Title: Moving On
Size: 1 x 2 ft Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Completion: December 2021 Exhibition text
The original intention of this piece was to portray an experience many people have of being too scared to move forward in life. In the piece you see a girl walking in her youth and then settling into an area of being enclosed from the rest of the world, however still seeing her past. The third panel is to portray how the future ahead can be scary but your past will always be there. I was inspired by John Sloan and Joan Engelmeyer for this piece. This piece was made by stretching a canvas, gesoing it, and acrylic paint. |
Inspiration
Before finding inspiration for my piece I was not sure what I wanted to do, however after finding John Sloan and Joan Engelmeyer I was able to make a story. John Sloan was an American painter who mainly focused on Realism. He made pieces that focused on everyday experiences. He was also apart of a group called The Eight. Their New York 1908 exhibition at the Macbeth Galleries changed the course of modern American Art.
For this piece I was inspired by the colors, and overall story it was telling. I liked the idea of people gathering at a restaurant or coffee shop and doing something everyone does. I wanted this aspect of my piece to be the main focus.
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I was inspired by this piece because it helped me figure out how to tell a story, after finding the piece by John Sloan. I wasn't sure on how to make it come to life and personal. I was inspired by the girls walking and decided to incorporate this into my first panel of the triptych. I loved the idea of them being on a journey which I also wanted to portray. Someone walking to a coffee shop.
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I was also inspired by this piece to have my work inspired by a singular girl that is walking to a cafe shop and home. I really liked the way her jilbab is blowing in the wind, and the detail in the contrast of light and dark colors to make it look like folds.
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Planning
Before beginning the process of figuring if I wanted to do a Diptych or a Triptych, I choose a Triptych because it seemed a better fit to tell a story. I also needed to make the actual canvas after that can I can being the planning.After conducting research for my inspiration I found John Sloan and Joan Engelmeyer as inspiration. I first had to sketch what I wanted to do, or how I wanted to visually represent what I had in mind. I did many different sketches but ultimately came to conclusion on one. The sketch consist of one panel being of a girl walking on a beach with her head down and wind blowing. You will be able to see this in the way her jilbab and abaya are flowing. In the second panel it will show the same girl sitting at a table with her back to us. In the scene there will be shelves and a divider to divide her from the rest of the world, and in the back you'll be able to see the same beach she walked on portraying my past and how i want to live in my younger self.. In the last panel it will be the girl walking in the middle of a forest and the sand from the beach would be on the foreground, farther ahead the trees start to dissolve and its pitch black with a moon overhead. This symbolism the uncertainty of my future and how it can be scary. To complete the painting I will you acrylic paint, and try my best to make my vision come true and understandable.
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Process
The first thing I did in the process of making this piece was stretching three canvases. To do that I needed (wood things) and a staple gun. I connected the ends of the (wood things) and stapled them together. After that I cut out three pieces of canvas to staple to the (wood things). For each side you need to stretch the material a little so that it wont be lose. After that I began the geso process. Where I painted the back, sides, then front for each canvas.
After sketching what I wanted to do on paper, I transferred the sketches to the canvases with pencil. I then did a wash base of the colors that I was going to use for the background and larger places. For the girl that is through the story I decided to stick to the same colors for each time you see her so that a viewer would not get confused and that you would know its the same person.
I then painted each separate canvas one at a time so that I could focus on the details for that canvas and not get distracted with trying to finish another one because the paint is still drying. |
For the first canvas I did a base with each color and water, then I worked on the larger details first, such as the sky and person. After that I took a sponge and blended multiple colors of yellow, brown, and tan to get a sand color that is dark from the water. I added footprints with a dark brown to give it the mushy feel, then I went over the places that needed touching up because they could have been painted over.
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The second canvas I use a turquoises and added white for one background, and the other on I made it a bit dark to make it look like a shadowed wall. I used brown for the floors with a little yellow to make it look like hardwood. I then did the details of the person, chair, shelves, window, and food.
For the last canvas I used another sponge tool blended different hues of green to make it look like tree tops, for the sky I used the blue that came n the tube without adding a different color. |
Experimentation
From this panel you would be able to see the tree however not the squirrel. You would also be able to see a forest past the single tree. You can also see the river however further, and an animal drinking from the river. In the last panel you would view the piece from a birds perspective, or maybe the squirrels perspective. If it were a bird then it would be everything from the previous panels but from above, so everything would be flat.
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I experimented with different ideas on what to do for this piece. For my first idea I thought of making a nature scenery, with a tree, river, and mountain in one panel.In this panel the tree is in the foreground while the mountain and river are further behind it. In the tree you would be able to see a whole with squirrel either inside of it, coming out, or going in. The second panel you would be from the mountains perspective. Meaning that it would be like you are standing on the mountain since you know its there from the first panel it would add to the story.
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Another way idea I had for this piece was from when I was driving home. There was a street that had trees on both sides and since the season is changing there where arrays of colors on the branches and the road. There was also street lights on both sides of the road. From this experience I had the idea to replicate what I saw to an extent. Being drawing what I saw from different point of views, in the car. So one panel would be the passenger seat, the next the seat behind the drivers seat looking out the window, and then the drivers seat in the last panel.
Critique
Similarities
- A similarity between John Sloans piece and mine is that both have an aspect of normality in them because of the overall painting, where in his people are in a cafe and in mine a singular person is.
- Another similarity between my piece and John Sloans is that he uses different shades of green on his piece, while in mine I use different shades of brown, and blue.
- A similarity between my piece and Joan Engelmeyers, is the from the first panel where a girl is walking, you can see that in her piece.
Differences
- A difference between my piece and the two inspiration pieces is that both are singular, while mine is a triptych.
- Another difference is the use of shadowing in Joan Engelmeyers piece, and in my first panel.
- A difference between my piece and John Sloans is that in the second panel there is only one person, whereas in his piece there is a group of people.
Reflection
Overall, I was satisfied with the end result of my piece. However, I did have trouble with trying to complete what I envisioned. This project allowed for me to redevelop my painting skills and also allowed for me to enhance them. My inspiration for this piece was from Joan Engelmeyer and John Sloan, you can see in the first and second panel of my piece the inspiration I had from them. This project helps tie in previously learned concepts because I had previous knowledge on how to blend and knew which brushes to use for certain things because of past projects.My favorite part of this project was seeing it all come together. My least favorite part was trying to mix a color I ran out of it, and not knowing or to put more or less. In conclusion, I hope that when people view my work they see that its a story of a girl walking on a beach, then sitting in a cafe looking at the beach she was on, then walking into the darkness of the woods and wondering what it all means.
Connecting to the ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Before I found inspiration I had ideas of what I wanted to do for this piece however, I was not certain on them. After finding inspiration for this piece, I was able to come up with an idea that I was confident in. The cause and effect relationship between my inspiration and my artwork was that it helped me generate an idea that I liked and would be able to make,
What is the overall approach of the author regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach the author took regarding my topic of inspiration was to capture people in everyday life. Meaning doing something that people do in their life that is normal, like sitting in a cafe and talking to your friends or walking.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
A generalization or conclusion I came to while conduction research was an idea I had that I do not want to do a traditional triptych or a main piece in the middle, I wanted to do something that tells a story throughout.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea around my inspirational research was looking for something that depicted something/a universal feeling that many people may have.
What kind of inference did you make while reading your research?
An inference I made while first conducting research was that most triptychs are traditional and depict biblical stories, or of Greek Goddesses.
Before I found inspiration I had ideas of what I wanted to do for this piece however, I was not certain on them. After finding inspiration for this piece, I was able to come up with an idea that I was confident in. The cause and effect relationship between my inspiration and my artwork was that it helped me generate an idea that I liked and would be able to make,
What is the overall approach of the author regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach the author took regarding my topic of inspiration was to capture people in everyday life. Meaning doing something that people do in their life that is normal, like sitting in a cafe and talking to your friends or walking.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
A generalization or conclusion I came to while conduction research was an idea I had that I do not want to do a traditional triptych or a main piece in the middle, I wanted to do something that tells a story throughout.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea around my inspirational research was looking for something that depicted something/a universal feeling that many people may have.
What kind of inference did you make while reading your research?
An inference I made while first conducting research was that most triptychs are traditional and depict biblical stories, or of Greek Goddesses.
Bibliography
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.166473.html
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/fab-four-joan-engelmeyer.html
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/sloan-john/
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/catching-the-wind-joan-engelmeyer.html
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/1170#:~:text=The%20Eight%20were%20a%20progressive,course%20of%20modern%20American%20art.
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/fab-four-joan-engelmeyer.html
https://www.theartstory.org/artist/sloan-john/
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/catching-the-wind-joan-engelmeyer.html
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/1170#:~:text=The%20Eight%20were%20a%20progressive,course%20of%20modern%20American%20art.