SELF PORTRAIT

AND PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE

Portrait Painting: Initial SourcesAnna WintourPainted by Alex Katz, oil on linen.

I chose this portrait as my influence because It grabbed my attention from the moment I saw it. The clear influence of this painting was pop art. I chose it because it is a great representation of modern art and also links well with what I want to focus on during this year and for my progression, which is more commercial, modern type of art (graphics and 3D design). I also found the use of colour and the bold background to be quite strikingly appealing.

The scale of the portrait is 1524 mm x 2134 mm. The subject is painted right in the centre of the canvas, to enhance her importance. The colour range in the portrait is quite minimal, there is a lot of light tones, which create a sense of a flatter surface. The only striking colour that appears is the yellow/gold background colour , which complements the subject’s skin tone and contrasts the lightness of it.The mark making is soft and precise, in order to make the subject appear more symmetrical and hide imperfections. It could also symbolise the personality of the subject being drawn, as nice and approachable. This also takes away the uncomfortable confrontational feeling most portraits have, because the subject does not look angry or dominant/superior, while still looking at the audience.The technique used; oil on linen allows the artist to layer colours on top of one another, to create dimension. However on this painting it does not look like the artist used layering, as the portrait looks very two dimensional, except to create some volume in the hair which is brought out by using different tones of brown.

Alex Katz had a relationship with the subject before he painted her. This allowed him to represent her more accurately. He also decided to paint her without her

signature sunglasses, ‘to show off her beautiful eyes’, which actually give so much more depth and personality to the portrait.

Her eyes make her look more fragile and kind, while also making the painting more personal and confrontational.

Gallery studies and compositional experiments

I used my research and knowledge from the national portrait gallery, to develop 8 initial ideas for the development of the self portrait. These initial ideas are different compositions and poses, some inspired from others work and some experiments of possible compositions. By making different compositions I aimed to find the best composition and pose which would suit the technique and approach from my chosen artist, as well as represent my personality. The question was should I represent the relaxed, casual side of myself or a more presentable confrontational, like the portrait of Anna Wintour.

From the initial pencil drawings, I developed four of them further and made painted A5 portraits, in the style of my chosen artist (Alex Katz). I chose the following four;

The second (blue) one is more confrontational. The background takes only a small portion of the portrait, allowing the facial expression to covey emotion and communicate to the audience. The composition was inspired by another painting at the portrait gallery, Paul McCartney ('Mike's Brother')by Sam Walsh. This composition is also quite aggressive and bold, it represents a more serious version of myself, which is one I did not want to use for portraying my usual self. This is why I decided not to use it as my final portrait composition, but I still found it very interesting to create, as I was able to communicate quite personally my emotions and personality.

The first (green) one is a portrait representing the casual, informal side of me. The pose is open and inviting to look at. Also the use of space is quite similar to the painting which was my inspiration. About half of the space is the subject and the other half is the background. This creates a nice balance and a more pleasant feeling toward the audience. The only difference in composition to the original portrait is that I am drawn leaning towards one side, rather than the more formal confrontational pose of Anna Wintour’s portrait.

The third (yellow) one is very mysterious. This particular portrait composition was not inspired by any other portrait or artist, but it was an idea I wanted to develop and explore to see how it would turn out. This is a very intriguing and effective composition, representing myself in a mysterious and secretive way which is less confrontational than the previous composition. On this particular study I also wanted to include half of the background to create balance, and use a very strong colour so it strikes the audience as they look at it. My aim was to draw the entire face, vertically but hide some on the side, to create suspicion and make the audience wonder what could be around, what hasn’t been drawn and why the subject looks slightly suspicious. The facial expression also helps create a suitable atmosphere of the portrait.

Finally I decided to pick the first composition, only with my favourite colour (light) violet, which also compliments my personality and skin tone.Out of all the colours I tried for the background none of them seemed to fit with what I was wearing or the composition I chose so I went for a more pink-violet version of the last developmental painting. This composition achieved my aim to communicate the casual, relaxed side of myself, with my favourite colour to compliment and add to the mood created.(I painted the studies with acrylic colour on A5 pieces of paper.)

The final portrait composition (violet) is very similar to the original inspiration, only it is turned portrait instead of landscape. This allowed me to create more negative space, rather than having a half of the portrait taken up by the subject. With this portrait I found that the dark colour created depth to the painting and nicely contrasted the light, pale tone of my skin, but the contrast was not effective. The dark background consumed too much of the page and therefore I did not find that the composition worked as well as I had hoped.

This project has helped me improve my observational, as well as drawing skills and challenged me to try and explore different compositions. I also had to be very original and come up with visually interesting compositions which I found would describe my personality in different ways.

The final outcome communicates how open and approachable I am. This is the side of me which I decided to enhance and portray, to best describe myself. I have been able to achieve this by painting myself in a comfortable, open and confrontational position, looking at the audience as my inspirational drawing did. From my inspirational drawing I adopted the technique, style of movement (soft strokes) and bold use of colour, with only slight shading in some areas. This portrait appears inspired by pop-art because of it simplistic approach and lack of detail. Although the precise strokes make up for the lack of detail and set a nicer mood and atmosphere for the representation of the subject (myself.) I aimed to keep the representation of myself similar as the one of Anna Wintour, appearing open and showing a pleasant personality.

For the final outcome I used acrylic colours on canvas. I learned it was quite hard to layer acrylic colours, as they are more transparent than oil colours. I began the process by drawing outlines in pencil as guide lines, to make further work easier. Then I filled out the background which was quite easy to make because there is no details only one solid colour. This, I think compliments the subject very nicely and sets a nice base for the portrait to contrast and compliment. As I went on to fill in the details , I carefully considered lighter and darker shades of my hair and tones on my face, to create depth and make the portrait look more realistic. Overall the exploring and learning about the technique and materials I used has ended up to be quite successful, and I was able to portray a personal, unique version of myself which communicates exactly what I was aiming for.The biggest change I made to my original inspirational study by Alex Katz was that I used even less symmetry, because I did not want to focus on showing perfection, but rather on the imperfections of my face from a slightly tilted angle.

The problem that I needed to solve in my final outcome was the consideration of the four factors; colour (tone), line, composition and pose, which would represent my personality best. To solve this problem I used the development of trying out different compositions, poses and colours, until I found the combination which I thought would best represent my open personality.

This process made me consider what I wanted to represent and communicate about myself. My ideas developed from simple ideas, to sketches and then to a well thought through final portrait. I considered the right composition, a pose that would communicate my open personality and the right colour tones to create the same visual effect of flatness as my ‘inspirational’ painting of Anna Wintour. From the process I developed the skill of precise and soft mark making and also mixing colours to achieve the exact right tone which I needed.

Final Outcome

REFLECTING ON YEAR 1The Tate Project – this projedct allowed me to experiment with different media in 2D and 3D. The brief designed to follow was

set from a client with clear targets and guidelines for me to follow. This still allowed a lot of freedom with experimentation and any media of our choice. We were even able to produce some graphic outcomes for the first time, which I found very interesting and useful for the progression into the second year and after college.

Kew gardens – this was a different and very complex project, in which we had two outcomes to produce; a sculpture (which would be placed in Kew gardens) for this project we also had clients who allowed us to produce a unique and personalised outcome, as long as we researched into a specific target audience and targeted them precisely and made informed judgements for each step in our decision making.This project was also very interesting because we were able to learn new processes such as printmaking and producing a 3D model which I particularly enjoyed.

Summative Project (British Museum) – this project was one of my favourite projects in the first year. This was a very personalised project already leaning into our progression plans. It offered a variety of art & design approaches, from which I chose graphic design. The brief set was asking to produce promotional and informative material for the potential visitors of the museum. Like other assignments, this began by visiting the museum and making sketches, to gather ideas and collect information. From then on we each went in a different directions and produced the outcomes for our researched target audience. What I also liked about this project was how professional the outcomes were expected to be, and that we had to produce three proposals from which we got feedback that helped us make informed judgement on how to produce the best possible final outcome.

Unit 75 – this unit was going aside other projects for the entire year. It was a project which began with abstraction and ended with observational drawing (of still life and the human form). It also included self portrait and measured drawings. From this project I developed a lot of useful drawing and observational skills which has helped me produce more precise initial studies in other projects, from which I could therefore produce better outcomes.

In the past year, I have learned about my strengths and weaknesses in art & design techniques and I have practiced to improve on all of my weaknesses. One of my weaknesses was time management, which I aim to improve in the second year, so I do not have to rely on resubmissions to improve my work. Another area on which I wanted to improve was understanding the function and use for a range of different materials, to prepare for my progression towards product design at university. My final aim is to make annotation as the development moves along, rather than at the end, so I can more precisely describe my thoughts and reasons for decisions I made during the development process.

The first year has helped shape my progression vision and made me see what I really enjoy, by experimenting with a variety of different processes and techniques.

- The Tate Project (alphabet)

- Kew Gardens (sculpture)

- Kew Gardens (printmaking)

- Summative

- Observational studies of the human form

- Abstract studies

At the beginning of first year my aim was to learn as much about graphic design as possible, because I thought that was the direction in which I wanted to progress, but throughout the first year my ideas changed the more I found out about my strengths, weaknesses and different fields of art & design. The more I experimented with different techniques and processes, I learned that the area which interest me most is product design. I knew for sure I wanted to progress in this direction when I visited the young designers show in London and saw all the products students designed from different universities. Before summer I looked into the industrial designer Karim Rashid and after extensive research into different universities and course specifications, I decided to apply to Edinburg University, Napier University and possibly some universities in Italy.In order to achieve this I will have to work mostly on 3D design this year, to develop my portfolio and also develop my personal statement. Aside from that my EPQ will be supporting my progression aim and will be a product I will design for a particular target audience, guided by a set brief.In order to be accepted into the universities I will need a distinction in Art & Design and a minimum grade B in Business Studies. My goal this year is to continue experimenting and learning about different techniques, but focus most on 3D design thorough out the year and improve my knowledge of the variety of materials I will work with.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE