Final Comment

Overall I am extremely pleased with the outcome of my three smaller paintings. I experimented with  a lot of colour and different techniques. I tried painting faster this time around and using a looser painting technique. I feel that I got a very peaceful and calming sense throughout all of the paintings, especially the ones with the warmer colours. I wish I had spent more time on the Caribbean painting so I could change the water to a lighter tone near the beach, or even take out the beach in all. I was extremely pleased with the outcome of the Georgian Bay scene as that was my favourite of the three. Overall I felt the key to my success was the medium I used. I was really liking the oil paints and the thickness that they have. By now I feel that I have a great idea of what oil paint is like. Overall I was happy with the turnout of these three paintings and also my larger landscape painting that I did previously.

Daily Journal

Daily Journal

Day 1

For this second portion of this project I wanted to do smaller paintings and more of them so I could switch from painting to painting. For these paintings I wanted to more experiment then plan out. This first day I haven’t painted but have decided to do a landscape painting on a 3 different rectangular pieces of wood, with oil paint. 

Day 2

Today I started to paint and had troubles with the landscape painting. I tried using a lot of vibrant warm colours but with the oil paints I ended up just mixing the colours together. Overall I didn’t have much progress on this first day of painting.

Day 3

Today I continued on my first landscape photo and decided to cover the entire piece of wood with the paint. I mixed the colour of the hills into one bright green colour, and filled the sky in as blue. I started to experiment in the front right of this painting, as I took the cake cutting like object to make lines through the paint to create the effect of plant stems. 

Day 4

This class I worked on developing the sky as I added white streaks. I also added highlights to the tops of the hills. These highlights were bright vibrant colours such as red and yellow. I also developed the foreground as I added the colourful flowers to the painting. 

This class I started a new painting. It depicted a stormy Georgian Bay day, with a rock in the middle of the open, on a dark gloomy sky. This was a very loose painting style, as the wavy water required a loose stroke. I tried incorporating warm colours throughout and many different values. I filled the entire panel with paint quickly, but the painting looks a bit rushed and muddy.

Day 5

This class I worked on the water scene and tried incorporating a lot of colour. The rock was greatly improved from the muddy colour it was previously. If you closely look at the rock the different values used are really neat. I also tried painting the waves crashing into the rock, but felt I needed more white.

Day 6

Today I worked heavily on the first painting. I changed the hills in the background adding great contrast and different values in the smooth hills. I added a little hut a the top of the hill where the horizon meets the top of the hill (focal point). I liked the outcome of these changes. I also tweaked the waves in my Georgian Bay painting, but mostly worked on the original landscape painting.

Day 7

This class I started my third and last painting. This was the quickest painting of all the three, as I was practically done in only one class. I depicted a Caribbean scene with a colourful coastline with boats anchored in a bay. This painting turned out great. The detail on the boats I thought turned out very well. It was extremely tough to paint on such a small scale. I liked the used of yellow and orange type colour that blended well with the greens in the painting. At the end of the day I felt that this painting was a bit to dark compared to the other to paintings.

Day 8

This was my last day of painting and I worked a little on each of the three paintings. I finished up the Caribbean scene painting, as I brightened up the front left part of the painting, and added a beach to the bay. I added a skyline and changed the colour of the water. I then moved on to my Georgian Bay scene and changed the waves by adding more deep blues and light white to create the most contrast and feeling of large waves.  I added white to the waves crashing into the rock with little ticks of paint. Lastly I moved to my first painting and added more flowers near the stems. I also added a dark value by the roots for greater contrast. I mostly just worked on these flowers and left the rest of the painting the way it was. At the end I painted the edges of the wood panels with white blue and green.

ARTWORK #1 Proposal Daily Jornal and Self Reflection

Inspirational Photos for Second Artwork

Photographs

Revised Proposal

1.    How do technical approaches shape my own personal expression?

·      Technical approaches have a great impact on my own personal expression. The paintings that I wish to do are a lot about wavy lines but at the same time very intense detail. By trying to hone the technical side of the work find that I start to develop a kind of painting style, which would be a large use of thicker paint, usually giving off a warm feeling (warm colours). Also I find when I come into a painting trying to paint a certain style or way, the painting comes out not like I expected but with a bit of my own personal expression which I think is very neat.

How can I develop my interest and ideas into a body of coherent art works?

·      I feel that I have a lot of experience on this subject as I have been around these scenes (Georgian bay) every summer. This makes me want to pick up the paintbrush and learn how to portray these scenes on canvas. I will develop my ideas and interest of the cottage country through paintings, oil and water colour.

How has personal research, the creative process, as well as history, society, and culture influenced my work?

·      In my work there will be a strong connection with culture and history. This will have to do with the aboriginals, who live up in these northern areas. I wish to include some of their symbols or techniques, as they are an important part about the history of the land. My personal research has shown me the importance of colour and of shape in these settings.

2.             What personal connections do you feel you have with your art piece and the scenes that you are portraying?

·      Two month’s ago I decided to do my female artist project on Emily Carr. I found her work very inspiring and especially her Georgian Bay scenes. I for all of my life have loved my cottage on Georgian Bay and could not think of a prettier spot to paint landscape photos and express my last talent of high school into such a keen interest of mine. I have a strong connection with the beauty of the rocks and sunsets etc. and also feel that I am extremely interested in that style of art and have been for a while. As I have never painted anything like this even in this medium, I feel it will be a great challenge, but what will help is my personal connection and love for the material I am studying.

How will I include nature in my work?

·      I plan to include a lot of the natural elements. This includes free flowing water, tall trees, animals, to take focus off of the human and focus the painting on nature, and the beauty of it.

What things might you consider doing to change the outcome of your final piece, structurally, or non structurally?

·      I can see myself playing with many different ideas. This could range from using matte medium glazes to splitting my painting up into different sections that are all put together at the end. I know I want to make the painting structurally large, and by breaking the painting up into smaller paintings I might be able to different effect from a plain one-canvas painting.

3. a.              First theme I will be focusing on is peace and serenity-

·      This theme gives me many options and directions in which I could base my painting on. This theme evokes soft feelings; therefore I would use warm colours, and calm settings. Paintings such as a sunset, lighthouse, canoe in open water, rocks in the open, etc, evoke these feelings and connect strongly to the theme.

b.             Theme of escaping society

·      This theme is one associated with cottage country, the escape of the fast paced action of the city. By painting a wide landscape georgian bay scene I will try and portray this theme of escaping society. This means less focus o the himan and more on the water and trees and rock.

4.            The elements and principles of design that I will be working on with my painting are shape and texture. I want to use my skills of painting with thick layers and translate it to a cottage country seen. I want to focus on shape, as in cottage country are a lot of trees and rocks that look amazing when given a vey 3-D look. I will try working as well with thin wavy smooth lines to define the rocks, giving a different texture. I might go in different directions with the paintings, and focus more on texture with one of them and focus on shape with the other.

5.             The mediums I wish to use are oil paint. I have over my high school career used a lot of acrylic paint and would like to try and experiment with new mediums.

6.             For this project the supplies I need include:

·      Oil Paint

·      Canvas

7.             In order to meet all of the deadlines I will need to work ahead of time and work outside of class regularly. I feel that I wont have trouble painting once I have started but I need to start ASAP. The next deadline is April 29^th and for that I will need not only the proposal for my second art piece but the final product of this art piece. Starting this week I will try and get good headway on my new painting by getting as much reference material as possible and clearly thinking out what I want to do. By the end of next week I wish to be part way through the painting and two weeks from now I wish to be finishing it up as I will need to brainstorm for my second proposal. The following due date is May 19^th where I will need to have my other art work done along with the resource journal and portfolio interview. I feel if I stay on top of the deadlines by working ahead early I should be fine completing my paintings on time and in good fashion.

8. On Blog

9.On Blog

Day 1

This was the first day that I started painting. I wanted to start of by just blocking in the basic areas, such as the rockface, the water, and where the trees above would be. I had a tough time keeping a consistant colour of the rock, and esspecially creating form of the cliff. Tis day was more of an experimentation day as this was my first time really using oil paints. I had experimented a little beforehand but found the blending and wetness of the paint a challenge at first.

Day 2

Today I tried to add more of the darker tones to the rock including the cracks in the rock. I found I needed a tun of paint to try and cover the whole canvas with the rock colour, so I tried adding water. This was a good susbstute but at times became to watery and would drip down the canvas. Overall not much progress on the day.

Day 3

Today I got extremly frustrated with trying to find a colour for the cliff-face, so I moved onto the trees ontop the cliff. These were easier and turned out very well. I again ran into the problem with over watering my brush leaving a dripping effect. Thid time the effect was very intersting giving a visual texture to the painting but still something that I wanted to repeat through out the canvas. I tried working near the water giving a black outline to the rock and a red tint. Also tried to create movement in the water.

Day 4

On this day I came into the art studio and started and tried to work on the cliff face but was unsuccesful. I seemed to be taking steps backwards and felt that I wans’t very into what I was painting because it was to dificult. This persuaded me to go over my painitng in blue, so I could next class start a landscape veiw of a georgian bay scene.

Day 5

Immediately I was more interested in this new piece. I started by adding a tree on the front left of the piece and also a marker in the right. I like the progress so far.

Day 6

In this class I mixed a new colour for the water and slathered it on, going over my existing tree. From here I created two trees to take the place of the original one, and also worked heavily on the sky. Through a painting at home I tried to creeate a technique to emphasize the clouds through a contrast of white and dark blue. I liked the outcome but felt the clouds were in-a-row to much, and not scattered as most clouds are. Overall great progress on the day

Day 7

Today I changed the colour of the grass in the foreground to a ligher greerish-yellow. I also had the major addition of a large tree in the middle of the canvas. This class was the most productive so far as I worked heavily on almost all parts of the piece. I improved the sky greatly by adding a lighter horizon and defined the clouds better. I added in the red marker, and near the end of the class added more dark tones such as black and dark blue, and light solid warmer colours such as red and yellow to create contrast in the tree.

Day 8

Today I focused mostly on the foreground of my piece. I tried mixing the colour of the rock something that I had much difficulty with my first attempt (cliff painting), and was not completely satisfied. I worked on the bushes in the foregorund and added more green values to the grass on the front right, to create contrast. I also liked the effect that my brush had on the canvas when making the hirizon right of the middle tree. The paint is very rigid it you look closely at the hoirzon a effect that I found extremly cool and effective.

Day 9

Today was my last day of painitng and within this day I changed a lot around. I started by playing with the idea of white caps in the water, as a defining characterisitc of georgian bay is the large waves. I found this not to be completely effective so I toned the water down by adding darker blues and blending the white and blue together. Another charactersistic about gerogian bay, cmpared to say Muskoka is the many islands and bare, very pink rock out in the open. So I painted a long open island of rock in the back left of the painting. I also painted shoals because of the marker. I changed the makrer from a wooden one to a plastic one (got rid of white stripes) The most signifigant improvements I felt though were the rock in the foregorund, and the clouds in the sky. The rock in the foreground was in my mind perfect. The mixture of the rock colour was something I had struggled with in both my pieces  (the cliff painting, and the current one), and I felt that my use of red and black was very effective. As I said the clouds were much imporved. I tried combining two of them and also treid to give them more depth. I felt that I succeeded with the cliuds.  I changed the water aswell by keeping the white streakes but blending them in better.

Self Reflection

I feel that the final out come of my piece was great. I struggled greatly in the early parts of the proccess leading me to completely redo and painting in a different scene following mostly the same themes. I got really used to the use of oil paint by the end of this first painting. I feel that the themes I set out for were achieved. These were the themes of serentity and escaping from society. By using warm vibrant colours and an open scene I feel I achieved the message of a serene and calming scene. I enjoyed my detail in the foreground and the vague detail on the island in the distance. I used loose painting technique to create the clouds using lots of paint. If I had the chance I would have liked to possibly add white caps to the water and show more wind in the trees, to represent the true effect of nature on Georgian By, heavy winds and wavy conditions (for the most part), but this was restricted as I ran out of time. Overall I was extremly impressed with how my painting turned out esspcially since I had restarted from scratch. I was worried that I would not get the painting done in time, and would regret my decision to start over. Thankfully the painting turned out the way I had hoped and I feel it connected with the themes I sought out to express.