Art Institute Field Trip : Classical Portion

 This is a Van Gogh piece made in 1887. It's a little less on the classical side but I added it to this blog because it's a good play on the typical still life of fruit. As you can see, Van Gogh used contemporary colors throughout the whole work and wide brushstrokes to form the table cloth. This placement and angle of each brushstroke for the table cloth gives great motion to the painting. He also used thicker, more pronounced white paint to give a shine to the fruit. When viewing this piece, the first thing you see is the fruit. The tablecloth is sort of a blur behind the vibrantly colored food. Once the eye hits the background, it follows all the little lines that surround the painting. I love this painting because it's a play on your typical "bowl of fruit" painting. Although it does not look like the real thing, as most classical paintings do, it gives a fresh approach to the concept.

 Now, this is your typical Classical painting. The details are extraordinary along with the use of color, light and shadow. The brushwork is small and meticulous in order to create a smooth appearance to the work. The orange shirt of the male pops out nicely against the somewhat earth-like tones that take up the rest of the painting. The muscles of the animals are pronounced, same with the feathers of the swan. If you step up very close to this painting even more detail and characters come out at you. Under the table there are cats peering out at you. From far away you are unable to see them because they blend in with the shadowing. This is unbelievable craftsmanship. When viewing this painting I personally start at the swan because it's brighter than the rest and work my way across the table of animals. I then come back and notice the man; it's after this that I can take in the whole piece at once. I predict that the man is either a hunter or a salesman selling food for the people.

This is an even earlier Classical painting yet once again the attempt to recreate reality is wonderful. The colors are very saturated and rich which gives this piece a very upscale feel to it. The folds in the clothing with the hints of lightened value to reflect light are beautiful. The baby's skin looks soft and smooth, you can almost picture feeling his pudgy body. When viewing this painting, the eye goes straight for the woman and baby. The characters in the back are somewhat faded out which gives intentional focus to the mother and child in front. The eye wanders around the folds of the clothing and shadows beneath the neck until it reaches the soft skin of the child. I believe this is a religious piece, the characters in the back seem to be holding a bible and praying together. If I am seeing correctly, the man and young child to the left have halos above their heads as well.

Week 7 : Radios

 

I chose these 7 picture of radios because I liked the antiquity of them. Also, I love the shapes that they have as well. Each of them has something unique that really gives them character. The bottom picture is just a quick drawing of the second radio using Adobe Illustrator. I used the writing pad and stylus to sketch this. With the stylus I selected the paintbrush tool and opened the picture of the radio so half my screen was AI and half was the picture. After everything was set up I just sketched with the stylus on the writing pad and this is the end product. I wanted to make it sort of messy because I like the quick sketch sort of look.

 

Week 6 : Before and After

         Before :

         After :
I forgot to make a screen capture after the shading was done, so I had to open the illustration in Adobe Reader and transfer it to paint to crop it. That's why it looks different from the top. I added shading under the doll's hair and cheeks. I also added the slight shine to her cheek bones that the flash created. I did this by adding a layer under her hair, choosing a color that fit and making it slightly transparent. I think I'll have to play will the lowest part of the shadow a little more because something doesn't seem to look right to me. I added the shadows under her cheeks by adding a sublayer to her face, tracing the shadowing on the original picture, choosing the same color for the previous shadowing and a radial gradient. I played around with the gradient and shape of the shadowing until it looked right. I did this same process with the shine on the cheeks and the shape of her nose. Finally, I created a layer on top of her lips for a shadow in between her upper and lower lip. I chose the correct color for this and played around with the transparency until I was happy with the results.

Art Institute Field Trip

Here is a picture of the beautiful architecture inside the Art Institute of Chicago.

This is my teach, Professor Peck acting spastic. Just kidding, don't lower my grade.



Contemporary:

Out of all of the things we viewed at the Art Institute, this would have to be one of the works that most inspired me. This is a Jackson Pollock painting. Pollock was famous for laying his canvases down on the floor allowing him to splash different forms of paint onto them. He also included random items such as cigarette butts, shards of glass etc. This is inspiring to me because it allows you to use your imagination and interpret the work as you please. It's more enjoyable to look at then a painting that recreates reality in my opinion because instead of just staring and thinking "Yeah, that looks like the real thing all right" you get to work your imagination. When viewing his paintings I don't seem to find one definite focal point, and this is another reason why I love Pollock so much. Your eyes just can't seem to focus on one thing, they tend to follow the different splash marks and colors throughout the whole canvas. There are so many details to look at you can spend an hour viewing one of this paintings. 

Another painting we viewed that inspired me was Mark Rothko's Untitled (Purple, White and Red). I've loved Mark Rothko long before this field trip but have never gotten a chance to see any of his paintings. Let me tell you, I didn't want to walk away from it. I love how he lets the paint and colors speak for themselves. Unfortunately, this photograph doesn't come close to doing the painting justice. It's a simple work, but when you view it in person you are able to see the brush strokes, the heavier areas of paint and lighter layers of paint as well. Again, the eyes don't have one set focal point to pay attention to. The white center balances out the darker top and bottom colors. It is one of my goals and dreams to visit a Rothko gallery; I believe I could spend all day there. 

      This is a piece called "Ice, 1,2,3,4" made in 1989. The craft of this piece is much like a Jackson Pollock except I don't this these canvases we're laid on the floor like a Pollock work. The artist obviously used a ton of paint to get a thick consistency on the canvas. You can see smears fading into another color. There are also very vibrant colors on top of a background consisting of blacks grays and whites. This type of background makes the colors really pop out at you. When viewing this piece you eye has no place to rest, much like a Jackson Pollock. I personally enjoy getting up close and really seeing the smears and thick portions of paint on the canvas. The viewer can just let their eye wonder over these pieces without a central focus. The concept I believe would be letting the paint speak for itself. There are obviously no renderings of an object, just paint. This is why I love contemporary works, because you can be free to think and see anything in the canvas as opposed to classical where all you see is a rendering of reality. Sure there is amazing accuracy and use of colors, but your imagination has no room to be free.

Week 5 : Composition

     For this project, I wanted to include the essence of the doll while stylizing and tweaking her features just a bit. I believe when viewing this illustration the viewers eye either goes for the hair because it's the biggest and darkest element or the eyes because they are the central feature, we are naturally drawn to make eye contact and they are also dark in color. I wanted to enlarge the eyes just a bit to emphasize them. I chose the plain background because the background in the original photograph was non specific and I wanted to make the doll as much of the main focus as I could. I chose the light gray color because I think it compliments the colors of the dress without being to much of a contrast. In the original picture, the bow is off center. I kept this the same because it compliments the heavy bang on the left side of the dolls hair. One other reason I kept the bow off center is because I think it gives some character to the doll. The essence that it has been used or played with and possibly tattered up a bit. 

      As you can see here, the only changes that I've made were adding the lips. I made them a hot pink color to give contrast to the dull colors of the clothing and background. I also feel that it brings more attention to the face and ties everything together. I wanted to make the facial features brightly colored and nicely shaped to make this the main focal point of the illustration.

Week 4 : Before and After

     I chose this picture to illustrate because I thought it had many layers to it which I could utilize in my illustrating process. I fell in love with the deep blue of the dolls eyes along with their large round shape. I was excited to illustrate them and possibly exaggerate them a bit. Although this is an unfinished product, I would like to try and add some texture to the lace and the straw hat. I think this will give some depth and personality to the picture.

     I started this project by first taking photographs of different angles of the doll. I chose the one that I thought had the most visual appeal and that could be illustrated creatively. After downloading it into illustrator I started making my layers. Because the background of the picture has no visual appeal, my first layer is the outer layer of lace on the dolls hat. Then came the inner pink portion of the hat. After this, I outlined the outside of the lace on her shirt with the pen tool and filled it with the same color as the lace on the hat. Then came the inner, pink portion of her clothes. Finally the ribbon and pearl will complete her clothing. I purposely made the ribbon crooked, as it was in the original picture because I felt it gave more character to the piece and also balanced with the heavy portion of her hair being on the left side. The next most important element I thought was the face shape because this will overlap the hat. Next came the hair, in which I warped and manipulated as much I could to get the curved lines. The eyebrows were next followed by the whites of the eyes. I outlined the eyes with the pen tool for their shape and warped them to smooth them out and make them more rounded. I did the same for the irises and the pupils are dots simply made with one click of the paint brush set at a large size.