Diptych
Title: Mediums of Me
Size: 60.96 cm x 60.96 cm Medium: painting Completion Date: December 18th Exhibition Text: Mediums of Me is meant to show the perception of identity. I took it as looking at my identity in a creative sense splitting myself into a musical side and visual arts side. My piece was inspired by some pieces by Giorgio de Chirico. I chose to use him as inspiration since Chirico painted these pieces showing an architecture made up of buildings. He showed a person made up of what they do and that is perfect for my perception of myself. In my piece you can see a variety of elements of the arts. |
Inspiration:
Artist in Focus: Giorgio de Chirico
The artist I used as inspiration for my Diptych painting is Giorgio de Chirico. He first started making these types of artworks in the late 1920's and continued to make them later on in his career and even redid them in his late life to try and gain popularity from his earlier work. He would claim those redos as the original copy. During the time around him making his "The Archaeologists" in 1927, he realized that he had an underdeveloped understanding of anatomy. Due to this realization, he started to work on his technique while in Rome in 1924, by taking inspiration from the Old Masters. In his pieces I took inspiration from you can see his inspiration from them in the style that he painted in. Around this time he also started to develop his art in other forms and wrote a book. Later on in his life in the 1960's he used the figures from these paintings to create sculptures made out of bronze. |
Planning:
When I started this project, I wasn't too sure what to really do as a "perception of identity." I thought about the canvas options I could make it on as far as sizes go and thought it would be cool to do a diptych to show two sides of the same coin in a way. Doing a diptych could allow me to show two different parts of my identity. I took that idea and then started thinking about what I am like and separating it into "vs'' statements. After making a small list, I felt that maybe doing something showing my musical part of me would make for a cool painting. One side where it was my more music and instrument side, and the other being my more art and drawing side. When thinking about this I eventually came across my inspiration of Giorgio de Chirico and saw his paintings of archeologists and how they showed people that had objects on their front body. this gave me the idea that I could use that and put music and art objects respectively. I thought then that it would be a good idea to separate the two parts but make them one in some kind of way. Looking at Chirico's "The Archaeologists’ piece, I thought that maybe I could make it so that one canvas was one of the people with the music items, and the other canvas had the person with the art objects. I thought that would be a good idea but then also realized that it could show too much separation between the parts when I wanted them to still be connected in some way. I then looked to make it similar to his layout with the people next to each other, but cutting them off onto two canvases would probably have looked off. I then came up with the idea to just use one person that was separated onto the two canvases and then both of the canvases had their respective theme still. This would allow them to be together and still separated to show those two different parts of the same thing.
Process:
After getting my ideas all down, I then moved on to getting my canvases ready. I wanted to do a diptych and the size requirement was at least 60.96 cm by 60.96 centimeters, so I went with that size but just cut it in two making it two 60.96 cm by 30.48 cm canvases. After putting the wood parts of it together I had to cut out the canvas paper and stretch it onto the canvas. This process was completely new to me and I almost messed up at first, but eventually got it all sorted out and fixed. After getting my two canvases stretched out, I needed to get my image onto them to then start painting. To do this I used the grid method. I put my sketch of my painting into procreate to get an easy grid on it using the drawing assist feature. From there I messed around with the image and split in two to help differentiate the canvases. I then changed the size of the image to make sure it lined up with the grid with a sensible amount of lines and then started putting it on. I went square by square and got everything on it.
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After getting my grid down I got to painting. I started with working on the background of the painting being the gray and red. I had to go very carefully around some of the lines in order to only paint what needed to be painted. I eventually messed up with this and had to just worry about going over it with the correct paint later. After getting the gray and red done on one canvas I moved to the other since I had those colors already. When painting the background of the music canvas I had to go over some lines as it would be too difficult to go around them and they would be painted in black anyways so I would easily be able to go over the gray with it to fix it.
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After that I slowly started working on the other parts of the painting. I had to mix a lot of different colors together for it I used a variety of brushes to complete the notes coming off the sheet music and had a little bit of trouble getting the stems right as well as the lines leading out to the notes. Since I was working with black at this point I decided to continue to on work on other parts that would be black. I moved onto the harp as it only needs one line of black, and then moved to the piano. For the piano I painted the white keys first and then went back to do the black keys afterwards. I was then thinking on how I can do the speaker part of it and then came up with painting it white, and then going over it in lines and dots to give it that speaker effect. After finishing the parts on the music side I then turned over to the art side. I started with the white and black stuff yet again and finished up the pencil shortly after that too. I then worked on getting the paintbrush done and then focused on the palette and the colors coming off of it. I wanted to use a red, blue, and yellow for the primary colors and did such. I decided to make it a little messy to make it look more ike paint kind of just flowing into the background. After getting that done I worked on the cloth over my legs as Chirico has in his works, and then went on to do the skin and couch.
Experimentation:
For me the skin and couch were probably the hardest part of the painting. For one, I never really had done any skin tones before and had to do one for the first time. The second problem came up with my color mixing skills for both the skin and the couch. I had so much trouble trying to get the right brown.
I first worked on getting the skin tone. I had to do a little research to figure out how one would even make skin tones. I first took a bunch of yellow and then mixed some red into it. I had to keep putting red into it to make it more pale and lighter of a skin color. From there, I needed to make a brown to add into it in order to get my kind of skin color. I thought that it would be easy but I had a bit of trouble. I was mixing red, blue, and yellow together and getting a gray kind of color. I tried about three times and came up with that same gray color. Then, I started to take it slower. I started with yellow and added some blue to make a green. After getting a green, I added in red in small amounts over and over to get the brown color. Every now and then I might have had to add in some blue to balance it out a bit. After a bit of time I eventually found myself brown. Finally after I made the brown, I added some into my original color I made to darken the color. I added bits of brown and eventually found a skin tone that is close to mine.
After I finished getting my skin done, I had to work on the couch. I immediately thought that I should take the brown I made and start painting the couch with that. That became my first big mistake. I used up all the brown I had and only got barely one part of the couch finished and done. I then realized I had to start over and try and replicate that brown that I had so much trouble with previously. I started mixing and after my second try got a brown, but it wasn't the same one. I decided to just use that brown as there is a decent bit of the brown paint and it looked like a similar color to the couches that I have had in the past. I took the brown paint and ended up getting 3 out of 4 parts of the couch done. I started to paint the fourth but I had run out of paint. I then started to mix again and failed many more times. I got a brown that was similar and then ended up taking extra of this new brown and putting it over the brown I had as highlights to make it look more similar.
Critique:
Similarities:
There are some similarities that can be seen between my piece and the works that inspired it by Giorgio de Chirico. For one, the person in the paintings is in the same kind of style where they are plain looking and have some unproportional body sizes. The overall layout can be seen to be shared as well where there is a person being shown in the middle that has different objects on its front body. It can also be seen how the person is sitting down as well in some kind of plain background. There are also similarities seen in "The solitary archaeologist" piece with how there is one person in the center of the scene.
Differences:
There are also some differences between our pieces. The biggest difference is probably the fact that my piece is separated into two parts, one based around music, and the other based around art. Chirico usually depicts one specific thing with his people in this style and I define one of the people with two things. Another difference is how in Chirico's pieces, on the people there are buildings of some sort as the object. In mine, I use specific objects that relate to the overall topic of that part of the diptych. I don't use any buildings and instead use more general objects.
There are some similarities that can be seen between my piece and the works that inspired it by Giorgio de Chirico. For one, the person in the paintings is in the same kind of style where they are plain looking and have some unproportional body sizes. The overall layout can be seen to be shared as well where there is a person being shown in the middle that has different objects on its front body. It can also be seen how the person is sitting down as well in some kind of plain background. There are also similarities seen in "The solitary archaeologist" piece with how there is one person in the center of the scene.
Differences:
There are also some differences between our pieces. The biggest difference is probably the fact that my piece is separated into two parts, one based around music, and the other based around art. Chirico usually depicts one specific thing with his people in this style and I define one of the people with two things. Another difference is how in Chirico's pieces, on the people there are buildings of some sort as the object. In mine, I use specific objects that relate to the overall topic of that part of the diptych. I don't use any buildings and instead use more general objects.
Reflection:
This piece was very helpful for me as an artist. I have not done too much painting so this was a good experience to have, especially with other upcoming projects such as the self portrait painting. This piece has helped me work on my painting skills overall. If I were to do this again, I would have liked to maybe add some shading or extra detail into the piece itself. I have usually struggled with making colors in the past and that was probably a big challenge for me here to in finding some skin tones and brown. It was also difficult to be painting on this scale as I am not used to having to paint on big canvases such as this one. This project still connects to previous pieces and their ideas by showing how art as a whole has affected me personally. My favorite part was probably being able to sketch the painting up and onto the canvas. My least favorite part was probably actually painting some parts of it such as the chair. When people see this piece I would like them to see the different creative parts of me. I want them to see how much of an impact art does have on my life and how it has made me who I am.
Connecting to the ACT:
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
When looking for my inspiration, I found Chirico and saw his paintings that included some kinds of musical items which reinforced my choice to make it music based. You can also see in his paintings I used for inspiration how they inspired the layout of the image and overall composition of it. It can also be seen how he creates the people in the paintings in my painting with the style of them being seen in it.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author's choice of detail work and layout has affected my piece. The content of Chirico's work also affected the topic of my piece.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have noticed that being able to study some older painters can help develop your skills after some more practice. This piece was some of that practice for me. It also made me notice how incorporating a person made up of objects that relate to the person's identity can show a creative way of showing what someone is like.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea or theme around my inspirational research was music and how one's identity is made up.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I have inferred that showing little objects making up a part of something bigger is a pretty good way to show an identity of someone or something. I also inferred that making a simple pose for a person, even if it is just having their hand in the air slightly, can show a bigger meaning.
When looking for my inspiration, I found Chirico and saw his paintings that included some kinds of musical items which reinforced my choice to make it music based. You can also see in his paintings I used for inspiration how they inspired the layout of the image and overall composition of it. It can also be seen how he creates the people in the paintings in my painting with the style of them being seen in it.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author's choice of detail work and layout has affected my piece. The content of Chirico's work also affected the topic of my piece.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have noticed that being able to study some older painters can help develop your skills after some more practice. This piece was some of that practice for me. It also made me notice how incorporating a person made up of objects that relate to the person's identity can show a creative way of showing what someone is like.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea or theme around my inspirational research was music and how one's identity is made up.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I have inferred that showing little objects making up a part of something bigger is a pretty good way to show an identity of someone or something. I also inferred that making a simple pose for a person, even if it is just having their hand in the air slightly, can show a bigger meaning.
Citations (MLA):
“Giorgio De Chirico Paintings, Bio, Ideas.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/de-chirico-giorgio/.