So for the first day, I just started brainstorming for the ideas that I would like to develop throughout the year.
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I continued planning and gathering ideas that inspires me
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At this point I knew that I want my panel this year to be related with animals. Although I do not know how to deliver this just yet.
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After days of doing research and looking up photos of artworks in Pinterest, I realised that I want it to be about animal cruelty.
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I also know that I want my artworks to be done realistically so I started searching up artist that do this. Even watching a few videos from there on. I did this because I have to start working on my art history, and that I have to choose 3 artist that will be my inspiration for the artworks that I will make this year.
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I came across a video of Marcell Witte, it is a video of his timelapse painting. I like the technique that he use for most of his artworks which is realistic. His choice of subject matter intrigues me, it varies from wild animals. He paints the fur of the animals individually, which takes a lot of time.
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I continued watching videos of him, and gathering ideas how I can use his technique and apply it to my artworks. Also I started doing my art history, and also talking more about his techniques and stuff. I really like his work and how much impact it makes to the audience. That impact is what I want my artwork to have.
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I found another artist named Marcin Budzinski, a digital artist. I like how the artist use their medium and also having a huge impact to their finished products. Their artwork is realistic also. I started writing about them on my art history also.
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I continued working on my art history.
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For my last artist I found another artist which is Dana Ellyn, which is a vegan artist. Her artworks gave me an idea of what if my artworks revolve around on being a meat eater? I like how her artwork is gore, which something that I enjoy painting. Most of her artworks have bloods painted on it, and is disturbing to audience which is something that I like and would like to do also.
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For the last few days, I continued working on my art history and also gathering ideas and to also finalize what I actually want my artwork to be about and also the story line.
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Continued searching up ideas that intrigues me and stuff
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I decided my panel to be about animal cruelty, I don't want my panel to be predictable when I say that my theme was animal cruelty. I wanted it to be in a circus. Where animal is being mistreated.
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My two subject matter is a clown and a wild animal, which is tiger
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The topic that i wan to focus this year will be animal captivity or animal rights. To be specific, my theme this year will revolve around circus animal. The message that I will try to show or deliver will be that animals are not meant to be used for the circus. They are not toys or performers that you teach tricks or something, they are not meant to be trained. As of now, I think that my main subject for my board will be a tiger. Here are some ideas around this topic/theme
- realistic
- Oil paints (so that i can work on the layers a bit longer)
- Acrylic
- Watercolour
- Bears,Lions and tigers in circus
- Circus tricks (e.g fire ring?)
- Dark/Gore
- Colour palette - neutral colours
I started gathering up ideas on how I can widen up the idea that I had
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For my first few works I want it to show the natural habitat of the tiger before being in the circus. Here's the thumbnail sketches that I did along with notes around it explaining what's happening.
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Although I have a plan, I feel like something is still missing but I can't pin point where just yet. I might change the layout along the way
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I tried sketching the tiger on the first artwork, but I didn't like it. I even tried painting a side profile of a tiger but it was so bad and I didn't like it.
Because I didn't know what to do first, I decided that I will do the clown first as it is also one of my subject matter. I looked up pictures of clowns that I would like to draw. I learnt that I prefer the vintage looking clowns.
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I brainstorm on how I can make the tiger and clown connect in a way.
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I decided to use charcoal to draw and sketch the portrait of the clown.
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I finished the portrait of the clown, I find the charcoal easier to use.
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I decided to also do a charcoal drawing of a tent represent the outside of the circus. It was pretty simple to do and will help the audience to understand the settings a bit more, and to also learn about techniques on using charcoals. ( the only photo I could find was when it's on my board)
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As of now, I decided that I might as well do an eye of a tiger done in charcoal. This will represent on how the tiger sees the tent for the first time. and that after that the clown (portrait) will come into the picture, kind of like introducing the clown after showing the tiger in its natural habitat.
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I don't like how it's going so far so I decided to why not use lino cut then.
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I sketch out the eye of the tiger and also using a reference which is this photo below.
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For the last few days I continued chipping the parts away. I also decided that I want to use white ink, in order to do that I decided to cut away the parts in black instead of white parts in the traditional way. I will do the printing tomorrow, because I ran out of time in class.
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Here is the final result, I like it so far. I might do more of this if I have the time. I like how simple it looks. I also used a black paper for the background as I am using a white ink.
After doing the other artworks, I decided that it's time to work on the tiger in it's natural habitat. So first of I decided to work on the tiger walking around. I will be working on this piece for the next few days or so.
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I used a combination of charcoal and graphite. Here's the progress so far. I like it so far
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I finished the artwork
After finishing it, I decided that I will sketch another landscape but this time without the tiger just the woods alone.
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I finished the forest sketch. I also used charcoal and graphite. It's okay, the purpose of this artwork was just to show where the wild animals (tiger) came from originally anyway. It is pretty basic.
now that I kinda have the basic layout for the first half of the board, I decided that I want a sketch of a tiger roaring after the series of the tiger seeing the clown and the tent. It is done in graphite. The result is alright. I'm okay with it.
But because my teacher told me that I should have more than one print so that it does not look odd, I decided that I will also do the lino prints for the different portraits of the wild animals in the circus as well. The size is A5 and I will be doing 4 of them in total. It is the portrait of a tiger, lion, bear, and an elephant. Here is the state before I cut away parts of from it.
I ended up using these 4 prints on my panel, I didn't have enough time to do the rest of them which is my fault. I really liked how it turned out. But i'm disappointed in myself because I didn't finish the rest of it. Those 2 spaces left in my board were the only part that I let myself down, i decided to use the other same prints to just fill up the space. It can be seen on my first board bottom layer.
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So for today, I decided that I will use oil paint to paint a tiger's portrait with clown makeup over it. Representing how dominant it is over clowns, which again represent us humans mistreating animals.
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Here is the reference photo that I have chosen. I will add the clown makeup later on when I finished the portrait.
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During class I also had a look through on my Pinterest board for this year, looking for an inspiration. My plan is that I start the oil paint at home, and I will start another artwork whilst at school.
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Today in class I prepared the materials that I needed for my oil painting of a portrait of a tiger. I prepped the paper, laying a layer of acrylic primer I think on the paper. My teacher then continued to do the rest of it because it takes a long time to dry and we had to do multiple layers on each side.
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I got my prepped paperback thanks to my teacher for helping me out. after school I continued working on it at home, I finished the layout/under paint for the tiger and putting where the values are even though this is only like the second time I am working with oil paints I am still kind of pleased with how it turned out. I also made sure it is similar to the reference photo that I have chosen. I plan to finish this for the next week or 2 maybe.
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I continued working on the oil paint (tiger) at home. I like it more when I do it at home as I have more time to blend and stuff. I'm very satisfied so far even though I still struggle with it a bit more but hopefully, I get better and learn new techniques as I continue working on this artwork, although the process is a bit slow I will continue working on it over the weekends. Hopefully to finish it next week, then adding the clown's makeup afterwards.
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For today I started up this blog and started updating my works so that I won't be running out of time. Good thing that I've kept the photos of each artwork's process that I did so far.
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Today is Saturday I continued working on my oil paint. Here is the progress so far.
So I didn't like the progress of the tiger so I decided that I will re do it again. The total attempts for this artwork is 3.
I did not like this and i was struggling to make it look realistic. So i decided to use acrylic paint as I do not have an acrylic piece for my panel yet. For the makeup I will use red acrylic so that It pops and it looks good and it represents the clowns makeup, Kind of like switching roles showing that the tiger takes the lead now and shows the tiger being the dominant one.
I liked how it turned out and the effect that it has on me. In my opinion the tiger looks very fierce with that makeup also.
-In class today I talked to Mr about my progress so far, I also showed him my oil painting and it's progressed so far he said it looks good. So I think I will finish that artwork this week. I also finished the outline for the sad clown today. I am also thinking of a way to incorporate the tiger prints on it like what I said to my teacher. I also referred back to my past charcoal artwork so that It will link or connect in a way and also for it to look similar to each other as it is supposed to be the same clown anyway. I plan to add the tiger print on the body of the clown, I made this upset looking clown as I'm doing the switchover of the roles in a way.
Today I started painting the clown with watercolour so far I have only done 1-2 layers with not much of a shading just yet.
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I continued working on the watercolour artwork, I even used my sketches as my reference so that it looks similar and to show that it is the same clown. My plan for this one is that the switch over between the tiger and the clown. I think that if the clown have the tigers body it will show the tigers position before, which is being taken advantage of. That is what it represents and how i interpret the artwork.
I have an extra one because I didn't like how it turned out at first so I did it again. It is a mixed media, I used watercolour for the portrait of the clown and for the body I used acrylics. The clowns emotion is also rather sad. I am pleased with how it turned out.
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I had an idea today that I may or may not develop into an actual artwork. It is the linocut or woodcut but with different layers of colours, I've already watched different videos just getting a grip on what it is or how to make it. I think that it is kind of confusing to do but I don't know when or how I will use this technique and which artwork will be made. As of now, I'm just thinking of maybe another portrait of the tiger. This technique is called two-color block print.
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Now that I have my first board settled, and even have a few spaces left for my 2 board. I decided that I want to incorporate the 4 wild animals which is the elephant,tiger,lion and a bear into a painting. As they are also in the circus and is doing tricks. So I decided to also what I did to the 4 prints, also 4 A5 sized painting of them doing circus tricks in particular. I used mixed media in all of them. It varied from fine line pen, watercolour, acrylic and oil paint. The outcome was pretty neat. I like the overall look and some of the animals even have uniform or costumes on. I did these artwork to show what is happening inside the circus and which and what animals were there being mistreated. What I failed to do was to show that they were being mistreated, I didn't do my part well which is to make them look like they're in pain and suffering which is also my part because at this point I'm rushing these artworks. I feel like I didn't do well in terms of having the message portray what I intended it to be. Which I also think can be interpreted in another way, but not how i wanted it to be. It can also be interpreted that the animals inside the circus were peaceful before the tiger (my main subject) - discover the tent and the wrong doings that the clown is doing - cause war and outrage towards the clowns which obviously has control over these poor animals.
Mr even helped me with this ideas and helped me to develop this ideas. This was his suggestion before.
After doing this, I have a portrait A4 left of space beside it will be the switch over of the tiger and the clown. An idea came to mind that what if I did the tent with fires on them to represent chaos and riot in the circus. To also show the taking over of the tiger in the circus and helping his co animals to be free from this animal captivity and animal cruelty. I used my sketch of the tent as my reference and I used another reference photo for the flames.
here is the final product
I did the tent in watercolour, I also made it look like worn out and I used burnt umber a lot for this one to make it look like it is burnt in a way. I used acrylic paints for the fire. I like this artwork and I think I did well on delivering how to show the audience that there's a chaos or a riot inside the tent, which after it is the killing of the clown and stuff.
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My first plan was to show a clown with a tiger in it's head kind of like a mask or some sort. I like the idea at first but the longer that I kept thinking about it, i realised something is off. I think that if i did it that way it might look like that the clown won over the tiger which is not the message that I want to show. I have sketches and I even started painting it in oil paint before I realised that it does not really fit with the message that I want to deliver. This was done in an A3 paper. Although I liked the progress so far it just doesn't fit with it.
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After brainstorming after the portrait of the clown, I decided that for my final pieces I want to fully show the clown in pain and that tiger having bloods all over it which represents the death of the clown and the wild animals winning and being freed. The first artwork I did was actually inspired from one of the artwork that one of the artist that I chose did. I even used his work as my reference photo but did a few tweaks on it. So my reference photo is this.
For the last space I had, it is an A3 lanscape, the background is also covered in black using poster paint. I want the ending pieces to be dark which is what I did. I had a few plan and trial and error for this but I didn't stop doing it again and again until i'm satisfied because I want the best to be in my board. Here are some of the artworks that didn't quite work for my expectations.
I first had this idea, i found a reference photo for the tiger which is good. My first idea for this is that in the end the tiger left the circus and he is walking in the wild with blood dripping on it's mouth I was gonna show some smoke from the fire or maybe even have the tent at the back but when I drew the tiger it looks off and I just didn't like it even though I followed the positioning of the tiger the best that I could.
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Here is the final product for the year. I was sticking my work on my board on the day that the courier is gonna arrive so I did not have a proper photo of my panel but here's what I have.
