Self Portrait
Title: Boy with Hat (Diego)
Size: 91.44 cm x 91.44 cm Medium: Canvas, acrylic paint Completion Date: March 9, 2023 Exhibition Text:
My self portrait, Boy with Hat (Diego), is inspired by Pablo Picasso's work Woman with Hat (Olga). It was made using acrylic paint on a canvas. I inserted myself into his abstract piece mocking the same position and colors, changing how the person's hair looked to more match mine. I chose to make myself in this abstract style so that I can express how I see myself due to how my peers around me act and make me feel about myself. This piece represents my view of myself due to peers. |
Inspiration:
Artist in Focus: Pablo Picasso
My main inspiration for this piece was Pablo Picasso. He was a Spanish artist who had made many works and helped in creating the cubism art movement. When the surrealism movement came around he was influenced by that style in some of his works. Surrealism art was in part inspired from the cubism movement as well which could have been the reason for Picasso moving to being inspired by the movement. His works in the 1920’s could be seen as surrealist but he also kept some of his previous works influence in the works. In his works I chose as inspiration, it can be seen that there is some surrealist inspiration behind it with the random proportions and shape of the body. The shape of the body is very pointed by the neck and the shape of the head is very blocky. The hair is also blocky on one side but then more curved on the other. You can also see that there is some abstractness to the “hat” the person is wearing along with some almost random crescent shape. These elements are all showing the surrealist movements' abstractness from the usual form of things as well as the bending of them in an exaggerated way. Specifically in these pieces you can see in the quality of his paint that there are some different colors shown in one. For example in his pieces, the shirt is blue, but has some black markings on it. I would like to capture this in some sort of way in my actual piece. I would also like to use the layout and format of one of these exactly to insert myself into it in the same way with little changes besides making it look like me with my hair to connect it to my theme of the outside world's impact on me with this piece affecting my work directly with how I look. |
Planning:
I first started by looking at how Picasso’s pieces looked and their style. Looking at his works, he is taking a surrealist route. I noticed how he had simple shapes and steady confident lines. I found these two pieces specifically as they were both in similar styles and felt like they would match what I am going for with my message. I then took those two, tried to sketch out both of the pieces to try and get used to the look and shape of them. I made sure to carefully get a similar look with the steady lines and shapes. I then decided to insert myself into both of these pieces as the person to see which one I liked better of the two. I made some minor changes to them both in order to make it look like me while still keeping it close to the source material. After looking at both results, I liked the look of the Woman with Hat (Olga) piece with me in it as the person. From there, I finally had a sketched out version of what I would look like, so I experimented with it a little bit to see if I could make it more like me without changing the look of the piece. I finally found a satisfactory design and used it to move onto my actual painting.
Process:
I first started off by making a grid onto my canvas to help transfer over the image. I then made sure to get the grid layout onto my reference image to make sure I was transferring over a correct image onto the canvas. After laying out the grid, I started with the bottom of the body. In Picasso’s works he is using lines that have intent and are either curved or just straight. I wanted to make sure I could capture this curved line correctly, so I used multiple lines to figure out the correct line and used a template of a thread to lay out the curve. It took multiple attempts to get the correct line with a curve that I liked. Erasing all the previous lines helped me figure out how I wanted it to look. After I used that, I brought out my ruler to get the straighter lines that can be seen in the face. I had to take precise measurements on my reference and scale it up to what I am making to make sure I was getting accurate lengths of the lines to make sure everything fit in correctly. However, when I was starting to get it all sketched out, I realized that it looked a little off compared to how it looks on the reference with my head being a bit too far to the right. I had to redo the head, sliding it over slightly and changing the size of the green crescent shape.
After finishing the straight lines. Of my head, I once again turned to using the thread to get the curve in the crescent shape. When it came to doing the curvy and waviness of my right side of hair, I decided to freehand it. When doing this I went over the same line multiple times in order to get the right kind of curve I wanted. I mainly looked at my sketched out version of my drawing to get the shape I wanted. It turned out to be curved with the bottom line more straight to make it look more like Picasso’s work. I then moved onto the hat on top of the piece in which I also freehanded with using reference points based on my inspiration and the gridlines I had made earlier. I finally had everything sketched out and began painting the figure after erasing the gridlines. I wanted to use the same colors as Picasso had rather than making my own coloration of it to connect with my theme and how I base myself on how I act depending on who I am with. Since I am “with” Picasso’s piece I chose the same colors. I painted every part of my body making sure I had as close colors as possible and did multiple layers to ensure there were no white gaps or spaces in the color. After finishing out my actual person, I then worked on the background and detail work.
Experimentation:
When looking at how Picasso had made his background, I noticed that the color was not really solid and was instead having lines of a gray mixed in with it. I had thought of a couple options to try and do this. I originally thought of doing a complete gray background and then doing a blue layer over it leaving some spaces to have the gray stick out and be shown. While that could have been good, I didn’t think it would capture the exact look and make it too intentional looking. I then thought about taking the colors I would use and mixing it right on the canvas. I tried this out on my sketchbook paper but it didn’t look too correct to me. Eventually, I came up with the idea of taking two different blue colors that are slightly different, and doing some quick strokes on the canvas with that color, applying more water to the brush and then color when needed to get the color to thin out more over the canvas. I would take the fuller blue color and paint a bit with that, and then I would take the greener darker blue color and paint with that one in the same area and the same way. This ended up working pretty well in creating some kind of color variation to make my figure pop out better as it does in Picasso’s piece. At some points I had very little paint on my brush and just used some water on my brush to get a really thin color which added some more variety.
I had also noticed in Picasso’s piece that he had some kind of outline around his figure which worked to my advantage to let me not worry about getting too close to the figure with the blue paint in risk of getting it on the person. After finishing, I again looked back at Picasso’s piece and saw some more similar marks on the shirt and face and hat areas. I had already painted on these areas so I had to again think of another way to get that look. I decided to use one of my color mixing tools to kind of scrape a black color onto the shirt in some areas. I practiced a little in my sketchbook and then went to my canvas. Sometimes I scraped a bit too much but in the end it turned out alright.
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I then considered doing something similar to my face and neck, however I was worried I would mess up too much and it would be difficult to fix it since it had to be white so I decided to skip it. So, I went over to the hat and used a brush to do swirls and short lines with the blue color to get the look it had. I held the brush perpendicular to the canvas to help get the right look making it as similar as possible to Picasso’s piece.
Critique:
Similarities:
There are some similarities between Picasso and I’s pieces. For example, we both used the same kind of colors in our pieces when looking at his works, more specifically his Woman with Hat (Olga) piece. The same colors are used in the same areas with some slight variations in my work. Another similarity can be seen in the look of these colors. In Picasso’s pieces it can be seen that a color is not exactly solid as one color. Instead it has some marks of other colors inside of it like some grayish green look inside of his blue backgrounds. I tried to copy this as best I could and it turned out to have a similar effect and look in some ways. A big similarity can also be seen in the layout of mine compared to his Woman with Hat (Olga) piece once again. The same shapes are used and the same placement of things.
Differences:
There are also differences that can be seen between Picasso and I’s pieces. For example, when it came to getting his double color paint look for the face, I decided to skip out on it. This makes the quality of the paint look different in our works. Another difference is the shape of the piece. Picasso’s works are more rectangular while I made mine into a square shape. This was due to my canvas size needing to be 3 ft by 3 ft at least. While I could have sized up one of the sides to be 4 ft, I wasn’t sure that I could paint that much due to my skill of painting. Another difference can be seen in the type of paints I used. I used acrylic paint while Picasso used oils which could have been the cause of mine not looking exactly the same with the paint’s look.
There are some similarities between Picasso and I’s pieces. For example, we both used the same kind of colors in our pieces when looking at his works, more specifically his Woman with Hat (Olga) piece. The same colors are used in the same areas with some slight variations in my work. Another similarity can be seen in the look of these colors. In Picasso’s pieces it can be seen that a color is not exactly solid as one color. Instead it has some marks of other colors inside of it like some grayish green look inside of his blue backgrounds. I tried to copy this as best I could and it turned out to have a similar effect and look in some ways. A big similarity can also be seen in the layout of mine compared to his Woman with Hat (Olga) piece once again. The same shapes are used and the same placement of things.
Differences:
There are also differences that can be seen between Picasso and I’s pieces. For example, when it came to getting his double color paint look for the face, I decided to skip out on it. This makes the quality of the paint look different in our works. Another difference is the shape of the piece. Picasso’s works are more rectangular while I made mine into a square shape. This was due to my canvas size needing to be 3 ft by 3 ft at least. While I could have sized up one of the sides to be 4 ft, I wasn’t sure that I could paint that much due to my skill of painting. Another difference can be seen in the type of paints I used. I used acrylic paint while Picasso used oils which could have been the cause of mine not looking exactly the same with the paint’s look.
Reflection:
This piece was a good challenge for me as I have never painted anything of this size before. It faced me with something new and I feel that I was able to handle it pretty well. Doing this project improved some of my painting skills and opened me up to some new techniques on how to get certain looks. My inspiration for the piece does connect since you can see how I used Picasso’s work to directly inspire my layout and look. My biggest challenge was probably just painting on such a scale. It took a lot longer because of its size and it caused it to be a little difficult especially with producing enough color for the background. This project connects with my other themes by showing how the world has caused me to perceive myself. Me not getting along with some cousins of mine caused me to be told to act like I had liked them which was still difficult for me but it also caused me to think that I had to be different for people I interact with which can be seen in the random shapes and lines in my work. It caused some trouble for my mind and made me think less of myself which is seen in the blockiness and not very detailed look of myself. The world around me with my peers caused me to think like this, causing me to get this kind of look of myself. My favorite part was probably seeing the finished product. I was proud that I was able to paint that much and it turned out to be pretty alright and look how I wanted it to. I hope others are able to see the impact that people around you can have on oneself.
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?
There is a cause and effect relationship between my inspiration and my artwork throught the layout and style of the piece. Looking at my inspiration and my piece, you can see the same structure used in making the figure in the piece. They are crated in the same kind of style in how they look and where curved or straight lines are used along with colors being shared in common.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Picasso is deciding to paint a portrait of his wife while exploring the surrealism art movement. The art world is faced with this new movement and Picasso takes it and uses it to help influence the style of his art. I plan on using Picasso's surrealist look to show how I feel about myself due to the outside world.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have made generalizations and conclusions about how things can influence your art. Picasso wasn't necessarily apart of the surrealism movement at first but he was inspired by it and allowed it to seep into his works a bit. People can be exposed to things and be affected with how they act of do different activities.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea or theme around my inspirational research iis finding works that have some kind of abstract look and breaking of form.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I made inferences about how Picasso viewed this style and reasoning behind making it. I also inferred that Picasso was inspired by multiple movements.
There is a cause and effect relationship between my inspiration and my artwork throught the layout and style of the piece. Looking at my inspiration and my piece, you can see the same structure used in making the figure in the piece. They are crated in the same kind of style in how they look and where curved or straight lines are used along with colors being shared in common.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
Picasso is deciding to paint a portrait of his wife while exploring the surrealism art movement. The art world is faced with this new movement and Picasso takes it and uses it to help influence the style of his art. I plan on using Picasso's surrealist look to show how I feel about myself due to the outside world.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
I have made generalizations and conclusions about how things can influence your art. Picasso wasn't necessarily apart of the surrealism movement at first but he was inspired by it and allowed it to seep into his works a bit. People can be exposed to things and be affected with how they act of do different activities.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The central idea or theme around my inspirational research iis finding works that have some kind of abstract look and breaking of form.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
I made inferences about how Picasso viewed this style and reasoning behind making it. I also inferred that Picasso was inspired by multiple movements.
Citations (MLA):
“Cubism of Pablo Picasso.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pablo-Picasso/Cubism.
Picasso, Pablo. “Bust of a Woman, 1935 - Pablo Picasso.” Www.wikiart.org, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/bust-of-a-woman-1935.
Picasso, Pablo. “Woman with Hat (Olga), 1935 - Pablo Picasso.” Www.wikiart.org, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/woman-with-hat-olga-1935.
“Surrealism Period.” Pablo Picasso's Surrealism Period, https://www.pablopicasso.net/surrealism-period/.
“Surrealism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/Surrealism.
Picasso, Pablo. “Bust of a Woman, 1935 - Pablo Picasso.” Www.wikiart.org, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/bust-of-a-woman-1935.
Picasso, Pablo. “Woman with Hat (Olga), 1935 - Pablo Picasso.” Www.wikiart.org, 1 Jan. 1970, https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/woman-with-hat-olga-1935.
“Surrealism Period.” Pablo Picasso's Surrealism Period, https://www.pablopicasso.net/surrealism-period/.
“Surrealism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., https://www.britannica.com/art/Surrealism.