When Should I Get Off?In-Progress PhotosSketchesReflectionI began this painting with inspiration from a dream that I had that made me feel unprotected, confused, anxious, and scared; a dream where I was in a tundra-like biome with many mountains and a dangerous, whitewater rapid river. In my dream, I was floating down the treacherous body of water with a few other people, but all of a sudden I was all alone and had nothing to cling to. I was afraid, feeling like I would never find the end of the river, nor would I find any people or safe spots to escape the water. My surroundings were huge, snowy mountains, therefore I felt an even greater sense of feeling trapped and in danger.
After remembering the imagery of this dream and how I felt, I began to sketch as quickly as possible, as I felt as if the image would escape my mind in a matter of seconds. After putting my sketch down on paper, I further visualized how I would manage to make my dream come to life and convey the same mood as such that I felt while dreaming. I immediately knew that I would want to include many mountains and a river, so I started to paint triangular, 2-D mountains on my canvas, with a river in the middle. I quickly saw that my mountains were not detailed enough, and didn't convey a feeling of being scared and intimidated, so I watched some YouTube videos of people painting mountains, and observed images of whitewater rapids and snowy mountain ranges. By doing this research online, I felt freer to paint my mountains and river with real-life inspiration for how I should depict my dream's landforms. As I continued to paint and tried to use greater detail, I took a break and went to Google Earth on my phone to view Mount Everest in Asia from a bird's eye view. By using Google Earth's 3-D satellite view, I was able to further understand reconstruct the mountains from the perspective that I wished. After repeating my techniques of using small brushes, big brushes, and then white with a palette knife to create my mountains, I moved on to the river and began to add white and blues with a fan brush. After doing this, I reached a point where I felt like I could slow down my painting process and focus on the final details. I communicated with my classmates and teacher and received feedback that I agreed with- to add more value and deep blue to the river, clean up the edges of the mountains, and use a palette knife for more detail on the mountains. I followed this feedback and used these tips to finalize my piece. After finishing my piece, I notice how I only use blues, with a mixture of white and black to make different hues. Usually, I would agree with my feedback in the sense of adding more colors (i.e. some purple, red, and pink) to make my piece more vibrant or abundant in color, but I actually like how my piece is color-wise. I think that only using the blues helps convey the intimidating, drowsy, dangerous setting of this dream. If I could have done anything differently, I would have possibly used oil paint instead of acrylic, because my paint dried very quickly and worked differently from oil paint when trying to use a palette knife to make certain textures. I also think that using oil paint instead of acrylic would have accentuated the anxiety and worry that one would feel if they were in this environment because I could have used the oil paint to make rocky, uneven textures in the mountains.
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AuthorHi there, I'm Ashley and I love all mediums in which I can express my fascinations and emotions. Whether it be painting, music production, apparel production, 3-D modeling, drawing, or writing, I just adore creativity's endless possibilities. I am currently taking Apparel Production II Honors and AP 3-D Art while I work with music production and 3-D modeling outside of class. ArchivesCategories |