, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red

Hard At Work

This picture was taken mid-process. I did in fact consume that entire bag of goldfish completely by myself in one day of work. Oops. As for the book, "A Curator's Game," I found it in my drawer. It was a Christmas present from my Dad a few years ago that I never really had the context to play until now. I played it while on my painting breaks, which were often longer than the time I had spent painting if I'm being honest.

Am I Done Yet?

Not Quite "Van Gogh Level", But A Success Nonetheless

As I write this, I am eating a blueberry muffin. It feels wrong. For context, every time I go to blue moon I get the same thing: a banana chocolate chip muffin, a toasted Montreal bagel with cream cheese, and a small hot half calf hazelnut coffee with cream and no sugar. Today, they had NO BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS. The horror! Anyway, onto the reflection on this (purposeful) chaotic mess of a paining.

Though I like how the piece turned out as a whole, there are still some things I wish I had done differently. First, the hair is a little too messy. I wish I had varied the colors a bit more and chosen a small flat brush for it rather than a rounded brush. This may have made the hair feel a little more cohesive with the rest of the painting. Secondly, I wish I had toned down the red in the flesh tones. Looking back on it, he does kind of look like he got toasted on a hot summer beach day.

Despite this, I do like the level of detail throughout the face (particularly in the eyes). I was really worried about finding that happy-medium of detail going into this painting, but I think that I ended up doing a better job than I thought I would. Further, I think that I captured the overall light pattern more closely than I thought I could. I don't usually achieve this in my paintings, so this was fun to see.

A Video of the Soul Success This Week

This was a bit of a stressful week. Especially with AP Studio portfolios being due. The grind was real... well, actually... the grind is still real. The amount of failed attempts at this type of deliberately messy painting has caught me behind schedule and a little overwhelmed. Organization is key, I guess...

*Please note that though this video only shows one attempt at this process through an edited six minute montage of bits and pieces of my process, a lot of failure and wasted time took place behind the scenes, similar to most artwork across time and space. Nothing is ever perfect; wether it be process or product.

All Out of Wack

On a completely unrelated note to the rest of this blog post, the "chaotic" nature of this painting has rubbed off on my organizational skills. Though at the beginning of the week I had aimed to complete this impressionist piece along with a "Monet-Style" work in preparation for Mother's Day, the failed attempt at this portrait as well as multiple failed attempts at the landscape caught me off track. Once my schedule falls, so does everything else. As I write this, it is Sunday night, about 9:30 p.m.. I have four and a half hours of painting footage and no Mother's day piece to show for it. I plan to carry this idea into next week, though, for I am not about to give up on Mother's Day... plus, this piece has a deeper significance to me personally. By this I mean that never in my life have I had any desire to focus on anything except for portraits. That is except for the brief stage in fifth grade where I was obsessed with flowers. So, Mother's day is kind of perfect in that my mom is an avid gardener as well as Monet fan, so this is an opportunity to rekindle an artistic interest that I have since buried. Anyway, there is the long-winded explanation for my haphazard scheduling. Looking forward, I really need to go into this next week with a clean head-space and clear-cut goals. Wish me luck! Two weeks left. I'm kind of sad...

Pretty much the only not-portrait in my archived sketchbooks(2012, 5th grade)

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