Tryptic
INSPIRATION
I chose to use Georges Seurat as my inspiration. In this project, I thought it best to use pointillism, and looked into artists that have used it. Seurat was the first to come up in my research, and I remember him from past study.
The song I used as inspiration was one I was listening to while finding ideas, a song called "Discord", a remix of a remix, the song was made by Brony Notion, as a remix of the one made by Eurobeat Brony, which was a remix of the song made by The Living Tombstone. I had been listening to the song as I had my ideas, and decided to use that as the ideas, which is another reason one is day, another night, and in the series, Discord changes the lives of everyone in the series, creating chaos everywhere, and forcing changes in the behavior of the subjects in the land. He was painting their lives, changing everything, until the main cast defeated Discord and everything returned to normal. This was the song that actually inspired the change of event in the sketches, as the first sketch is the "normal" one, while the rest expresses the chaos caused by the one painting it. The song was the inspiration for the idea.
I had titled it "Discord" by both definitions of discord. The disagreement between two people, and a note that is off from the others. It fits with my theme of chaos, but I had also wished to express the static in the chaos. Total together, Seurat and music were inspiration. The song was the inspiration for the idea, while Seurat was the inspiration for how I am going to portray the idea.
The song I used as inspiration was one I was listening to while finding ideas, a song called "Discord", a remix of a remix, the song was made by Brony Notion, as a remix of the one made by Eurobeat Brony, which was a remix of the song made by The Living Tombstone. I had been listening to the song as I had my ideas, and decided to use that as the ideas, which is another reason one is day, another night, and in the series, Discord changes the lives of everyone in the series, creating chaos everywhere, and forcing changes in the behavior of the subjects in the land. He was painting their lives, changing everything, until the main cast defeated Discord and everything returned to normal. This was the song that actually inspired the change of event in the sketches, as the first sketch is the "normal" one, while the rest expresses the chaos caused by the one painting it. The song was the inspiration for the idea.
I had titled it "Discord" by both definitions of discord. The disagreement between two people, and a note that is off from the others. It fits with my theme of chaos, but I had also wished to express the static in the chaos. Total together, Seurat and music were inspiration. The song was the inspiration for the idea, while Seurat was the inspiration for how I am going to portray the idea.
RESEARCH
Seurat was inspired by the desire to abandon Impressionism's focus on the fleeting moment, and instead to use what he regarded as essential and unchanging in life. However, he showed that many of his styles are from Impressionism, what with his strong interest in modern subject matter, as well as scenes of urban leisure. He still wished to avoid depicting only the apparent color of the painted objects, and instead try to use all the colors that interacted with one another to create the appearance of the color and object.
Seurat was fascinated by the scientific ideas about color, form and expression. He believed that lines going in certain directions, and colors with certain levels of warmth or coolness, could have different expressions on the final result. He had also went after the discovery that contrasting, or even complementary colors, can be mixed to make more vivid tones by just mixing paint. He called the technique he made 'chromo-luminism', though it's more known as Divisionism, or Pointillism.
Seurat was fascinated by the scientific ideas about color, form and expression. He believed that lines going in certain directions, and colors with certain levels of warmth or coolness, could have different expressions on the final result. He had also went after the discovery that contrasting, or even complementary colors, can be mixed to make more vivid tones by just mixing paint. He called the technique he made 'chromo-luminism', though it's more known as Divisionism, or Pointillism.
Citations:
"Georges Seurat Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works." The Art Story. Michael Zurakhinsky, 2009. Web. 12 Jan. 2017.
This comes in later on, but the aspect of the chains in the planning sketches was soon changed to the "red string of fate", there is a reason it is used, but not for the exact meaning of the red string. I used this as a different symbol. I used it to emphasize how someone can't break free from that past, they are connected to it, and it follows them forever, like how the string can't be broken.
It's used similarly, but not in a romantic way.
It's used similarly, but not in a romantic way.
PLANNING
I had made 3 separate sketches, 1 per panel of the canvases. In this project, detail is EXTREMELY important, so I used different sheets for each panel. There are different aspects I wished to use. In my situation, there is a lot of static between me and a lot of people, so I wanted to use pointillism to show the static, because if you look closer at my life, you'll see the static. I wanted that to be the same in the artwork, so pointillism seemed best.
Details are vital in this image:
-All of the lines match up, no matter what order you put them in
-The calendars are 7 years and 50 days apart (a subtle song reference and important to the painting)
-The chains show how I am chained to my past self (the one that destroyed), and my present self (the one that repairs)
The chains also show how that destruction is linked to the environment that also affects me.
-I connected the lines from the painting to all of the panels to "paint" the other two.
-My past self was concerned with appearance, sociable, and tried to be like those around her, but was destructive, my present self is a tomboy, not concerned with apperances, and is not sociable any longer. She prefers isolation and expression through art, and fights to paint her own life and identity.
-My past and present self, my destroyed and reparing environment, the effects that environment has on me, they are all chained to the brush and pencil that creates the artworks. My past, my fears, my desires, every emotion and circumstance, all of that is expressed through art. The chains also bind the brush to the past and present.
-There is actually one other reference, to a book, in the image, the clock in the second panel. In the book Death Note-Another Note-The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, the third victim was turned into a clock with the two missing limbs. If the victim's head were at the 12:00 mark, the time on the clock in the panel would have been the time the victim would represent, 12:15:50.
I focused on the details. Although there are more details to come, the most important details are in the sketches.
Details are vital in this image:
-All of the lines match up, no matter what order you put them in
-The calendars are 7 years and 50 days apart (a subtle song reference and important to the painting)
-The chains show how I am chained to my past self (the one that destroyed), and my present self (the one that repairs)
The chains also show how that destruction is linked to the environment that also affects me.
-I connected the lines from the painting to all of the panels to "paint" the other two.
-My past self was concerned with appearance, sociable, and tried to be like those around her, but was destructive, my present self is a tomboy, not concerned with apperances, and is not sociable any longer. She prefers isolation and expression through art, and fights to paint her own life and identity.
-My past and present self, my destroyed and reparing environment, the effects that environment has on me, they are all chained to the brush and pencil that creates the artworks. My past, my fears, my desires, every emotion and circumstance, all of that is expressed through art. The chains also bind the brush to the past and present.
-There is actually one other reference, to a book, in the image, the clock in the second panel. In the book Death Note-Another Note-The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, the third victim was turned into a clock with the two missing limbs. If the victim's head were at the 12:00 mark, the time on the clock in the panel would have been the time the victim would represent, 12:15:50.
I focused on the details. Although there are more details to come, the most important details are in the sketches.
EXPERIMENTATION
The paint mixing to find the right shade for each color was somewhat of a challenge. The goal was to create a more depressing mood, so the idea was to use very dulled, very grayed, colors. The color itself still needs to be recognizable, but dull enough for the mood. Finding the right shade was a challenge, with so many dulled colors next to one another, so there was a bit of trial and error.
These are all the different attempts at the right shade of the dulled color.
These are all the different attempts at the right shade of the dulled color.
Since my schedule is extremely tight as it is, and a deadline was cut, I started to pull late nights and early mornings, giving myself 3 hours of sleep just after midnight, setting an alarm for 3am. This came to an issue because I couldn't see the colors as well with artificial light as I could with daylight, so I messed up the colors a lot, ESPECIALLY the skin tone. At one point, I used a blue that was much too bright on the first panel, and it stood out quite a bit on the canvas.
Another issue I had run into was with the actual dotting. With my essential tremors, it's difficult to keep a steady hold on my brush. When using pointillism, the dots of paint kept changing size because of the tremors, which became a burden to keep fixing, which is when I started to layer across the canvas. A layer of gray, a layer of the colored dots, and an extremely light, almost non-existent (as the intention was), final layer of gray. The gray layer over the dots not only helped with dulling the colors, but it also helped with the size issue.
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PROCESS
I had first used the grid method, the grid created in pencil, while the transferred image in white colored pencil. After my mistakes in the Self-Portrait, I decided to change my style. On the last project, I used plain pencil for both the grid and the image, and then tried to paint, and when that wasn't working, used paint to outline the figures, which looked really sloppy, so this time, I only used plain pencil for the grid, and a neat white, or as light of a color as I could find, to transfer the image, so that it will look neater and more visible when I start painting. This was the first step in the process.
As I was transferring the image, I decided to try something else, too. I used the brightest color for the outline of the figures and basics of the images, but changed the color of the pencil for different details. That way, I don't mix up the details, such as mixing up the lines for the "chains" with the lines for the curls that connect each image to the next.
As I was transferring the image, I decided to try something else, too. I used the brightest color for the outline of the figures and basics of the images, but changed the color of the pencil for different details. That way, I don't mix up the details, such as mixing up the lines for the "chains" with the lines for the curls that connect each image to the next.
I had found out too late that I made a big mistake. In the planning sketches, I had used an 8.5x11" area, and then tried to transfer that to a 12x24" canvas, and ran into a problem. I had to ask my mom for help knowing what I needed to cut off to make it fit. I hadn't thought of this beforehand, and with the details being important, I needed to rethink how I am going to do this. I thought to shorten some of the lines. But the issue with this is that the lines may not match up well, and make it very difficult to do the same.
With the math, I had found that my planning sketch either needs to be 8.5x17" or 5.5x11" to fit the canvas.
The 8.5x17" would leave far too much empty space above and below the image. However, the 5.5x11" would make it so that I have to cut out many details, and re-arrange others. Choosing the lesser of the two evils, I chose to cut the image down to 5.5x11".
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This is an example of what I ended up doing.
Multiple details were cut out, moved, or replaced entirely. |
Next was to decide how I should paint the pointillism. I had two ideas. To use some black with the planned colors and paint normally, then to use gray dots over it to make the grayed colors as dots over the already painted image, or to use only pointillism on every inch, to mix the dull colors first and then cover the canvas with the colors.
Then it came time to start painting. I had the base coat done, I had the sketches transferred.
At this point in the project, I started to paint. I was experimenting how to use the smallest brush I had to make a Pointillism.
I wanted some subtle colors on the silhouettes. Something that matches personality and how they carry themselves. For me, since I am driven on anger and passion, showing in my personality and "aura", I used a red. The third figure, the person who represents that figure has more of an emotional energy, and is someone very calm, so blue is used. The last figure was a bigger challenge. Since the person the figure represents was so commonly bright and energetic growing up, I used a yellow. It was difficult to make the yellow more dull and subtle, like the others. The second figure represents someone I know who is more shadowed, darker, and more isolated than the rest, has no particular energy to to them. I decided to keep that figure as a black silhouette as a result. I had then started to neaten all of the lines, and further dull the colors. |
Later on, I decided to change a detail in the image. The chains might be too much to ask for in such a short period of time. As a result, I changed that detail to something known as the "red string of fate".
It was then that I started using Pointillism all the way. I used black and gray dots, in multiple layers, to fill the spaces and dull the colors.
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It was after that process with the previous canvas that I used a similar strategy on this canvas. I used red dots to cover the space of the sweater first, filled the remaining open space with black dots, then used a red-gray mix of colors for the second layer, changing the shade of gray as needed. Then I neatened up the lines as I began to cover the pencil lines with paint.
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And there was a collection of trial and error before reaching the final result for "Discord".