"Elegance"
Acrylic Paint on Gesso Board September 2022 |
Exhibition Text This self portrait was created using acrylic paint on gesso board. My intention for this painting was to improve my portraiture technique and grow on my theme of identity by painting my own face. I also wanted to improve my painting techniques and blending as well. I was inspired by artist Theo Danella and their Marilyn Monroe collection, specifically their "Marilyn Monroe WW1" portrait. I wanted to grow upon the elegant form that is depicted in their painting and add that element to my piece.
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Critical Investigation
"Marilyn Monroe WW1", Theo Danella
Inspiration
Although much hasn't been said about Theo Danella, they specialize in portraiture, more specifically, portraits of Marilyn Monroe. The technique that is shown in this painting above is truly unique and the way that Danella uses color to depict light is truly original. It has not been specified what kind of medium was used to create this piece, I inferred that it was created using oil paints because of the level of blending that was shown. The skin and face of Marilyn Monroe are blended very nicely and the organic nature of her form is very elegant and blends nicely with the blanket draped over her shoulder and the background. I took a lot of inspiration from this painting with the use of space, the pose that I mimicked in my painting, and the "off camera" look. I wanted to be able to achieve the same smooth blending technique that was displayed in Danella's painting as well as the elegant and expensive appearance of the WW1 painting. I was inspired to expand my realism technique because I love the realism style but I struggle with proportions and color matching so I wanted to be able to practice realism on my own face using pictures that I took of myself. My difficulty with color matching also inspired me to create this entire painting using only the primary colors along with black and white so I could attempt to make skin tones, metallic jewelry, and hair colors using a limited amount of hues. I was really drawn to this painting because of how iconic Marilyn Monroe was and I wanted to paint myself in the same style and pose. I was also drawn to the colors that were used in the painting because although the background is completely black, Marilyn Monroe is incredibly vibrant, elegant, and so full of life.
Planning
To begin with my planning sketches, I started off by looking at different portrait artists who focus on realism so that I was particularly fond of. I viewed Shane McDonald's Therese, the Artist's Mother which depicted an older woman sitting in the middle of the painting with a blue dress. I also looked at Mia Tavonatti's Sogni Doki Painting as well as Anna Rose Bain's Self Portrait in Profile Painting which were both portraits because I wanted a realism portrait for my inspiration. I eventually decided on Theo Danella's Marilyn Romantic WW1 Painting because I was fond of the hues that Danella used as well as the overall elegance of the portrait. After I decided on what artists and painting I wanted to use as my inspiration, I went over what I wanted my theme to be for the project. I decided that I wanted to continue with creating self portraits and so I connected that to my theme of identity because I am quite literally painting myself or my identity. After I figured out my theme, I cut out a small piece of canvas and painted it with a layer of gesso because I wanted to practice my blending technique because I hadn't painted a portrait in quite a while. I used acrylic because I didn't have access to oil paints at the time and painted the canvas so that it looked like a piece of folded up, velvet, fabric. After I was finished with my practice, I decided that I didn't want to do my self portrait on a canvas because I already did that before and I wanted to try something new so I bought some gesso board and decided to use that as my base medium. After I finished the basic planning, I took a few reference photos and planned out which ones I wanted to use. I also put a grid over the photos so I could determine the scale that I would be drawing in. I also sketched out some designs on how I wanted to position myself on the board. Finally, I decided that I would again practice drawing some facial features because I was going to be making another self portrait and I wanted to be able to brush up on my skills.
Process
To begin, I started off by drawing a one inch by one inch grid on my gesso board and then I began to plan out where I wanted to position myself on the board. I sketched out all of my features, my hands, and the outline of my hair. After I had finished with my out lines I started painting in the lower left hand side of the board where the base of my hair was going to be. I mixed equal parts blue and yellow with a larger amount of red to get a warm toned brown that I was satisfied with and then I added a little bit of white to mimic a dirty blonde color that would match my hair. This process was very much trial and error and I don't have much experience painting hair so I would take darker shades of that brown and add little streaks where the shadows were and then I added more white to my brown to give me a color for my highlights. I also found that using water to mix the paints helped thin out the paint which resulted in a more layered appearance when applied to the base color. I also began to work on my first piece of jewelry, the earring. I started off by taking a brown that had yellow undertones for the base color of the earring and then I went in with white to add highlights so that the earring looked metallic and shiny.
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After that, I finished up working on the hair by again adding in darker colors for shadows and lighter colors for highlights. After I was done with this side of my hair, I painted the background of my picture black to resemble my inspiration painting by Theo Danella and then I took the lightest hair color that I had and added tons of water to it. I then went in with a very small pointed brush and I added in little fly away hairs and frizz so that my face looked like it was blending into the background rather than just being plopped down on a black background.
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Next, I began to work on my face and skin by mixing white with red and then adding in touches of blue and yellow to develop a skin color that I was happy with. I struggled with getting the lips to a color that was satisfactory for me but after a while I think that they ended up looking pretty accurate. I also worked on my nose making sure to add lots of shading and highlights so that my features would pop off of the board. Acrylic paint is extremely hard to work with because it dried incredibly quick so it was challenging for me to constantly try to recreate the same color over and over but in the end I think I did a good job at color matching.
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Next, I moved onto my eyes, forehead, and eyebrows. I started off with drawing a basic outline of my eyes with a neutral brown color and then I added some shading and highlights to the skin around my eyeball. I actually painted my eyeballs but they looked nothing like my actual eyes so I painted over them with black to match the spooky vibes of October. After I painted my eyes, I moved onto my eyebrows. I took a light brown color that was similar to the base coat color that I did for my hair and then I mixed that brown with some water so the color wasn't as opaque because I have incredibly light eyebrows. I did a few strokes of the color in the direction away from my nose and then I too my skin tone color and painted around the edges of the brow so they weren't as harsh. After the brows, I moved onto my forehead which was pretty simple as it was just my skin color with some additional highlights.
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After I finished the face, I worked on my neck and my jewelry. For my neck, I used the same skin tone color that I used on my face and then added some simple shading to my neck just below my jawline. Next, I moved onto my necklaces where I simply repeated the process that I did for my earring to mimic that metallic/golden appearance.
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Finally, I moved onto my hand. I used the same base color that I used for my face for my hand. After I had painted my hand with my base, I started working on each finger individually, making sure to add shadows and highlights to my knuckles and the edges of my fingers. I also painted each finger nail with an extremely light pink to match the manicure that i had on my nails at the time. After that, I moved onto shading my wrist and the top of my hand with colors that were a few shades darker and lighter than the skin tone base.
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Experimentation
Through my whole process of trying to focus on colored pencil as my medium I felt as thought I needed to bring my attention back to using paints as a medium. I started off by practicing painting some fabric so I could refresh my skills. I did this practice on small squares of canvas that had a layer of gesso applied to it. I realized that all of my other paintings that I had done were on canvas so I wanted to try something new and decided to use gesso board instead. I started off sketching my design and then, I decided that rather than buying 20 plus different colors of paint, I wanted to be able to challenge myself so I only used the primary colors along with black and white. This concept was very new to me as I usually used colors that were already mixed for my paintings to I had a lot of trial and error with mixing skin tones, hair colors, and making sure the shading was accurate on my face. I practiced mixing colors on my palette and I eventually found that blue was a very important color for me to use. Although it may look like it skin has blue undertones to by adding blue to my skin color shade, I was able to elevate the dimension and hue of my face. I also had never painted jewelry before and I didn't want to use a gold metallic paint so I had to try and figure out how to paint gold jewelry using only 5 colors. I found that a yellow toned brown was the perfect color that could mimic gold and I ended up adding in white highlights and mixing in a darker brown with my yellow-brown to make a color for the shadows of the necklaces and the earring. Finally, I had to work on the eyes. I have found that I struggle a lot with the proportion of eyes and it has been made extremely relevant in my self portrait journey. Although they end up looking realistic, they are either way too big or they don't look like my eyes. I definitely struggled with the latter during this portrait as they looked incredibly realistic but they didn't look like my eyes. After a ton of trial and error I couldn't get them to look like me so in spirit of the season, I painted them all black so I could connect back to a horror theme that has popped up in a few of my past works.
Critique
To begin, the first noticeable similarity between the two paintings is the position that we are in. Although they aren't completely perfect, the look to the side along with the hand on the chest matches in both pictures. Another similarity would be the background. I wanted the backgrounds to match in both of the paintings so I decided that I would paint the background of my portrait with a simple black. A difference between our paintings, for one, would be the medium. In Danella's painting, they used oil painting while I used acrylic paint which affects the blending and the way that texture looks on the canvas which is another notable difference between our pieces. The next difference would be the hues of the paintings. In Danella's painting, they focused heavily on using cool tones colors especially around Marilyn Monroe's figure it almost looks like she is glowing with blue lighting. In my painting however, I think that with the mixture of my jewelry along with my skin tone my painting focuses more on warm toned colors because I have red and pink undertones in my skin. The final notable difference would be the fabric draped over Monroe's shoulder. In Danella's painting, the fabric draped over Marilyn Monroe's shoulder is very prominent and is almost the main focus of the painting aside from her face. In my painting however, I focused on my face so the painting is more zoomed in that Danella's painting is and the fabric draped over my shoulder is less prominent and almost completely out of focus from the rest of the painting.
Reflection
My inspiration for this project was artist Theo Danella. I appreciated the way that this artist depicted Marilyn Monroe with such elegance and I wanted to be able to recreate that same elegance with my own face. I also wanted to be able to expand upon my realism style and develop my technique for portrait work and acrylic paints. I loved the way that Danella was able to blend their painting because it looks incredibly realistic, yet, it still looks like a painting because it contains a lot of different textures and hues. I also really loved how Danella was able to shade their painting because the highlights and shadows truly make the painting special and realistic. The way they were able to recreate every fold and shadow that is present in both her hair and the fabric is truly astounding. Although I love my final product, I wish that I was able to get the eyes to look like me because I feel like I have greatly improved on my other facial features I just have a really hard time nailing the proportions of eyes. I think that I somehow kept painting the iris of my eye incorrectly because I believe that the actual exterior of my eye was pretty accurate as well but now I know that I need even more practice on making eyes. My biggest challenge for this piece was trying to make sure that all of my facial features were proportionate to how my face actually looks. Again, I struggle with making eyes and I think that this painting has taught me that I need to really work on my technique for drawing and painting eyes and eyeballs. I also struggled with the hair a lot because I have never painted hair with that much detail before and it took me a long time to develop a technique for painting hair. In the end I like the way that this painting turned out even though there are a few things that I would like to change but I thing that this portrait was a big learning opportunity for me and I believe that if I were to make another self portrait in the future it would look that much more realistic.
ACT Questions
1) Clearly explain and describe how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
Theo Danella's realist style inspired me to create an acrylic painting in a realist style so that I would be able to advance my realism skills and focus on perfecting proportion sizes.
2) What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Theo Danella doesn't have much public or personal information about them however they probably don't have the same approach or opinions as me because I chose to create a self portrait but Danella focuses on painting Marilyn Monroe.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Some generalizations that I made about the artist specifically because they don't have much information written about them personally is that the artist doesn't want their face to be shown to the public and they would rather stay anonymous to people who observe their work.
4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea behind my research was identity and self love or gratification.
5) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
While reading, I made the inference that Danella is very fond of Marilyn Monroe and paints Marilyn more than anything else.
Theo Danella's realist style inspired me to create an acrylic painting in a realist style so that I would be able to advance my realism skills and focus on perfecting proportion sizes.
2) What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Theo Danella doesn't have much public or personal information about them however they probably don't have the same approach or opinions as me because I chose to create a self portrait but Danella focuses on painting Marilyn Monroe.
3) What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Some generalizations that I made about the artist specifically because they don't have much information written about them personally is that the artist doesn't want their face to be shown to the public and they would rather stay anonymous to people who observe their work.
4) What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea behind my research was identity and self love or gratification.
5) What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
While reading, I made the inference that Danella is very fond of Marilyn Monroe and paints Marilyn more than anything else.
Bibliography
1.) Theo Danella - Official Website. (2022). Retrieved 13 October 2022, from https://theo-danella.pixels.com/