"Painting the City"
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Size: 60.96 cm x 91.44 cm
Date: April 2016
Inspired by Chuck Close and Ava Carmen, this piece attempts to explain how I personally connect with the city of Milwaukee. It demonstrates how I influence my surroundings of where I live and how those surroundings influence me. More after it also demonstrates how I am viewed by the people who surround me. It combines me, the artist, with the city mentally and physically in a metaphorical fashion.
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Planning
To begin my planning process for this piece, I started off by creating planning sketches. From the beginning I was uncertain of what I wanted to create or include in my piece. The only certainty I had was that I somehow wanted to incorporate the city of Milwaukee into the piece. It was challenging coming up with ideas as what to create. I created differing sketches for each panel. One panel was focused on sketches that focused on me and who I was as an artist. Another panel was focused on how the city influenced me, and finally the last panel was about how I influenced my environment. This made me create various sketches for each panel and eventually I settled down on the idea that was the most appealing to me. However I still was uncertain of how I was going to produce each panel, therefore I began to search for an inspiration to connect my piece to in order to help guide my piece. |
Artistic Inspiration
For my piece, I was inspired by Chuck Close and Ava Carmen. Chuck Close is an American painter/artist and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. He is known for using creative and intricate patterns to portray a human portrait. I was inspired by his piece Self Portrait 2004-2005. This piece inspired me in several ways. For my panel in which I portray the city of Milwaukee and how I influenced, I was inspired by his painting style. Chuck close painted his paintings in a grid style painting each individual square by mixing various swatches but not blending them smoothly so that close up every color can be seen. In a similar way I was inspired to do the same by painting half my panel with each window being swatches of warm colors mixed together and cool colors mixed together to represent windows that were lit or had the lights off. This allowed my to produce the message of how my creativity influenced the city compared to how the city already was. Another way I was inspired by chuck close was through the setup of his subject matter. Usually he paints his subject with a close up from the chest up which inspired me to do the similar setup for my third panel in which I too paint myself from the chest up. I felt that this setup was perfect when it came to depicting a person and who they were and therefore is why I used it.
Research and Image Citation: http://www.walkerart.org/calendar/2005/chuck-close-self-portraits-1967-2005
For my piece, I was inspired by Chuck Close and Ava Carmen. Chuck Close is an American painter/artist and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. He is known for using creative and intricate patterns to portray a human portrait. I was inspired by his piece Self Portrait 2004-2005. This piece inspired me in several ways. For my panel in which I portray the city of Milwaukee and how I influenced, I was inspired by his painting style. Chuck close painted his paintings in a grid style painting each individual square by mixing various swatches but not blending them smoothly so that close up every color can be seen. In a similar way I was inspired to do the same by painting half my panel with each window being swatches of warm colors mixed together and cool colors mixed together to represent windows that were lit or had the lights off. This allowed my to produce the message of how my creativity influenced the city compared to how the city already was. Another way I was inspired by chuck close was through the setup of his subject matter. Usually he paints his subject with a close up from the chest up which inspired me to do the similar setup for my third panel in which I too paint myself from the chest up. I felt that this setup was perfect when it came to depicting a person and who they were and therefore is why I used it.
Research and Image Citation: http://www.walkerart.org/calendar/2005/chuck-close-self-portraits-1967-2005
My other inspiration for my work was Ava Carmen. Ava Carmen is a local artist from Milwaukee. She is a painter who utilizes various medium from oil paints to water colors. I was inspired by her piece My Fair Lady. The way in which I was inspired by this piece was the form in which Ava portrayed a landscape within the body of a woman. This then lead me to be inspired into including the city of Milwaukee into a silhouette of me in a similar fashion. However instead I placed the silhouette of the city in my head rather than the torso as Carmen did, yet I utilized a very similar approach to show how the city affected me.
Research and Image Citation: http://www.avacarmenart.com/my-fair-lady.html
Research and Image Citation: http://www.avacarmenart.com/my-fair-lady.html
Process
In order to begin creating my work, I began by sketching out how I wanted each panel to come together as one piece. Once I had the layout ready of how my panels would connect and I had my sketches drawn onto the canvases, I began by painting my silhouette first. At first it was difficult to paint my silhouette with the city inside my mind as I was not sure how I was going to paint in such a way that my body and the city did not combine into one but remained separate. However I overcame this by deciding to outline each building in white allowing one to distinguish between the city and me. This panel is meant to portray how the city influences my way of thinking and ideas but also how I influenced the city which is why I decided to incorporate colorful streams going from my mind to the next panel where the city was. I utilized simple, short brushstrokes and numerous vibrant colors to represent my ideas and imagination flowing to the next panel where the city was. On the second panel, I decided to paint the city in two different manners, one in which it is colorful as it is affected by me and my ideas and another in which it was simple colors such as black and yellow to represent what the city is like without me. For each colorful swatch, I created small brushstrokes with different colors however I did not blend the colors but rather left them as they were in order to imitate the style of Chuck Close. The rest of the city was painted in a traditional form in which I used normal brushstrokes. Finally for my last panel, I created an arm that extended into my previous panel to represent how I "painted" the city with my ideas and imagination, how I brought color into the city. Meanwhile my final panel also depicts how I am seen by society, This is why I depicted myself as halving "nerd glasses" and a zipped up mouth. Society usually sees me as a quiet, shy nerd which was what I depicted in my final panel, Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this panel was creating a skin tone however I felt I was successful.
In order to begin creating my work, I began by sketching out how I wanted each panel to come together as one piece. Once I had the layout ready of how my panels would connect and I had my sketches drawn onto the canvases, I began by painting my silhouette first. At first it was difficult to paint my silhouette with the city inside my mind as I was not sure how I was going to paint in such a way that my body and the city did not combine into one but remained separate. However I overcame this by deciding to outline each building in white allowing one to distinguish between the city and me. This panel is meant to portray how the city influences my way of thinking and ideas but also how I influenced the city which is why I decided to incorporate colorful streams going from my mind to the next panel where the city was. I utilized simple, short brushstrokes and numerous vibrant colors to represent my ideas and imagination flowing to the next panel where the city was. On the second panel, I decided to paint the city in two different manners, one in which it is colorful as it is affected by me and my ideas and another in which it was simple colors such as black and yellow to represent what the city is like without me. For each colorful swatch, I created small brushstrokes with different colors however I did not blend the colors but rather left them as they were in order to imitate the style of Chuck Close. The rest of the city was painted in a traditional form in which I used normal brushstrokes. Finally for my last panel, I created an arm that extended into my previous panel to represent how I "painted" the city with my ideas and imagination, how I brought color into the city. Meanwhile my final panel also depicts how I am seen by society, This is why I depicted myself as halving "nerd glasses" and a zipped up mouth. Society usually sees me as a quiet, shy nerd which was what I depicted in my final panel, Perhaps the most challenging aspect of this panel was creating a skin tone however I felt I was successful.