Kaitlyn Winkle
I worked a little bit with the Physical Body in our sketchbook check on Chapter 13, so I wanted to try something new for my final project. When drawing in class, drawing faces is usually my biggest challenge so I want to try and improve my portraiture. One very important aspect I will bring to this assignment is to challenge myself – with every drawing for class and even in projects I worked on previously, I always try and improve my weaknesses by selecting techniques or content that is outside of my comfort zone. This process works well for me because it does help each of my art projects get better and better.
I would probably never opt to draw portraits for fun outside of class which is exactly why I chose this for my project. As far as the subject matter, I plan to draw portraits of the people I spend the most time with, my roommates! I have 4 other roommates who I absolutely love. I want them to be the focus of my project because I truly believe that the people we surround ourselves with reveal a lot about who we are as individuals. My friends mean the world to me and making portraits of them almost materializes this; the hours I will spend working hard on their portraits will remind me that they are important enough to me to be the subjects of my art. Seeing meaning in my own work is just as important as a viewer seeing it too. When I look at these portraits of my roommates I will think of all the great times we had together and what they have taught me. I also hope to convey each of their personalities in my composition, color, expression, and symbolism.
My project will consist of five 8.5 x 11 inch portraits of my roommates (myself included) in black Conte crayon. The actual faces will be in black and white, but I want the backgrounds to be filled with super bright, saturated flowers and plants in color pastel (chosen based on how they symbolize each girls’ personality). Flowers and plants are definitely my favorite thing to paint and photograph; I thought it would be cool to also bring in my favorite things from other mediums to drawings. Five portraits may not seem like much, but I work slowly and plan to use high detail, meaning I will need extensive outside class work to finish this project (I probably won’t even finish 2 portraits within the 6 hours of class). Since I can’t have my roommates pose for me in class, I will most likely take photographs of them myself with my digital camera and print out pictures to bring to class.
Inspiration for this project will come in part from other artists. Studying Cindy Sherman’s black and white photographs will help my project come across as realistic and give an example of how to utilize the black and white tones on human faces. Frida Kahlo’s main body of work consists of portraits (mostly self portraits); hers are helpful in seeing symbolism and emotions expressed through the figure’s facial features (something I will need help with). Lastly, I want to take a little inspiration from Georgia O’Keefe. Even though her paintings of lowers don’t portray the human body, they are usually suggestive of the body (especially women’s bodies). I don’t want to be suggestive in my portraits, but the forms she paints are rich in color and aesthetically the type of flowers I am looking to include in the background.
Samantha's response:
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of studying portraiture bc it is challenging to you. I think that's a good route to take. I also think it might be interesting to think a little more about what could go into the backgrounds of the work, or perhaps even if the background should really be where we "see" the differences between all of you. Perhaps there is a way to communicate this through the facial expressions, scale, color, etc. I am tiny bit nervous about the all flower backgrounds for the all female ensemble, seems like it could run the risk of oversimplifying the complexities of personalities I am positive you all imbue. Kahlo is an astounding example of bringing personality, uniqueness, strength, femininity and symbolism to her work. It'd be great to see you do the same.
It might also be interesting to give yourself a bit more space then the standard size of paper, even if you end up keeping the portraits in that range, sometimes it's great to give yourself more room then less room. you can always cut it down, but not up!
Margaret's response:
ReplyDeleteI am interested to see how you handle the background as well. I think flowers are a possibility, but as Samantha has mentioned, flowers can be a bit cliched and can be overassociated with women. However, as with everything else, it all depends upon how you handle it. For tomorrow, with the preliminary sketches, maybe it might be nice if you did some flower drawings so we could see what you are thinking of, or bring in some flower images you have done in the past. Also, for your roommates, I recommend you get several pictures of each. Getting personality conveyed in a drawing is often hard if you are working from only one photograph.
Kaitlyn, how are the roommate pictures coming along? And the background? I hope you can get the flowers to work. Send me sketches if you have anything.
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