MyselfSize: 3ft x 3ft
Medium: Acrylic on canvas Date: April 23rd, 2019 Exhibition Text: This piece was created to express the strongest feelings and emotions that I experience daily. Inspired by "Melodrama" album cover artist Sam McKinniss and Pablo Picasso's cubist paintings, I created a self portrait that depicts the way that I feel about myself in my most vulnerable state; alone in bed. This painting was meant to express the feeling of comfort in being alone and acceptance of myself and my surroundings. |
Inspiration
"Melodrama" album cover by Sam McKinniss
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Sam McKinniss is an American abstract and figurative postmodern painter who often paints realistic images of celebrities, animals and landscapes. The work of Sam McKinniss was brought to my attention through the cover of my favorite album; Melodrama. The album, itself, focuses of self appreciation and comfort, which I found to be communicated through the cover art. The music artist is seen lying in her bed alone. The chosen colors express a form of calmness and set the tone for the night-time setting in the painting. The artist, herself, is painted with a larger variety of bright colors as she displays a look of stillness and tranquility. What I appreciate most about this piece is the use of lighting and shading, it allows for an even larger variety of colors to be used especially in the artist's body. I made sure to recreate this shading effect in my own piece by using the similar darker colors in the darker areas.
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The work of Pablo Picasso specifically caught my attention for inspiration as the previous album cover due to the sharp changes in color throughout the cover. The sudden changes create geometrical shapes which can be recreated and recognized as styles and techniques in cubism. Through the analysis of his work, I realized that I could recreate these geometric shapes in certain areas of the painting such as the background and the face. By doing this, I would have the ability to make the painting look more like something I created, myself rather than completely copying the work if McKinniss. I also appreciated the way that the geometric shapes strayed the paintings away from seeming too realistic. I especially wanted to create this feeling in my piece as it is not focused on how real I or my surroundings look, but how real the feeling that I want to portray is.
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"Portrait of Dora Maar" by Pablo Picasso
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Planning Sketches
The first planning sketch was to both test my abilities in recreating the album cover image and to see if I would like the image better without a face. This ended up being my favorite planning sketch and the one that I followed the most. It also allowed me to see the effects of the structure lines added into the blanket and the shading added onto the body and the background.
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