I decided to use my cultural/ social issue on over working, and loosing the value of sleep. I originally had painted this as a head on landscape of a room, with 2 dimensional figures. This time I felt that more perspective was needed. The painting would still be similar but with small changes such as the angle of the room that you look at, and the man is sleeping on the desk instead of the couch. I had to brainstorm more ways to best get across my social issue through painting, and using the elements and principles of design. I decided to focus a lot on space in this painting. I have utilized the length of the board with the large blue wall, that has an almost streaky feel to it with the washes of water put on top. This large space of blue is large and overwhelming, which directly relates to the feelings of the man sleeping on his desk, overwhelmed. By having this large empty space on top with a very cluttered and disorganized bottom, it puts more emphasis on the busy part of the composition. for the curtains I used decided to use very abstract loose heavy lines to define the curtains. I tried to block in many objects that portrayed the overworked exhausted feelings of the man in the painting. This led me to add in a coffee mug, and keep the books and laptop in as well. I tried getting creative with the wall. I used a blue/ green mixture of paint with lots of water to create the streaky looking walls. Over top to give connect to the issue I put in a calendar, as well as a bulletin board, made out of newspaper filled with assignments. This turned out very interesting as the layers of paint from below seem to cripple the paper at bit. There were two parts of the painting that I had trouble with. The first one was the face. I started off with a photo of myself in a sleeping position, and as I painted this image on the board I noticed that the head didn't look as if it were on its side. To solve this problem I took another picture and then noticed i had to move the ear back and slant the eyes to give the impression that his head is resting on his arm. The second problem I had was one I did not fix. This was the legs. I had awful proportions in my legs and found them hard to paint. I would re paint them many times and still not be satisfied, even with pictures in my hand. I was also not to sure what the shading should be. I decided to go with a very dark shade, but as I earlier mentioned the legs are not proportionate to the body.
The first artist that I looked at was edward hopper, originally introduced to me by Mrs. Cockburn. After this I researched him in the library and found the way he set up his composition interesting. I decided to use his composition of looking at a room from an angle. Also through looking through his photos I found his use of space very interesting. This is what inspired me to use this large free space. It showed more emphasis on the other part of the composition. The first photo below showed me this way of painting a composition, with the room at a different angle than head on, as my original painting. I liked the extreme shading in this painting as the woman's face is pure white and the man in the back is almost unseen. I tried to utilize this technique in my painting with the shading on my shirt as the back was black and the shoulder was almost white. This photo helped me with the light coming out of the window and the shading on the bodies. After I set up my composition I took a photo of myself in the position I wanted to paint. I used a lamp to imitate the window light. I then based the bodies shape and shading on off of this photo. The second painting is another edward hopper photo that as before mentions utilizes the space of the board, another technique that I tried.
The second artist I used was Lucien Freud, an artist I am familiar with. I enjoyed his use of thick paint that was used to create texture. I tried doing this on the face and shoulder of my figure. I also used his in the curtains to create a wrinkle effect by using large amounts of paint. Although my face wasn't as detailed as the one below I still tried building up the shoulder and face a much as I could. I found that the colours were tough to control with all of this paint as colours would become murky very quickly. This led to me playing around with the face a lot. The curtains I was very pleased with as the thick heavy lines created a nice contrast to the smooth blue wall.
This was the photo I set up and took to help me through my painting process with the body and shirt shading
Starting of body
This is after I took the photo and used reference material. A step in the right direction
In this photo I changed the tilt of the head by positioning the ear back and angled the eyes
Was experimenting with the shading on the legs. something I had a lot of trouble with.
In this stage I added a calendar and a bulletin board made out of newspaper giving a busier effect to the painting. I also added window panes with snow on them to give a winter effect, along with the Jan on the calendar. A coffee mug was also added
In this stage the leg is more visible but still shaded out. I used some upward line work on red dry brush on the bottom giving the painting a cool effect.
In this stage I added tree branches by painting thin black lines, with snow on them.
This is the final product.
This is the final face. Last minute i changed the face up. I felt like i more defined the nose and made the eyes skinnier to give the sleeping effect. I also liked the shading put in at the back of the head.
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