The work I investigated was Peter Doig and Shirin Neshat. Both of these artists had work that really was quite interesting and I tried to connect them to my work through my style of painting even though I didn’t come to find Peter Doig till nearing the end. I eventually turned out to not using the black and white colours to connect to Shirin Neshat but instead went with the colourful approach such the style of Peter Doig. The colours originally started with a beige colour that I planned on painting the arches and the floor with. I then changed it up when I decided to make the arches a redder colour to distinguish between the floor and the flowers. The flowers were difficult to get a contrast as they were a very similar colour to the arches but I got past that by using lighter and darker tones of red as well as some oil paint sticks that allowed me to use a deep red colour that was nothing like any of the other colours. The small number of base colours allowed me to work the layers of meaning and complexity into the painting.
This layered meaning that I tried to put into the painting focused mainly on how the man was walking into the unknown and how everything was surreal. The foreground of the arches and floor contrasts massively against what is through the arches on the other side. The large flowers are also meant to be a mix between the contrast between civilization/society and nature. The starkness of the flowers as well as the branch like design of the arches makes the nature meld with the building as well as separate them from each other. The other layered meaning is about how the person is walking towards their own world as it could be that the painting is the man’s world and therefore, his version of reality, meaning that the surreal effect is actually not surreal.
My piece of work turned out a lot better than I originally expected as I hadn’t worked with acrylic paints in a while. The way that I went around using the paint was similar to the way I would use water colours at first but as my confidence grew I realised that it was actually very versatile as you could always cover over your mistakes with more paint and different colours which is almost exactly what I did basically every class. The part which I think eventually turned out really well was the man as well as the arches. This is because the man is a person who has different tones and shades that make him look very shadowlike and the arches resemble trees that also double as the Arabic shape that is integral to the culture. The parts which I could of and should have improved before I finished was probably to work on the flowers a bit more. I say this because I didn’t really like how the leaves turned out and how the flowers petals were only really defined by the oil pastel. I think that if I had paid more attention to detail during the beginning I would have been able to put more detail into the flower and leaves as I believe that the leaves are the weakest part in the painting. I do however think that with a bit more time I would have been able to work on the veins of the leaves with a small tool to give the leaves more realism.
This layered meaning that I tried to put into the painting focused mainly on how the man was walking into the unknown and how everything was surreal. The foreground of the arches and floor contrasts massively against what is through the arches on the other side. The large flowers are also meant to be a mix between the contrast between civilization/society and nature. The starkness of the flowers as well as the branch like design of the arches makes the nature meld with the building as well as separate them from each other. The other layered meaning is about how the person is walking towards their own world as it could be that the painting is the man’s world and therefore, his version of reality, meaning that the surreal effect is actually not surreal.
My piece of work turned out a lot better than I originally expected as I hadn’t worked with acrylic paints in a while. The way that I went around using the paint was similar to the way I would use water colours at first but as my confidence grew I realised that it was actually very versatile as you could always cover over your mistakes with more paint and different colours which is almost exactly what I did basically every class. The part which I think eventually turned out really well was the man as well as the arches. This is because the man is a person who has different tones and shades that make him look very shadowlike and the arches resemble trees that also double as the Arabic shape that is integral to the culture. The parts which I could of and should have improved before I finished was probably to work on the flowers a bit more. I say this because I didn’t really like how the leaves turned out and how the flowers petals were only really defined by the oil pastel. I think that if I had paid more attention to detail during the beginning I would have been able to put more detail into the flower and leaves as I believe that the leaves are the weakest part in the painting. I do however think that with a bit more time I would have been able to work on the veins of the leaves with a small tool to give the leaves more realism.