ART418 Artworks

These pieces was inspired by Jenny Saville and her vibrant coloured portraiture artwork, and is also influenced by Francis Bacon and his abstract expressionism style paintings using oil paints. The left image replicates the feelings of company and the joy it brings when you surround yourself with others. And the right image portrays hidden laughter and the action of stifling a giggle.

Left Image

I started off by piecing together some sheets of paper as I was inspired by the triptych paintings by Bacon and I liked how the paintings are made up from multiple segments like a puzzle. I wanted to also use acrylic paint as its a lot smoother than oil pastels and I can mix and blend lots of colour combinations. I then experimented with colour highlighting and using a range of shades for the areas of the faces I wanted brighter and more bold for example, the cheeks and noses where the light hits them. However, I didn't fully contour the faces because I wanted to keep them abstract and a bit more simplified. For the background I was inspired by Saville and how she creates a graffiti style layer using markings and rough brush strokes. I lastly added some coloured gold leaf to almost frame and highlight different sections of the piece which I really like as a final addition because the metallic material catches the eye, so using it gave an interesting effect overall.

Right Image

This piece was a smaller sample were I wanted to replicate something similar to my larger painting at a smaller scale, using oil pastels as the main material. I liked the oil pastels despite them not blending as smoothly as the acrylic paint, because they came out really rich and vibrant capturing lots of tones and shades. I also found that I didn't need much PVA glue to apply the gold leaf as it stuck to the oil pastel surface, at first it was difficult to remove but I did end up liking it as an end result. Overall this piece was for me to experiment mixing different medias to see what worked and what didn't.