Artwork:
Title: Pena y Felicidad
Size: 21.59 cm x 27.94 cm Medium: Prismacolor colored pencils and Sakura Pigma micron pens Completion: 09/28/19 Pena y Felicidad is a an illustration on paper made with Sakura Pigma Microns and Prismacolor colored pencils. This piece was inspired by Frida Khalo's Los Dos Fridas placement of the figures and her emotions conveyed in her piece , and Vincent van Gogh's Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette . This piece represents the tragedies and loss that I have faced in the last year in comparison to the earlier years of my life.
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Inspiration
Frida Khalo and Vincent van Gogh are artists who have faced many emotional and physical tragedies in their lives. In Los Dos Fridas, Frida Khalo represents two kinds of tragedies in her life. One Frida represents the accident that she was involved in when she was 18 years old on a streetcar and the other various health issues that ensued because of the accident. The other Frida represents her emotional pain from her marriage with Diego Rivera.
Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette was not one of the pieces that van Gogh used as a way to convey the tragedies in his life as they came later in his life. This piece is more of a "juvenile joke", while he studied art at the art academy in Antwerp. The symbolism of skeletons represents death often, which is why i decided to use this piece specifically from van Gogh's collection. Later in his life, van Gogh would face an immense struggle with mental health problems, eventually leading to him taking his own life. |
Planning
For this piece I wanted to focus on my emotional stresses that I have dealt with over the last year and contrast it to the "innocent" phase of my life. In the last year, and even the last month, I have lost friends and my dog, which is more death than I have even faced before in my life. I am normally happy person, so I wanted to focus on the good memories that I had in the past with these people and my dog as well.
To the left is the full planning page for this project, including the words and reference ideas. To the right on the top is my sketch for the placement of the figures and the overall layout of the piece. To the bottom right is a sketch of what I wanted the figure representing death and the loss I have faced in the last year. |
Experimentation
While making the piece the largest part that I experimented on was the sky itself. I knew I wanted to make it blue for emotional symbols, but I couldn't decide how I wanted it to look. At first, in the first two pictures, I wanted to make it similar to Frida Khalo's sky with the clouds, but I ended up blended it with ultramarine blue, white, sky blue light and cloud blue.
Process
Then, I erased the pencil marks from behind the pens and began to color using my Prismacolor colored pencils. For the hair of me when I was younger, I used a sienna brown and a canary yellow to add highlights since my hair was much lighter than it is at this point. For the skeletons, I used a white for the overall color and then a metallic silver for accents on the body. For the flower crown I started with the same while I used for the skeletons and then also used a scarlet red and an ultramarine blue.
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The ground took a lot to get rid of white spots and still keep some type of implied texture, but eventually I got it to look the way that I wanted to. To the left is an image of what the ground looked like before I had finished the layering of the colored pencil and to the right is the completed ground in comparison to the rest of the piece.
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Reflection
Compare & Contrast
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CritiqueThis piece didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to. I imaged a more solid looking piece, so I may take this piece and make it a digital piece rather than a physical piece in order to increase the weight of the colors that I used. I enjoyed the emotional aspects of the piece and I hope to use my art in the future to represent my emotions more in my next pieces. I realized while making the piece that in one of my pieces from last year I had a similar layout with the skeletal figure and a little me in my digital collage, so I may also use that format when creating my piece digitally rather than the physical format. I definitely want to restart this piece once I have time to polish it up a bit and make it look more to my standards than before.
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ACT
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Frida's piece influenced the placement and the emotional connection that I made to the piece, which helped me to really open up in this piece about how I was feeling. What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration? The author has a generic approach, just describing the artwork and the meanings behind the creation of the piece. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration? I generalized that many artists will convey their emotions in their art whether they mean it or not. Emotions and rt are very intertwined and help artists to let out their thoughts while creating a relatable piece. What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?. The central idea was the impact of emotions on art and the level of impact that they can have on the artist and a culture itself as well. What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research? I inferred that art and emotions are intertwined and many artists will use their art as an outlet for those emotions that they are feeling. |
Bibliography“Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette - Van Gogh Museum.” Vincent Van Gogh - Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette - Van Gogh Museum, https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0083V1962?v=1.
“The Two Fridas, 1939 by Frida Kahlo.” Frida Khalo.org, https://www.fridakahlo.org/the-two-fridas.jsp. |