Painting Perception Of Identity |
Title: Dream of nightmare
Size: 2ft x 2ft Medium: Acrylic on Canvas Completion: December 2022 EXHIBITION TEXT
This piece "Dream of nightmare" is about a girl having a nightmare in her dream. Here nightmare reveals her fear. What exactly is this person afraid of? I intended to convey in this picture that she is terrified of herself and what she might become because, according to my interpretation, she is terrified of having her identity and who she is judged by others. Identity determines who we are, and perception of identity is having a perspective on others, yourself and/or things. The hands encircling her represent her worry of what other people would think of her as it comes back to torment her in her dream.
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Inspiration
Both of these pieces of art served as inspiration for me because they shared the same conceptualization as my painting. The level of detail in both of these pieces of art captivated me. Both artist' use of color truly resonated with the theme they were looking for. The use of color, texture, and lines was incredibly detailed. Trouble Dreams, which uses less colors and has similar aesthetic to how I want my piece to look, served as a major source of my inspiration for me. Because my painting is about nightmare, which is typically not cheerful or enjoyable but rather dark, I don't want to include a lot of color in my painting. Instead, I want to utilize colors like black, white, and gray. The meaning of "Trouble Dream" motivated me to come up with a meaning for my painting and the meaning of "Trouble Dream" is something similar to what I was going for, but not exactly the same. The meaning "Trouble Dream" is about "Some individuals who go to bed and leave the troubles of the day behind while others are haunted by nightmares in their sleep". I was motivated to paint about nightmares by the meaning of this piece "Trouble Dream" since sometimes our daily experiences might have an impact on us. It is clear from the way the subject was depicted and the way the colors were combined that the artwork's theme was "leaving all the tension and difficulties of the day behind". You can tell that the woman was fatigued just by looking at the artwork because of how skillfully the lines used to depict the woman's hand and the dark circles around her eyes were painted. The unnamed painting served as my inspiration because of how intricate it was and what it meant. I appreciate how the meaning of this piece really captures the essence of the artwork, and I also enjoy how you can kind of know what the piece is about simply by looking at it. This painting for my piece inspired me because I wanted my piece also to be simply understood and you could know what it was about or make your own interpretation of what my artwork is about. I also enjoy how distinct and defined the unnamed artwork is. In addition to looking tidy and not overly disorganized, I want my work to be as meticulous as the unnamed piece. I thought this usage of the technique for the untitled painting was excellent. On the person, pillow, and flowers the line work and blending are incredibly intricate and satisfying to observe. Both pieces of the artwork demonstrated to me how much our dreams can define who we are and what is happening in our lives, and that motivated me to do the same about my painting. Dreams have the power to affect who we are and how we behave. Our goals and actions can help define who we are and what we stand for.
Planning
Finding an idea that complemented the theme painting's perception of identity was the first stage in the planning process. Dream was the first concept that pooped into my head, and I thought it kind of fit the theme. I began drawing the features I wanted to include in the idea dream, such as the eyes, nose, lips, and hands because I wanted to include a human in my painting. I sketched the hands in various positions because I wanted them to encircle the subject of my picture. I drew an eye just in case I want to paint an eye for my final painting, but I might decide not to use it since I thought of having the person I'm painting to hide their face to indicate they are terrified or experiencing a nightmare in their dream.
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Incorporating a human was the second step in the planning process, and for this sketch, I wanted to depict a person sleeping while emphasizing that they are dreaming. I drew the sleeper in this position to give the viewer a better picture or perspective of them as well as because I was considering adding the dream they were having over their head. I took a couple images when I first planned to sketch it so I could use them as references. Since this was the first pose and the first picture I took I considered using this for my final painting .
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This was the first position I considered while deciding which position to draw above the other person for this planning. The concept I was looking for was dream, and I wanted to indicate that the person was having a nightmare-type dream. I wanted to draw the person concealing their face to imply that they are afraid. By drawing their hand over their face, I can tell that the person is frightened. I wanted to include various hands in various places surrounding the individual to give the impression that those hands are haunting them because I was thinking about a nightmare dream. This is one of the postures I thought I would include in my painting. I will have approximately six hands encircling the person, and I might alter up who I sketched.
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Process & Experimentation
The first process to this project was making the canvas. I wanted to do a 2 foot by 2 foot canvas. I didn't take a lot of picture of me making the canvas, but in this picture ------>
you can see what the canvas looks like on the back and that there is still more that needs to be trimmed off. Since there is still a sizable portion of the canvas sheet attached to the back, I will trim it off to make it simpler for me to paint and gesso my canvas. When I was done, I began to gesso my canvas and applied about two layer of gesso. When I gessoed the canvas, I took roughly about three pictures. These are the pictures I took of when I gessoed my canvas
- I took a picture of the gesso in the small container, the paint brush I used to gesso, and the canvas that I gessoed Here is the picture I took/edit of what I wanted to add onto my painting and I'm going to reference this picture so my process of gridding/painting will go a lot smoother
After gessoing my canvas, altering my photo, and adding it to the grid creator, I began to plan how I would draw the grid lines onto my canvas. On one side, I completed approximately 7 lines and about 8 boxes, and on the other, there was approximately 11 lines and 12 boxes. I began drawing the altered image onto my canvas when I had done the gridding my canvas. I began painting on my canvas after I had completed drawing. I wanted to make my design as detailed as possible so that it would be simpler and easier for me to paint, the process of drawing onto my canvas took me about 2 days to finish.
Here is the picture I took when I finished gridding the canvas
I made a few swatches on my sketchbook while I was painting so I could check which paint colors were similar to the edited photo. I did find it challenging to paint on my canvas. I thought that I wasn't blending in well in some areas or that some aspects didn't appear good. Since I painted each box individually and tried to be highly precise, I felt that the painting process took a very long time since I tried using different paint brushes to paint on my canvas. It took me about 4 to 5 days to finish and on the first day I painted the girl sleeping, the next day painted the girl covering her face, and last I painted the hand, after that I decided to fix my mistakes I made and try to make my painting look precise. Since the majority of the image I modified was in black, white, and gray, there weren't many colors available for my painting. I'm not familiar with using oil paint, so I chose to use acrylic paint for my painting. Here is how my final piece looks like and as you can tell I tried my best, but the face I drew with hand covering the place looks out of place and I wish I could've done that better and I did change how I painted the hands since I didn't want it to look like the pictures mostly
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This picture I took was when I almost finished making my canvas and as you can tell I needed to trim/cut some part of off
Once I finished gessoing the canvas I began to take and edit a few photos so I could use them as a references for my painting. After finishing the image modification, I pasted the image into a grid drawing designer so I could use the grid method. Although I am aware that the grid approach is a slow process, I believe that it will be more effective for me than the projector method.
Here is the picture of my process of putting my picture onto the grid creator
These are the paints, paint brush, and palette paper I used to mix my paints.
Here are some picture I took of when I started drawing on the canvas
The picture above is the process of me painting on my canvas, it took me a while to finish. I worked on this painting for about four to five days, each day I would work on a certain part of the painting so the process of painting could go a lot faster. Towards the end of my painting I decided to fix my painting by adding some details and fixing some of the parts that looked awkward.
The title of my final painting artwork is "Dream of nightmare". I believed that the issue of perception of identity was well-suited to dreams. I depicted a person experiencing a nightmare, and the hand that is encircling the girl in the picture symbolizes her dread of what other people would think of her and how they will judge her. She is hiding in her own shadow because she is concerned about what people would think of her. This painting can also be seen as a representation of a person who is terrified of speaking in front of an audience (you can tell by how she covers herself) because she worries about what people will think of her. Her dream indicates that she is a shy and low self-esteem individual. My interpretations of dreams shape who we are since they are a mirror of our current mental state, potential futures, and life changes. This artwork also represents who I think I am since it kind of sums me up, and I think of myself as having low self-esteem because I tend to blame myself for a lot of things and always compare myself to other. When I look at other people's work I tend to believe that they are more talented or intelligent than I am. I perceived perception of identity as what represents us and how we perceived other objects or people and for this painting perception of identity the person I drew was shy, scared, and low self-esteem person.
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Reflection
Though I do wish I could have improved on my blending skills, I believe that I did a pretty good job on my painting. I wish I could've done better at painting in the face because for the face I painted where the girl is covering her face seems a little off, I do wish I could have done better at the blending skills and mixing in the right colors. I do wish I could've done a better job at drawing and painting the lips because you can't really tell in the painting that there is lip because of the color I used and mixed were quite exact I the picture I referenced from. Some of the blending and colors I used seemed a little strange to me. Additionally, I thought that the paint color I used in some areas of my painting didn't quite match the parts in the cropped photo. I thought that my painting may have looked a little bit better if I had blended some other the colors a little bit better and if I gridded my canvas better because I felt like that kind of ruined how I was supposed to draw my picture. My painting was as detailed as I could make it, but I felt like I could have done better because the painting lacked some detail. I reasoned that my painting might have been more detailed if I could have drawn a little bit better for both the grid and the picture. Painting is one of my areas of weakness because I feel like I do really well when it comes to outlining and sketching things, but when it comes to adding color, I feel like I will utterly wreck my work. Painting this was a little difficult, but I thought my performance was good and decent considering my lack of painting expertise. I feel a certain amount of pride in my painting, and if I had to do it over again, I would strive to add more detail to both the painting and the drawing and I will also be more detailed and precise with drawing the grid. I will also blend and try to find the right color of paint so it can match the colors in the pictures.
Critique
Similarities
- Both of the art didn't use a lot of colors - The art both used colors like gray and black - Both art work has some sort of elements of art like line, color, and texture - Both my art piece and the my inspiration both have a person that is sleeping |
Differences
- The difference between the painting is that some of the colors we used aren't the same, such I used different shading of grey, but I also used the color white - For the piece called "Trouble Dreams" (my inspirations) the artist used more colors then I did, he used colors like dark brown, tan, and like a light peach color for the skin tone - Another difference is that my inspiration didn't add anything else it just shows a girl sleeping, in my piece I used a variety of hands and I also painted another girl covering her face |
Connection to ACT question
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Dreams served as my inspiration for both pieces, and the significance of each work had impacted on my art piece. I was able to choose the concept I wanted for my painting and the message behind it with the aid of my inspiration.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach the author has a regarding to my inspiration was dream, dream was the main ideas I was going for and how I could interpret dream with the theme perceptions of identity.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
The findings I came to regarding people, ideas, and culture during my research for this inspiration was that what one experiences in a daily life can inspire what ones want to create.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea and theme about my inspirational research was perception of identity because that was the main and original theme that was given for this project and the concept I had for my inspirational research that evolved the main theme was dream and nightmares.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Some inferences I made while reading my research was how the concept of dream relates to the theme perception of identity
Dreams served as my inspiration for both pieces, and the significance of each work had impacted on my art piece. I was able to choose the concept I wanted for my painting and the message behind it with the aid of my inspiration.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The overall approach the author has a regarding to my inspiration was dream, dream was the main ideas I was going for and how I could interpret dream with the theme perceptions of identity.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
The findings I came to regarding people, ideas, and culture during my research for this inspiration was that what one experiences in a daily life can inspire what ones want to create.
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
My central idea and theme about my inspirational research was perception of identity because that was the main and original theme that was given for this project and the concept I had for my inspirational research that evolved the main theme was dream and nightmares.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Some inferences I made while reading my research was how the concept of dream relates to the theme perception of identity
Citation
Citation in MLA format
Käuflin, Peter. “Troubled Dreams.” Flickr, 5 Sept. 2011, www.flickr.com/photos/kaeuflin/4960307180.
Kryger, Meir H. “Showing a Dream.” Sleep Health, Mar. 2021, 10.1016/j.sleh.2021.02.001. Accessed 12 Apr. 2021.
Kryger, Meir H. “Showing a Dream.” Sleep Health, Mar. 2021, 10.1016/j.sleh.2021.02.001. Accessed 12 Apr. 2021.